"Ohh.. finally.." Groaned the old man.
Daniel approached the old man with a confident pace. He then pointed the sword downward and pressed its hilt against his chest. Finally, he looked at the old man, and took a deep bow.
"I hope you won't change your mind and kill me" Daniel said through an embarrassed smile.
The old man showed his rotten teeth once more, and responded "Don't worry.. You and I have much to discuss.." He then turned towards the girl whose neck he was holding, and continued "But first.. I hope you won't mind me putting on something a little more.. Comf-"
*Fwoosh*
The old man's sentence was interrupted by the sound of a sword piercing through air at high speed. But before the sword managed to pierce anything, a large ice blade swiped horizontally and detached Daniel's head from his body.
"As if I was born yesterday.." Said the old man while grinning at the decapitated Daniel.
Daniel's head hit the stone pillar, and rolled on the ground for a few meters.
-----
Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from the castle. Millions of spiritual cultivators all around the world furrowed their brows in shock.
Some of them got distracted during a critical moment and almost lost their lives, while some others had completely interrupted whatever they were doing and turned their head towards the same direction.
All of these spiritual cultivators, had a deep comprehension of time essence, and no matter how far in the world, these powerful cultivators felt a global interruption of the omnipresent time law.
-----
Golden Cauldron, main branch.
A very old, yet lively looking man was quietly sitting in front of a boiling pot. The room's furniture looked simple, but every bit of it had been constructed by extremely rare and expensive materials.
The old man's head turned towards the direction of the castle, and muttered to himself "..I wonder what kind of old monster managed to control the laws of time to this extent.." This man, was called Golden Cauldron, and he was the Silver Alchemist's father, and president of the company 'Golden Cauldron'.
-----
Back in the castle, Daniel's head rolled backwards on the floor, hit the stone pillar once again, and flew back above Daniel's shoulders. It then reattached itself to his neck the very moment the ice blade passed between them.
"..putting on something a little more.. co.. WHA-"
*Fwoosh*
Once again, the sound of a sword piercing through air interrupted the old man's speech. Unfortunately, it didn't stop him from casting an ice blade once again, and send it slashing horizontally at Daniel's neck.
Daniel was prepared this time. He lowered his head just in time to avoid the slashing blade, and managed to pierce the old man's chest from part to part.
All of a sudden, the formation activated once again.
The people's surroundings changed back, and the horrific and gory castle, turned back into a simpler yet still spectral black and white.
Inside the real catacomb, Daniel was standing still while pressed against the old man's body. At his feet, two differently colored streams of blood were pooling and merging into a strange black and dark red mixture.
Fresh blood started to drip down the corners of Daniel's lips.
The petite girl managed to free herself from the dead body's grip, and after a few gasp for air, she composed herself, and looked at Daniel.
She thought that Daniel had sold her out to the old man, and that she was doomed, but that was had all been a ruse to get closer to him, and launch a sneak attack.
Relieved of the outcome, she approached Daniel. But before she could pat on his shoulder, she noticed the heavy bleeding.
Daniel's legs finally gave up, and he nearly fell on his back. Fortunately, the petite girl was right behind him, so she easily catched him and laid him gently on the floor.
On his chest, she saw various large holes.
These holes, had been caused by a last moment attack of the Clear Mage, which in a moment of panic, created various wooden spikes between himself and Daniel.
When Daniel fearlessly threw his body at him, he ended up impaling himself.
Now bleeding severely, Daniel lied on the floor. The girl's small hands were pressing on the wounds, trying to stop the bleeding, and at the same time, shock covered her face as she noticed that Daniel's body was that of a rank 4 martial cultivator.
Fortunately she didn't let that distract her from the matter at hand.
She started to rummage into her backpack, but before she could find what she was looking for, Daniel's words reached her ears.
"The tomb.. Burn the m-mother's coffin.. No time" He said while spewing copious amount of blood.
The girl was unwilling to leave him like that, so she kept searching inside her bag.
Daniel's trembling hand touched her small knee gently, and as he got her attention, he focused all of his spiritual essence to his injuries, and turned it into healing essence.
The petite girl noticed the stopping of the blood flow, and the very slow yet constant recovery of Daniel's flesh.
It was like watching a high level healing pill slowed a to a hundreth of the speed, and yet, it was still able to stabilize him.
Daniel's main concern was to recover the damage to his organs.
He had various holes in his stomach, one of his lungs had been punctured, and a huge slash almost cut his liver in half.
These points were where he focused most of the healing essence to, while the remaining bit, saw used to stop the bleeding.
Seemingly on his deathbed, Daniel summoned a small ball of fire, and used it to burn the old man's clothes.
Seeing that Daniel had everything under control, the petite girl got up on her feet, ripped the large burning piece of the old man's robe and rolled it up around her sword. She then started walking towards the double doors.
She slowly pushed the heavy doors open, letting the stale air hit her face.
The moment the door was opened, a streak of weak spiritual essence dashed from the coffin, towards her, but before the spiritual essence could reach its destination, a lightning bolt appeared in the air and struck it, making it dissipate.
