Inside the bandit camp at the bottom of Mount Seya, a burly ferocious man looked solemnly at the object presented to him by his subordinate.

“Are you sure you found this beside Rie-Tan’s body Wae-Dinlan?” The man spoke coldly.

“Yes sir.” Wae-Dinlan replied seriously. He was considered the second in command and also the second strongest amongst the bandits but in front of the leader, he couldn’t help but tremble slightly with fear. Jak-Wing was the infamous leader of the Vanishing Bandits and had recently stepped into the King Domain. He holds absolute power over the group.

“A Wudang sword… and an inner court one at that.” Jak-Wing said with a clear hint of frustration.

“Other subordinates that were present mentioned the user was a young man who looked to be about eighteen. He was engaging with a samurai from the Yasha province. The samurai escaped via the help of the hills people. However, it has also been reported that the kid with the Wudang sword had various treasures on him. Most were rank 7 items! Fu-Ling and Joa-Wong are currently in pursuit, they should not fail my lord.” Wae-Dinlan said quickly.

“Rank 7 items?” Jak-Wing exclaimed. Rank 7 items were crafted by people between level 70-79. Reaching level 70 in cultivation is a difficult task that few could do. However mastering a rank 7 battle skill or crafting skill is even harder! As an entry level King Domain cultivator, he hasn’t learnt any rank 6 skills himself. It’ll probably take him over a century to do so but the problem is that he doesn’t even know where to begin to acquire such a skill.

“Yes! There’s no doubt. Before Fu-Ling and Joa-Wong gave chase, they also mentioned a Sun Devouring plant.” Wae-Dinlan said excitedly.

“What? The legendary shadow plant that every assassin covert? Who is this kid?” Jak-Wing said in disbelief, he can no longer contain his anticipation.

“Boss, the two vice-captains have returned!” A skinny henchman ran into the tent and reported.

“Quick let them in!” Jak-Wing shouted.

A pair of slouching and injured bandits came into the tent. Without the need to act, one can surmise that the endeavor had been a failure. Both had ghastly wounds across their torso and their aura was so feeble that even a newbie in the Master Domain could probably finish them off.

“Boss… we are sorry.” Joa-Wong said with great difficulty.

“He had too many treasures on him… there was one of the national treasures of the Toko Empire, Spear of Devouring! Even the lightning fruit was eaten by it.” Fu-Ling quickly chipped in.

“The… the Spear of Devouring? The Five-Colored Lightning fruit was actually taken away?” Jak-Wing fell out of his seat, given his temper he should’ve been scolding the two but only a look of fear was on his face. He knew personally how powerful the fruit was.

“Yes! That person must be one of the successors of the Toko Empire. The current emperor is rumored to have been sick for many generations now, this person must have been one of his sons looking for strength to become the next emperor!” Fu-Ling continued on.

“But don’t worry boss, there’s a pair of rank 7 daggers stuck in the trunk of the tree of the Five-Colored Lightning fruit! There are still some residual lightning that prevented us from getting it but if it’s you boss, I’m sure you’ll be able to get it.” Joa-Wong said with enthusiasm.

“He just left it there?” Jak-Wing’s face was full of skepticism. Although the royal families are vastly corrupted in most empires, a pair of rank 7 daggers are still quite valuable.

“Yes, here’s a rank 6 spear he just left behind as well. Also you are holding a Wudang Sword. It isn’t ranked but if we had to, isn’t that a rank 8 weapon for Emperor Domain users in the inner court?” Fu-Ling added in.

“Good point… hmm it doesn’t hurt to take a look. Wae-Dinlan come with me, you two go fix your sorry butts up. How can three of four vice-captains lose so badly to some Toko Empire punk?” Jak-Wing scolded once again.

“Sorry boss.” The two replied in unison as they watched the two departing figures.

Fu-Ling passed down the order to be left alone with Joa-Wong to recuperate. Joa-Wong left to retrieve a person. Right now with the leader and strongest vice-captain gone. The remaining two vice-captains had the highest authority around. Besides the order wasn’t suspicious at the least.

What’s suspicious is that the account of the events that they gave, it was not accurate at all.

Joa-Wong came back with a bandit dressed in the lowest level uniform.

“Take me to the trial area.” The low-level bandit ordered. If one looked closely at the person then they would recognize him as Ryu!

A little while ago, Ryu had realized that the Infinity Tome must have gone out of its way to save him. He no longer has access to the wealth of knowledge, except those that he himself remembered, and the storage abilities. He only had a basic storage ring with a small portion of his gold. This left him without any useful items. After composing himself Ryu went to interrogate Fu-Ling and Joa-Wong that laid in front of him.

Just as Ryu was about to bind the two with his Absolute Agreement, he sensed that there had been a change to that skill. Before Ryu had to get a verbal agreement between the parties involved. Two more tiers of Absolute Agreement was recalled by his mind: Unconditional Treaty and Loser’s Concession. The first allowed him to be telepathically linked to his subjects, edit the conditions as he liked, and most importantly control his subjects. Basically once someone has entered an agreement with him, he’ll be able to see and control what they do. The second new specialization, Loser’s Concession, is just as scary, as long as he defeats an opponent, they’ll automatically enter an agreement with him. Also the basic Absolute Agreement has been approved to let Ryu speak telepathically with his opponents.

The Infinity Tome must have used this chance to establish two specializations for him! Not only did it establish two, the two specializations were built on top of each other. This phenomenon is unprecedented! Through all the profound manuals that had been around for thousands if not millions of years, not one had suggested a specialization that improves the previous because it just isn’t possible. The two biggest tips that were recorded down were something that improves as you get stronger and sharing the same conditions so you can activate two specializations at once. The first tip could be increasing your base strength by a quarter while decreasing your agility by half. If you make this specialization at level 30 and use it when you are level 80, the effects would be enormously different.

