If before they were tempted a little while hearing about the wood law item, now after seeing the item, their desire has directly jumped from 4 to 10 on the scale of 10.
Ram, seeing this, smiled and said,
"This item is a gift from this clown to you, leader Natasha, and your men here, and let's not discuss this item ever again. There are other items for you village elders and people, and of course those items are not free; they could only be traded."
Wooden Village was going through some trouble, and this wood-law embedded product could be useful in enhancing cultivation or learning law if lucky, so
Natasha nodded and took the parrot sculpture and kept it silently in her storage ring. She looked at her men, who were greedily looking at the parrot before, and said, "What are you all looking at? There is nothing to look at here.
She then pointed at all of them and said, "Did any of you see me take anything before?"
"No," all the men said together. She nodded and told one of her men to open the gate for the ram and his team to enter the village.
"I can't promise you a direct meeting with the village leader or the elders, but I can try to arrange the meeting; you all will stay in the village's open house while I go and speak to the elders."
Natasha turned to enter the village, followed by Ram, Hanu, and Prakhar, who were followed by security personnel from the wooden village.
It could be easily seen from this that, though they were given entry, they were extremely restricted.
Ram observed his surroundings and looked at the man who had mocked him by saying 'little'. Though he was above 6 feet, he had observed that most of the people were taller, and the usual height was above 7 feet, so yes, he was smaller in that sense. Though he was not the type to hold grudges, he knew how to poke.
…..
Ram, Hanu, and Prakhar entered the wooden village from the tree gate. Ram felt some type of barrier that he had passed; he had cultivated the space law, so he could immediately feel the space twisting. He thought this space twisting was only felt by him because he could see that Hanu and Prakhar were fine, as if they didn't feel anything.
He felt that it could either be because they were too frequent with the space gate or because they didn't understand the space law, so they couldn't feel the space twisting. His doubt was cleared by the system, which informed him that it was because of the latter. If one doesn't understand or cultivate the law of space, or if one has no talent for the law of space, one can never feel the twisting of space that is stable.
Ram had travelled and stayed numerous times in the secret world, but he could say that the space twisting that he just felt here in the Rudra world was very hard; it was kind of brittle. He didn't know how to compare it, but he felt like this space was very rigid compared to the secret world, which felt very smooth.
He and his team member kept on following Natasha while still being surrounded by the security men, and soon after twists and turns, they reached an open house (literally, an open house as there was no roof on top) kind of place where they were made to sit and wait. while Natasha and her men went wherever they were meant to go.
…..
In the open house.
"Ram, this was not the plan; why did you say you are a trader?"
He opened his eyes, looked at Hanu, and said
"I don't want to be rude, but your way of doing things wouldn't have given access to the wooden village."
"Hanu I know you are not sure what to do next, but if you just let me think for some time, I'll figure something out. Just let's be silent for some time and let me think."
Hanu understood him and kept quiet, while Prakhar could be seen standing and fiddling with the things kept in the open house. He had a strange feeling that, after some time, one or two things from this open house might go missing soon.
After some time, Natasha came back and said
"I am sorry the village leader is occupied and can't meet you, but I have arranged for an elder who looks after the management to come; he will be here sometime." Natasha said this while looking a little guilty. Ram could see her expression and tell that she had tried her best.
"It's fine. Thank you." Ram said this with a polite smile while Natasha exited the open house and waited for the elder to come.
Ram looked at Prakhar and Hanu and said,
"I'll do the talking. No matter what I say, please stay in my favour or keep quiet."
Prakhar looked confused and nodded, while Hanu felt something bad was surely going to happen soon.
Knock, knock…
There was a knock at the door, and then the door opened and
A tall man with little overweight physique entered the open house, followed by Natasha and the security man, who had been rude to Ram earlier.
If he had not seen the villagers when coming towards the open house and only seen Natasha and her men along with only this elder, he might have thought the rumours of disappearance were just rumours, but he had seen with his eyes and through his mental perception that there was too much poverty and famine along with a lot of empty houses all around. Though the place was, as the name suggested, full of trees and forest, and everywhere there was too much wood prana, he could feel one more prana element. He was sure he had felt this prana somewhere before, but he couldn't remember where, and when he asked the system to clarify his doubt, the system answered him with silence.
He was glad that Natasha had informed him that a management elder was visiting; otherwise, due to the physical build and lavish clothes on the person, he would have mistaken him for a leader of this village.