After fending off an attempt to take possession of the girls body, Daniel tried to shout, but what came out of his mind, was a feeble "..now.."
Despite not being able to hear him, the girl rapidly approached the solitary wooden casket in the middle of the room, and threw the flaming piece of fabric above it.
She then retreated back out of the room, closing the large double doors behind, and approached Daniel once again.
The moment she reached him, he had already lost consciousness.
The girl knew that the last two attacks had been more than Daniel could take. Focusing on healing himself, while at the same time protecting her from the attempts of possession from the Clear Mage, was too much for Daniel to handle.
Therefore he had passed out, allowing his blood to start flowing out of his wounds once again.
-----
When Daniel woke up, before he could even gather his bearings, he noticed an opened window within his mind.
This window was very small, but its content made Daniel happy beyond words.
-----
*No Rest for the Wicked*
Second objective completed.
Reward: 137,500 Karma Points
-----
Once closed the window, Daniel looked at his surroundings, and noticed that he was still lying on the floor of the catacomb. His head was resting on a grey robe, which emanated a nice smell.
His first instinct was to look down to his chest.
He immediately noticed that any sort of wound had been healed, and no trace of their presence whatsoever had been left behind.
He lifted his upper body, and started to look around.
Sitting next to the short stone column, was a girl.
This girl had smooth skin of a clean olive color, and medium sized hair that flowed gently down the sides of her head. Her straight black eyebrows stood proudly above a pair of dark brown eyes, which were currently directed at the sandwich she was eating.
She couldn't be considered shockingly beautiful, but her cold demeanor more than made up for it.
Daniel couldn't recognized her face, but her familiar body size rapidly betrayed her identity. She was the petite girl.
The girl noticed the movement coming from Daniel's direction.
She was about to say something, but before she could, Daniel interjected and said "The best hundred gold coins i've ever spent.."
After a moment of confusions, the two bursted into a tired and heartfelt laugh.
"..I'm sorry for taking one of the pills.." She said embarrassedly.
A faint grin grew on Daniel's face, as he looked at her and responded "I should thank you for safekeeping a pill for me.. Or, as stupid as I am, I would have ended up using it that very night."
After a few minutes of embarrassing silence, the petite girl said "I'm Alis, by the way."
"Nice to meet you Alis, i'm Dan." Responded Daniel while getting back up on his feet, and ignoring that she already knew his name.
He started to slowly explore the catacomb, trying to see if there was anything of value inside. At the same time, a few ideas on how to use his large amount of karma points came to his mind.
After a few minutes of consideration, and unfruitful search, he decided to purchase the system's permanent passive ability called 'Karma X Luck', which dictated Daniel's luck, according to the amount of positive or negative karma he possessed.
With more than a hundred thousand karma points left, he approached Alis, and after taking a coin out of his pocket, he told her "Heads or Tails.."
"Why would play heads or tails?" She asked with curiosity, then continued "..did you find something good?"
"No, I just want to play.. Pick one" He quickly responded.
"Heads." she said, right before Daniel sent the coin flying high up in the air.
When it reached the ground, its heads side slowly landed on the ground. It was tails.
"A few more.." Said Daniel.
The two played heads or tails for ten minutes, during which Daniel won forty out of forty-three tosses. Strangely irritated by the result, Alis challenged Daniel at rock-paper-scissors.. Which Daniel decided to play with his eyes closed, and abandoning all tactics.
One game after the other, ten more minutes passed. During these ten minutes, Daniel had won 115 games out of 129.
Alis's tactics couldn't help her against Daniel's sheer luck.
With closed eyes, he would simply throw a figure at the last moment, and most of the times, that figure would be the right one.
After another heavy defeat, Alis observed the excited expression on Daniel's face. She then asked him "The Clear Mage called you a monstrosity.. Has the fact that you have a rank 5 spirit and rank 4 body something to do with it?.."
Without looking back at her, Daniel responded nonchalantly "He was right.. But he didn't know the half of it.."
Ignoring his boasts, Alis continued "How is it possible?.."
"Well, it's too late for you, so let it be a secret of mine for a while longer.." He responded while getting back up on his feet.
He then started walking towards the large double door.
"How old are you really?.. You can't really be in your early teens.. You must at least be twenty-five.." She said while trying to get his attention back.
Amused by the girl's words, Daniel turned his body around, and while walking backwards, he said "Believe it or not, I am only four-" His bragging was interrupted by his sudden loss of balance, caused by him stumbling upon one of the old man's foot.
Daniel couldn't help but reach for anything he could grab during the fall. The only thing present to grab, was the hilt of the sword.
The moment he touched the hilt's sword, a heavy amount of invirmations started to pour into Daniel's mind. They were all informations about the formation.
Its workings, the weak points, the way to control it. He knew everything.
He rapidly took the copy he had made of the trap formation's project, and suddenly, he could understand everything within it.
Apparently, the formation was never supposed to only work as a trap for the Clear Mage, but also as a prison. And where there was a prison, a jailer would be there to guard him.