The bear’s corpse had been very carefully placed into a cocoon made out of mushroom fabric. It wasn’t particularly pretty looking, had the texture of rotten wood, and there was a slightly unpleasant odor, but he only needed it until he got back to Faust’s sect.

It was early morning when Sylver arrived at the edge of the city. He adjusted the wooden badge on his arm so it was visible, as he walked down the road, with several boxes floating above his head. Sylver was so deep in thought he completely forgot to bother with squinting his eyes, wrinkling his face, or walking with a limp.

Nonetheless, either the guards weren’t interested in him, or could tell it would be a bad idea to disturb him, and Sylver arrived at Faust’s sect without any issues.

He didn’t notice that all the weeds had been pulled, and were replaced by either flat stones, or bright green grass, he didn’t notice that there wasn’t a garbage pile on the left and that the space inside the wall on the right had been patched up.

He didn’t even notice the four people standing between him and the house, as they wordlessly moved out of the way. Spring appeared inside and picked up the floating boxes, and organized them in one of the corners. With a faint gesture of the hand, Sylver moved the bear’s corpse up towards the roof and asked for one of the shades to cover it with a tarp or something.

“Syl?” someone asked on Sylver’s right.

He moved his gaze towards the source of the sound and saw Faust sitting on the floor, writing something on a large yellowed piece of paper. Sylver moved his arm around and made the bear's corpse float down from the roof, and placed it onto the floor directly in front of Faust.

“Do you know what this is?” Sylver asked, as Faust quietly stood up, and walked over to the hairless bear to inspect it closer.

Faust just looked at it for a few seconds, and after he placed his hand on it for a moment, made a face Sylver hadn’t seen before.

“It’s a demonic monster,” Faust said calmly.

Sylver mutely gestured for him to continue his explanation.

“Not a demon, obviously, but it’s… It shouldn’t be this consistent. It’s a bear, through and through, only the eyes are affected,” Faust explained, as he pointed at the bear’s open eye.

“Ah, so this is the monster equivalent of a demonic cultivator,” Sylver said, and even though he refrained from gesturing at Faust’s tightly wrapped hands, he could still tell that that was what he had wanted to do.

“Not a natural one. Someone made this, normally there would be two or three creatures mixed into one. It’s not that difficult of a process, but it’s very time-consuming... 20 years, at least… You found this in the swamp?” Faust asked as Sylver nodded.

With a wave of his hand, Sylver covered himself and Faust in a thin barrier that would keep their conversation private. Even if Sylver could see that Faust wasn’t going to be happy about Sylver’s next question, presented with this corpse, he understood the importance of it anyway.

“Those men that attacked you earlier… You used demonic cultivation on them, right? What did you do to their souls exactly,” Sylver asked, in as polite and non threatening of a tone as he could possibly manage while standing near the corpse of an animal that could have destroyed his chances of rescuing Edmund.

“To put it in a way you would understand, I used those men’s souls the way someone might use a filter to clear their blood of toxins. When you cultivate your own Ki, it splits up into positive, and negative. What you’re supposed to do is let it settle, scoop the negative that sunk to the bottom and discard it, and keep the nice and pure positive Ki floating near the top,” Faust explained, with such a calm voice that Sylver didn’t even need to reach for his soul to tell he was doing something to keep himself relaxed.

“What about the whole Yin and Yang thing?” Sylver asked.

“That’s to do with meridian and vessel structure. It limits which kind of cultivation techniques you’re suited for, and some other stuff, but it has nothing to do with whether a certain cultivation method is demonic or not. From a practical standpoint, mine isn’t demonic,” Faust said.

Sylver just stood there quietly and looked at the man.

“It’s… I don’t actually cultivate negative Ki. I realize to you it may not seem important, but using another person’s positive Ki to clean your own, doesn’t necessarily count as using another person’s Ki. I didn’t… What do you want from me?” Faust asked as Sylver thought the question over.

What do I want from him? Now that I know to be on the lookout for creatures and people attacking the soul, I should be fine… Since this bear had some kind of soul manipulation, I might be able to form an armor out of it…

“I’ll be honest with you. Between the [Hero] having been here, a possible dragon, whoever made that Night Fever mimicking curse, and now monsters that can attack my soul, I want to wrap everything up and leave as quickly as possible. I’m going upstairs to figure out how this thing works, and then I’m selling all the shit I’ve gathered. I have items that 2 sects I need to visit want, so I’ll hopefully be allowed inside, and I’ll find Edmund trapped in a large cage in the middle of their garden or something,” Sylver explained.

He dismissed the silencing spell and had the bear’s corpse float up towards the roof, so no one could see what he was doing.

“Alright,” Faust said.

“Sometime in the near future, I’m going to ask you to do whatever it is you did to those men, so I can observe you, and their souls. It doesn’t have to be today, but the sooner, the better,” Sylver added, as he sent a tendril of fog out through the window up towards the roof.

He waited for Faust to nod before he materialized on the roof.

In his heart of hearts, he knew finding Edmund wasn’t going to be easy, simple, or quick, but who knows?

Maybe he really is just walking around waiting to hear Sylver’s name.