Sam looked around to find out that all the other candidates also arrived along with him and has same looks of surprise as him.

Moriya looked at all the candidates and since there are all of them present, he sighed in relief.

But he noticed something else.

After the initial surprise, everyone has a guarded expression as they looked suspiciously at each other.

He immediately understood what the matter is no matter how weak a person's performance is they should have at least gotten something inside the palace and now they are guarding it like a precious treasure.

Moriya cleared his throat and said.

"Don't worry everyone. Your things are yours and yours alone. Unless you are willing to share them yourselves, nobody is going to force you to hand them over, at least not on this Thunder god temple's territory. I promise you that with the honour of our temple on the line."

Then only some people calmed down a bit.

Then Moriya continued.

"Today the thunder god temple is inviting you officially to join our temple as inner disciples, you will be given access to the same resources as our inner disciples and can get mentored by our Elders and Great elders, if you can prove your worth, you can even become direct disciples of the Grand Elders and Temple Head himself.

Of course, it is completely understandable if you don't want to join now or if you want some time to visit your home, the thunder god temple will not force you and we still guarantee your safety.

Many candidates from the four empires became excited as they felt that this is a dream come true, they started discussing more than half of them agreed to join and remaining half wanted to visit their home before coming back,

Philip and Jack asked Sam if he was going to join and Sam only replied.

"I am not, I still have lot of things to see in the empire. What about you two?"

"Well, I cannot stay in the Thunder God temple, I have some serious issues regarding that." Philip said with a smile.

"I also have things to do in the empire." Jack also said.

This way, three of them rejected the offer, while Nicholas joined immediately.

He didn't even consider for a second before agreeing. He came to Sam and said.

"Our current battle record is two wins for you and one draw. Next time we spar, I am going to change that no matter what, so don't lag behind too much."

"We will see about that." Sam replied with a smile.

Then he went back to Arman and said.

"I want these materials, I will be leaving this place, so please hurry up."

Arman took the material list and then looked back at Sam, these are materials which are used mostly for the communication devices, recording crystals and other stuff. These are strictly regulated and only the Artisan tower and the inner members of the temple have access to it.

Arman nodded and said.

"I will hand them over to you at the Space gate."

Arman then left with the rest of the thunder god temple's members.

"All the people who wants to go back follow me; we would be going to the island where the space gates are located."

Sam and his two friends, Nathan are the only ones who belong to the Orion empire that are going back.

They went towards the sea shore of the island and there are already beasts waiting for them.

They boarded the beasts and by the evening they went to the island where the space gates are already being arranged.

The spirit stones are also loaded.

At the gate that was leading to the Orion empire there is a middle-aged man waiting along with the emperor.

Sam and the rest walked towards the gate. As soon as he saw the middle-aged man, Sam felt like he was a bit familiar and frowned when he saw the cold look he has on his face.

"The gate will be ready in a minute; you can relax until then."

Sam went towards the nearby trees and sat there with his legs crossed. Philip and Jack followed as they spoke something.

Around five minutes later, the gate was ready and Arman also arrived at there from another Space gate.

This place seemed to be connected to the core region of the Thunder God temple and doesn't have access to outsiders.

He gave a storage ring to Sam and said.

"We might meet soon and that is if you watch your back till then."

With those words, he left the same way he came and Sam frowned at those words.

He walked towards the space gate where the emperor and the rest are already in the formation.

Sam went into the formation and soon the transfer started.

The next moment, they arrived at the space gate in the Emperor's palace.

Sam looked around to get rid of that dizzy feeling, and he slowly stepped out along with Jack and Philip.

They came out of the small building in which the formation was and walked forward. Sam suddenly halted his steps and Philip and Jack leapt on him at the same time.

Sam took out the transference scroll in an instant and opened before injecting the spiritual energy, he doesn't know which direction he held the scroll in but he doesn't have much time.

He dragged Philip and Jack into the dimension and activated the scroll.

They disappeared in a flash and just at the spot they were present, a huge lightning bolt struck leaving a large crater.

Emperor is looking at the crater with a gloomy look on the face, he didn't expect he would miss this.

He wanted to kill Sam a long time ago and he only stopped because of Moriya's instructions. Now that the whole palace farce is over he planned to kill him.

He cannot even wait for Sam to enter the empire, but the elders repeatedly said that no candidate should be harmed on their territory.

That is why he contacted Ben's father who is also pretty upset since his son was beaten up by Sam and learnt of the distance at which the space gate wouldn't be affected when he attacked.

But why go through so much effort and has to kill him right at the space gate? Ben's father wanted to see Sam's dead body right away and he planned to kill him right there and then, but now that plan also failed.

Apart from that, if Sam entered the city and came into contact with the Artisan tower for any reason, things would again get messy due to his status.

The Artisan tower will investigate the whole thing as they would lose a young talent as Sam and even though they might not pursue revenge there would surely be repercussions and his reputation as an emperor would be damaged. After all, it was his son who brought this up on himself.

He went back to the thunder god temple through the space gate to give the news to Ben's father and he came back with a gloomy face.

But when he came back, he saw his son was still waiting there with a nervous expression.

"What happened?"

"I found this near the crater."

He showed a letter which was extremely crumbled.

Emperor took the letter and saw a string of letters.

"You just signed your death warrant. Good luck. – Sam"

When the emperor saw this letter, his speculation was confirmed. He thought that Sam was already aware of their plan when he escaped, but he wasn't sure, but now that he saw the note, he could guarantee that his speculation was correct.

He suddenly had a bad premonition and felt that he made a huge mistake. But that feeling just passed by and his pride as an emperor didn't want him to bow down.

At the same moment, in far away woods, Sam appeared from within a bright flash and fell down on the ground. His head was completely dizzy and he cannot even see properly that is his body's reaction due to two consecutive space gate travels.

He almost wanted to puke, but at this moment, he saw a beast glaring at him from a few feet away.

It is like a huge leopard and thankfully, it is only Level 4.

Sam felt that he would be in trouble if the forest he entered will have very dangerous beasts beyond his level and now that all he saw was a Level 4 Beast, he was relieved.

He sat down on the ground and let Philip, Jack and Watt who is living in the Dimension for past month or so out and laid down on the ground to relax until the dizzy feeling goes.

At the same time, he let Yanwu and Sky out which chased the Leopard away.

He said to them.

"Go and scout a bit."

After that he closed his eyes and took some rest.

He woke up after half an hour and by that time the three boys already created a makeshift camp while Yanwu and Sky returned.

"What's our position now, where are we?" He asked the beasts immediately.

[There are some human activities towards North western direction and the north eastern direction is a bit troublesome as I can sense some traces of powerful beasts at least at Level six.

As for the southern sides, there are only forests and they are thicker and thicker without any kinds of activities. We suspect that side is the most dangerous and it would be better to go towards the North west.] Sky replied.

Sam sat down and fell into a deep thought.

He couldn't guess where he is until he can enter a human settlement nearby and he has to make sure that his presence is going to be unnoticed all the while.

He can use shadow mice but they are mostly useful in the cities than the wilderness.

This is due to one of the main reasons why most shadow mice don't grow till the old age even with those incredible powers.

That is because until they achieve a very high-level shadow fusion, there is a high chance that the beasts stronger than them can notice their presence purely based on instincts and if shadow mice became afraid due to their animal instincts, they will give their hiding position away.

So, in the wilderness, Shadow mice are not ready to roam freely, at least not too deep.

As for in the city they are the boss.

So, they have to either travel by air or by foot and to be able to look at the tracks more clearly, they decided to go on foot until they find the first human settlement.