A PUPPET?

At a distance of almost Twenty kilometers away from the Boneflare kingdom is a small province, compared to Boneflare kingdom, named 'Smoothing Iron Province'. This province was also circular in shape having a diameter of fourty km, also this province was surrounded by an ocean from one side. This province is called 'Smoothing Iron' because as its name suggests, this province specialized only in weapons crafting and is the biggest supplier of weapons for the Boneflare kingdom.

A palace fully made of steel is built in the center of the kingdom, in the hall of the palace a fat man is seated on the highest seat meant for the king of the province, Guo Mu, laughed out very loud after reading the contents on the imperial decree one final time before folding it again.

"Finally after waiting for almost 20 years, a chance to become rich delivered itself on my doorstep. Bring that brat Gou Feng here now, wasn't he being more arrogant after reaching 8th level of genesis stage at the age of eleven, I'll bring over him to the Boneflare kingdom tomorrow to tell him that he is still a frog in the well, infront of the imperial palace." Guo Mu, the king of the province said to a maidservant nearby.

A similar kind of thing happened at an another small province named bamboo villa which is situated by about 15 km distance away from Boneflare kingdom is ruled by a very beautiful lady named Cao Ning. She wore a red rose dress and was currently seating on a seat in a vast palace made of only jade stones and bamboo. Although she didn't laugh as maniacally as Guo Mu she still had a smile on her face, which made her look even more alluring.

"Call over Cao Chen here, I'll give her a chance to interact with other alchemists tommorow." She commanded a maid which was by her side and then closed her eyes for meditation.

Like the 'Soothing Iron province', the bamboo villa is also a supplier of alchemic pills, medicines and spirit herbs to the Boneflare kingdom. Although both provinces were major supplier of the kingdom, there were not enough profits that they would gain regularly due to transportation issues. As to why both were happy now is because in the imperial decree the emperor mentioned that he will allow both the provinces to establish their branches in the kingdom, these would help them to increase their gains as there would be no obstruction from the beast resulting in less manpower.

Back in Boneflare kingdom,

In a residence near the hunter academy having a nametag of 'General of War', a man with a holding stick is standing on the veranda looking at the garden consisting of growing spirit herbs at the front.

"Husband are you thinking of our son again?" a sad voice echoed from behind of the man accompanied by a beautiful lady arriving at the doorway to the garden.

"Yes, I'm still thinking about him, I don't know how is he doing inside the tornado. I had sworn an oath in the past to protect, him no matter what happens, but now even in this tiny place I don't have enough power to do that." The man said with an inexplainable sadness and helplessness written all over his face while looking at a pendant in his hands. The pendant has a shape of a semicircle and a kind of flame was burning in the midpoint. While the man and woman were both the father and mother that the previous DELVIN called them to be so.

"You can't blame yourself for this matter, it was all the fault of that damn 'Duck', only heavens knows why and how did it reach this tiny place despite having a cultivation of peak bone condensation stage." The mother of the DELVIN said in a cursing tone.

"It's not worth speaking about such matters now, two months ago when the flame of life suddenly vanished from this pendant for a sec without any warning, my soul nearly fled from my body. But now it seems that our son is fine and did you notice that the flame is slightly hotter than before." The man said in a self-encouraging tone as he was also not sure what he should do in this situation and only the heavens could protect his son.

Two months ago when the flame present on the pendant vanished suddenly, it made the man nearly frightened to death. After recovering his wits, he rapidly rushed over to the hallowedsorrow mountain only to notice that the whole mountain was surrounded by a tornado and no matter what he did he was not able to enter inside. This resulted in him having many injuries on his body and lastly, he was pushed back thoroughly which made him give up, but soon he discovered that the life flame that had vanished earlier, reappeared again which made him retreat happily back to his residence.

"But my only regret is that this wooden body would not be able to live no more than a month now as it already has consumed all resources that we had brought from there. Moreover, as both of our souls are linked so u will also be diminished with me." As the man was speaking he removed his sleeve which revealed his arm that has been shockingly discharged from his shoulders with wires still connected to it.

"I don't fear death, as we are just clones of our real bodies. But there will be no one to take care of our son except Elsa. Alas, if just this place had a bloodline of a higher category we could still have lived for a year or two." DELVIN's mother said in a regretful voice.

"hmm, we have a visitor. Invite him in, let's see if he has any clues about our son." The man suddenly sensed an aura of an expert moving towards his residence and soon identified the person as the academy head.

"Brother Cadieux, are you at home?" the academy head knocked on the entrance door and said in a very friendly tone.

"Brother Hong, come in I'm still at home, with one leg crippled where would I go." DELVIN's father also replied in a friendly tone and invited him in. If any person belonging to the academy saw this scene they would be thoroughly shocked, because other than the emperor itself this old man would not give anyone respect and rather scold them.

After hearing the reply from the person, the old man Hong smiled in some kind of sorrow and walked inside. After walking inside he saw a hall in which a man is sitting on a sofa and gestured him to come and sit.

"Brother Cadieux I'm really sorry that I couldn't come and visit due to some issues of the academy. I'll get to the straight point now, I received this news today only, from a survivor of that catastrophe on the Hallowedsorrow mountain that only the members of the herbs collecting team might be able to survive, lucky to you DELVIN was the part of the herb collecting team." Old man Hong jumped straight to the point and told every detail about the incident that he received to the ex-general respectfully.

Actually, the reason why the old man Hong was behaving very politely, because only he knew that the man in front of him had the strength even higher than the king of the kingdom, he was the only person that has fought toe to toe with the beast king and injured it pretty badly. Apart from that only due to the pointers from this person was he able to broke through into the bone condensation stage.

"That's really good news, if not for your informing me, I would really be worried to death. Thank you so much for your troubles." DELVIN's father turned really happy this time as he only had the life flame pendant to know that his son is alive and not his whereabouts, after listening to the old man he finally knew that his son was fine.

"Brother Cadieux don't embarrass me, this is just a small matter in a favor that I owe you. Apart from this news, I brought these gifts for DELVIN. When the strength of DELVIN reaches a higher stage, I'll give him full support for any difficulties that he faces. Ok then I'll take my leave now, I still have to meet the emperor to discuss some matters, meet you later." The old man placed a medium sized packet and took his leave hurriedly.

Inside the tornado, there was a water spring formed naturally a long time ago. No one bothered with this spring as it looked very ordinary, but due to the disaster of the whole mountain, this was the only water source available on the mountain. Currently, a young man was swimming inside this spring water, after swimming for a while he got bored and left the spring pool and found a rock big enough to sit on it. There were also two things present beside one was a completely white crystal in a spherical shape like a ball and the other was a green fruit also in a spherical shape.

After squatting down on the rock, the young man picked up the white crystal with his left hand, then he placed his right hand above the crystal. After a sec, some white coloured particles like droplets began to flow out from his palm of the right hand and fall on the crystal. After almost five secs, the crystal began to change its colour and turned violet first, later indigo, later blue, later green, then dark green, later yellow, then dark yellow and later finally stopped at light orange colour.

"Woah, that's better than I expected, initial 6th level genesis stage is really great." The youth was no other than DELVIN, after leaving the deep pit and traveling for six hours, he finally found a water source. He really cried out tears of joy after seeing a pond and then quickly cleaned his body at a side first then jumped inside the pond. After diving somewhat deep inside the pond he found this crystal and directly identified it as the 'genesis stage indicator'.