Mistakes Were Made

Angry shouts echoed from behind the closed door, making Sif giggle. Some people were so easily instigated. One just had to say a couple of words and they would completely lose their minds.

Normally he would try to avoid such people, but the scarred Fighter and her friends were not at a level that could truly threaten him. If a fight started, he was sure that it would be fairly easy for him to win against a bunch of Level Three Fighters.

"This place is amazing!" exclaimed Blue, attracting his attention. The usually silent and reserved woman was checking out the room with excitement. Sif gave a look at the room: it was bigger than what he thought, divided into four separate sections: a living room, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a small cultivation room.

"Ah, there is a shower!"

Blue immediately started to slip out of her green gown, revealing her naked body. Sif gaze stopped on the various little scars on her skin. He was never much of "fair and jade-like skin" type, but even he had to admit that she looked horrible with all those marks on her body.

'I will need to keep her around for a while and I will need her help to get in the Yun House… I guess I need to help her out a bit…'

He drew a bronze coin from his purse, throwing it towards the naked woman. Although the latter was concentrated on the shower, she managed to catch the small coin.

"Mast-"

"Call me with my name, we traveled along for a while now… buy something to get rid of those scars and use the rest for the living expenses… I will need to cultivate for a while, do not disturb me."

He gave a mental order to Luna and the latter moved in front of the cultivation room, crouching down before the entrance to the small space.

"Let no one in"

He then moved inside the cultivation chamber: it was small, the walls were made of black stone and had some simple array on them. Nothing much, a very basic energy collection formation and even simpler defense against energy probes.

In the center of the chamber, there was a small prayer mat, directly connected to the various arrays. Sif sat on it and his hands shined with a green light. A small dart of green energy moved towards the prayer mat, activating it and taking control of the arrays.

The youth brought out a scrap of metal that he obtained that very morning.

'So strange'

No matter how long he looked at it, the thing looked like a random piece of deformed metal. Sif collected his Willpower and sent it inside, rapidly locating the spot where before he had found the spirit energy marking.

It was only a small trace of soul power, but Sif could feel impressive radiations coming out from it. It definitely belonged to someone that had achieved a fairly high point in his soul cultivation.

Probably a high-level Adept Summoner or even a Master Summoner. This didn't change the fact that he could erase the binding, but he would need more time to consume all that power.

" I consume this, I will definitely have enough Curse Energy to upgrade my Willpower multiple times…"

Curse Energy needed to feed on soul power to grow and multiply, and now he had plenty of it at his disposal. The only problem was that Sif wasn't sure If upgrading his soul energy so quickly was a good idea. He didn't think that he was able to sustain such a powerful hunger at his level.

"Oh well, I will just let it expire if there is no other choice… but let's start with binding this Menagerie"

The first thing that he had to do was to gather some Curse Energy. Sif had consumed his last bit of Curse Energy when he powered up his Willpower, to assimilate Luna's soul. He needed to summon it again.

This wasn't an easy feat: this type of Energy didn't exist in nature. Only some rare creatures that had an affinity with the element and could use its property to slowly form a pool of Curse Energy.

He closed his eyes and let his consciousness sense the content of his Dantian: a vast green sea, surrounding a shapeless mass of blue spiritual energy. The first was his Earth Energy and the latter was his soul.

Standing firm in the middle of the formless blue mass, was a strange beam of dark green light. It was like a tower, trapped inside his own soul. Most of its surface was dark, while the rest was green. The colors represented his two affinities: Curse and Earth. That was his Willpower, or as most people called it: Soul Roots.

Sif took a large breath and started gathering the biggest quantity of Earth Energy he could and sending it directly towards the Curse part of his Soul Root. A giant stream of green energy darted in the air towards the dark part of the tower.

When the emerald Earth Energy crashed on the surface of his Soul Root, it started to rapidly be consumed and small particles of Curse Energy began to form in their place.

In the end, the giant stream of Earth Energy became a single strand of Curse Energy.

Sif stored the Curse Energy for a moment and took some time to check his conditions: he had lost approximately 60% of his Earth Energy in exchange for a single sliver of Curse Power.

He moved his fingers, causing a small strand of dark energy to move between them. He laughed softly: so much trouble for such a trivial amount of power.

With a simple motion, he pointed the energy towards the small metal chunk in his other hand, causing it to dart inside it. The Dark line flowed easily inside the object and rapidly arrived in the spot where the owner of the Menagerie had placed a soul imprint.

