Darcel was a bit surprised, staring into this cute girl's face. Instantly he felt a mass amount of tension leave his body as his shoulders began to relax.

Relief swelled up inside him, and after only a second of staring, everyone heard,

"Darc!"

Uncaring about others, Aniela dropped everything she was doing and jumped over to Darcel while shouting his name in a fervent passion.

She smoothly dodged out of everyone else's way and wrapped Darcel in a big hug.

"Finally, you're here! I just knew my cynical friend couldn't bear to leave me behind!" Aniela's soft and fragrant body latched around Darcel's neck since she was a bit shorter than him.

It honestly felt rather nice and warm for Darcel. Towards the feeling of her soft face in his neck, to her elastic hands and modest twin peaks squashing on his chest.

Furthermore, her beautiful white hair's scent brought a calming sensation for him, and the most potent feeling was the small yearning he felt in his blood.

The yearning made his and Aniela's body heat up a bit, further enhancing this reunion.

Although the reunion would be even better if they didn't have waves of poking eyes on them. The eyes of people who held various emotions such as annoyance, curiosity, or even envy.

Usually, Darcel wouldn't care about this, but Aniela's hugging made him a bit more reactive. However, while subconsciously, Darcel began to pat Aniela's head, the duo had then heard

"Don't the rest of you have work to do?" Elder Lian's cold voice blasted into their ears. A small portion of his unfathomable aura leaked into his words as well.

And the effect was immediate as the other servants quickly took their eyes off the duo and went back to work.

The first rule ever to be ingrained into them was to never provoke the terrifying Elder Lian!

"Get up already. You had your fill." Darcel had caught himself after Elder Lian's words and almost reluctantly stopped patting Aniela's soft hair. Even if it was very brief, Darcel couldn't deny how good it felt to do it.

Aniela was of the same opinion once she felt the sudden burst of warmth from her head stop. Pulling away from Darcel, she had an adorably cute pout on her face though before she could talk, the duo heard once again,

"Aniela, fill him in on what to do and get back to work. You'll have a few more hours until you can rest." Elder Lian spoke in a commanding voice and swiftly walked off without giving the duo a chance to respond.

As the Elder walked off, Darcel took the time to truly obverse the place they were in.

This place held valuable items such as books, scrolls, jade tablets, or weapons all neatly lined up on shelves or other areas. It was massively wide in here, and there were several doors on the side of the walls.

This nearly reminded Darcel of a far wider dome type of place. Especially seeing the hundreds of servants dutifully working here. Some were cleaning with Qi or using special tools to clean.

While others were carefully assorting these items or bringing more objects into this place.

And seeing the manual labor done here, Darcel's mind was further reinforced on his decision.

The decision to leave this place as soon as possible!

Even if he and Aniela were to stay here and slowly cultivate, it would take years before they could even get to the prowess of a talented youth here.

Mainly because along with natural talent, cultivation resources play a huge factor in someone's progress rate. Furthermore, Darcel was tired of being under the foot of someone and doing labor for them.

His musing was cut short when Aniela had spoken up in a chipper tone,

"This may not be the best way to meet back up, but at least we're together now! Come on, let's go and catch up while working." Aniela was already pulling Darcel along to her workstation while talking.

It was always a bit shocking to Darcel how this girl could still maintain this high energy level, no matter the environment. Even with something as mundane as manual labor, she looked even excited about doing it.

Though he could suppose it was because he's here. 'Speaking off, I wonder why we weren't given any strict rules. Unless it really is because of our prowess.'

As Darcel was thinking to himself, Aniela had pulled him over to a remote section of this enormous place. There was a neat expansive order of unique exotic looking scrolls all lined on rows of shelves here.

But neither of the two focuses on that. Aniela was much more interested in Darcel as she turned to him and asked, "So? What was holding you up? I noticed something was up as soon I felt you disappeared."

She was talking in a low voice to cover their conversation, and following her tune, Darcel told her, "As far I can tell, I somehow got here a week or so before you. But I'm almost certain this was the doing of that lady. Us meeting up so easily and luckily is far too much to just be a coincidence."

