"Dating back from the early stages of Tanon Kingdom, this area used to be called 'Underworld's Mother Nature'."
"This very forest, during the past was renowned by its mysteriousness. At day and night, when passing by from this very forest, the citizens claimed to have seen creepy silhouettes. The people whom have seen them kept on suddenly disappearing one by one and never returned. One day, a kid who have seen the silhouettes but had escape the catastrophy by a hair, told what she witnessed to the authorities.
"She said that she and her friend, was captured by the very silhouette they have seen together. It was tall and thin and had skeletal fingers. They were all black except for their bloody eyes. They brought them to a remote location and suddenly, the creature became a tree. She witnessed her friend being stabbed by its branches and slowly, the body was rapidly detoriating until her friend was nothing but bones. A black light from the tree encompassed the corpse and slowly, her friend became one of the silhouettes. She then turned into a sapling while the one who turned her into one had a growth spurt.
"The creepy tree then faced its attention back to the girl and directed its branches towards her. Luckily the girl had a teleportation artifact with her and managed to escape before the branches were able to land. But, when she finshed her story to the authorities, the next day, she was found missing again.
"The first person, whom she had spoken this to, her mother turned insane after a month when her daughter disappeared. One time she visited a friend, inside the guest room, she had this peculiar feeling and couldn't sleep. She then found a painting of a girl coincidentally staring back at her. She felt the painting was beautiful and zoomed in on it. It was a shame that the face's features was a blur. Morning came and when she opened her eyes to admire the painting once again, she found out that the spot where the painting was supposed to be at, turns out that it was a window! After that, every night even back at her home, the scene kept on repearing until she finally commited suicide."
Argen had a chill on his spine. He wanted to tell him that 'You're creeping the sh*t out of me!'
He tried to calm his beating heart. So the trees around them were like 'living' corpses of humans?
Even though Argen was hesitant, he urged the butler to continue since some questions haven't been answered.
"The kingdom then constructed a wall around the forest to prevent any more victims. In the middle of a forest was strangely a wide open area. So the kingdom decided to let this place be a watchtower. They made a wall-detour for its road inside the forest. Now the forest looked like it was halved because of the road and in the middle lay a wide spot. Of course, the area beyond the forest's walls is not vacated and have buildings and houses in the vacinity for the citizens.
"Because of the past king's grudges about his brother, Master Arnold Geriko or Miss' great-grandfather, was forcefully given this place as a 'gift' and responsibility. Time passes by and the peculiar happenings didn't appear anymore. Although we don't dare step inside the forest, we attribute it to the it wall and the Geriko family's presence that made this possible! After that till now, the watchtower then slowly developed into this mansion!" The butler finally ended his long story with a proud look and expectantly studied Argen's expression.
Argen let out an inspired look and gave praises to the family. Inside, he couldn't help but contort in an ugly expression.
'F*ck, if beyond this tiger's den is hell, then am I doomed to be raped as soon as I was just reformed?' He felt like crying but his tears wouldn't budge.
The butler did not stop his story there and bragged about the Geriko family's power.
"Although in the past, the Geriko family and the main royal family were at odds, now they are the whole as a diamond again! Unbreakable! Plus, we have 10 lower Sky Martials and 5 middle ranked Sky Martials at our command!"
'What?! When I first scanned the place, there was only one Sky Martial Artist and it was that vixen!' Argen thought and panicked.
"Well currenly they are still not available since all of them were sent out on a 4-star mission, but that still doesn't change the fact that we are strong! That's why sir, you are so lucky to have captured miss' heart! She has been messing around with other men until now, but I know you will be different from them!" The butler gave a thumbs up and a sincere smile.
Although the night when Argen was first bought, there were indeed silent attackers (kidnappers) sent to take him away, they failed even though the majority of the Sky Martials weren't present. It was because of the terrian and teritorial advantages Rena has. The remaining upper Earthly Martials were sufficient to deal with them.
The once nervous individual sighed in relief inside as soon as he heard those Sky Martials were out for now.
He had already decide to escape today at night if there weren't any powerful thugs or mishaps were to come. Well if the b*tch decided to pounce on him now, Argen also didn't mind escaping in daytime. But his pace won't be as fast as during the night's since the veil of darkness won't be able to shroud his figure from the enemies' eyes.
Argen already knows how to bypass the room, the wall, the security, the servants and the siblings. All he needs now is an escape route or destination. The forest is out of the question.
Or is it?
If only his system part or the SAI's soul could identify the place and prove the butler's words wrong, he would finally have a peace of mind.
The butler respectfully exited and locked the door.
Argen stared in a daze for a long time.
"The Geriko family does not dare to step inside the forest. So what if I escape into the forest and limit my sight only to the ground to avoid seeing those silhouettes? I can then use my divine scrutiny to update the map until finally I reach the other side of the wall and have my freedom!"
