Their moral could be uplifted once they regained their freedom. I simply wasn't in the mood to put on my nice pleasant attitude. Checking all these slaves took time. The vast majority had injuries in one form or another. Many of those injuries were fairly minor.
The woman had it the worst. They were torn in places that were not to be mentioned. I sat down when I was done checking them all. I'd used the vast majority of what little mana I'd managed to regain. I was more then a little surprised that these slaves were so well taken care of.
The woman were the only ones that weren't cared for. It wasn't as if they were filthy or anything like that. No they'd just been raped, and beaten multiple times. It was to the point where they flinched away from a man's touch. They didn't react to me the same way they did the other men here.
Maybe they knew on an instinctual level that I wasn't interested in them at all. Maybe they could tell they wouldn't be able to stop me even if they tried. I didn't care which it was. I healed them all equally. Skipping past the ones I knew wouldn't make it.
I did feel a little guilty knowing that if I'd taken the time to study like Aurora I might be able to save a few more of them, but I wasn't going to pretend I was the perfect healer either. If they died then they died. The fact that I could save some of them was enough. I debated on looking at my notifications again. Something was definitely different.
I focused on that feeling for a few minutes before realizing that I no longer felt myself making ripples in time. I pulled up the notification to confirm it before sorting through the memories that broken blackened core granted me.
***You have fused with the time element.***
The core came from a spirit. A high ranking one from what I could tell. Probably on par with Gaia before he fell from grace. Cracking his core, and becoming a twisted elemental entity that could only feed upon mana, and not generate it. The reason it had fueled my fusion with the time element was because it was a spirit of light, and time.
Known as a great spirit of the cycle of life before it surpassed what it could control, and shattered it's core. Most beings would simply die when their core was shattered. Spirits didn't have that luxury. They would continue to exist as long as they consumed enough mana to keep their core together. Forever in indescribable pain.
The wand had acted as a stabilizer for this spirit's shattered core, and prevented it from dying. Allowing the wielder to effectively bring this creature back into physical being as long as they didn't allow it to grow big enough to sustain itself it would remain under control. The bandit leader had made the mistake of giving it too much mana, and that mistake had turned out to be a lethal one. The spell beast had thanked me in it's last moments. Now all the mystery I had to think about was the voice that had spoken to me, and told me of the soul flame.
Even now I couldn't grasp the shape of the voice. The notion that it was male was the only thought that allowed me to remember that I'd been spoken to in the first place. I'd probably forget that this voice had spoken to me soon if I didn't do something to cement this voice into my mind. I reached out of Vixen. Commanding her to fix that memory in my mind.
To preserve it so it couldn't fade with time. The memory had already degraded a great deal in a short time. Almost as if the memory was intentionally getting erased. Vixen had to consume over a dozen unimportant memories in an attempt to preserve the memory. I gave her permission to consume all the memories I had of eating or relieving myself up until my time on the elven planet.
Granted I doubted that any of my eating or bathroom memories were important, but I needed to be cautious, and preserve my memories of the elven planet for now. Sekka started prepping the slaves to move. We'd been here nearly two weeks now. The slaves had been well fed that entire time, and our food reserves were running low. Now that they were healed there was nothing holding us here.
I made sure to erase the portal I used to teleport the slaves out of here. Creating over a dozen small portals to leave false trails with. We ushered the slaves through in bulk. I broke the enchantment that was woven into their collars as they passed. My lack of hostility almost seemed to comfort some of the slaves.
Being well fed, and cared for allowed them to calm completely in my presence. Although Sekka had been the one doing most of the caring for the slaves they knew I was the one that provided the muscle that allowed them to be freed. I was usually viewed as dangerous or even hostile so it was a refreshing change to be seen as a savior. I sighed heavily as the last one went through the portal. Allowing the portal to collapse in on itself before blinking over to our birds who had been brought to the camp by Sekka not long after I took over the camp.
I jumped up on the back of the second bird, and changed back to my slave clothes. I put the spatial storage band back on my arm, and pulled my mask away from my face. I felt someone's eyes on me. I turned to look in the direction the gaze was coming from. I smirked knowing that those eyes wouldn't be able to see me clearly unless I wanted them to.