Sylver stood up from the boy’s mutilated body and looked around the empty space.

Even when he sent shades out to find the edges, it just kept going. He even tried flying into the air to find the limit, but it just went on forever. Interestingly enough, there wasn’t any change in temperature, pressure, or anything that Sylver or Ria could feel.

“How do I get out?” Sylver asked.

Izan was very much alive, but understandably, he hadn’t been able to withstand the pain.

If he had fought Sylver properly, he would have possibly administered a painkiller, or more honestly, Sylver might have just scarred his face and left it at that.

But no, he chose to treat this as some sort of game, and never once did anything other than try to sever Sylver’s head using his leg. Some might call that admirable, but Sylver called it stupid, and a waste of time.

A massive waste of time.

The kid had guts though, didn’t say a word as Sylver peeled his face away, in long thin strips, carved jagged scars into his chest, pulled out his teeth in a checkered pattern, and lastly carefully removed his fingernails.

All the damage was cosmetic, and in a few months’ time Izan should be able to do everything he used to be able to do, albeit with a permanently ugly face, and the kind of scarring usually received from being mauled by a wild animal.

Ria’s utter disgust at Sylver’s action blunted the microscopic joy he felt at winning, and if he was honest with himself, this didn’t feel like a win. Sylver almost felt like he was the one that had lost.

Almost, being the keyword here, because Sylver was the one who was in perfect health, and Izan was the one who was going to have to wear dentures.

Halfway through mangling his ears into asymmetric blobs, Sylver had something of an epiphany but sadly couldn’t get the unconscious boy to confirm his theory.

Was the reason he only tried kicking due to him saying he would “sever Sylver’s head with a single kick?”

“As the one who had been challenged, you need to ask him if he would like to surrender,” the boy Sylver had brought with him said.

Sylver searched for him with his vision and found the boy standing a few feet away from him. His body was barely visible, the way that woman’s had been when Sylver was fighting within the arena at the Garden.

Except, after testing several times, Sylver had confirmed that this space hadn’t been made using Ki, or some kind of technology, even if he couldn’t be specific, he was willing to bet his left arm that this was made using extremely powerful mana.

Meaning that these people weren’t just suicidal assholes, they were also hypocrites.

Sylver crouched down near Izan’s head, and very carefully, jolted him awake. Just as before he didn’t scream, didn’t curse, just stared at Sylver with this sickening look of resolve.

“Will you surrender?” Sylver asked the boy, who mutely shook his head from side to side.

“Then I’m going to have to get fancy,” Sylver said, as he flicked his hand and several [Necrotic Mutilation] tendrils slithered out from underneath his sleeve.

He placed his hand down on the boy’s stomach and advised Ria to look away as the tendrils started reaching into his belly button.

***

Without his need for eyes, Sylver wasn’t blinded by the sudden influx of light, but he did feel slightly disoriented as he once again saw color around him.

Izan was screaming bloody murder, as Sylver pulled his hand away from the boy’s stomach and allowed the large group of healers to take him away.

“He’s fine! I didn’t cripple him! He won’t have another solid bowel movement for the rest of his life, but once he puts on a diaper he can continue cultivating!” Sylver shouted, as he stood up from the floor, and adjusted his robe until it was a bit more presentable.

There wasn't any blood on him, he knew what he was doing, was careful, but the resin wasn’t as willing to listen to him as Izan’s blood was. He looked around, and Sylver saw something even more revolting than what he had just done.

The head of commerce, Izan’s grandfather, was smiling at Sylver.

“As Usual, You Barbarian Witches Have No Honor!” the head of commerce said, as Sylver turned around to face him.

“Why did he keep trying to kill me with a kick?” Sylver asked, as the head of commerce just shook his head, and giggled like a child.

“What Kind Of Question Is That?” the head of commerce asked, as Sylver forced himself to calm down and move along.

Sylver guessed the reason Izan had been resilient to torture was that listening to this man talk was worse than anything Sylver had been capable of inflicting on him. Until Sylver started moving his internal organs around that is.

“Are you buying this stuff or not? We have other people to see,” Sylver said, as he gestured and looked at the ingredients, and had a sudden idea.

“As I Have Told The Boy, I Am Willing To Pay You Half A Kilogram Of Red Jade For Everything,” the head of commerce said, with a gesture towards Sylver’s boxes.

Sylver leaned down and whispered in the boy’s ear.

“Is that a good price?” Sylver asked as the boy shook his head.

“It’s worth at least 800 grams of red jade, but we should-”

“He says they’re worth 800 grams of red jade. But I’m going to want 900 grams, for trying to trick us,” Sylver said at the head of commerce, who just looked at Sylver the way a person would look at a small yapping dog.

“No,” the head of commerce said, as the boy at Sylver’s side started to speak, but Sylver spoke over him.

