Restari Royal Palace

The reason for Terros seeking Deon out this time, going so far that he actually made the journey back up the mountain to visit him in person, was because he wanted answers.

Deon had been growing increasingly bold, selling more and more of the spirits that he refined. He continued to produce new spirits, even though the Kingdom of Restari had not supplied him with any of these recipes. In fact, even the kingdom did not possess many of these recipes…to tell the truth, some of these spirits had never been seen in the kingdom until now!

Terros wanted to know how Deon knew so many spirit recipes. Unexpected, he had uncovered a portion of this secret quite easily.

His other reason for approaching Deon this time was to establish a deal; a deal wherein Deon produced spirits and Terros sold them when they visited Flat Mount City. After realising that Deon possessed so many spirit refinement recipe books, Terros was even more eager to go ahead with this plan.

Deon realised that he had made a mistake. His blunder began weeks ago, when he started to increase the range and variety of the spirits that he was selling to the kingdom. He did this cautiously at first, gradually testing the waters. He had assumed that since nobody said anything, the spirits he revealed were still within reason, and that he was not yet arousing serious suspicion from Terros or anyone else in the kingdom…he was incorrect in this assumption.

Terros had long since been suspicious of Deon, in fact, his suspicions surrounding Deon started before their first meeting.

Terros's world view was much wider than these other shamans in the Kingdom of Restari. After continually monitoring Deon's movements through Shi, and after investigating his background thoroughly, he already believed that Deon might have inherited a shaman inheritance. Nothing else could really explain a child's sudden rise to prominence like this, especially when that child lacked any sort of background in this world.

Deon's second mistake was simple carelessness. He had allowed himself to become so engrossed in his study of the inheritance books, that he did not even notice someone approaching him! Deon knew that shamans often lost track of their surroundings when they became engrossed in training, but he also knew that letting himself fall into such a vulnerable situation was extremely dangerous.

If Terros had attacked him back there, he could have very well lost his life!

Deon had grown accustomed to successfully deceiving all those around him. This built up his levels of self-confidence to the point of arrogance, causing him to become careless.

This run-in with Terros was a cold reminder for Deon…

He was not infallible!

Like all people, Deon was prone to making mistakes, he was also susceptible to failure!

Deon realised that he had become conceited. Just because he could deceive and toy with these shamans from an ignorant mortal nation, did not mean that he was superior to shamans who actually possessed some capabilities when it came to plotting and scheming.

Thinking this, Deon's gaze landed on Terros. The middle aged man was wearing that greedy expression as he led Deon down the mountain, towards the Kingdom of Restari. The man's back was turned towards him, and for a moment, killing intent surged in Deon's heart.

He could undo this mistake, so long as he killed this person!

But Deon quickly suppressed this feeling, his gaze regaining its calm. Terros knew too much, he needed to die eventually, that was for certain. However, right now, he had more use alive.

Not to mention that Deon had no confidence in defeating this man in combat…

Rather than engaging in a gruelling battle to the death, Deon decided to agree to Terros's proposal for a business venture. Right now, they were heading back to the kingdom to make their preparations for the auction at Flat Mount City. Deon was fine with refining spirits on Jing Mountain, but Terros complained about how wasteful it was to constantly send deliveries up and down a mountain.

Soon enough, Deon returned to the Kingdom of Restari. This time, he did not settle down in the poverty stricken 5th district…he directly entered the royal district!

The royal district was the smallest district, but it was also the most lavish. Only members of the royal family lived here, the district was defined by a central palace which looked like it was carved out of a single block of marble.

Only nobles and military high officials would even be able to enter the royal district in their lifetime, but Deon didn't think anything of it.

Terros assigned Deon an entire hall within the royal palace. Nobody else was permitted to enter or exit this hall, leaving Deon alone, to refine spirits without any distractions.

He quickly found that refining spirits in the royal palace really was much easier compared to juggling his spirit refinement with other duties in an active warzone.

For now, Deon did not need to care about his military duties and the mountain war.

His men were told that he had duties elsewhere. Nobody even thought to question this, believing that due to his 'Special Commander' title, he had been assigned with some sort of secret mission.

Like this, Deon would be able to take a few weeks away from the mountain war. He needed this time away, because the Flat Mount City annual auction was to be held in one month time.

