Pilfering Daniel's body wasn't the most disgusting thing I'd ever done, but I certainly didn't enjoy it. Even if it did have its benefits. Plus, it gave me new insight into a function of the torc that I had ignored until now. His spatial device operated within this inner world. As did mine. And that was the point. They shouldn't have.

One of the only drawbacks of spatial devices was their inability to be placed within each other. Any attempt at this, placing a storage device inside a storage device would cause a catastrophic failure in both devices. It should have been impossible to transfer Daniel within while he was wearing his device.

The only conjecture that made sense now that I realized this anomaly was that this area wasn't a spatial storage device. I now believed that this was a pocket dimension that had been created and attached to the torc in some manner.

I had read and assimilated all the material for arrays, runes, and inscription up to the journeyman level, but that still left a lot of knowledge left to be discovered. Still, with that most basic understanding of those professions, I was able to formulate an idea of how this might be done.

I even had one of the components to try.

I believed that they had used a spirit seed in some unique manner and instead of growing a spirit mine; it had been encouraged to grow as an inner world. It was feasible that the unique properties of spirit stones could be what powered and supplied the Qi for this inner world. I believed it probable that someone with mastery in spatial runes and arrays had forged the connection.

They would need to invest time and resources to seed this area with life, but for a cultivator that might live thousands of years, they would have the time. It would take a massive amount of land, water, and plant life to create a sustainable, thriving world. But if whoever created the torc had access to a rift with that abundance of resources, they could farm from that extra-dimensional reality without anyone being the wiser.

It seemed plausible that they had managed to carve out vast resources from a Rift like the one I had discovered and used their knowledge of space and time to create and stabilized the torc.

The person responsible had to have an understanding so fundamental that they would have germinated a [Dao of Space/Time] within their inner sea. How they managed to perfect the environment so that ultraviolet light allowed the plants to grow, and enough moisture was generated to keep them well watered, would be simple in comparison.

Daniel's spatial device had nothing incriminating in it, nothing that would verify his claim that his House was able to access messages using the missives they produced and sold. It did have jade tokens with the entire Alchemical library that would see me advance to master, as well as some rarer pill formulas. The one of most immediate help was a soul pill that would expand and stabilize my inner sea and a blood formation pill that was more effective for healing.

Daniel had both pills in his spatial device, and I used one of each, healing the burns I'd taken from our battle and testing the changes to my spirit sea. The blood formation pill healed the burns easily as well as all the little aches and pains that I had managed to accumulate over the past two weeks.

The soul pill required me to cycle my cultivation technique to get the most benefit. Not an onerous task, one that I was happy to oblige, since I needed to restore my Qi pool. I used that time to reflect on the recent battle, to try to understand what I needed to do to improve.

A couple of hours later, I felt fully refreshed. My mind was sharper. My thinking became clearer, and I was able to detect a noticeable difference in my inner sea. It was hard to measure the difference, hard to quantify, but it felt more substantive, more a part of the me I was growing into.

Other than a dozen spirit stones, the only other items of note I'd found on Daniel had been his weapons. The whip was a growth-type weapon, the Sai an awakened spirit item, both distinctive and easily identified. I would leave them inside his spirit device, stashed in the cave where the Golden Lodoicea grew for the foreseeable future. They were too easily identifiable to dispose of in the Sect, but perhaps in the future, they might have a use.

Refreshed and with Daniel's body left for the Entelodonts or Peryton to scavenge, I exited the torc world. The tunnels where we had fought showed obvious signs of our battle, but there was nothing I could do about that. Thankfully, the earth Qi was so dense, the fire Qi from a nearby lava pool so profound, that they would subsume any lingering Qi signature from Daniel or me, and our recent battle.

Once I exited the tunnels and returned to the Sect, I first returned to my rooms to clean up and access the data console. I found events had moved on as expected, as I'd spent weeks freeing myself.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Clement had finalized and sent the agreement he had managed to work out on my behalf concerning the Rift. The jade agreement was waiting for my signature, having been delivered to my apartment. I took some time studying it before signing, impressed with each concession he had managed to gain.

