CHAPTER 21.

Turns out that when you're a slave, especially a slave with a magical collar, people tend to treat you like you don't exist, like you aren't even a threat. At first I hunched my shoulders trying to seem small and invisible, but the whole cloak and dagger routine was totally useless. All anyone needed to see was the collar on my neck to be satisfied with my docility and then promptly ignore me.

I walked to the market, trying to find the last place I saw Siobhan and work my way from there. I queried my implant for directions and in moments I was at the spot where I last saw Siobhan and then putting on my best subservient look and began to ask directions to some kind of slave quarters.

It took a while to get results as not everyone I spoke to was wearing a mind bridge causing some communication issues. I received several notifications from my implant informing me that a rough compilation of the common tongue was in the works and soon I'll be able to carry passable conversations with locals even without a mind bridge.

But finally I got directions from a fellow human slave. He was not collared like me, but he also had the dejected look of most of the slaves I've seen so far. Like there were very few options and little hope. It made me grateful for my awakened soul and my implant. I would have turned out like him after my abuse at Astrel's hands.

After thanking him, which put a confused and surprised look on his face, I continued on my way and finally found the slave quarters.

The place was a barely lit hovel and the smell was so bad that I was forced to use my implant to dampen my essence-enhanced sense of smell and taste, a function I was unaware of until that moment.

I sent a command to my implant to shelve other sensory manipulation experiments for later review.

There were two half-orcs at the entrance, but they ignored me as soon as their eyes landed on my collar. These guys really need to work on their security.

The horrified smell of unwashed bodies and death intensified as I entered the hovel and my newly upgraded perception allowed me to see in the near darkness of the space. I'd yet to check my profile in order to quantify my gains, but I pushed the idea aside, people first, cultivation progress later.

There were so many people lying on the ground and none of them had collars, I was beginning to suspect that the collars were expensive devices used on specific slaves.

Before coming to Zomyr, I would have questioned why the slaves did not rush the two half-orc guards at the door. But now that I was at the core formation stage flowing through me, I knew such a plan would be suicide.

From what I could tell, and based on data provided by my implant regarding my own cultivation, those with corrupted essence find it difficult to reach peak human ability, both physically and mentally. I already had a powerful physique and was no slouch in the mind department thanks to my eidetic memory and high IQ.

But with my body cleansed of corruption, all my attributes, both mental and physical, rose slightly above peak human allowing me to lift about 600kg.

At the peak of the absorption stage, A standard cultivator gained the potential power of seven peak humans, and would also be able to think better and react faster.

At the peak of the core formation stage with a basic core, I would have gained the potential power of approximately forty nine peak humans, although most of it would have been tied into the structure of the core.

But because my core was not a standard core variant but an alien design forged by equally alien rules of physics, most if not all my essence was tied to my still growing core. My seed core seed had yet to fully form, so it drained all the essence I had been able to cultivate to sustain it's constant growth.

My core pulsed as essence rushed into it. This confused me at first as I was not currently cultivating, but regardless, I could still feel essence rushing towards me.

No, more like falling towards me.

Before I would have to focus to pull essence and then maintain my focus to refine only my aligned essence type. But now essence rushed towards me and I was surprised that the two half-orc guards had yet to notice the odd phenomena.

My new core even refined the essence it absorbed to an extent, but after some analysis by my implant, I learned that my vibration technique was currently far superior to refinement ability of the budding seed core, at least at its current level

All I had to do was maintain my vibration refinement technique and send all the new essence to my new core seed.

Although I wasn't technically at the core formation stage, I was no longer losing refined essence because I had nothing left to lose.

Every single drop went to my new crystalline seed core.

It made me seem like a mortal even though I could tell that my stats were not affected in any way. If anything, I was far stronger than I was before my encounter with Astrel, how much stronger I had yet to determine.

I was one of those MC's with an overpowered potential but seemingly weak ability. I was almost certain that to most cultivators, I would seem like an ordinary mortal.