"Start!"

To begin, the Curse Energy attacked the power that was hiding the imprint. According to Sif's analysis that should be the bald child energy.

'Not bad, I didn't perceive anything out of the ordinary from that bald child… he was maybe a rank 1 fighter… but this energy is quite impressive'

Yet it was nothing for the black strand that covered the whole thing and started to slowly grind it down, while at the same time becoming bigger and bigger with more power it consumed. 'This won't take long…'

Far away, on the edges of the giant cave that had Fort Iron Gates at its center, there was a very inconspicuous looking cultivator cave. A white boulder blocked the entrance and it didn't look that different from several other similar places that had been caved on the walls of the giant cave.

Inside, however, the place looked completely different: numerous magic beast pelts covered the floor, large luminous crystals and floating lamps illuminated the large inner space of the cave and there were many little piles of treasures all around the place.

A young bald monk was standing next to one of the said piles, checking out a couple of weapons and armors. On his back, there was a very simple looking black knife, made of a single piece of metal.

Suddenly, the eyes of the young child shined with a surprise "Ah, he began with my imprint first! I guess in a couple of hours he will start working on Elder Li imprint… I still have time to check out another batch" He put down a crimson chest piece that he was checking and started to move towards another small mountain of random objects.

He had just started examining a finely decorated bronze ax, when a strange look appeared on his face and he suddenly stopped in place. "Uh? He already broke through my imprint? That's quick!"

The child rapidly sat down on the soft pelts on the ground and started making numerous incantation gesture to activate the profound defensive formations around his cave.

He then snapped a finger and rectangular white mirror appeared from thin air. The young boy put it on the ground before him and pointed at it one time. The surface of the object started to reflect back something different than the bald young child in front of him: it began to show a large fortified city, with two giant metal doors from which countless people moved in and out. It was without doubt Fort Iron Gates.

"Ha ha ha, in a few moments that moron will get his ass kicked by Elder Li" laughed the child looking with tears in his eyes towards the skies around the city in the mirror.

There was nothing in the world like looking unaware simpleton being beaten up by furious Elders. The look of surprise and despair in their eyes was something that he couldn't get enough of.

Time passed and passed, but the small child remained on the ground, maintaining the various defensive arrays of his abode and looking closely at the screen before him.

"Hmm, it seems that I underestimated Elder Li, such a patience! It's been weeks and he still hasn't shown himself…" A mocking look appeared in his young eyes. "Mph, want to compete in patience with me? Ahahaha, bring it!"

Time continued to pass, and the young monk stood there with a smile on his lips, popping a small pill in his mouth from time to time. However, in the fourth month since he started to wait for the elder to appear, suddenly a thunderous voice echoed in his mind.

"Faro, where is your communication band?"

The bald monk trembled. "Master…"

The voice echoed again, making the entire cave tremble. " Come back immediately! You will pass to your senior sister's abode to give her your condolences and then you will stay in seclusion until the Trials." Faro could feel the fury in his teacher's voice. He was terrified. He never heard him that angry in his entire life.

"Condolences?" An immense pressure came down on him, making him almost unable to breathe.

"Stupid child, if you had your communication band on you, you would know why." His master then simply cut off the connection, leaving the bald monk with an incredibly bad premonition. What happened that made his master so mad?

Faro looked around for a couple of minutes until he found a golden wristband and used it to send a message to one of his friends back at the Temple.

The response he received left him without breath. Elder Li was dead! He died months ago in a fight against those savages of the Dominion Faction.

Large tears started to pour down on his cheeks.

No, he wasn't crying for Elder Li. He barely knew him. He was crying for himself! If his master knew what he had done… no! If his senior sister realized what he had done…

In the past, he relied on the various Elders to take back the things he stole when who bought them tried to use them. He never thought something like this could ever happen to him.

"I need to find him!" Faro's eyes shined with determination. He started to move out of the cave, but then stopped and returned back. First, he had to gather all his things…

At the same time, inside the southern zone of the Fort, a young man with reddened eyes and a beard several months long, suddenly let out a long sigh of relief.

"Finally. I made it… this was so harder than what I thought… fuck I need a bath, I smell like a corpse…"

In the air near you black robed youth, there was a strange chunk of metal hovering around. It was the Menagerie that he finally bound to himself after several months spent working on it.

A distorted metallic voice echoed in the youth's mind.

[Operating System Online]