Once outside of his cultivation cave, Daniel let the rays of constructed light essence to hit his body, feeling their warmth after days spent in the darkness. He of course had no problem with being in complete darkness whatsoever, as he had spent more than two years in it when he had been imprisoned, but it could not be compared to being under the calming and warm rays of sunlight.
After a few moments, he then turned around and observed the large and tall wall on which the cultivation caves had been built. He quickly noticed that various other caves next to his, had already opened. The three on the top where he knew that Jerigh, Der and Roley had been cultivating for the past few days, were part of those. That had also reminded him of how fast his group members could grow in power thanks to the system's help.
Based on the scheduled program set on the light spheres in the sky, Daniel was able to guess that it was early in the morning, and he had a clear idea of what kind of day awaited him. He quickly felt the area of the pocket dimension, and found Jerigh and Der practice martial arts in one of the large training rooms. Jerigh seemed to be winning, but that was only due to the fact that Der was holding back his power, and the two were fighting with their sheer martial abilities.
Resting next to the lava lake in an attempt to comprehend fire essence, was Roley, who was currently sitting with his legs crossed and eyes closed, while Lucious was delving deep into the books of alchemy which he had been studying ever since he had joined Daniel.
All of them had made a breakthrough in their cultivation, and while Jerigh, Roley and Lucious were still in the mid-late fifth stage of cultivation, Der, which possessed a surprisingly high talent in cultivation, had reached the same stage Daniel was, the early sixth stage.
Daniel was all out of karma points now, and that was not due to the fact that he was waiting for a group to take their revenge, and help him complete his repeatable quest.. But because during the past couple of weeks, virtually every group that had been attacked through the broker, had already taken their revenge, leaving no one in need of help. It was only after he saw Roley sitting in front of a lake, that he realized something.. A wide smile creeped on his face, and in his mind, a window appeared.
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*Primary Quest started: Karmic Exactor (Repeatable)*
-Description: Enforce the payments of a karmic debt.
Objective set: Support the Ancient Red Carp in exacting its revenge.
Optional: Kill the Rainbow-Plumed Hawk, the Milky Crow, and the Cinder Condor.
Optional: Kill the wind elemental race.
Optional: Help the wind elemental race.
Reward: 1,000,000 Karma Points (5,000,000)(-50,000,000/Perfect Wind Sphere)(2,500,000)
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The very moment after the window had appeared in Daniel's mind, he teleported Roley, Jerigh and Der right next to him.
Jerigh, which was in the middle of slashing his sword downwards, suddenly found himself above Roley, which was sitting quietly on the ground. The speed of his attack was impressive, and blocking its motion in an instant would be near impossible, but not impossible to Jerigh, who twisted his wrist in an instant, and rotated the sword of ninety degrees.
Luckily, Roley was not completely defenseless, as after he felt that he had been teleported, he immediately noticed Jerigh's attack and moved his hand upwards to parry it.
*SLAP* was the sound made by the flat side of Jerigh's single-edged sword that slapped against Roley's palm. "CAREFUL!" Said Roley in anger, while rubbing his sore palm.
"Sorry, my bad." Said Daniel in an apologetic tone. He then became serious, and said "We are going out guys."
"What for?" Asked Der with a serious tone. He had just been pulled out of training, something which he had not liked. The lack of fighting in the past few months had rendered him restless. In his world, he was a warrior, and a general at that. Living so far apart from the battlefield was not something he was used to, that is why he had found a job as a guard in this world. At least, he would have a chance to fight every now and then.
"The auction is in two days.. That's how much time we have to kill that ancient flying beast, and find a way to get that wind essence sphere." Said Daniel before disappearing from where he was standing.
His three companions, now aware of what he intended to do, followed suit and disappeared the very next moment. When they reappeared, they were in the underwater cave, right next to Daniel, which was squatting right in front of the dark body of water, and sending his immortal essence into it in weak waves, causing small ripples whose main goal was to alert the red carp of their presence.
They only needed to wait for five minutes, before a large red mass started to emerge from under the depths of the underground lake. This red mass was, of course, the red carp. On its body there were a few deep cuts that weren't present before, and a few of its scales were missing as well. It was clear to Daniel and the rest, that while they were gone, the hawk-like beast had come back with reinforcements, and that it had fought against the red carp, injuring it.
During their entire fight, the flying beasts had tried to take away huge parts of the lake in order to reduce the habitat of the red carp through the control over the impressively hurricane-like winds, but no matter how much water they forced to drift away from the area through the winds, the level of the water was never lowered. That was the only reason why the red carp was able to fight off the entire group of beasts for such a long time.
