“You, Allen, have gone against my explicit orders of not leaving the sect grounds.” Hector said. “And unlike the rest of your sect members, your offense is by far the most severe.”

“I-I don’t…” Allen shifted in his chair.

“Silence!” Hector cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I was not done speaking.”

The young master nodded in a panic.

“By putting yourself in danger, not only have you risked your own foolish life, but the lives of your companions as they tried to protect you, and almost wasted all the resources and time the rest of the sect has put into your growth.” Hector said with a severe expression.

“B-But I didn’t…”

The old man threw him another glare, and Allen fell silent.

Hector continued. “I care not what notions of grandeur you had, or how much you might want to experience a life of adventure - the responsibility of your life lies with the sect. Everything else is secondary, even your own aspirations and desires… Do you understand?”

Allen looked down and didn’t respond.

Hector frowned, repeating his question with a threatening tone. “Do you understand?”

“Master Hector.” Eiwin interjected. “Young Master Allen didn’t-”

“Enough!” the elder raised a hand, cutting off the woman. “I asked him a question! I will not admit anyone else to answer in his stead!”

Allen continued to be silent. He clenched his fists against his trousers and looked around the table. His gaze lingered on Red, but the boy pretend as if he hadn’t noticed the young master’s pleading eyes.

His intentions were clear.

‘You have to rely on yourself here.’

Red didn’t know if Allen understood the meaning of his actions, or if he simply felt betrayed by his companion’s attitude. However, the young master looked back at Hector with a trembling gaze.

“So?” the old man stared at him. “Must I ask you the question again?”

Allen’s expression changed. “N-No…”

Hector nodded. “Good. Then what is your-”

“I don’t understand it!” the young master slammed his fist against the table in anger.

Silence reigned in the room as everyone stared at Allen in shock. Hector, most of all, was looking at the boy as if he had just seen the most preposterous scene in the world.

The elder’s eyes twitched. “… What did you say?”

“I-I said I don’t understand it!” Allen seemed to find his courage as he repeated his words. “Why do I have to remain here while everyone else risks their lives out there?! Who cares about my duties to the sect?! I never asked for any of it!”

“You!” Hector got up and pointed a trembling finger at the boy. “Take back what you just said!”

Allen hesitated for a second, but resolve quickly returned to his expression. “I won’t! I’m a cultivator too! If being the sect master means I can’t be out there helping my friends, then I don’t want to be the sect master at all!”

“I… I…” Hector stumbled on his feet before falling back onto his chair with a pale expression.

“Master Hector!” Eiwin looked at the elder in concern.

Hector didn’t seem to hear her. He held his hand between his hands in dismay. “All my years wasted in raising a successor only to turn up with an ingrate… Oh, what would my fellow sect members say if they could see me right now.”

Red stared at the strange display with curiosity. Everyone around the room didn’t seem to know how to react to the elder’s sudden dismay, and they could only exchange gazes with each other in silence.

Allen, on the other hand, seemed to be regretting his words as he looked at Hector with a troubled expression. “I-I didn’t really mean to…”

“Enough!” Hector cut him off. “I know what you mean to say! You’ve made that very clear!”

“B-But I-”

“I SAID ENOUGH!” Hector slammed his fist on the table, cracking the wood into splinters and sending the table flying.

Red and the others jumped back, stumbling between themselves to avoid the wooden shards and the items flying around. The table fell back down with a slam as the treasures they had brought to the sect scattered around the ground.

Only Hector remained sitting at the table. The old man heaved large gulps of breath in anger, and no one dared to say anything to break the heavy silence that had settled in the hall.

Hector waved his hand at them. “Out! All of you!”

Not even Narcha dared to disrespect his commands at that moment, as they all sought to shuffle out of the hall with apprehensive expressions.

“No, wait!” the elder called out.

Everyone froze.

“Narcha, Eiwin, Red and Domeron.” Hector said their names. “You stay. I still need to clarify your reports.”

Red hesitated. He didn’t want to be near the elder in his moment of rage, but he didn’t think it wise to go against his order, either.

The others were all too eager to leave the hall. Goulth was still enthralled with the ore and couldn’t wait to go back to his workshop, while Rog and Rimold were trying to be as far away from Hector as possible at the moment. Allen, too, seemed afraid that the elder would change his mind and punish him, so he ran behind his companions.

Finally, a few seconds later, there were only 5 people in the hall.

Domeron was staring down at the broken pieces of wood around the room. He looked at Hector with a frown. “You broke our table.”

“So what?!” the old man glared at him. “We can just have Goulth build another one!”

“You also broke the pill bottles.” the swordsman said.

Hector waved his hands dismissively. “Bah, it doesn’t matter! Someone will gather them later!” he looked back at Eiwin, Narcha, and Red. “So, what is it that you wanted to tell me?!”

Narcha hesitated. “That depends… Will you lash out at us again?”

Hector frowned. “Are you going to betray my trust too?”

The warrior shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Then it doesn’t matter. Just spit it out!”

So Narcha did. She told him about what Eiwin had done to defeat a certain monster whose details they couldn’t recall, about how they had found a Parting Sea Pill and how Reinhart had chosen to backstab them at that moment. She trailed off once the topic got to the conversation they had with the knight, though.

Even Eiwin seemed to be hesitant to speak out.

“What is it?” Hector, who was already angry with the interaction from earlier, looked at the two women with suspicion. “I assume you didn’t manage to get the pill, is that right?”

“He tried to blackmail us.” Red said. “He wanted us to help him kill you.”

Both Domeron and Hector’s eyes widened in shock once they heard this.