An average core design requires all the essence at the peak of absorption stage. My core used all of Astrel's and all of mine to complete a seedling version of my core.

On the plus side, my new core passively absorbed and refined essence without my input like a sponge and my passive draw was several times more powerful than my previous active absorption during cultivation.

Back on earth, I would have been a demigod or at least a poor man's incredible hulk. I now understood how Astrel was capable of easily dispatching Ivelina. I even now suspected that she had toying with her throughout the entire fight.

There was no need to collar these malnourished slaves. The two half-orc guards were actually overkill.

I finally found Siobhan, she was sitting in absolute squalor, huddled with a couple of dirty and malnourished slaves for warmth..

I touched her on her shoulder trying not to startle. When she turned around, my heart broke a little at her appearance.

She was wearing some kind of flat dress made from a sack-like material and her beautiful face was drained of almost all color. There were bags under her eyes and her beautiful green eyes were dull and flat.

"Siobhan, I'm very sorry about Ainsling, so sorry, I should have been here, I__." My words stuck in my throat and guilt gnawed at my insides. While I was getting upgrades to my core and becoming Superman. The rest of them were living in squalor and enduring abuse.

Suppressing my dark thoughts, I changed the subject. "Where are the others?"

It took Siobhan a while to reply, there had to be a way to clear her body of corruption. I had no idea of how I would go about it as I did not have access to the cultivation stealer or any other cleansing method, and a small part of me was worried about how she would fare against essence empowered guards during any escape attempt, but I had bigger things to worry about.

"Each one of us belongs to the demon or demon hybrid that brought us here. The imp that took me from Earth sent me down here to teach me humility when I tried to commit suicide after I was forced to watch him rape my and murder my daughter." She broke down sobbing, unable to bear the weight of such a horrid memory

"I tried to fight him, for me, for Ainsling, but hitting him was like hitting solid steel" She looked at me with pain-filled eyes, as if begging me to understand, as if she was responsible for her daughter's abuse and death.

"He sent me down here to punish me, to make me see how much worse things could be for me, but this place has been the only thing keeping me together. There are children born into slavery and the women are constantly being sexually abused by these alien guards.” Anger at the injustice of it all filled her voice.

“Helping them keeps the darkness at bay. Staying here, taking care of them," she looked around at the people around her "keeps me sane."

Where did she find the fortitude to not only continue, but also to help others? The only things that kept me going was hate, a strong lust for revenge and a greedy desire for the power that was denied me back on Earth. Even my need to free her and the others from here was born out of a deepening sense of guilt.

People like Siobhan have always made me uncomfortable, even without demanding overtly that you do better, they compelled you to all the same. I don't think I had half the strength flowing through this woman, upgrades and all.

She continued, unaware of my inner musing, "They took Dr. Zubyr somewhere else, they're forcing him to work on something. From what the other slaves tell me, he's been taken by a group of priests called the night clerics."

My mind went to Aelia, maybe she would know more about what they wanted from the old man.

"What about Suu, Melody and Minnie, where are they?" I asked Siobhan, aware at the back of my mind that I made no inquiries for Lukas. Yeah I’m an asshole. Sue me.

"They've been taken to be fattened as blood delicacies for a visiting vampire lord. Their owners exchanged them with High Mistress Tinuviel to receive favors. They've been unmolested since they got here." She said that last part with some of bitterness in her voice

"But do you know exactly where they're?" I asked mentally panicking at the idea of these women becoming finger food for blood drinking monsters"

“The slaves here tell me that they will be taken to the purification chamber for ritual cleansing."

What kind of evil world have we found ourselves in? Even if I escape, I promise to return and bury this place to the ground.

"Can you direct me to the purification chamber?" I asked Siobhan

"Yes, past the slave quarters, follow the road down till you see a tower with a pillar of light shooting from the top, according to the other slaves, you can't miss it."

"Thank you Siobhan, I promise to return as soon as possible, then we can finally leave this place." I tried smiling to reassure her and then hurried out of the slave quarter.

