Glues.
Other foreigners might be clueless about them, but not Ethan, he was very aware of what the glues meant.
They were things capable of connecting a foreign soul with the new body's Wuma bead, allowing them to use the abilities inside them.
Wu inside them.
Yet were these glues that glue the body and soul together only useful for that, to glue body and soul?
No, that was absolutely not the case.
These glues were in fact just a part of another person's soul. Not just any other person but a person who was about to break past into the next stage of Wuma, the stage after the three Beads are all inside the body.
And these soul parts, outside of this special person's body and inside another person's body...corrupts them.
Making them a puppet or even a clone.
This was the method the big lineages used to control the otherworlders — people from one of the seven divisions.
Even if the 'puppet' later on breaks past the 3 Wuma bead stage, it wouldn't matter.
Their core would have been corrupted enough.
They would have been easy to be enslaved in both mind and body. And the person whose soul is used as a glue?
They had only benefits.
Obvious benefits from a slave for one, and as they are almost at all times one of the core descendants of the big clans — people rich enough to go through a totem dance — a push to the next stage breakthrough due to absorbing their newfound abilities.
Just like this 'Wine' had absorbed old Wine's golden eyes.
The thoughts flashed in his mind as he looked up at the abyss like opening upwards, it was a huge chasm, just going upwards.
The maids dangled down on the rope, their bodies aching, their minds fearing.
Each and every one of the 8 maids and 3 youths were struggling to even breathe.
Wine looked at him with a pale face, and said with a quivering heart, "They... They never did anything to you!"
Ethan smiled and asked a curious question instead of answering, the knowledge he had didn't speak about this after all, "Wine, how old are you? 50? 100? or even 200?"
He smilingly scrutinized her pale face, she looked young and youthful below her fear.
After the creation of every Bead, people grow younger, every birth of a new bead allowed people to live a hundred more years in general.
So looks, they were the most deceiving of all.
What if she was a century-old monster before she sealed her memories and became Wine?
Now that she had awakened, she would have been troublesomely cunning.
Furious yet equally afraid, Wine didn't respond to his question, but swallowed and said, her voice shaking slightly, "I can tell you the details, all the details, of achieving perfect control over the body and combining with the Wuma beads," her heart quivered at the mere thought of letting people who had helped her die.
"But you have to swear another oath to promise me you won't go against your word, you have to leave all of them alive and safe, no harm is allowed."
Ethan smiled, then said, "No."
Wine gritted her teeth, "Why?"
"Swear an oath on your lineage that you will never pursue me, never do something harming to me like giving out information on me, and never scheme against me with all the added details of body mastery," Ethan's golden eyes zoomed in on the dangling people, "or else each of them dies, I just have to say it aloud, my men will cut the rope."
"...your men?" Wine asked dubiously, her heart shivering at the thought, 'Were they the ones who killed the Ancestor of Everhart?'
"Oh, you don't have to know that, just swear the oath."
Wine turned silent, all of the people from the seventh division in this last era had been troublesome individuals.
All of them.
The Era of Alexander happening there was really making it a place of chaos, birthing many heroes.
Yet this guy, why was she the one to end up in his maw?
"I can swear to not harm you as long you don't harm any of my interests," Wine said with a firm tone, that was her last stand.
If he rejected that...
"Fine," Ethan chuckled while rubbing his bald head, his voice echoing in the background, "I swear by the blood of Everhart that I will not kill them as long as you do what you promised."
Wine contemplated and then nodded, her bicolored eyes struggling, "I swear by the blood of snow that I will do as I promised as long as they are not killed by anyone till the end of this week."
Ethan frowned, tsk, a silent resonance linked them both, a contract, unbreakable as long as blood flowed inside them was signed.
"Now girl, tell me what you owe me," he said with a calm face and sat down on the ground.
Truly calm.
His plans were all going well until this point, just as how it should be.
"What do I do to Master myself?" he asked, like a student to a teacher, his face adorned with a smile.