It had been a couple of days since Arnold got out of the tower of trials. In those two days, quite a few things happened in Arnold's world. Firstly, he got permanent authority over the tower. No one was even allowed to enter within a ten-kilometre radius of the tower or else, his summons had the right to proceed in a hostile manner. They could even kill the person who trespassed if they see it fit and the syndicate won't be able to do a thing about it.

It was safe to say that, New York was effectively under Arnold's protection and control. The Syndicate had offered the land to Arnold on a lease but on a few conditions. One of them being that the rehabilitation program was allowed to be continued despite Arnold's temporary ownership. Even though No one could stop Arnold from just grabbing the land and do as he wished, Arnold did not want any hostile feelings between the people of his world. Thus he agreed to lease the land and allow the syndicate to continue with its rehab plans as long as they stayed away from the tower as promised.

The method of payment mentioned in the lease, however, was the peculiar part of the deal. Unlike Arnold's expectations, the syndicate did not demand money or any assets from Arnold. Instead, they wanted protection but not in the traditional sense of the word.

They wanted Arnold to help them out in any other case in which would prove too much for them to do. This included clearing dungeons that they deemed too dangerous for them to clear on their own. Also, Arnold would be allowed to take only 15% of the materials, equipment and beast crystals found in those dungeons. The rest would belong to the Syndicate.

on top of all this, Arnold would have to set up a weapon manufacturing plant in New York and he would have complete control over this manufacturing plant. He was free to sell the weapons to whoever he liked, however, he would have to sell these at a discounted price to the syndicate. 

As much as Arnold didn't give a crap about money, he knew the Syndicate was being too greedy for their own good. However, since he could get his hands on the tower without necessary bloodshed and headache, he signed the contract. 

He was already helping them clearing the dungeons before so the first request was reasonable as long as he would get the chance to pick out his share first. Moreover, it wasn't like he was facing any problems in terms of beast crystals to provide power to his empire so he did not need that. Thus, the second part of the deal was also good.

The Syndicate's request to put down a manufacturing plant was similar to testing Arnold's limit to patience. But since he already had a couple of such plants set up on Memorial Island, so all he had to do was to relocate one of them and that cost would be covered by the syndicate and not him. 

With that, Arnold's professional duties came to an end, or so he had hoped. But when he started looking for Talos to go over the deal with the Syndicate, only then did he found out about the trouble that had been going on in Kailash, the place which was seemingly Shiva's birthplace. 

"What happened there?" Arnold asked Devon to give him the complete report, but there wasn't much for Devon to report apart from what Bad-Breath had told him.

He religiously narrated whatever he knew about the mysterious roots spread across Kailash. According to Talos, the roots must be located in the Astral realm and only appeared in the true realm once it locates a living target in its vicinity. After the target had been located, the roots appeared out of nowhere and gobbled up whatever living creature that was in front of them. 

Talos had experimented by putting Automatons and animals together, but the roots only attacked the animals and completely ignored the existence of the Automatons. He repeated the same experiment again with carcasses and the results were the same. The carcasses were ignored and only the live animals were attacked, which confirmed his theory.

"So the roots, as you call them, only seek the lifeforce of the others to live themselves? That means the root is more like a parasite than a tree." Arnold commented, "Also since the parasite belongs to some other realm, that would explain why Bad-Breath's physical attacks did not do much against them."

"My thoughts exactly," Devon nodded with Arnold's deduction. "Talos tried his best to get rid of the 'parasite' as well, but seemingly he failed as well. Although on a positive note, he was able to collect a sample of it while attacking it using whatever he could use. The sample should arrive here by tomorrow along with Talos and Bad-Breath."

"What about the area-"

"The Indian government has been notified about the situation and advised to not do anything that would jeopardise our operation. As far as the security of the place is considered, over a thousand Automatons have been stationed there along with sentries, and we have the official permission from the Indian government to capture anyone who came near the area, even if it was by accident."

"Looks like you people have everything cleared up." Arnold smiled as he got up to leave, "Now since all of this has been taken care of, I'll leave the rest to you guys as well."

"Of course, you can leave it to us. With you taking care of everything, I have been feeling quite useless these days either way."

Just as Arnold was about to leave Devon's laboratory, he spotted something he had forgotten about a long time ago. The black slime he had captured was placed under a microscope. However, it was actively trying to escape the light as if it was contagious to it.

The peculiar thing, though, was the fact that they loved bathing in the light, as far as Arnold knew about slimes. It didn't matter to them whether the source was sunlight or any artificial light and would often be found clumped up together in places where there was an active source of light as it was their primary source of food.

"Have you made any progress with this little guy yet?" Arnold mumbled while taking a peek at it through the microscope, "Can't see shit here..."

"Not yet. But the slime doesn't seem to be natural... it's more like it was created by someone for some purpose."

"Hm... We gotta figure out who could do something like this. But for now, keep it sealed away."