Siobhan was right, the purification chamber was hard to miss. It was the only place I've seen so far in Blòtvarda with bright light.

Again I was ignored by guards on the road because of my collar, another point for absolute oppression.

*************

Soon I reached the tower housing the purification chamber. The tower was made of a pure white stone and the lights had a restricting effect on my essence, trying to prevent further cultivation.

But I received another surprise when my little seed began to pulse and immediately the effect of the chamber was nullified and essence continued to rush through me.

I had no idea what the seed did or whether or not it could be replicated, but I commanded my implant to gather any relevant data and to shelve ideas of further research for later review.

This place was designed to restrict absorption and refinement. Most likely to prevent any would be sacrifices from fermenting any ideas of resistance and escape.

My seed's absorption rate doubled, and tripled under the purifying effect of the tower.

The security here was tighter than in other places I've been to so far, except for Tinuviel's audience chamber.

Unlike the half-orcs in Tinuviel's audience chamber, these guards were dressed in simple leather trousers and leather shirts. Something bothered me about guards with no armor, but I was committed to current course and was forced to put it out of my mind

I had to tread carefully here, using my seismic sense to avoid slaves and guards alike. If I had to guess, the ladies would be kept at the top of this glorified glow stick.

It was unlikely that I would go uncontested before getting to the top. Sooner or later, I would be confronted and I needed a weapon or two when the time came.

So I waited to ambush a lone guard, if the guards I've seen so far were any example, the guards in the tower will be at the initial rank of core formation.

It took a while an hour before the fated guard crossed my way and he was drunk as a skunk.

I had no idea what kind of liqueur would make a being of his size and cultivation pop star drunk but it would probably turn my newly reinforced insides into mush.

In their haste to abuse me, both Marc and Astrel forgot to divest me of the knapsack that held my small knife and other necessities.

I pulled out the knife and waited in the shadows for the stumbling half-orc to pass me by. I had yet to kill another sentient creature with my own two hands, but holding on to the idea of half-orcs as beasts made things a bit easier.

As soon as he got close to my hiding spot, I charged my knife with ultrasonic cutting energy, jumped on his massive back and plunged my blade into his neck.

As soon as the knife pierced his flesh, I knew I had made a mistake. One of many in fact.

I had assumed that half-orcs despite their size would be easy to take down like my fellow humans, but the energy oscillating the blade barely pierced the muscles and veins in his neck before stopping. His skin was extremely tough and further reinforced by the energy of hiscore.

Even though my knife had sliced through something vital that was gushing thick dark red blood, the guard did not stumble or scream, merely grunted and turned to me like I was a mosquito hanging on its neck.

And that is exactly what I was doing. At his full height, I had been suspended at his side while hanging onto the knife in his neck. Something told me if I let go, I would be squashed like a bug.

Slowly as if marshalling his strength, the Half-orc extended its massive clawed palm in an attempt to rip me off his neck, but before he could reach me, I intensified the oscillation of the energy on the knife, cranking up as high as my strain capacity would allow.

But to my surprise, I received no strain feedback, no pain or discomfort from overusing essence.

Perhaps my seed core determined that I had reached my limit, and simply negated it.

Was this a result of using a complex machine as the blueprint for my core?

The knife hummed louder, now even more empowered, and sank deeper into his neck and thanks to my weight hanging off his neck, the knife moved downwards, cutting deeply through the neck, shoulder, back and spine.

The attack on the spine affected the Urgals motor function and he slumped to the ground.

To my surprise, I saw he was far from finished, this level of damage would have already killed a human several times over.

Yet I watched as his eyes turned red and then his whole body, like he was becoming supercharged.

Some of the wounds began to heal rapidly and I knew that if I didn't finish him off quickly, he'd be on his feet in no time. What kind of monster is this?

Quickly, I picked up the large scimitar from his belt. The blade was extremely heavy and it was only with the aid of my essence enhanced strength that I could lift it.