"Wait, if I used my divine scrutiny and happens to see those silhouttes, won't I be doomed? Well practically they are the trees, but according to the butler's words, only the people whom have seen the creatures are harmed and not in their tree form. Oh yeah, I can just alter my divine scrutiny to scan the landscape and do not include living creatures and stuff.
"But I won't be able to see the trees locations then since they are the creepy creatures. There's the large possiblity I could bump into them because it did not show from the map.
"So should I alter my divine scrutiny to show dots instead? A black dot for every tree and a red dot for the animals and the unidentified creatures?"
A divine scrutiny, in cultivation world's common knowledge, couldn't possibly have this function. Only a system has.
Futhermore, only when one reaches Sky Martial would they unlock this ability! Only a 50 meter area of circumference is what they will have and it improves when you advance in rank. However a system, such as Argen has 100m as soon as he was sent to his host. He retained this function even until he was reformed.
"Yeah. That's a good plan!" He then praised himself inwardly before he resumed cultivating.
He was lying in wait for either the vixen or nighttime to come.
________
Sunset.
The stench of blood and gore filled the area inside the dungeon for high-tier criminals.
Bone-chilling shrieks and screams resounded in a particular cell until it gradually went back in eerie silence.
5 chained individuals spasmed in pain with their arms and legs visciously tied onto the wall with spiky chains. Their body was filled with blood and no area was free of it. Their intestines gushed free and one of the member's skull was deformed and the brain was out to be seen. There was even a person who had his head cut off and was now lying on the ground.
Although they looked like corpses with no chance to live again, one of them still wasn't dead since that individual consumed a banned pill that introduces immortality for 3 days but in exchange would be the eradication of their families' body and soul.
"So the pills you tried hard to protect, really had such results huh." In a distant corner where a steel table with numerous torturing weapons was located, a male was flipping some documents while giving a stern look at one criminal. The documents contained news about the criminal's family, even the distant blood-related, suddenly dying and disappearing in a tragic way at the same time the chosen individual consumed the pills. "So, what happens when the 3 days end? Seeing your body is pitifully in corpse shape, won't you immedietly die after the time limit is up?" The man taunted the remaining survivor.
"You...!" The separated head gritted its teeth. "I WILL KILL YOU!!! We worked bard to obtain those two pills and you just wasted it like that! You should just di---!"
"Oh shut up! We kept the other pill for investigation!" A female, then appeared and stepped on it. "You think those pills we fed them was this? Dream on! This is a banned pill! It's an evil trump card in a way!"
"Rena" The male called up to his sister and spoke. "Now that they have devolve every scrap of information they have, I think its about time we should tell his majesty about that rebellion that they are talking about. I mean, look at the pills. Just one swalloe of this from the emperor and we're done for! Luckily the Sky Martials we sent manage to intecept them with great difficulty, even getting heavily injured in the process, and caught them. But I'm sure the other rebel's assasination group will surely save them because of this. Those traitors..." The man trembled in a rage.
"Brother, how many days do you think before they are able to bypass this place and save them?"
"Since when we first captured the Night Rangers, the palace then tripled its security. So maybe, 3-4 days perhaps? Well, let us inform His Majesty about this. Rena, you should go back home and prepare yourself. Inform dad too through the communication jade. After that, come back here tomorrow and help out."
Rena nodded and with her seductively blood-stained dress, she exited the high-tier dungeon gracefully.
'I should 'act' tonight' She thought and smiled bewitchingly as she imagined a handsome silhouette.
-----
"Achoo!" Argen's cultivation was suddenly interrupted with a rare sneeze.
He opened the mission panel to see his progress and found out that he only needs 20 more minutes to advance to Earthly Martial 2.
After 20 minutes came, Argen felt a boom inside him as if he had just broken a shackle inside of him. Impurities then came gushing out from his skin. He felt his body much lighter than before.
Argen took out the new clothes, the butler sent inside while he was in meditation, and change into it after he had taken a nice and fresh bath.
He spent the 3 reward points on AGI. He now has a speed comparable to an Earthly Martial 5 even though he's in Earthly Martial 2!
The individual inside sat on his bed and rejoiced when he saw the mission panel flashing a set of words.
[Random Technique Draw. The names of the techniques will be unreadable as they rapidly flash. You just need to tap onto the panel and it will stop onto the specific technique that your finger tapped]
[These are the grades of the techniques available in the random draw and the possibily of being chosen.
Low/medium/high
Mortal grade 50%
Firmament grade 25%
Perfection grade 15%
Peerless grade 8%
Eternal grade 1.9%
??? 0.1%
(Start?)]
"Start" The panel then turned golden and in the middle area were blurs of words rapidly flashing that Argen couldn't even familiarize a letter.
"I hope luck is with me this time" Argen closed his eyes and nervously reached out his fingers and tapped the rapid words.
*ding*
[Congratulations. You've receive a Cultivation Set of the Perpetual Supreme Grade. You are now banned to receive cultivation techniques from random draws or from others]
"Huh?"