A few days had passed since the registration of Golden Karma company, and Daniel was currently sitting in the lotus position, within one of the training room in the castle. On his palm, was a perfectly round, and shiny metallic sphere.
At the moment, Daniel was in a sorry state. He was sitting over a small pool of blood, and his clothes were in tatters. Numerous faint lights glowed all over his body, healing each of the thousands of small cuts of which his skin was covered.
About five meters away from him, Wolfie sat quietly. He was staring at the round sphere in Daniel's hand in some sort of trance.
The blood that covered the ground for the radius of a meter all around Daniel, was slowly crawling back into his body, and after it all seeped back into his injuries, and entered into his blood vessels, the injuries closed immediately.
The whole healing process lasted for about five minutes, after which Daniel slowly opened his eyes, and after glancing at the metallic sphere, he turned to look at Wolfie "Don't you dare say that I didn't do anything for you.." He said with a tired voice.
The metallic sphere was, of course, a perfect metallic sphere.
Daniel had managed to reach a near perfect comprehension during the moment of Wolfie's birth. The only concepts he needed to understand before reaching a perfect comprehension, were the melting points of each and every metal, which he had slowly learned by trial and error with wolfie.
The cause for all of the cuts and injuries on Daniel's body, was due to the sharp pieces of metal which flew out of control in the air.
After breathing in a few more times, Daniel got back up on his feet, and teleport himself and wolfie out of the castle. They reappeared in one of the corners of the pocket dimension, right at the feet of an impressive-looking rocky mountain.
Looking directly at the mountain, Daniel walked towards it, and the moment he was about to hit a stone wall, the wall split into two, and formed a passage for him and Wolfie to go through.
Fifty meters into the mountain, Daniel created a relatively large cave, in the middle of which, he installed the perfect metal sphere.
The moment the metal sphere was locked in the space of the pocket dimension, the ground started to tremble.
Invisible to the naked eye, various metals of ore were forming and spreading under every rocky formation. These veins of ores would stop after reaching a certain size, as Daniel had limited the essence output of the sphere. He didn't want metal to be as much of a component of his dimension as earth, wood, water and air, as metals were relatively rare when compared to those elements.
On the other hand, the surface of the cave walls was now covered in numerous different types of metal, turning the cave into a metallic den.
Daniel could see the happiness in the young metal elemental. This was the best environment that any metal elemental could dream of, so, Wolfie couldn't be any happier about his new home.
In a matter of seconds, the small wolf-like elemental curled up on himself, and fell asleep right next to the sphere.
Once Daniel saw that Wolfie had no intention of leaving the metallic cave, he took out various low level weapons and ingot, and placed them on the ground next to the sphere. Those would, in time, turn into more metal elementals.
Trying to avoid disturbing Wolfie, Daniel quietly teleported out of the pocket dimension.
He reappeared next to Der, which was sitting at the table of a restaurant and eating his dinner.
"HA! DAMN IT!.." Der shouted after seeing Daniel suddenly appear in a moment of relaxation.
"Sorry, sorry…" Said Daniel immediately while raising his hands in surrender.
The reason why Daniel had caught Der by surprise, was because he had directly teleported out of the pocket dimension without using the proper portal they had set in the middle of the square.
Only if people used the portals, would the carrier of the ring notice that someone was coming out in advance. The fact that Der was in a relaxed state, and was eating peacefully, didn't help.
"I'm not going to make it alive until I see my daughter if you don't stop scaring me like this.. And you are not going to make it either. One day I'll just cut you in half by mistake.." Said Der nervously, while moving his fork on his plate.
"Alright, I said I'm sorry.. Come on, the teleport should be active right now.. I don't want to stay in this city any longer." Said Daniel while getting up from the chair, and walking away.
An unwilling face appeared on Der's face, as he force four or five mouthful of food in his mouth, and left a few coin on the table before following Daniel out of the restaurant.
-----
"Next.." Said an old man which stood right at the bottom of the flight of stairs that took over the teleportation platform. "Where do you want to go?" He then asked as Daniel approached him.
"The capital.. but first, I have a permit to set a direct connection to the headquarters of my company." Daniel said while handing a piece of paper to the old man, which looked at it attentively.
Without saying anything, the old man pointed at a middle aged man which stood quietly next to a large double door at the side of the room.
Daniel nodded in gratitude, then walked towards the middle aged man.
Before Daniel could speak, the man asked "Which company do you wish to visit?"
"None, I'm here to set up a direct connection." Responded Daniel plainly.
The brows of the middle aged man rose in surprise, Daniel was definitely the youngest company leader he had ever met.
The surprise quickly left his face as he said "Your permit, and a spatial sphere marked with the same composition of space and essence present within your company's headquarters.."
Daniel had gathered informations about the creation of a direct passage. Other than the permission, he would need a spatial sphere, which emanated the same type of spatial essence that the pocket dimension in which his headquarters were, emanated.
