"You seem pretty confident in yourself for a monkey, but you have piqued my interest." He said while releasing him from his chokehold.
"Let me explain, uh…"
"You will call me Itz'tal."
"Then let me explain sir Itz'tal." What Ray was doing was betting on himself providing enough of a benefit to both Itz'tal and his master to justify keeping him alive. If what he gathered was correct, then they were too poor to afford to allow this operation to fail. Being poor himself he knew that there was one way to lead people like that to do what you want, and that was to give them something for cheap.
In this case that was his life. If he predicted their actions correctly then they would be trying to minimize their losses and he would try to take advantage of this. If he could convince them that not only was he a potentially valuable asset, but he was willing to go along with them then there was a chance that he wouldn't be killed in retaliation.
Then he could secretly build his strength in the meantime while he figured out a method to return to the old world. It seemed that increasing his mana was a good option but there was no telling how long that would take. When it came to the inventory spell he would only know what it was capable of when his mana reached a certain amount, so he couldn't plan ahead.
He could also use this time to learn as much from them as possible, any bit of information was invaluable to him and he doubted that they had none.
But all of this is if, and only if, Itz'tal's master wasn't short sighted enough to let short term anger blind him of the future gains. Not for nothing did he massacre hundreds of thousands of them and stolen what could only be described as precious cargo.
While this was a gamble he didn't like, he had no choice but to partake in it. If his opponent was anyone else, even if they were 3 times as strong as Itz'tal, then he would have booked it and teleported back to his soul sea. But Itz'tal was truly a bad matchup for him, no matter how fast he was there was no way for him to defend against spatial attacks.
After explaining what he could bring to the table, Itz'tal was shocked by the suggestions. But he was even more shocked that Ray could gather so much information from slight gestures and simple actions.
'It seems like I have underestimated this monkey. If what he said is true, then he might be valuable to my liege. But that being said.'
"You seem to value yourself very highly for such a weak monkey. I am curious as to where your confidence comes from, but if you can do half of what you claim to, then it is enough to keep your life."
'Thank god. I had to stretch the truth a little, or maybe a lot. Actually I lied a lot, but I seem to have convinced him. And there is nothing saying that I can't learn on the way.'
"But that being said it would be foolish of me to believe such claims with no evidence." As Itz'tal said this he raised his other hand and a strange marking appeared on it. It looked like a goat's skull with a snake running through it and it gave off a vicious energy.
"I have not forgotten the matter of the demon flute, but if you die from just this then you are not worthy and I can claim it from your corpse. Such a precious artifact is durable beyond your imagination so do not try to break it in retaliation, monkey."
Itz'tal slammed his palm into Ray's chest and an overwhelming sense of weakness washed over him. His muscles got locked in place, and his skin was burning. It felt like he was suddenly covered in blazing hot chains.
Naturally his talent tried to get rid of this irregularity, but he put all of his effort into suppressing it.
'Not now, if it gets cleansed immediately then he would get suspicious. I talked big game but he still has to think that I have to put in at least a little effort. If he finds out that it is a natural process there's no telling what he would do to me.'
He powered through the immense pain to maintain his act, but he wouldn't be able to last. Holding back his talent was building up a pressure inside of him that felt much worse than the curse he was inflicted with.
"If you want to hold up to your part of the bargain then I'd advise you to cleanse yourself of this curse and make your way to the Black Sands mountain range. If you try to run away, I will kill you. If you try to look for help, I will kill you. If the artifact gets stolen from you, I will kill you. And most importantly if you die, I will drag you back from impell myself and kill you. Do you understand monkey?"
Fighting through the pain, Ray put on a carefree smile. "It's Higan."
'Oh, to fight through the chains of impell and talk back to me without cleansing it. Impressive.'
"Whether or not you have a name is not up to you, monkey. And as it seems that such a curse is not enough of a test for you, I will give you one more."
He struck Ray in the abdomen and a red circle with an upside down triangle appeared and immediately the effects of the curse were multiplied 3 fold.
"Whether or not I have a name is not up to you, overgrown goblin." Since he was so close he could scan Itz'tal and saw that he and the one he saw previously were known as the kejin and they were distantly related to goblins.
Ray was not one to be insulted over and over again, and being called monkey over and over again didn't sit right with him. He didn't even know what a monkey was!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Itz'tal busted out in laughter. "It seems like I didn't give you enough credit, monkey. You are bold, I like that. But do not be mistaken, I let you live today."
He struck Ray in the forehead with his finger and a small pentagon hexagon in a circle appeared. Immediately he lost all sense of sight and touch and his hearing was slowly fading away.
"If you can manage to get yourself out of this then you have my respect monkey, but do not forget my warning. I am more than happy to claim the flute from your rotting corpse."
As his hearing was getting worse and worse it got harder to hear what he was saying and the last thing he heard was Itz'tal commanding the goblins to fall back.
'Good, he is gone.' Ray had not once turned mana sense off so he could tell exactly what was going on and noticed that after the goblins maybe their way out of the desert Itz'tal teleported away.
'Now that I am alone how about I deal with these, but first.' Using mana sense and looking inside of his body he committed every single detail to memory, and with his wisdom being so high it wasn't difficult to remember all of it.
After only a second a golden light appeared all over his body and all three of the effects disappeared from his body, with the one that sealed away his senses taking the longest.
"An artifact huh, if I remember correctly then to use the flute then I need to pour some soul power into it. I just have to make the most of it while I have it in my possession and break the soul mark when I eventually have to hand it over."
He looked around and seeing nothing else to do he teleported back to his soul sea. "And where the hell is the black sand mountain range."
...…
In a barren land far far away from Ray, Itz'tal was walking over to a decrepit building when he sensed something was wrong with the curses he placed.
"That was much faster than I thought. It seems like that monkey will be more useful to use than I thought. Higan was it? Hopefully he doesn't die just yet."
He walked into the building and laying there on a makeshift bed was a young boy that looked dead in every way except for the fact that he was breathing. What was strange about this boy was that instead of looking like Itz'tal, who was a kejin, this boy looked identical to a human.
"I can't believe I am turning to a human for help. But my hands are tied and I alone am not enough. I hoped that such a powerful curse as life drain could give me inspiration, but if that monkey can cleanse it as easily as he said he can, then maybe he can do the same for you."
"We are ready to go, your highness." A group of people appeared at the door, but as it was still night time their figures could not be made out.
Itz'tal rose to his feet and walked over to them. "Do not refer to me as such, any and all attachments we have to that place should be severed and that includes any and all titles I may have carried. Are we clear?"
"Yes sir!" All of them respond in unison.
"Good, now we have business to do." As he said that he and the group of people disappeared, leaving the young boy to sleep alone in the middle of an abandoned mountain range.