Although my current attributes were no longer at human levels, my new core had absorbed almost all the essence in my body, thereby lowering all my attributes by a considerable margin. And while I was grateful for new and strange abilities like countering the negation magic in this place and near perfect strain absorption, it was still a bummer not to be able to enjoy all the power that came with having so much essence housed within me. I might have to wait until the core is complete to enjoy the full benefits of having my new core within me.

Now that I had finally penetrated his skin, I had a sense of the amount of energy I'd need in the blade to pierce his tough flesh, but looking at the rapidly healing glowing skin, I knew I had to double my highest estimates.

Charging the blade, I slammed it on his neck, chopping it off in one overpowered cut. Thick blood gushed out of the wounds in powerful spurts.

For a moment, I considered dicing him in several pieces, afraid he would somehow be able to reconstitute himself. But I settled for kicking his head several feet away. My stomach was already churning with need to displace my last meal.

Looking at the bloodbath around me, I knew it was only a matter of time before they were alerted to the presence of an intruder.

I dashed for the stairs, all thoughts of subterfuge forgotten, taking the stairs three at a time, I wondered what the heck I was doing running head first into danger to rescue three ladies I did not know from Adam.

I was no hero and never aspired to be one.

Yet on several occasions since I've been in this world, I've almost given up on my humanity in the face of abuse and cruelty. Some part of me was forced to admit that I was running up these stairs for my own sanity, as much as I was rushing to rescue almost total strangers.

Relying on an architectural model designed by my implant about the dimensions of the tower, I moved with greater confidence towards my goal.

I met my first obstacle halfway to the top. Two half-orcs were playing cards when they heard my footsteps and saw me run past their door.

I was halfway to the next floor when it occurred to me that I needed to deal with any confrontation immediately, or else I might be overwhelmed when I reached the ladies.

I turned around, and raising my new sword, I prepared to greet the first orc. My seismic-sense was already alerting me to the movement of the two guards.

For reasons unknown to me, the guards refused to sound the alarm before attacking me.

As soon as the first guard's shoulder was visible, I slashed downwards with all my strength, cutting through his biceps, his sides and shearing through his thighs till the blade struck the ground.

The ultrasonic energy moving through the blade prevented it from getting stuck. So I immediately pulled the blade from the ground and prepared to meet the second Urgal.

The second guard pushed the dying body of his counterpart aside and swung his scimitar at me. I raised my blade to meet him, moving what little refined earth essence I had available to me rapidly through my body to increase my physical density and strength. As soon as our blades clashed, I knew I had made another mistake.

Although my ultrasonic cutting effect increased the cutting power of my weapon exponentially, it did not do much to protect the blade from damage and me from the overwhelming strength of the Half-orc.

The half-orc ended up destroying his blade on my sword, but not before denting my blade and sending me flying across the room

I had not accounted for this when designing my technique and was unable to adjust the technique on the fly to account for the damaged parts of the blade.

Immediately my implant began to compute a necessary workaround while I tried to stay alive.

The half-orc, seeing that his blade had been damaged, threw the broken blade aside and lunged at me with his arms wide in an attempt to grapple me.

There was no way I would be able to go toe to toe with this juggernaut!

My mind went numb in panic for a moment. I was beginning to understand the strength and ability difference between races. As a human cultivator I was little more than fodder to monsters like half-orcs, demons and vampires.

Before I could find a clever way out of the situation, I was grabbed and wrapped around the waist in the arms of the half-orc.

My nose and mouth were suddenly flooded with the smell of unwashed Half-orc and my gag reflex kicked in big time. I can't believe that after all I'd suffered, I was about to be undone by the undeniable power of a potent body odour.

The brute grunted as he began to squeeze and my core and my body began to strain under the pressure.

I can honestly say that without my new core I would have been instantly squished at the waist.

But my seed core began to pulse rapidly and the pressure on my body began to lessen, even as the pain in my head began to increase from essence strain.