“Do you agree? If you do I’ll save you, if not then you can die right here.” A telepathic message was sent out by Ryu along with a list of terms. The terms were obey him and don’t reveal anything about him. Ryu had to establish an agreement still since he didn’t defeat these people before he got his Loser’s Concession skill. He could beat them again but Ryu wasn’t that vicious so he tried the verbal way first.

The reason why Ryu need to establish the conditions still is because when he isn’t controlling them himself, the subjects can still act as they liked. With Ryu’s mental capacity, it’ll take all he could to control two people right now. It’s also very taxing so unless Ryu has to, he would just order them around when he can and take control when he has to see what they see or make them perform a specific task exactly as he wanted. However, if the Infinity Tome was there to increase Ryu’s mental capacity then it might just be possible to control a much greater audience.

The two eagerly agreed in their minds. Right now they only care about living at the moment. Ryu made them give up their storage rings and took our aids to heal their wounds.

“Tell me why are the bandits here?” Ryu asked as he poured potions over their body.

The two quickly responded naturally without being aware.

“We came into possession of a diary of an antique merchant. He mentioned crossing from the Yasha Province to the Lin Province thousands of years ago and getting saved by a tribe of powerful humans. These humans were able to order beasts around. The most shocking thing isn’t that, there was a temple made of Silver Onyx. This ore is used to craft Emperor Domain items.” Fu-Ling narrated.

“However, he swore to never divulge their secret. We only found out when we robbed his grave by chance.” Joa-Wong replied quickly before Ryu asked.

“The amazing thing is that the whole temple is made of one piece of this ore. As you may know, set items have to be from the same vein of ore. For example, each Voice Crystal can communicate short distances with other Voice Crystals but with another Voice Crystal from the same vein it can be used from different continents!” Joa-Wong continued.

“You won’t find this in any palaces in any empire! The problem was that there was no locations written down, we spent centuries pillaging the border as a pretext to search for this mystic temple. As luck would have it, our boss’s very own daughter met the very same people we had been looking for a few decades ago. We only found out he’s from the same tribe we were looking for when he revealed his abilities to command a Sky Serpent to save her twelve years ago. Deducing from where they met, we came upon this place.” Fu-Ling exclaimed as greed showed on his face.

“However, things didn’t go as planned. Our boss’s daughter betrayed us and warned the hills people to hide. This made us search for the temple blindly for two years. Also the temple has an odd ability to prevent anyone from using their Qi, making it next to impossible for us to even mine the ore.” Joa-Wong said with regret but his face changed instantly. “But all was not lost, there were pictures depicted in the nearby walls showing three trials within the temple. If one manages to pass them all, they would receive a Sovereign Domain essence or greater!”

“Essence?” Ryu asked. He read about the ability to absorb essence before and thought it was a forbidden art so he didn’t pursue it. Alexis also threatened to take the Fairy Lady’s essence. Little did he know he misunderstood it, essences play an essential role for people at the highest levels.

“Essences are the remnants of a Qi reservoir from Emperor Domain beings and above! Everyone knows that. All Emperor Domain items and greater requires essence from a level 80 beast or above! It can also be used to repair high grade weapons, soul weapons and even beast-fusions. The most popular usage is to use it to cultivate and breakthrough bottle necks. However, after you have absorbed an essence, which takes a long process, your Qi reservoir will have mutated to something closer to the characteristics of that essence. It’s a thousand times harder to refine back to a normal state than absorbing a spiritual medicine so usually an expert will only absorb that type of essence if he has a steady source else you’ll be stuck in your cultivation later on.” Fu-Ling explained.

“Take me to the trials right away.” Ryu instructed suddenly after noticing how much time has passed, to reach the top of the mountain and back would take less than two hours if they hurried so Ryu had no time to spare if the bandits sent more people after them. After hearing that the reward of the trial is an essence that can fix soul weapons, he couldn’t wait. Even though he’s not even sure what type of item the Infinity Tome is but if there’s a chance he’ll take it.

Back to the present, Ryu was currently led by the pair towards the temple. He was quickly directed inside the mountain through a series of complicated tunnels from the camp site. After twenty minutes or so, they arrived at a gorge similar to the one the Han-So tribe is currently hiding in. The only difference is that the center of the gorge has a simplistic silver temple there. This temple was so beautifully chiseled and crafted that famous sculptures would cry upon seeing this. Around the temple were many pictures craved on the mountain walls. Around fifty slaves or so were chained right outside the temple against the wall. Ten bandits stood guard, they saluted when they reconfigured the two vice-captains.

“There’s usually no not a lot of guards around because of the Qi nullification, no one wants to be defenseless here. Since no one has passed in the past decade, we have lost quite a bit of interest.” Fu-Ling explained the lack of people. Ryu ignored his comment and went straight into the middle of the temple, there is no door but a thin sheet of white light shines there instead. Ryu has been told that after failing the trails, you will not be able to leave. No one knows what happens to the people that tried and failed.

In the back of Ryu’s mind he made a determination to pass the trial. He doesn’t care about the opportunity to enter Sovereign’s Domain. It was the level where Alexis was and he was able to roam the continents freely for hundreds of thousands of years, performing countless wicked deeds. Most cultivators would go crazy and sacrifice their family just for a chance to do so. Without a word he mentally instructed the two to keep up the usual pretense and stepped into the trial doors.

After Ryu stepped in, the two vice-captains instantly felt control of their bodies returned to them. This is what they secretly wished for. No one has survived the trials before. The problem is that when they wanted to speak to each other about what happened, they couldn’t! They were still bound by Ryu’s Absolute Agreement and had to act accordingly or face excruciating pain and die if they crossed the line. They only thing they could do is go back to their usual duties despite all that’s happened.