"Is that so? I have to give that woman my thanks later on then. But for now, Darc, lighten up that expression! Now we can move on to more manageable tasks together!"

Darcel merely shook his head while saying, "You already know that we will leave this Clan soon. But I do commend your enthusiasm for doing worthless work."

"It's not totally worthless. Like maybe one day in the future, we'll stumble upon some ancient cave we're we'll need to carefully dust off some divine artifacts." Aniela said it with a serious tone and a convincing smile.

But Darcel just shrugged his shoulders, doubting something as niche as that would happen.

Moreover, while talking, Darcel ponders for a second of just how quickly they agreed to travel together. They didn't say it aloud, yet both knew they needed to go together.

It just felt right and natural to Darcel.

Aniela was even more straightforward in thoughts. As soon as she first saw Darcel, her happiness bloomed by ten folds. In her mind, she already had marked the next destination they could travel.

"Besides your possibility of these imaginary hidden caves, we should at least pretend like we're working. It'll be troublesome to mess with that Elder." Darcel said, getting Aniela to brightly smile.

"I'm glad you're seeing it my way now. Let the charitable Aniela show you the ropes." Darcel nearly cringed from the way Aniela referred to herself. Still, even when she saw that face, Aniela's smile only got wider.

"This is going to be a long few hours…"

….

"Here, we are! The quarters where us servants can go and sleep." Aniela proudly showed Darcel a long hall with numerous doors running along the sides.

Time flew like the wind for the duos as the two mainly got lost in talking with each other to pass the time.

And after getting the signal from Elder Lian, Aniela escorted Darcel towards an interconnected hallway that led to the dome-like room.

Everything here, even for the servants were rather fancy and intricate in designs.

"So, does this place have any specific living arrangement?" Darcel asked as he watched at least pairs of people double up in a room.

"Not at all. All that really matters is that we don't get in the Clansmen or Elders way. Are you ready, Darc? This is going to be the first time you're visiting a girl room at night~." Aniela was teasing with an incredibly cute smile that could, for sure, fluster hearts.

Yet all Darcel did was raise an eyebrow while saying, "How did you manage to get your own room?"

Pouting a bit, Aniela took Darcel's hand, pulling him over to a specific room while telling him, "Mnnh, I'll get you to react one day...but for this room? It's just something I got with my own 'special' ways."

Like many of the other structures here, the door was built in glossy black wood showing a bit of polish for them. Once Aniela opened the door, Darcel was at least satisfied with the room they were staying in.

The room was expansive and had a door that Darcel was sure led to a bathroom. Surprisingly, the decor in here was decent and miles ahead from the Parasol Organization's dark, dank room.

"Truly, it may not be much, but this bed far surpassed my old one…"

Aniela had immediately shot towards the bed and rested comfortably on it. This bed was big enough for at least three people and even had blankets on them.

Sitting down next to her after closing and locking the door, Darcel got straight to business. He started by saying, "Aniela, how much have you managed to discover while staying here."

Perking up, Aniela took out a blue ring from her pocket. She smiled while saying, "I managed to score a space ring and a map through some clever tactics with my powers. The most important thing you should know right now is that these woods are called the Necropolis Woods, and we're not too far off from our next sight."

"Hoh? You already plan this far airhead?"

"Of course! I don't let my cynicism bring me down Darcy~." Darcel's mouth twitched from that annoying pet name of hers before saying,

"Just say where the damn place is."

"It's called the Necrotic Crystal City. From the map, I saw this place has several academies or sects that are accepting younger generations. It's at least perfect for us to lay low and learn more about this new world we're in."

"Perfect, with a destination, we can go over our plan to leave this clan tomorrow," Darcel smirked as his best course of action came to his head.

"Eh? So soon? But how? Even some of the stronger servants here can still best us in battle pretty easily." Aniela questioned with a cute, curious expression.

She wasn't ashamed to admit when she was massively weaker than someone.

"Indeed, we're pretty weak in terms of power. But, in terms of skills and abilities, no one here can outclass us. Cause you see, our gateway ticket is Anne."

