It took less than a day for every neighboring city to hear of the three masters that broke into the Frost family's mansion to leave two paths and an item.
The Night family wasn't the only family that posted notices offering valuable items as rewards.
The Sky family offered their fractured sky stone, the Naturae family offered their ancient sapient twisted root, even the city lord's own family, the Sangre family, offered three of their ten trillion year old heart crystal shards if the three unidentified masters would reveal themselves and offer them items to help with their cultivation methods.
Salem, observing through the bugs he had placed all over the town felt his interest pique when he read the notice for the Naturae family.
"It's interesting that plant life in this Verse can attain sapience." Salem said, relaxed against a tree with Ruby observing the town with little drones of her own creation slowly floating upwards to give them all an aerial view. "I wonder..."
"As interesting as it would be, we shouldn't go personally." Alina said. "I'm going to try and summon my first Spirit Companion and we can send Reaper and my summon."
"Would they not be offended?" Ruby asked. "They seem to be obsessed with things like 'face' and 'honor' and such."
"I bet they'll just think we're cautious." Salem said after a moment of thought. "Who in their right mind would just waltz in there without a care in the world to receive an item?"
"That's fair." Ruby nodded.
Alina sat in front of them and activated her Spirit Summon skill and the three of them watched as a shape coalesced in front of her.
Once the shadows formed the outline of Alina's summon, tendrils began moving like the tentacles of some abyssal beast as they slowly refined into a figure wearing pitch-black armour.
It didn't speak like Salem's did, and it didn't have a Spirit Tool, but Alina seemed pleased with it.
It knelt in front of her, bowing its head in supplication, as Alina began thinking of a name.
"Cthulhu" Salem suggested.
"Sure." Alina nodded. "Your name is now Cthulhu."
Cthulhu nodded its armoured head, not moving any part of its body aside from its head.
"Show us what you can do." Alina ordered.
Cthulhu stood and looked around for a target.
Ruby created a target in front of Cthulhu.
"Use the target." Alina said when Cthulhu looked at her for confirmation.
Cthulhu nodded and raised a hand, gathering a purple light in its hands before releasing it accurately and reducing the target to dust.
"Interesting." Salem said, stirring the dust with his toe. "It's like Cthulhu destroyed the bonds between the atoms and reduced them into atom sized granules. But how?"
"Perhaps it just changed state?" Alina suggested. "Or it was restructured?"
Salem made an iron bar and had Cthulhu turn it into dust. He then melted it and examined the finished metal to see if it were different.
There was no qualitative difference between the original and the final product.
"Anything else you can do?" Alina asked Cthulhu.
Cthulhu took of its helm and stared into a bush in the distance.
After less than a second a sleek black fox dazedly walked towards them before curling up at Alina's feet.
"Mind control." Salem noted. "Amazing, yet slightly terrifying."
"I'm keeping him." Alina announced, picking it up and petting it.
Cthulhu nodded and placed its palm upon the fox's head for a second before stepping back.
After a few seconds the fox appeared to come to its senses and stared at Alina in shock.
That shock lasted for only a brief moment before it nuzzled its face against Alina's shoulder and proceeded to fall asleep in her arms.
"My system interface now shows a 'taming' tab." Alina said. "Cool."
"Now we need another name for it then." Ruby laughed. "How about we call him Curly."
"Uh..No." Alina quickly rejected the name.
"What about Foxy?" Ruby wanted to name the fox badly. "Harry? Clarence? Franky? Nightshade?"
"How about Shade?" Alina said, interrupting Ruby.
The newly named Shade yawned adorably and blinked at her.
"So, how about we send all three?" Salem suggested. "That way it seems like all three of us are represented.''
....
Thorne stared at the slip of paper a sliver of shadow had just delivered to him.
The black paper was rolled and tied with a maroon bow, and the edges of the paper were a bright red.
He reached out tentatively and touched the paper before rapidly retracting his hand, fearing for his safety.
The wards around his office should have been sufficient to stop anything tangible. Yet a Shadow Lord's shadow was able to pernitrate it and even bring a message.
'Why can't powerful cultivators use the front door?' Thorne complained mentally.
After staring at it for almost five minutes, Thorne finally worked up the courage to open the letter.
Holding the exquisitely smooth paper with both his hands, he slowly unrolled it to read its contents.
Within the letter was one sentence:
"You have piqued our curiosity."