There wouldn't be a tax for goods going in or out of the Rift, it was too hard to track what might be crossing the boundary when a cultivator could use spatial devices. Instead, the Sect would provide skilled lifestyle professionals to act as teachers and trainers. People that would visit each of the larger towns in my territory.

The time these trainers would spend teaching was determined by the length of time Sect members spent in the Rift. A person could also barter and trade labor, teaching skills, or products. A day inside the Rift would require a day's work repairing or fortifying those towns within my Fief.

The other major concession Clement had brokered was an agreement that allowed me to recruit people from the Sect to work for me directly. That might not seem much at first glance, but the staff that served and worked for the Sect were all cultivators.

The minimum requirement to serve within the Sect was to have awakened a Silver Spirit Root. Allowing me the chance to recruit these people might become a real boon, especially if I could find some of the key people I needed to expand and grow my House and Dojo effectively.

If I could entice a few of the Beast Tamer staff to my House by offering a Roc, I would have the beginnings of a first-rate Taming Hall and Field. The staff were talented individuals who took these positions because their contribution as servants gave them access to Sect resources. I was hoping the exchange of a Roc and an upgraded cultivation technique would serve them just as well.

Clement had also managed to include a codicil that required the Sect to share any discovery made within the Rift, as well as samples of any new resources and the location where those resources could be farmed.

Further, the Sect would provide all security outside the Rift, and the devices required to speak with the Earth Elementals living inside. Any treaty the Sect made would require my approval. Any attempt by the Sect to circumvent my rights by treaty or proxy would result in sanctions and fines.

I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to enforce fines, let alone sanctions if the Sect failed to uphold their part of the bargain, but that they included the codicil might provide leverage when dealing with the Sect against the Empire at large.

I wouldn't get rich from the agreement Clement had negotiated, but I would get the needed resources and skill training for my people. And that would make the biggest difference. In the long run, that was priceless. We needed the skills and knowledge the Sect could teach now. A thriving economy depended on it.

As it was, I had nothing of note to use for trade. The forests of Delph were extensive. The land within my territory, expansive and filled with undiscovered bio-materials just waiting to be harvested, but that would require time and effort.

The Golden Lodoicea had proven to be a major discovery, and I didn't believe for an instant it was the only unique item to be found. The rain forest contained a bio-diversity teaming with new life. Until my people were trained in herbalism, animal husbandry, and mining, the secrets of the forest would remain unclaimed. I needed them to search and gathering resources, and they needed to understand what to look for in order to be effective.

After I'd injected my Qi signature into the jade token Clement had provided, I stored a copy to take to the Patriarch. I then sent missives to each of the town leaders within my Fief, explaining the terms of the agreement. I informed each of them to inform the citizenry that lifestyle profession training would be available in the future and that these classes would be free.

I asked that suitable training space be supplied for each profession, even if it meant renting space from people in the community. It would be more cost-effective to build a training center for each town, eventually, but for now, renting a blacksmith shop, for example, would see the job done without causing any delays.

I'd briefly considered charging tuition, but the more people that were trained, the better in the long run. I decided to require each participant to agree to accept apprentices and pay forward the training they would receive.

The teachers the Sect provided would probably be journeyman, at best, Outer or Inner Sect members earning contribution points, but that was a major improvement to what was now available. I would have to keep an eye on the efficacy of each teacher. Those that only provided token advice and training would find a warning note lodged with Contribution Hall and find themselves blacklisted if that failed.

Once that was dealt with, I began searching the Sect files database for the identity of the woman who had tried to kill me. It took a while because, as much as I continued referring to the system I was using as a computer, it wasn't.

It used an illusion array and runic formations to operate. How it linked with each system to communicate was beyond me and would remain that way, at least until I understood arrays and runes better. Despite the similarities between this system and a computer, there were certain deficiencies.

The sprite helped; it managed the same search functions as some of the more popular apps I was used to on Earth, but search functions for the Sects personal, based on appearance, were not something that had been considered.

Still, by refining my search parameters to meet certain specific criteria, I was able to narrow the field. Gender, hair color, eye color, and a range for height and weight helped narrow the field. The rest was just grunt work. The tedious task of looking at picture after picture until I finally found her.

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. She really was a staff member in the Patriarch's office. She hadn't lied about who she was.