[A/n: I wasn't feeling well yesterday so I turned in early. So, Only one chapter for today. There will be a mass release on November 20 to make it up for these lapses. Thank you. Dont forget to vote by the way]

At Dawn, the trio started preparing for their journey. The first thing they did was cover Sam completely. They wrapped his body in clothes so that the black patches would be invisible.

After all, they are visiting a village where people might be less knowledgeable, if they mistook Sam's situation for a disease, it would be hard for them to stay there. They have to keep low-profile at that, so they shouldn't use force to stay there.

Two hours later, they reached the village. Watt carried Sam on his shoulders as they roamed the streets.

The village is small and there is nothing special about it. It is just like any other village they visited, except there are an awful lot of cultivators in this village compared to any other village.

But they didn't think much about it.

It is also normal for a village to have more cultivators.

They found an inn and checked-in. Watt and Philip went out to ask about the information on the nearest city.

Actually, they have a lot of information to learn. First, they have to find out which empire or territory they are in and if they are still in Beast faction-s territory, they have to be careful enough to hide from their search.

Apart from that they still have to find out a healer and show them Sam's condition.

If they are really in the Beast faction's territory, they couldn't even find a healer of a higher-level just in case the info will be leaked to the higher-ups and they would be in a goose chase.

They will be in a tough spot as it would difficult for them to even escape with Sam in this condition.

The two of them visited a lot of areas in the village where the people are gathered most.

They didn't go and straight-up asked these questions because they don't want people to get suspicious about them.

As they are getting as much information as they can get they noticed something weird in the village.

When people are gathered in a place, there seemed to be a scarcity of spiritual energy in the vicinity.

The bunch of people is hungrily absorbing the spiritual energy and it even seemed like a competition of absorption.

The second thing is, they have yet to meet a single thug. It might seem a little weird to think that the absence of thugs is a bad thing, but it is indeed peculiar that there are no thugs in the village.

In the inns, restaurants, streets even on the outskirts there is not a single thug.

That afternoon, they reunited in the inn and decided to leave the village.

They got their required minimum info and that is they are in the eastern continent at the moment and their nearest city is the Lock City. The only good news being, the eastern continent is under Usaine Sect's jurisdiction. Not under Beast faction

They have to move north to reach the city and it would take three days by walk. The three of them started immediately, they flew towards the city on their beasts. Watt sat on Falck along with Sam as they moved slowly.

They reached the Lock city in a day and checked in a luxurious inn.

This city is just on the same level as Star-wood city.

The City-lord is just a Novice stage expert, they have nothing to worry about, but they did notice a similarity with the village and that is something that made them uneasy.

The spiritual energy started becoming scarce within the city. At every place where people gathered, the spiritual energy is being absorbed by them, the atmosphere will generate spiritual energy continuously, but these people are absorbing it.

Particularly in the slums of the city, where the ordinary people live.

Generally, the spiritual energy variation in that place should be almost zero, because the non-cultivators live there, but they noticed that throughout the slums there is not a single non-cultivator.

Only the children below their awakening age and the elderly above fifty years of age are the non-cultivators left.

The people belonging to the rest of the age groups are all cultivators, they suddenly felt like their world view itself is collapsing.

The number of cultivators is too high. It is higher to the point it is causing them chills. Watt went out to look for a map to the nearby Count city. They decided to show Sam's condition in a Dukedom Capital because it is almost impossible for the people below the grand realm to examine Sam's body and they also noticed something else when they wrapped Sam's body.

There is a certain repulsion from those black patches that are threatening them when they tried to touch them.

So if people with lower cultivation touches this, they might get into trouble. They don't want that to happen lest they couldn't face the consequences.

At least, Sam is not showing any signs of deteriorating. For the next two weeks, they spent finding maps and moving from one city to another. They moved slowly to make sure Sam wouldn't be affected by the journey.

After they reached a dukedom capital which is called the Orange flame city, they finally hired a healer to look at Sam's condition.

The healer took a look at Sam and the black patches, but couldn't identify anything. He diagnosed the whole body and gave a report and that is although, Sam's body is weak and unconscious, it is more like a condition of sleep, even the wounds are not showing any signs of increasing or deteriorating. His vitals are fine and his condition is stable with no signs of life threats.

The Black patches are currently not showing any negative signs on his body. He advised them to take Sam to meet the head of the Pharmaceutical tower.

He even offered his help in booking an appointment. In this country, they don't have any influence. They only have their individual strengths and the boatloads of spiritual stones, there is no fame and people don't just attribute them to Sam and they couldn't access the connections they get from Sam's professions due to him being unconscious.

They took him to the head of the Pharmaceutical tower after another two days and the result turned out to be the same there is nothing they could do.

They couldn't understand Sam's situation. The tower-head gave some extra statements though.

That is about the presence of dark elemental energy in Sam's body which is the result of those black patches.

The tower-head couldn't identify why those black patches appeared or what effects they could lead to, but he did find out that the black patches have highly concentrated dark elemental energy.

The second thing is that he said Sam's body is recovering. He said that Sam's current vitals are stable but weak, they are not showing any signs if worsening but he is definitely recovering slowly and steadily.

Normal people might have trouble recognizing it, but the tower-head with his experience and expertise was able to discern it.

The trio felt somewhat relieved after hearing that.

They are not that experienced with the dark elemental energy and couldn't understand its concentration in Sam's body, but they do know that Sam does wield dark elemental energy which made them feel relieved.

They decided to stay in the same city until Sam recovered.

They bought a residence and stayed arranged for their own residence for the time being. They don't have any problems economically.

After a few days, they noticed another peculiar thing in this city too. As usual, this city is full of cultivators and there is an awful lot of scarcity of spiritual energy in some places. Along with that, there are street fights breaking out in every place and there are new hunters and mercenaries getting registered every day.

Almost everyone within the age group of fourteen to fifty is a cultivator, which is impossible to happen.

The most astounding thing is they saw more Grand realm cultivators in this city than in the thunder god temple or the beast faction.

This is something that is extremely overwhelming for them. By this time, they understood that something is extremely wrong with this country and it is not just possessing a high number of cultivators.

But they choose to ignore it since, whatever the situation that is wrong doesn't concern him for the moment.

Meanwhile, on the western continent.

Arman arrived at this place two weeks ago along with Moriya.

While the latter holed up in the room as he analyzed the candidates for the next palace of inheritance trials, he is roaming around the cities to see any way for him to penetrate into Sam's network to no avail.

He wasn't able to find any possible way to get into this network directly. After these two weeks of futile effort, he decided to try another way.

From the next day, there is news of Sam's disappearance that started spreading throughout the city he was staying in and soon in a week, the whole nation came to know about the issue due to the impeccable communication network Sam himself created.