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Ch196-Jumping Conclusions

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Even if there wasn’t a point in doing it, Sylver sent Spring ahead anyway. The shade wouldn’t be able to get past the barrier, but at the very least he would be able to inform Sylver if there were people outside the sect.

Through Mora, Sylver at least knew they hadn’t attacked yet. If she was in pain, Sylver would know, their connection wasn’t strong enough for any kind of complex thought at the moment, but he would be able to feel it if she was hurt or damaged even if he was in another realm.

Currently, Sylver had given up on being secretive about his abilities and was openly riding on Ulvic while empowering the wolf shade to such an extent that he also had to spend mana repairing the beast’s legs. But it was worth it, the shade was covering the distance it had taken Sylver several hours to walk, in mere minutes.

Spring returned with the news that there was blood splattered just outside Faust’s sect. He couldn’t see what was happening inside, but there was smoke coming out from the top of the sect’s barrier.

Sylver urged Mora to get ready, to prepare for a fight, but the creature wasn’t reacting to his commands. Sylver stopped trying, and focused on making Ulvic as fast as possible, while he worked on reattaching his arms, and did his best to piece his face together as much as he could.

His eyeballs had thankfully been largely unscathed, his skull protected the majority of his brain matter, and miraculously, the vast majority of the damage was cosmetic, apart from all the teeth Sylver was missing.

As he essentially smashed one of his clone heads to pieces and had the pieces he needed float into position using [Dead Dominion] Sylver wondered if there was any point in continuing with this farce of appearing human.

If he simply wrapped his skull in bandages, as some of his shades were, there wouldn’t be any question as to whether or not he was alive, everyone would assume he simply had some sort of horrific injury.

Although the idea rubbed him the wrong way and laid waste to all the time Sylver had spent maintaining his appearance, he didn’t have the time to be focusing on making his skin appear life-like. Sylver stored everything he wasn’t going to use in his [Bound Bones] storage, and used [Necrotic Mutilation] soaked bandages to cover his head, and did the same for his shoulders, forearms, hands, and torso.

The rest would be covered by his robe anyway, but Sylver needed that cohesion in the event he was touched by that strange lead-like wood. If his arm was kept in place using nothing but magic, there was a good chance it would fall off, whereas muscles, tendons, and bandages, would provide enough cohesion for him to continue using the limb.

Someone screamed as Ulvic ran past them, but they very likely couldn’t even tell it was a wolf, at best it would look like a dark elongated blur.

There was a great deal of space inside the land around the Schlagen mountains. Similar to actual countries and continents, there were small circles that were populated, connected to one another by roads. As Ulvic reached the area that belonged to one of the sects and was the start of the “city,” Sylver returned the shade to his shadow and used [Fog Form] instead.

Unlike Arda there weren’t any convenient pipes in the ground for Sylver to travel through, so he had to resort to traveling just above the roofs of the buildings. The interference the Ki barriers created made it difficult to move, but it was still significantly faster than Sylver running using his legs.

***

As Sylver’s fog passed through the cracks in the door, he materialized on the other side, with his ax in one hand, and a bundle of explosives in his other.

Faust choked on the tea he was drinking and struggled to catch his breath as it went down the wrong hole, and he couldn’t stop coughing. Sylver’s hearts were racing as he looked around the mostly untouched courtyard, and saw smoke rising from the large makeshift fire pit that was being used to grill a bunch of meat and vegetables.

Mora’s completely relaxed emotional state helped Sylver calm himself down, as he made the ax disappear, and did the same for the explosives. He very calmly walked over to where Faust and his sect were sitting around a fire pit full of glowing coals, and waited for the completely unharmed cultivator to finish coughing.

Sylver continued looking around while he waited, and could now see that some of the sect members were wearing better armor, were armed with a proper sword, and a couple had a small piece of red rock in their hands. They were all frozen in place and were staring at Sylver.

“Your animal protected us,” one of the kids said, as Faust nodded while he continued coughing.

Faust knocked on his chest a couple of times and started to speak.

“Everyone is ok, we handled it,” Faust explained, as Sylver sat down near the man, and pulled his hood down.

He could see a couple of the kids were caught off guard by the bandages around his head, but everyone chose not to bring them up. Including Faust.

“She killed three of them with one rock, and the rest were so painfully unprepared that the fight was over in less than a minute. They came here ready for witches, and were instead met by a seven-legged horse spider thing, that used its web like a slingshot,” Faust explained, as he continued patting himself on the chest, and gestured towards the bronze kettle sitting on top of a couple of coals.

“Are you going to be attacked again?” Sylver asked, and Faust just shrugged his shoulders.

Sylver's fear and anger had been vacated from his body the way someone would tip a bucket over, and right now he just felt empty, which in turn made him appear and sound calm.

