After healing Ligart's injuries, Daniel left the ring to him and teleported back into the pocket dimension.
He now had enough karma points and the required power to fulfill his promise. He appeared within the earth elemental sanctuary.
The moment he appeared, a few randomly place stones started to move into the shape of a giant completely made out of stone. Once complete, this giant started to shrink and approach Daniel.
"Daniel. It's good to see you again." Said Buriath while curving his rocky lips into a genuine smile.
"Buriath. I've come to fulfill my promise." Responded Daniel while smiling back at him.
Buriath tilted his head in confusion and asked "Already?.."
"Already.." Said Daniel while reaching with his hand. The next moment, the perfect earth treasure appeared in his palm.
Without waiting to see the earth elemental's reaction to his move, Daniel started to surround the perfect treasure with his spiritual essence. He then turned it into pure and perfect earth essence, and fed it to the earth treasure.
One by one, Daniel shaped the earth essence into thousands of forms and combinations, and demonstrated all the affected caused by mixing earth with other essences.
It took Daniel more than ten hours and half of the karma points he had just obtained to finally complete the perfect earth essence sphere.
The sphere looked like a precious gem with thousands of faces, and each face was composed of a different mineral. Some of which were so clear that one could notice the sphere's stony core through them.
The earth essence emitted by the sphere was so pure and heavy that, if not controlled, the sphere would be able to instantaneously fill the entirety of the pocket dimension in stone.
Daniel approached Buriath, which was looking at Daniel with shaky legs. He then handed the sphere to him.
"Y-you.. R-really did it.." Said Buriath with an emotional tone. The rest of the young elementals immediately approached Buriath and started to stare at the perfect earth essence.
"As I've promised." Responded Daniel with a large smile on his face. "In our future travels, we will find a quiet place for your race to live peacefully."
Buriath couldn't help but split his enthusiastic looks between the sphere and Daniel. Then, after a minute of thinking, the smile on his face disappeared as he said. "You have been fair with me human.." He then looked at the rest of the younger earth elementals, and continued "I don't believe it is my turn to guide the future of the earth elementals.. I think I have fulfilled my purpose in life."
With a serious expression, Buriath looked at Daniel and said "Please, allow us to follow you.." Once again, he looked at the five earth elementals before continuing "You can teach them how to be good better than I can."
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Buriath and five more want to join Group of the Karmic System's Wielder.
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"I doubt there is ever going to be a better example of earth elemental to follow than you." Responded Daniel in a reassuring tone. Then, he said "But if you want to stay with us, I am not going to stop you."
Buriath approached Daniel, and put one of his rocky hands over his shoulder. Then, he grabbed his wrist, turned his hand to face upwards, and left the perfect earth essence on his palm.
He then stepped back twice, looked at the surrounding space, and smiled at Daniel.
Daniel immediately understood what Buriath's thoughts were. He slowly walked towards the exact center of the pocket dimension, and once there, he locked the perfect earth sphere on the floor.
In an instant, the ground evolved.
The amount of minerals present in the soil, when compared to the ones present before, was much higher. Valuable minerals also started to appear randomly underground.
The water and wind essence spheres, now overpowered similarly to how a kid would be overpowered by a man, started to emanate slightly less essence.
Earth and soil now dominated the pocket dimension, and yet, the air was still filled with breathable air, and the previously predominant sea had now turned into a small sized lake.
The pocket dimension had suddenly become the perfect habitat for earth elementals, and thanks to Daniel's group feature that added to the elemental's speed in progression, Daniel could say with certainty that no other earth elemental in the world would ever experience such a good environment to grow.
Once finished installing the earth sphere, Daniel left the pocket Dimension. Only one day was missing before the appointed time, and he had decided to spend it in Ligart's company.
-----
The next day, Daniel and Ligart where the first to arrive in the square where the group was supposed to meet.
In the span of an hour, the rest of the group arrived one by one.
Daniel found hilarious the fact that, despite it was extremely obvious that Alis and Heimart had become intimate, they kept pretending whenever they had the chance.
That very day, they had arrived separately, just like they did when they had separated five days ago.
"So.. did you guys have fun?" Asked Daniel with his usual cheeky smile.
Heimart shrugged and said "I would hardly call it a vacation.."
Roley and Imblen had spent the entire time taking the kids to visit various shops and buying them things. They had played the happy family despite being only good friends. They simply did it to make the kids feel a bit of affection and familiarity which they lacked as orphans.
Both the shy little girl and her brother were happily finishing a large lollipop.
The one who surprised Daniel the most, was Jerigh. He had come back with dozens of bags full of junk, clothes, and food. He hadn't even bothered with putting them in his spatial ring.
Ligart was about to joke about Jerigh's spending spree, but as he felt Daniel's elbow hitting his ribs, he remembered in what kind of situation Jerigh used to live, and that he had probably never seen any of those items before.
Daniel looked at his group and said "We will depart for the capital soon.. If you guys have something to do here in Drester, this is the time to do it.."