This spatial sphere would then be given to a figure called 'The Keeper of Keys'.
The Keeper of Keys was usually an expert in formations, and his job was to activate, set, and repair the teleporting formations, as well as protecting the spatial spheres which after being inserted into the formation, would allow people to teleport into their desired destination.
Usually, the role of keeper of keys wouldn't exist only on a planetary level, in fact, on any lower level, they would only be called that in an informal way. The actual keeper of keys, were the guardians of the teleporting platforms on interplanetary level.
Daniel had already met one of those, and he was the man that had denied entry to the two Spiritual Acolytes, and had allowed Daniel entrance.
After showing the permit to the middle aged man and handing over the spatial sphere, Daniel went back to the old man, which after letting Der and him onto the platform, teleported them.
-----
Daniel and Der appeared above a similar, yet slightly older looking teleportation platform. They were alone, and there was nobody else in the large room. Only an opened door that lead outside.
It didn't take long for Daniel to guess that the platform wasn't controlled for a simple reason, and that reason was that the formation on the capital's end was not set for teleporting people back. Of course, that didn't mean that there weren't teleportation platforms that lead in other cities, but the one they had just come out from, wasn't one of those.
When Daniel and Der walked out of the room, they noticed a few more people being teleported in onto the platform, and even more after those followed them out of the room.
When they left the building, the two of them immediately covered their noses, as a whiff of disgusting odor entered their nostrils.
"Woah.. that's pungent.." Said Der, trying to keep his lunch down his throat.
The smell was so bad, that tears had formed on the corners of Daniel's eyes.
He turned to look around, and he immediately noticed various bodies by the sides of the road in a half decomposed state.
From behind the two of them, Daniel heard the people who had arrived saying "What is going on here?.. What happened?"
A third group which had just left the building and saw the state the streets were in, tried to immediately teleport out of the area.
An expression of deep surprise appeared on their faces as they said "There is a spatial blockade.. I can't teleport."
After hearing the words of the third person, Daniel immediately understood.
He directly walked towards one of the bodies, and using a wooden staff he had within one of his rings, picked up one of the bodies, and went back into the building with the teleporting platform in it.
People were constantly being teleported one group after another. They all came from different cities, and some of them had waited for a fairly long amount of time before finally able to teleport.
A few young cultivators appeared right in front of Daniel, as he walked around with an half decomposed body hanging from his wooden staff, scaring them out of their shoes.
Daniel jumped onto the platform before the other young cultivators could even walk out of it, and slowly left the body above the formation. He then turned to look at the few young cultivators, and in a slightly rude way, he pushed them out of the platform, before jumping down as well.
He then turned to look at the platform in silence.
Only after seeing that nobody else was appearing on the platform did he take a deep breath, and left the building.
Der approached him, and said "What was that?"
"Something killed these people.. And locked us in this part of the city.. I thought we might as well prevent more people from joining us in this mess." Responded Daniel casually. He then looked at him, and said "Lock the exits of the pocket dimension.. Don't let anybody out."
Aside from the various dead people, Daniel could see living people in the distance. They formed a messy and spaced out line, and appeared like each was following the last one.
The various people that had arrived after Daniel, turned to look at him, as he seemed to have a purpose for doing what he was doing.
"Hey, do you know what is going on?" Asked one of them.
Daniel turned to look at this person, and said "I have no idea, but it seems like we are in trouble.."
"What do you mean?" Asked Der, which was standing quietly next to Daniel.
"The bodies are in an advanced stage of decomposition, but the smell hasn't been washed out by the wind yet, which means that it happened not long ago. Also, space is locked, and I'm guessing that even if we tried to fly, we wouldn't be able to go past a certain height.." Explained Daniel calmly.
"What does that mean?" Asked one of the cultivators that were looking at Daniel in confusion.
Daniel took a deep breath, and said "I think that we are under quarantine.."
"Quarantine?.."
"What?.. Why would they.."
The buzz of conversation started to resound around Daniel, which said "Is there anyone that's been here before?"
A thirty something years old woman, which was holding her five years old daughter in her arms said "We live here.. We just came back from visiting Treua.. The city where my family lives."
Daniel turned to look at her, and said "Can you take us deeper into the city? I doubt that the entire city will be blocked.. There has to be someone guarding the edge of the area. We'll ask them."
The woman quickly understood, and pointed her finger towards north. She then said "In that direction there is the core of the city."
A middle aged man turned to look at Daniel, and said "Wait a minute.. If you are right, and we are under quarantine.. Isn't it more risky to go where all those other people are going to?"
Daniel shrugged his shoulders, and responded "It doesn't matter anymore.. There are no wounds on the bones and tissue of the people, and no signs of fighting anywhere.. Also, wind has been locked as well. If there is a deadly virus, it's airborne, and we've already breathed it in."