It would take them two days to reach the city when travelling on demonic stallions. The stallions were able to travel through the canyons between the mountains throughout the mountain range, unlike horses which would trip and break their legs on the rocky ground. They planned to leave one week before the auction though, as the city would grow overpopulated later on and they risked having to sleep outside for the duration of their stay if they arrived too late and couldn't find a place to stay.

In the mean time, it was obvious what Deon would be doing. With this auction coming up and a plan to sell spirits formulated between himself and Terros, Deon spent half of every day refining various spirits.

In the end though, there was only so much they could take with them. As such, Deon was continually refining new spirits and presenting them to the worldly king, who was able to roughly estimate their value based on a combination of the effect, ease of use, class, rarity and even appearance.

When he recognised the spirits that Deon refined, estimating the value was not difficult. When it was his first time even hearing of the spirit, the difficulty was much higher and his estimations would not be so accurate.

Deon and Terros had already decided that the platinum class body tempering spirits would be their core products to sell in the city. These spirits had a high demand amongst certain shamans who were attempting to use the body tempering spirits perfectly, from ordinary class up to mythril class. This practise was not common in mortal nations, but some more affluent shamans liked to focus their efforts on tempering their physical strength.

For the most part, it would be extremely difficult for Deon to refine anything surpassing the platinum class body tempering spirits in value, perhaps with the exception of a rare few gold class spirits, and other platinum class spirits.

But how could platinum class spirits be something common? The body tempering spirits were always at the bottom of their class in terms of value, but Deon didn't possess many platinum class refinement recipes, even when adding in the recipes he had learned recently.

That's not to say there were none, though.

There were a few other platinum class recipes, one third of which Deon attempted to refine over the coming days. He was unable to attempt the other refinements due to the lack of ingredients. Hopefully, they would be able purchase some of these ingredients in the city.

"Finally, success!" Deon exclaimed joyously, looking at the spirit in his hands with a burning gaze.

Aside from platinum class 1-Star spirits, there was another profitable avenue which he was now exploring: 2-Star spirit refinement!

Just now, he successfully refined the bronze class 2-Star suffering compression spirit. This was the spirit that would allow him to rapidly reach completion with his use of the bronze organs spirit!

Deon didn't even hesitate to activate the spirit after removing all of his 1-Star spirits aside from the bronze organs spirit. His number of bound spirits had gone over his 'limit', but the suffering compression spirit was expendable, he did not remain in this situation for long.

Instantly, a wave of nausea overcame Deon. It was so sudden that he immediately threw up, before collapsing to the marble ground as his body began spasming in agony.

"Grrrr…" Deon gritted his teeth and endured the discomfort, knowing that there was no real danger to this process. He only needed to go through this short period of suffering to save himself a substantial period of time.

The pain ramped up further and further, as did the spasms shaking Deon's body, until he eventually started frothing at the mouth. After ten minutes, the spasming was so violent that his body became like a blur. Light thudding sounds could be heard as Deon smacked the ground with a various parts of his body time and time again.

This looked horrendous, but it actually wasn't dangerous at all.

Suddenly, it was over. The bronze organs spirit dimmed down and became dormant, this showed that Deon had used the spirit to completion! It would need three months of intensive feeding if it was to recover to its past state.

As for the 2-Star suffering compression spirit, it vanished. This was an expendable spirit, it could only be used a single time. The spirit had now been used, after its activation came to an end, it disintegrated into dust.

After Deon sat up and exhaled, he tiredly re-bound his 1-Star spirits. After binding the shimmering bed bug spirit, much of his mental energy recovered and his mind's speed of recovery accelerated multiple fold.

Next, he bound the silver organs spirit.

"Now I need to succeed in refining the 2-Star silver suffering compression spirit…this is a bit expensive, I should practise more with other 2-Star spirits." Deon decided.

After living in the royal palace for two weeks, Deon had refined countless spirits time and time again. He was even supplied with 2-Star drop spirits to support his origin energy's recovery!

Since Terros decided to invest heavily in this trip, Deon was granted more or less anything he wanted within reason. Of course, if he asked for something really expensive, he would need to justify himself and show Terros what he was planning to refine.

Was this Terros's way of showing his kindness?

Of course not. Terros viewed Deon as a machine which needed to be provided with fuel in order to produce goods.

Likewise, Deon viewed Terros as a walking piggy bank.

For now, their relationship was mutually beneficial. For now.