“He wanted you to betray the sect?” the swordsman asked in disbelief.

Red nodded.

“Did he give you a reason?” Domeron asked.

“He did.” the boy nodded again. He looked at Hector. “It was for revenge against you.”

“Revenge?” the old man frowned. “Revenge for what?”

“For what your sect did.” Red said. “He said you and your sect created a technique to extract a cultivator’s Spiritual Sea… He said that you were the master of the individuals responsible for taking his own Spiritual Sea and the closest person to them he could kill to achieve revenge.”

Hector’s face fell once he heard this. Eiwin and Narcha looked at Red with hesitant expressions, but neither tried to stop him as he spoke. Domeron also sighed in resignation, but he remained silent.

“Is that true then?” Red asked. “Did you really come up with such a technique?”

Hector hesitated, but still ended up nodding. “I did. It wasn’t just me, but my research played a large part in the technique’s invention.”

The boy frowned. “I assume the part about your disciples taking his Spiritual Sea is true too?”

Hector’s expression worsened. “How would I know? But I know for a fact my disciples took more than their fair share of Spiritual Seas, so it is obviously plausible.”

Red was relieved by the elder’s honesty, but the information was still alarming to him.

“Did you take any of them yourself?”

Hector shook his head. “My role in my sect was not what you might think. My realm was very low compared to my companions, so my interactions in the field were very limited. However, when it came to understanding the fundamentals of our sect’s techniques and its applications, not even individuals dozens of times stronger than I could compare.”

The others in the room watched this conversation between Red and Hector in silence. It was clear they knew most of this information beforehand and weren’t surprised by it.

The boy, on the other hand, was not too sure on what to think about this.

“Are you worried I will take your Spiritual Sea from you?” Hector went straight to the heart of the matter.

“I am.” Red nodded without hesitation.

Even if the boy had lied, he doubted Hector would have believed him.

The elder nodded. “It’s not an unfounded worry. I too would be concerned about my superior holding the power to take my Spiritual Sea from me at any point in time.”

Red frowned. “That is not doing much to assuage my concerns.”

Hector scoffed. “Nothing I say will completely assuage your concerns, so why bother?”

The boy supposed he had a point.

“If it makes you feel any better, one of the reasons I left my original sect was precisely because of this technique.” Hector said. “Our Ocean Bearers Sect was always focused on healing arts, and one of the biggest conundrums of our research was how to heal a wounded Spiritual Sea, since interacting with it while it remained inside a cultivator’s body was almost impossible. We reached a consensus that taking it out of one’s body, fixing it on the outside world, and then reintroducing it into their body was the only possible way to do it. It was a three-step problem in which we never got past step two.”

“Why is that?” Red asked.

Hector sighed. “That’s because taking out a cultivator’s Spiritual Sea from their body brought about unexpected changes. Loss of their cultivation base kept inside their Spiritual Sea was one of them, but there were also problems with the individuals themselves that appeared once they were separated from each other. More specifically, problems with their Spirit, which turned out to be much more severe than whatever wound we were trying to heal in the first place. As such, the idea of the technique stopped in the first phase, but some people within the sect found other uses for it.”

“They used the Spiritual Seas as treasure ingredients, I assume.” Red said.

“Indeed.” Hector nodded. “It was an unexpected use of a technique I myself had a hand in inventing, as they were now able to extract the equivalent of extremely rare ingredients from the bodies of cultivators to use in many ways. They also found out that the quality of the Spiritual Sea ingredient didn’t depend on cultivation, but rather on talent. You can imagine what happened from there…”

Red could indeed imagine it. Taking talented cultivators off the street, perhaps by force or simply by promising them a spot in their sect, only to stab them in the back and take from them the most important thing for a cultivator. It was an ingenious and devious plan.

“I protested the use of my technique in this manner.” Hector said. “At that point, it did not differ from a demonic technique and we were one of the 7 orthodox sects! We were supposed to fight against those practices… Unfortunately, on the face of such benefits, my protests availed to nothing, and the rampant use of the technique continued… Does that explain everything to you?”

Red nodded. “More or less.”

Hector frowned. “And do you believe me?”

“Partially.” the boy shrugged.

People who told the story often made themselves to be the good guy. This was merely the accounts of one man, and while Red appreciated the man’s honesty, he would be foolish to trust it wholeheartedly.

“There is one thing that confuses me, though.” Red said. “Reinhart said you were the master of the cultivators responsible for taking his Spiritual Sea. If you were against the use of this technique, why did your disciples use it?”

Hector’s expression worsened. “Who do you think discovered that demonic use of my technique in the first place?”

“I see.” the boy nodded. “Are they truly dead, then?”

“They are.” Hector said. “Killed by the empire for all their foolishness… However, they left something behind.”

These words seemed to pique the interest of not only Red but also Eiwin and Narcha. Domeron, on the other hand, closed his eyes and seemed to know what was about to come.

“What I’m about to tell the lot of you is confidential.” Hector stared at them with a serious expression. “If it wasn’t for what you told me, this would have remained a secret, but considering the urgency of the situation, I have no other choice but to reveal it.”

Narcha frowned in worry. “What is it, old man? Does this have to do with those disciples of yours? Did they leave behind any more cultivators looking for revenge?”

“Oh, I have no doubt they did, but that’s not the point.” Hector shook his head. “It’s about Allen.”

The warrior’s expression changed. “What does this have to do with…” she trailed off in realization. ”Oh no.”

“Indeed.” the elder nodded. “Allen is what my disciples left behind. He is their son.”