"You're in a really bad shape.." Said Daniel before instantly teleporting over the body of the red carp before it could even try to react.
The red carp was extremely used to the fact that the surface of his body was poisonous, so, his first reaction was not to be angered by Daniel's actions, or to be offended.. It was to worry and try to slip away, but the water around its body had started to behave differently. For the first time in its incredibly long life, the red carp was not able to navigate into the water.
It didn't take long before the red carp recalled that Daniel was immune to his poison, and its usual state of calm came back to dominate his mind. He then started to observe the water in its surroundings, while also feeling an oddly warm essence spread into his body. This essence was being injected by Daniel and it was, of course, healing essence.
The waters around it were not different than the rest, but for some reason, they felt like they could not be split to allow its passage. Realization came into the red carp's mind, as it said with its usual fruity voice "I see you've grown more powerful.. You should not have a problem with leaving the desert now."
Daniel ignored the red carp, and instead, it used as much power as possible to heal the red carp's tough body, which required a much larger amounts of immortal essence to be repaired than that of a normal person. Especially its big and durable scales.
"What are you talking about?" Asked Daniel with curiosity before teleporting back on the underground platform, and saying "We have to kill that flying beast."
"You're not serious." Asked the red carp in deep shock, now completely healed. This was the first time that the red carp had come into contact with healing essence, and while his recovering speed was already much faster than humans, it was still nothing when compared to Daniel's healing knowledge. That had contributed to the red carp's shock just as much as Daniel's words had.
Daniel turned to look back at the red carp, and with a serious tone, he said "That thing trapped my friends, and if it wasn't for your help, they would have died. I'm as serious as a fucking heart attack." He then jumped into the water.
As his body was about to touch the surface of the water, the waters split, making way for him to go through. Once completely in, Daniel controlled the small bubble of air in which he was floating, and went towards the underwater tunnels which lead to the external part of the lake.
"We better get moving.." Muttered Roley to the red carp, before adding "..or we won't get to see much action." He then followed Daniel's steps, and created a bubble of air that covered his body before jumping into the dark waters.
After ten minutes, Daniel emerged from the surface of the lake. He was currently standing above it, as if he was capable of walking on it, and in some way, he could. All he needed to do, was to turn the water under his feet into ice, and balance his body by controlling the waves around him, as well as the wind.
The moment Daniel appeared, he immediately felt a distant power approach him. It was incredibly fast, and yet, it was nothing that Daniel couldn't match.
In his hand, an impressively large greatsword appeared.. This weapon was only of a high tier, as the blacksmiths of this world were not as talented as those in his world of origin. After all, martial cultivators had to rely on a good weapon much more than immortal cultivators needed to, as they could not increase the power of their attacks just like immortal cultivators could with their comprehension of essences. Originally a two-handed weapon, Daniel was now powerful enough to use it singlehandedly.
As the rainbow-colored flash approached him, Daniel injected large amounts of immortal essence into the greatsword, before lifting it high up above his head. Time seemed to slow, and the flying beast was now only a few meters from Daniel, when finally, he slashed downwards with all of the power he had.
As the greatsword cut through air, Daniel made the immortal essence present into the weapon to explode from the back of the sword, giving a powerful push to the body of the sword and an increase in slashing speed.
*CLINK!*
A powerful clashing sound was heard, and the previously indistinguishable flash of multicolored lights was forced back for at least five hundred meters through the air. Daniel had similarly ended up back into the water, but only at fifty meters of depth.
The flying beast was now waving its wings rapidly, trying to stabilize its position in mid air. Its beak had been chipped, and blood could be seen giving the feathers near the area that had been hit a bright red color.
"You've grown powerful, human.. But you are outside of your element here." Said the hawk-like beast before waving its enormous wings towards Daniel, and creating thousands of blades of wind that sliced through the air, and towards him.
Each of these blades of wind was repelled the moment they reached about ten meters from Daniel's body, as he would create similarly powerful blades, which after crashing with the ones under the beast's control, caused both of them to disperse.
This did not mean that the beast had no more cards to play, and just as it was about to construct an attack which he believed Daniel did not possess the power to face head on, he noticed various other individuals emerge from underwater, as well as the red carp, which he had now come to fear.
Without thinking twice about it, it turned around, and dashed into the distance.
"COME BACK HERE! COWARD!!" Shouted Daniel in feigned anger, before quietly turning his internal immortal essence into dark essence, and masking his power completely. Then, he teleported in the direction where the beast had escaped.
Roley, Der, Jerigh and the red carp immediately followed him from the distance.