Somehow my strange seed core was negating the pressure from the half-orc’s bear hug, bug at the cost of strain.

Either way, I was still alive against something that should have killed me after the first squeeze.

But I knew that even my budding seed core has its limits.

In desperation slammed my fists into his face but with my leverage, I may as well have been hitting reinforced steel for all the good it did me.

The half-orc tightened his hold on me, swinging me around to reinforce and tighten his grip even more. My vision began to dim as my lungs were starved of oxygen, and my bones began to creak as my core became overwhelmed.

Desperate, I tried to plunge my thumbs into his eyeballs but he simply closed his thick eyelids and increased the pressure on my ribs.

It seemed I was out of tricks. Caught under the oppressive threat of death and without the aid of my implant, and my awakened soul I was all but inert.

Suddenly, anger burned through me, I was not going to die here, pressed by the earth in this hellish shithole.

This is not where or how I end. It was time to save myself and not rely on my implant and awakened soul like a crutch.

I was already seeing red but ignored the burning in my lungs, the creaking of my bones and organs, even the pressure on my core as I focused most of my essence on my thumbs.

I had never used a technique without the support of my implant or soul so it was inevitable I would fail on my first, second and third attempt.

How was I not dead, how had this brute not crushed me to death already?

I closed my eyes, ignoring the pain and thought about all the aspects necessary for a technique to take effect.

First I needed the right essence type which I had, my pure earth essence was sufficient to create the oscillating effect necessary for an ultrasonic cutting technique.

I also needed sufficient insight into the effect, I had a somewhat comprehensive knowledge of ultrasonics and its effects on various materials.

Then I needed to shape the essence type using the proper insight into the desired effect.

But the last part eluded me until this moment. It was the answer to a question I had already asked. How was cultivation possible? Why am I able to command essence?

Then in my desperation, and close to my limit, I felt it, a force that had always been with me for as long as I could remember. Through every trial and tribulation in my life, through the dark times and cold days. The burning flame in my chest that allowed me to resist Tinuviel. My reliance on my implant and soul had blinded me to the most basic aspect of cultivation.

Will, only a strong will can command the essence of the heavens of the earth. Without a will to ascend and grow, nothing can be achieved, essence or no essence.

I had everything I needed to use a technique all by myself.

My seed core pulsed within and began to vibrate at ultrasonic frequencies.

Channeling the sufficient essence and the necessary insight, I used my will to shape and pulse an ultrasonic effect around the edges of my thumbs and plunged them into his eyes.

His thick eyelids were no defense against the piercing cutting force. I pressed forward and plunged my thumbs into his brain killing him instantly.

As he slumped to the ground, I immediately flattened my hand into a blade and projected ultrasonic cutting force with earth essence.

With a loud hum, I used my blade-like hand to slowly saw off his massive neck.

I was the one with my power, I am the cultivator, not my implant or my soul, but me. It was time to embrace this truth.

For the first time since I used my first technique, I wasn't drained of the mysterious unknown force that I now knew to be will or authority by my implant and I had a feeling I had replenished to a small extent what my soul had given me.

It seemed that my implant must have been taking will from me to perform most of its functions. How much, I would need to figure out at a later date.

After cutting the head off the first orc that I ambushed, just in case, I picked up his sword and continued up the stairs.

As I quickly rushed up the steps, the possibility occurred to me that my implant and soul abandoned me on purpose to force me to stand on my own two feet.

Then I remembered that my implant had no intelligence of its own and was under the control of my soul.

Most people don't notice or choose to ignore that voice that lives within them that tries to talk to us when we are doing what we know deep down is wrong or flawed.

But instead of just flailing helplessly in the background like everyone else's soul, mine had access to an implant that could manipulate not just my body, but my cultivation.

To be honest, I was still conflicted regarding how I felt about that.

I wanted to scold my soul, but on second thought decided that I needed a drastic shot in the arm, or kick in the butt depending on your disposition, in order to advance. But maybe next time, it should consider setting up an intervention first.