"Oh? I know that girl. She was one of the first people I met when coming here. She's an inborn member of the Clan but works as some sort of resource worker here...are you suggesting to trick her?"

Cracking a smile towards Aniela, Darcel thought back to the Parsol Organization for a quick second. While he could never get anything from the Doctors, Aniela did receive one crucial thing from them.

"You do still have that purple scalpel, right?"

When asking, Aniela's eyes widened a bit as she took out a small purple scalpel from her second pocket.

"I think I know where you're going with this…"

"Right, you were basically always as strong as I am. And it seems like things haven't changed. I assume you're already in the fifth layer of the Qi Foundation realm?"

"I would be embarrassed if I couldn't deal with that bug in me." Aniela nodded and answered since Darcel didn't have the Spirit Sense to tell her level.

"Good, with our special prowess, we can request to further prove our might despite our low levels. And I know Anne is curious enough in us to agree if we ask an Elder."

"Ah! You mean like those combat servants? During my first day here because of my special abilities, Elder Lian did ask if I wanted to become one. But I only said I'll think about it since my mind preoccupied at that time. And it really was!"

Darcel was going to continue, but he did get slightly curious about what she could be thinking about during her week.

"Don't tell me it was me-"

"It was you! I was so worried about if anything happened to you! I had the feeling that the yellow-eyed lady must've done something, but actual proof is much more relieving…"

Aniela, much like Darcel, had her mindset on finding each other again. Just unlike Darcel, she was much more open to expressing this concern.

Shrugging his shoulder, Darcel felt his natural body instinct kick in when seeing Aniela's worried and concerned face. His hand reached and began softly stroking her hair while saying,

"Well, I'm here now, so stop uselessly worrying over stuff like that. Back on topic, though, by what you said that Elder probably knows we're going to come with a combat servant request."

Aniela's face lit up in a broad joyful smile while the familiar warmth of Darcel's hand course through her head. It was then her eyes flashed, recalling some information.

"Hehe~, this is actually perfect~! Not only your hand but when one becomes a combat servant, usually a Qi Formation Sea person comes to test them out in the woods. And Anne would surely go to ours. You may not know, but she has unique connections in this clan~."

Aniela ended while melting into Darcel's hand.

Darcel as well was feeling quite comfortable while stroking her hair. However, he still continued saying, "With this, then, during our outing tomorrow, I'll use my Darkness element to call upon Spirit Monsters to us. It's an ability I discovered I could do just today. But importantly, all you need to do is get close to Anne, warm her defenses down so I can get one-touch on her and swirl her blood and mind. Then you'll immediately plunge that scalpel into her."

"Sounds simple enough. Anne is not too strong, so her mind isn't that resistance towards my goodwill. But...what I'm sure is that there will be other Qi Foundation Sea people with us. The Clan doesn't send two Qi Formation Sea people. Still, even when Anne goes down, we're not out of the clear."

Aniela said as her eyes closed, feeling endless warmth.

"You've been waiting for me, so you didn't let your cultivation advance, right? Well, no more, you can stop suppressing, and we'll both breakthrough during the night. If we're at least at the sixth layer, I'm confident in our abilities to run if we can't kill them. Plus, then I can just attract more Spirit Monsters to finish them off. I'll be working on this Darkness attraction thing to limit the risks."

Darcel spoke confidently and didn't sweat at all at learning a new ability overnight. Just like how learned to sever Qi, which was nearly instantaneous, he was sure he could quickly grasp this unique ability.

"I would say to take it slow...however this Clan will become a bit troublesome in the near upcoming days. But knowing you, you just won't accept staying another day anyways. Alright! It's time for us to start making history!"

Aniela pumped herself up while still under Darcel's hand. Realizing this with a more bashful tone she said,

"Um...before you start, can we stay a bit more like this? It helps purify my mind…"

Darcel had already ignited his other hand in Darkness while he heard Aniela question. Neither really wanted to move from their spots, so Darcel said in a relatively soft tone,

"Just relax…I can work on this technique with my other hand, and this helps ease my mind as well."

"Hehehe~! You're becoming softer by the day Darcy~!"