The group had been wise enough to solve their unfinished business during the past few days, so when Daniel asked if they had anything else to solve, none of them spoke.
Satisfied with the group's response, Daniel looked at Roley with a playful look and said "I have a surprise for you.."
"A surprise?" Asked Roley with curiosity.
"Something to keep yourself occupied with after you wrap things up with the water sphere.." Responded Daniel while smiling. He then added "You will see once you'll enter the ring again."
Roley was the only one amongst the group who didn't need Daniel's help to enter the pocket dimension. After all, he had comprehended a very small amount of spatial essence from the middle aged man. So, he directly approached Daniel and disappeared the very next second.
Daniel helped the rest of his team go back in the ring, then took out the ki flag that Mrs. Saullet had given to him, and started to erase the middle aged man's ki.
The very next moment, the middle aged man appeared right next to Daniel.
"Are you ready to go?" Asked Edmund with his usual serious expression.
Daniel nodded back at him, then said "Mrs. Saullet told me that the travel will take one week. I wouldn't mind training in spatial essence for that period of time."
"Sure." Responded Edmund before taking a small box out of his spatial ring. He then said "I call this item a 'gravitational room', but in truth, it really is an extremely small pocket dimension with ever changing gravity."
"That sounds interesting." Said Daniel to the middle aged man. He then continued by asking "How far does the gravity go?"
The middle aged man gave Daniel a weird smile, then said "from no gravity at all.. To near death."
"Only to near death?" Asked Daniel curiously. He didn't believe that a gravity capable of killing a human didn't exist.
Edmund's eyes narrowed as he looked at Daniel. He then said "I wasn't willing to lose my life for the sake of learning that additional tiny bit of spatial essence.."
Daniel smiled at Edmund once again, then said "Maybe you won't, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't either. How can I do that?"
"Simple.. Burden yourself with weight until you start hearing bones crack.." Responded Edmund with a sarcastic tone, then he said "And after you start hearing your bones crack.. Keep going."
Of course, Edmund wasn't aware of it, but Daniel really planned on trying it. He could create an excessively heavy armor that would weight on his body and kill him. He would then go back to life just in time dissipate the weight that would kill him within the next two seconds.
The use of external help in order to comprehend an essence was a common thing.
Some used scorching iron to comprehend the freezing-like feeling of when one gets burned, salt and water to burn their skin without having to use fire, and even the movement of fine sand in order to understand the flowing of water.
"Alright kid, it's time to go" Said Edmund before teleporting Daniel back into his house.
Inside the living room, Edmund's wife Emelnie was already waiting.
Without saying anything, Edmund tossed the box at Daniel, then teleported both him and his wife inside a pocket dimension.
This pocket dimension wasn't large by any means, and it only contained a small sized but elegant mansion.
What was curious about this pocket dimension was that it contained many different types of essences. Amongst which were light, earth, water, wind and metal essence spheres.
There was even an inactive sphere which Daniel couldn't seem to recognize. He couldn't help but stare at it.
"Have you seen something that caught your eye?" Asked Emelnie with a gentle tone.
"What type of essence does that sphere contain? I can't feel anything from it." Asked Daniel with a curious tone.
Emelnie smiled at Daniel and said "That's the most expensive kind of essence sphere.. A time sphere."
When Daniel heard the woman's words, his eyes opened wide in shock. He looked back at Emelnie and asked "That's a time sphere? Why does it look deactivated?"
"It's not deactivated. It is simply set to mimic the normal flow of time. It helps with farming" Responded Emelnie before slowly walking inside the mansion.
It was at this moment that Daniel remembered where he had seen a sphere similar to this one. It was inside the greenhouse ring that the Silver Alchemist had given to him.
After thinking about the woman's words, Daniel had a flash of enlightenment.
He had always believed that time was ever-present, but now he had realized something new. Time was not present within pocket dimensions.
The moment Daniel thought of this, he also thought that it was the most obvious thing ever. But then, he started thinking about how his friends had aged a full year within the pocket dimension if there was no time flow.
It didn't take long for Daniel to make a conclusion. Time flow did not affect the aging of living things.
There was a reason why living mana like ki and beast essences were so different from other types of mana, and that was because living things possessed life essence.
What made people age was the deterioration of their life essence, and its replacement with death essence. This was the reason why time essence could not be used to speed a person aging process.
It now became all very clear to Daniel. He couldn't help but start thinking about what the possible uses of time essence could be, or how to comprehend life essence.
What Daniel wasn't aware of, was that he had already come into contact with both time essence and life essence. And that was when he had consumed healing essence.
Tens of thousands of years ago, when healing pills were created, humans that had comprehended bits and pieces of time essence and life essence had decided to create an item that could speed the regeneration of the human's body.
The healing pill was a failed result on the attempt of creating a pill for immortality, and yet, it had been passed down as one of the most incredible inventions in history.
What had been forgotten after so many years, was that healing essence was nothing more than an artificial essence created by the refined mix of time, and life essence.