“Not by these guys. Half are dead, and the other half are… I don’t know what she’s doing to them, but the sound she’s making suggests it isn’t something good. But to answer your question, probably. The ideal scenario would have been to defeat them without killing anyone, and maybe negotiate, but my priority was keeping my sect safe, and her priority was to kill the intruders,” Faust explained.

Sylver looked towards the area where Mora had asked for Sylver to build her 2 stone pillars, behind the house, and was informed by Spring that there were several human-shaped cocoons hanging all over the place.

“I’m going to guess they were all carrying jade around, for some reason?” Sylver asked, with a gesture at the barbecue, and the red and green sand sprinkled all over Faust’s legs.

Faust reached over to his left, and after quietly asking for permission, took the sword inside the boy’s scabbard, and lightly tapped the hilt with his palm. The fabric wrapped around the hilt unraveled, and Sylver saw that there were several bright red crystals embedded into the wood.

“I’m in fighting shape thanks to them. Maybe not enough for someone level 300 or higher, but with her acting as backup, who knows?” Faust asked, and gestured towards where Mora was, as he returned the sword to the boy.

“Do you know which sect they’re from?” Sylver asked.

Faust nodded his head.

“They’re all from the Blue Mongoose. According to the boy, they make their living by hunting the few monsters that rely on magic. And as it turns out, also hold a very serious grudge against witches or people they perceive to be witches. Bottom line is, their sect leader is only level 250. And even if their whole sect tried to attack us, we can take them,” Faust explained.

“Where is their sect located?” Sylver asked, but Faust shook his head.

“It’s better if we wait, so we have more time to heal and grow. I realize this isn’t your fault for appearing witch-like, but there was a reason I asked you to stay low-key. We’re past that, so now all we can do is hope we collectively become powerful enough to defend ourselves,” Faust explained, and Sylver asked something that was bugging him about the man.

“You were barely standing on your feet a couple of hours ago?” Sylver asked.

Faust looked, and felt, significantly healthier and more alive than he had been when Sylver left.

“I was. But now I can stand on my feet just fine. And if it’s all the same to you, I would prefer not talking about it,” Faust explained in a slightly lowered voice.

Sylver noticed at this point that Faust was wearing gloves and that he had wrapped bandages around his forearms, over his sleeves, so that no skin was visible. Sylver leaned towards the man and whispered so only he would hear him.

“You’re cultivating negative Ki, aren’t you?” Sylver asked, and the fact that Faust flinched so hard some of the tea he was holding spilled onto his pants was answer enough.

Faust turned his head to stare at Sylver, and if anyone else had looked at him the way Faust did just now, Sylver would have at the very least punched them.

“I would prefer not to talk about it,” Faust repeated in a perfectly calm, but impossibly tense, voice.

Sylver did his best not to make his words sound like a threat, but couldn’t tell if he had succeeded or not.

“I need you to tell me this isn’t going to become a problem,” Sylver whispered politely.

Sylver could see that Faust wanted to say something bad, but the impulse disappeared as he remembered who it was he was speaking to right now.

“I know what I’m doing Syl… You have my word this won’t hinder you, or get in the way of your goal, it will only help,” Faust explained, but refrained from looking Sylver in the eye as he spoke.

Which, if Sylver was remembering right, was perfectly normal, given the circumstances.

Another reason as to why negative Ki cultivators always ended up summoning a mother fucking demon, was because they mistakenly assumed that “demonic cultivator” meant that their power came from demons.

Sylver wasn’t entirely certain as to where that name came from, but he’d heard it enough that he knew it wasn’t just a local thing. He also knew that the vast majority of positive Ki cultivators considered negative Ki cultivators to be the absolute most despicable creatures on Eira. Worse than witches, even worse than undead.

And if Faust’s body language was to be believed, he held that very same opinion.

Sylver wasn’t familiar enough with cultivator culture to know exactly how ashamed the man was, or why he even felt the need to be ashamed, but at the end of the day, Sylver trusted Faust.

And if Faust said it wasn’t a problem, it wasn’t a problem.

The whole point of Sylver recruiting people to work under him was precisely so he could have someone to delegate responsibility onto. And part of that involved trusting the people in question to handle things Sylver couldn’t handle or wasn’t an expert in.

“Alright… I’m going to see what Mora is doing, and then I’m going to leave. I’ll try to be quick, but I might be gone for a couple of days. I’m going to leave a dagger with you, and I’m going to attach a shade to it. If at any point something happens and you need me, throw the dagger outside the sect’s barrier, and I will come rushing back,” Sylver explained and got the barest nod from Faust.

Sylver did as he said, and gave the man one of his 16 daggers, and placed a shade with very specific instructions into the dagger’s shadow.