038 Silent Monastery

"Do you know that girl?" Ralph was the only one to notice Liam's reaction, all of the others were too focused on the grand elder's speech and the reveal of his new disciple.

Liam was unsure of what to say to Ralph. "I guess it's pointless to Lie, he might not know of what happened that day, due to him only being active during the night, but soon enough he is going to find out. There were thousands of witnesses, it would only cause me more problems later on." Liam thought it all out in his head and then made the decision to tell Ralph.

"Yes, I know her. She is my sister." Liam gave the shocking news to Ralph.

"Your sister is the grand elder's personal disciple?" Ralph couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Liam only nodded and said nothing further, to let Ralph process the information.

"Why are you only telling me now and why don't you have any special benefits as well, are you too not in good terms?" Ralph couldn't understand how his sister was the disciple of the grand elder, only behind the sect leader and yet Liam was a basic commoner in the sect.

"We're in good terms, it's just that." Liam stopped for a few seconds. "Hayley did not choose to be grand elder Grant's disciple." Liam pause again.

"What?" Ralph was confused. Usually, someone would give everything to have a master at that level, protection, cultivation resources and techniques. You would have everything you needed for your cultivation journey.

"My sister was poisoned and I had no way of saving her. She had a total of 7 days to live if something didn't change. The first few days passed, she was in a vegetative state, unconscious. That's when elder grant appeared." Liam started explaining, as he recalled the scene from that day. "Elder grant noticed me and my sister having no sect emblem, seeing that we were runaways he came to take a look. It seems as if my sister is very talented, grand elder grant noticed that and he took her away from me. I tried to stop him, but in return he broke almost every bone in my body, leaving me on the ground to suffer. After he left, he had sent people to find me, and bring me to a sect, which eventually happened when we were captured." Liam said in full.

"I knew they wouldn't be able to catch us normally, they were looking for us." Ralph said.

"Yes, they were looking for us because of me. I'm sorry." Liam put his head down.

"Why are you saying sorry?" Ralph said to him.

"They found us because of me, I ruined your plan. Aren't you mad?" Liam asked, still his head down.

"Don't worry about it, it all ended up okay after all. Now I have you, Peter and Aria. And I would still be at the third human realm if I stayed in that city." Ralph said in a joking matter, but when he looked towards grand elder Grant, his expression dimmed. "He will pay for what he has done to my friend.

While Liam and Ralph were speaking about another topic, all of the others were thinking of a more impending problem.

"What do we do about the fifth member on our team? Most of the disciples are already in a team since they live in houses of five. The top 1000 are also wanted by everyone so they also quickly form a team." Peter said, as he frantically looked around for someone.

"Look, she's alone and she isn't getting approached by too many people. Maybe we have a chance?" Aria said.

Liam looked to where Aria was pointing and to his surprise, he saw Olivia. "This is the girl that fought in the arena, the one that used weird plants. Look out, she is in the top 1000." Liam said when he saw the beautiful fiery red hair, flowing from the girl's head.

"Let's go, I'll ask her, as I am the only girl here." Aria said as she went towards the girl.

A few minutes later, she came back with Olivia walking besides her.

"Olivia here has agreed to join our team." Aria introduced Olivia in excitement.

"Two fifth human realms and two peak fourth human realm cultivators. Not too bad I guess." Olivia said quietly.

"Why did you choose to go with us, you're in the top 1000 right?" Ralph was skeptical of Olivia motives, so he wanted to question her a bit.

"I am a new addition to the top 1000. Most of the disciples around my rank are friends of the guy I beat. Now they are angry with me and don't want to let me find a team. You are the first team with more than 1 fifth human realm cultivator, that has tried to approach me." Olivia explained why she chose them.

"We'll be happy to have you." Peter said, as he almost seemed to be drooling when he looked at Olivia, as if she was a priced desert that he could only look at.

Liam and Ralph were laughing at Peter's behavior, when two boys came and tapped each of them on their shoulders. Then one of the boys said to Ralph and Liam.

"I need to speak with you, what type of beast crystals you need." The boy said quickly and robotically.

"Owen." Both Liam and Ralph instantly knew, it was Owen who had sent these random boys to deliver the message. They couldn't afford to be seen speaking together in this massive crowd.

Liam and Ralph said nothing and only followed after the two boys, who started walking towards the perimeter forest just outside the valley where everyone was currently gathered. After a bit more than 15 minutes, they had arrived at a big tree. There was a small door that seemed to be made for dwarfs. The two boys left and Liam and Ralph were standing there, ready to make a decision.

"We already walked all the way here, let's just head in." Liam said and Ralph agreed.

They opened the small door in the giant tree and managed to enter inside somehow.

"You finally came." Owen said to them as he took a sip from his tea. There was only a table with three chairs inside the tree. One of the chairs was occupied by Owen, as he signaled to them to sit down.

"You know why I brought you here, what element do you two have. I thought it was simple water and fire, but I saw your flames, those are not flames of the regular fire element." Owen said as he looked towards Ralph.

"I have phoenix flames. The easiest way to get the 10 beast crystals would be to feed high quality fire beasts golden revive berries." Ralph said to Owen, as he had already planned this all out.

"So, I'll need to find 10 golden revive berries, what a pain." Owen already knew about the way to change a beast's element. The golden revive berries added a certain quality to the consumers element, which resulted in beast having a phoenix flame. The problem was, that the berries were really rare.

"What about you. Don't tell me you have some special black turtle water spirit." Owen said half-jokingly, but he did indeed need to check Liam's element.

"Albert hasn't told him about my element?" Liam was surprised as more than a week had passed since that day.

"I have the murky spirit water element." Liam said calmly.

"Why did I ever offer you such a deal." Owen was regretting his actions before. If he knew about their special elements, he would have never given them this deal. "Don't worry, I always keep my promises, you will have your 10 crystals by the end of the expedition."

"I have something to tell you. I need to warn people about it, but I don't know who should I tell." Liam said as Ralph looked at him in shock. Even Ralph had no idea what Liam was talking about.

"Some inner court disciples from the silent monastery and the eternal star hall are planning on attacking us outer court disciples on this expedition. They seem to be angry that our sect disrespected them at a previous moment." Liam told everything he knew, everything he had overheard form the two drunks in Regalshire.

"We had a little fight competition between the sects, our mystical turtle sanctuary dominated above all of the other sects. The silent monastery is the second-best rated sect in the southern continent, but we still beat them easily." Owen explained a bit, as he knew Liam and Ralph wouldn't know what happened as they were still on the run at that time. "Thank for your information but don't worry. 40 of the top 100 are part of the cursed faction and we will all rush to collect 10 crystals then breakthrough in the first day. Even their inner court disciples will be no match for us then. And the 1000 inner court disciples from our own sect. They will only embarrass themselves.

"You head back first, I'll follow after you a bit later, we still have to stay separated. Everyone should have registered their team by now and the expedition will begin." Owen said.