"What the hell was that?!" Asked Edmund right after teleporting next to Daniel.
Daniel was still visibly shocked. Only he was able to understand how grim and dangerous the situation really was.
After shaking the tension off his back, he turned to look at Edmund and said "That.. was an unlucky encounter."
Bohn and Vael arrived the very next moment.
"Did you feel the world freeze as well?" Asked Vael, still shaken by the experience.
Bohn turned to look at him, and said "Yes! So it wasn't just me.." He then looked at Daniel, and continued "Was everything caused by your breakthrough?"
The two of them weren't as fast as Edmund, as they had to run or fly in order to get back on top of the mountains, and have a good look of what was happening in the dead valley.
"Just the vortex.. Not the rest" Responded Daniel with an uncomfortable expression.
After they finished talking, they went back into the pocket dimension.
Daniel hadn't explained too much of what had really happened to the others.
Who that human-like dragon was, or the information he had received from him. So, they were all slightly confused about what they had witnessed.
The ruckus in the dead valley had caused many nearby powers to approach the site, but unfortunately, they found nothing but a destroyed valley, and the previously quiet mountains that had now turned into active volcanoes.
The situation in the rest of the cultivation world was much more chaotic.
Everyone had been frozen in place for various seconds without knowing why, causing rumors and hysteria to spread.
Some said that a god had descended, some said that a new expert capable of ascending to a higher plane of existence had been born.. And some said that there was something wrong with the time essence all around the world.
The people who were the most worried, were the experts of time essence.
Even before this last freezing of time, space, and other essences, they had felt the time rewind by eighty seconds.
These cultivators were still trying to understand why time had rewinded by four seconds three years ago, and yet, they had felt a similar event happen once again. If it wasn't enough, it was paired with a global mana blockade.
Many people in the world started to go crazy. Some formed cults that preached about the end of the world, while others decided to give up their human feelings of empathy and compassion, and embraced a life of greediness.. Taking everything they wanted whenever they wanted. This was all due to the false belief that humanity was coming to an end.
This, had started a new era of chaos and panic all around the world.
After the events at the death valley, Daniel and the rest had resumed their travel towards the Nestreia continent.
-----
Seara Island, one year later.
Daniel, Edmund and a few others, were sitting at a table situated in the hall of a castle in ruins.
On the other side of the table, sat a few men and women in tattered clothes, and similar to these people, hundreds more filled the room.
"How many?.." Asked Daniel with a dead serious expression.
"T-two hundred.. For the last three years.." Responded the oldest looking woman that sat on the other side of the table.
"So many.." muttered Daniel in response.
During their year of travels, Daniel and the rest had helped people whenever they found a chance to, and now, their city had grown exponentially. Its inhabitants now counted three hundred thousands, and from being a small settlement, it had become a large and flourishing city.
Thanks to Daniel's advancement to the late eight rank of cultivation, the pocket dimension had reached an area large enough to allow the increased amount of people to live comfortably.
The pocket dimension was in fact, so large, that many of the unranked citizens had moved out of the main city, and had created villages around it. Around these villages, the inhabitants would cultivate crop, and breed livestock for materials and food.
At first, due to the increased number of citizens, Daniel had quickly found a huge problem with having an isolated city. That problem was, of course, food.
Most of the people that joined him would bring large amounts of food with them, and they could buy some from every city they visited, but this food would always finish fast.
It was after only a couple of months that Daniel had understood the importance of auto sufficiency.
Minerals, water, wood, and light. Daniel's pocket dimension had all it needed to have a perfectly fertile soil, plus, the composition of the various bodies of water could be changed so that the largest bodies of water would have salty water, while the smaller ones would have fresh water.
This had not only allowed people to have a source of drinkable water, but also a place in which they could add different types of fishes, that after breeded to a stable number, could word as an additional source of food.
Houses, schools, schools of martial arts, and even sects had moved into Daniel's pocket dimension, and were all regulated by a sort of government under the guidance of Daniel's group.
The members of Daniel's group now numbered in the thousands, and each and every member was constantly busy solving problems for the citizens, and allowing the group's karma to quickly increase.
After a year of travels, Daniel and the rest had ended up in an unmarked island.
This island was called Seara Island, and was situated in the middle of one of the oceans that Daniel's group would have to cross on their way to the Nestreia continent.
This island contained sparse vegetation, and yet, it was inhabited by a reasonably high number of people for its size.
The inhabitants of this island didn't number more than thirty thousand, and appeared to be simple people. They lived in roughly built villages right on the shore, and survived by fishing, hunting, and gathering fruits and berries from the surrounding vegetation.
There were cultivators present in the island, but due to the small amount of ranked beasts, the majority of the cultivators had reached the fourth rank of cultivation only after the seventy years of age.
The reason why Daniel and the rest had left the pocket dimension in this island, was because they were looking for suitable saltwater fishes to add to their sea. An island inhabited by fishermen was a good place to ask gather that kind of information.