“If you change your mind, it will cost you a full kilogram. You know where to find us,” Sylver said, as he made the boxes float over to him, and turned his back to the head of commerce, and made the boy at his side turn with him, by gently grabbing him by the collar of his bathrobe.

The boy was squirming, and in the end, Sylver almost lifted him off the ground, as he kept trying to persuade Sylver into accepting the price the head of commerce offered.

“This is a good lesson for you, always be willing to walk away from the negotiating table. Especially when the other side isn’t willing to negotiate,” Sylver quietly told the boy, who continued trying to persuade him into going back there and getting at least half a kilogram of red jade.

Sylver was surprised he hadn’t thought of this before and was even more surprised that Faust didn’t come up with this himself. Since Faust recognized the ingredients needed for a potion, wouldn’t that mean he knew how to make such a potion himself?

***

The next sect they visited was the Red Dog sect, and they were significantly more reasonable. They paid exactly what they had said they would pay, or more accurately, what Sylver had been told they were willing to pay by that friendly barkeep.

But just like the Green Rabbit sect, Edmund’s tracker didn’t react. Sylver had had Spring investigate the northeast corner, and there wasn’t anything obvious there. It was mainly a large garden, with a lot of rabbits, but no green fire, and no sealed vaults. If Edmund was there, he was very well hidden.

Sylver had an idea as to how to get a better look at this area, but he wanted to confirm a couple of things with Faust first. He needed to know if his “I can sense a great evil somewhere here! You’ve been cursed by a witch! I can feel the curse coming from there!” routine would work on these people.

His gut feeling was that, yes, anyone who hated witches this much, probably hated the idea of being cursed by a witch. But if Sylver tried this, and they didn’t believe him, and somehow proved he was the one that planted the bag of bones there, he would lose all credibility.

If he did it right, he would have unrestricted access to all the areas Edmund’s tracker had pointed at.

The boy carrying the small box full of bright red glowing rocks stared at them as if he couldn’t believe they were real. There were even a couple of bright green rocks mixed in there.

The boy was confused at Sylver’s question, regarding why Izan didn’t try anything other than kicking. And in his attempt to explain, Sylver discovered a very frightening fact.

The people here didn’t just specialize, they hyper-specialized. Every sect had its own “style,” or “build” as the boy put it, and they allocated their attribute points, perks, skills, classes, and everything system-related, into perfecting a single move, a kick in this instance.

Because according to the boy, anything less would be worthless at higher levels. Since the moment they were born, these people planned their future as if they were already immortal. First, they mastered one move, one single swing of the sword, one single punch, one single kick, one single uppercut, and only then did they learn something else.

Even the disfigurement Sylver had caused Izan was nothing more than a tiny bump in an impossibly long road. He might have not been aware that Sylver’s disfigurement was permanent, but even the best curses had a half-life.

Assuming Izan lived long enough to see a curse made by Sylver Sezari fall apart.

Then again, if all he did was practice kicking, and sat around absorbing experience from jade stones, there was a good chance he would live that long.

Not all sects were as insane about specialization as the Green Rabbit sect, but Sylver had somehow managed to stumble his way into one.

He also learned that his bounty wasn’t “official” so to speak. In the sense that if he was in an area that belonged to an allied sect, no one would be able to challenge him for his bounty. The Green Rabbit sect had simply decided to honor the Blue Mongoose’s sect’s bounty.

Under normal circumstances, a person would have to offer Sylver some kind of prize if they wanted to challenge him. But as with countries, each sect had its own set of rules, and as luck would have it, the default rule seemed to be “fuck witches.”

The only exception were areas that weren’t directly controlled by any sect, such as the swamp where Sylver had been attacked. In those areas, there were no rules.

Hopefully, people would be less interested in challenging him for his bounty after hearing about Izan, but all Sylver could do was wait and see.

The circumstances weren’t ideal, but all things considered, given that no one above level 200 would try to challenge him, Sylver had a rather good fe-

Sylver threw the boy as hard away from himself as he could, as the spell finished enveloping him.

He didn’t close his eyes, he had no eyes to close, and with Ria quickly slithering onto his back and spreading around his body, Sylver recognized the magic trying to whisk him away. It was the same magic responsible for him and Izan being moved to that empty place.

It was only when Ria had finished covering him, that he realized it wasn’t trying to pull him away somewhere but was instead trying to bring something to him.

When the spell was done Sylver looked down at his tightly closed fist, covered in an intricate net of gold and black, and felt his hearts stop as he forced his fingers open.

It was a torn sheet of paper, so thoroughly soaked in mana, that it was hurting him from the contact.

It had a single word written on it “TRADE,” in such an old Eirsh dialect that Sylver almost couldn’t read it.

But as Sylver stared at the paper, he understood 3 things.

The first was that Edmund was here.

The second was that these people had an actual dragon guarding them.

And the third was that it seemed like the dragon wanted something from him.