Unfortunately, they had been welcomed by the villagers with fear, as they hadn't seen cultivators of such high ranks for a very long time.
Daniel immediately noticed that something was wrong after seeing the poor conditions, and the lack of children in the various villages.
He had taken the habit, while looking for people to help, to keep his eyes open for every possible sign of distress. In this case, the lack of children despite the large amount of healthy and young people, had made him suspicious.
Instead of leaving right away, he took Roley, Jerigh, and Alesia, and asked around.
In the past year, Jerigh had managed to breakthrough to the ninth stage of cultivation, and reached a perfect mastery of his single-edged sword. His studies were now focused on the double wielding.
Thanks to the group's effect, the time sphere, and the various resources within the pocket dimension, Roley had reached the early eighth rank of cultivation, a perfect comprehension of earth, and a near perfect comprehension of water, wind, and wood essence.
He and Imblen had given a chance to a romantic relationship between them, but due to the fact that Roley had become too focused on his cultivation, and showed no interest in starting a family and settling down, the two had parted ways.. Since then, they had never gone back to being the kind of close friends they used to be.
Alesia was now at the peak of the seventh stage of cultivation, and thanks to the weapon mastery training room upgraded by Jerigh, and her talent in swordsmanship, she was able to reach an extremely high level of mastery in the sword.
Her parents Edmund and Emelnie were now in charge of the group from within the pocket dimension. They also had another child. A healthy boy called Tigue.
Heimart and Alis had put their training and cultivation momentarily on hold, due to the fact that they were parents now, and had two kids of respectively two years and six months of age to take care of.
Ligart and the unnamed red headed girl were now together, and only a few days earlier, the two of them had expressed their intention of marrying each other to the rest of the group. Ligart's cultivation rank had reached the peak of the seventh rank, while his soon to be wife's was at the early eighth rank.
Finally, Imblen had decided to adopt the two orphans, and teach them the martial path of cultivation. Her cultivation had slowly increased to the early seventh rank, just like Heimart's and Alis's.
Now that a large portion of his friends had settled down in the world within his pocket dimension, Daniel had found himself moving around with Roley, Jerigh and Alesia more and more often.
When Daniel and the rest had asked about the reason why there weren't many kids in the various villages, they had been shocked by the answers.
Apparently, the various chiefs of the villages were required to send most of the children to a castle situated in the middle of the island.
After reaching this castle, the children would never return. Disobedience had lead to the destruction of more than one village in the past.
The island wasn't large, but it wasn't small either, so, it wasn't possible for Daniel to scan it all with his spiritual essence. Instead, the group flew in mid air in search of the aforementioned castle.
After two full days of search, they finally found a castle in ruins right in the middle of a forest. Inside it, Daniel could feel a few low-ranking cultivators moving around.
As Daniel and the others landed at the entrance of the castle, they were welcomed by a large group of guards at the fourth rank of cultivation. These guards weren't well dressed by any means, and instead, wore tattered clothes, and appeared underfed.
"Who are you?!" Asked one of the guards, visibly scared.
"Take me to see the one in charge of this castle, before I turn it into dust." Said Daniel with a threatening tone.
Sensing the oppressive power that the four of them emanated, the guards ran back into the castle with shaky legs.
Instead of waiting for the guards to come back, Daniel and his friends took the liberty of exploring the castle on their own.
The place was in awful conditions. There were no decorations on the walls, and a stale odor had settled for what seemed to be hundreds of years.
When Daniel attempted to push his spiritual essence through the corridors and the rooms of the castle, he found out that he could not reach further than the room or corridor he was currently in. A powerful formation forbid him to.
Unable to scan the place, Daniel and the rest decided to walk further into the its depths.. but before they could reach far, a large group of people came out from the various corridors, and surrounded them. They were all low ranking cultivators, and didn't seem to hold any ill intent.
An old woman took a step towards Daniel and said "It's not safe here.. Please follow us."
A powerful formation, an unknown old woman, a shady history.. Daniel had many reasons not to trust these people. He was about to refuse and demand explanations, but then, he noticed Jerigh follow her steps into a dark corridor.
While Daniel had noticed the red number on the woman's head, Jerigh had noticed a different detail.. Buried deeper into the woman's expression. The expression of a person who was forced into performing evil acts, and felt a deep hatred towards themself for not being brave enough to chose death instead.
The woman lead the group into a large hall inside which the formation did not reach. In this room, there was a large table surrounded by about ten ancient looking chairs.
After taking a sit at the table, Daniel decided not to waste any more time, and asked "Why are you taking the children of the village?"
"We don't take them for ourselves.. The masters make us.." Said the middle aged woman with guilt.
"The masters?" Asked Alesia with curiosity.
"The masters have been demanding tributes from us villagers for the past fifty years.. It was any sort of people at first.. Then, they started to ask for young women.. Now..they want children, and many of them." Said the woman with a broken voice.
"How many?.." Daniel asked with a dead serious expression.
"T-two hundred.. Every year.."