While that man held the bottle containing the Spring of Life, and with incredulous eyes in his face, Kevin was sitting there on the sofa, with eyes closed, waiting for this Spiritual King to recover from the shock.
And sometime later, he then began to narrate what had happened in the days that had passed since the fortnightly auction of the Black Market in the city of Hadia.
Kevin left nothing out, including all the details of the people who had attacked him and his group in those difficult days he had gone through.
After a while talking about it, Jamie then sat in an armchair next to where Kevin was and said, looking into the eyes of this young master. "We will ask the family to dispatch a Spiritual King to accompany you back to our headquarters."
"During this period, until someone comes here to escort you, the young master better not leave this base. It would be very troublesome to travel all the way to the headquarters without the protection of a Spiritual King."
And in fact, the Chambers family's headquarters was far away from where they were, which would make a trip there hazardous, given the number of days it would take for Kevin's group to travel all the way.
Hearing this, Kevin nodded in agreement but said nothing. He knew he wouldn't be able to return to his region right away, but that wouldn't be a big deal for him.
The young master of the Chambers family was quite tired from the traveling days, with a few injuries here and there, so having a few days of forced rest in this place wouldn't be all bad for him.
He had also bought some slaves at the fortnightly auction at the Black Market, so he could also start preparing one of them for what came next...
The two captives who had the potential to become Kevin's cauldrons didn't have the physical conditions for this type of activity, so he would have to give them a little time to recover.
And that wasn't just because of how the two of them looked right now. But, of course, Kevin wouldn't want to have an unattractive cauldron. He would undoubtedly demand that they satisfy him with their appearance as well, not just the spiritual energy that would be sucked into the young man's cultivation.
But what was more important than appearance was cultivation. In dual cultivation, the side of the cauldron would need to have a lot of spiritual energy in their body for the other side to be able to steal that energy.
If the cauldron were depleted, dual cultivation would not do much for the person who was using this type of practice.
That way, if Kevin wanted to practice with one of these two women, he would first have to allow them to cultivate again, to at least replenish their respective energies.
After that, he could gradually begin sucking the cultivation from one of these women, which would cause him to increase his strength while simultaneously weakening the other side continuously.
Naturally, as the cauldrons continued to cultivate, delaying the adverse effects of dual cultivation, it may take several years for one person's cultivation to be entirely absorbed by another, returning to level 0.
Anyway, after a brief conversation with Jamie, Kevin left for a section of the base where there were residences, where he could rest.
He wanted to cultivate for a while and then sleep so that he would recover from the psychological fatigue he had been having the past few days.
...
And while Kevin was on his way to begin his recovery, the slaves who had come with him earlier had all been transported to their proper locations within that Chambers family's base.
There was a section of the base's basement with numerous cells and little lighting. The only illumination was coming from a large door at the back of the building Kevin had entered.
But besides being dark, that place had several cells organized in four different points, while two corridors separated them, crossing in a place where there was a big wooden trunk in the middle.
Several handcuffs attached to the ground could be seen in that place, while the other ends of this item predicate a man's arms and legs.
He was hugging the torso, knees on the floor, and a pained look on his face, biting his lip as he tried not to cry out in pain.
At the same time, there was a man in the Chambers family's guard clothes, a few yards away from that captive tied to change, holding a large whip, which had many metal spikes on one end.
"Ahhh!"
After taking another lash on his back, that black-haired captive who was trapped in that place could no longer hold his voice as he let out a sharp cry of pain. This resonated in the minds of more than 50 slaves who were in that place, watching this torture, while they waited for their respective turns.
While some were trembling with fear, at this moment, Joey was beside Peter's unconscious body, waiting for his turn.
Peter had already gone through the torture of the whip, lying there unconscious, exposing his mangled back to anyone who wanted to see. His appearance was horrible. His back was bleeding, while there seemed to be a loaf of ground beef in there, not even looking like a piece of a human body.
His face was ashen, with a trickle of blood running from the young Peter's mouth.
The spanking was not easy, and the stronger the cultivation level of one of these captives, the more 'education' time they would have to endure.
"Ahhh!"
Another scream sounded as one more person had reached that trunk, barely withstanding the second lash he had received.
...
Quickly time passed, and a new day had arrived in the city of Hadia.
And while Peter and several other captives were suffering at the hands of the guards of the Chambers family, from that base where Kevin had gone, Minos and company were already preparing to have their meeting with Dumas's group.
The deadline given to the soldiers who had come with Minos to this place had already passed. By this time, many of them were already in an abandoned building in the old part of the city of Hadia.
There was what appeared to be a large hangar in that place, which perhaps had already been used to construct boats and ships. However, this place was now just an empty, dirty, flawed building that was probably only used by bandits and pirates.
This had been the place chosen by Eda, where she said it was an excellent place to talk in this city, without attracting the attention of the powers of this region. After all, this was a place frequented by bandits and pirates. It was pretty typical for bands of these types of individuals to gather in these areas.
And so, they had decided to gather around here, even though this place was very precarious.
Anyway, several soldiers were already in that place, talking in various circles, while Minos and the two women of the Miller family were sitting in some simple chairs that they had brought.
At that moment, the last remaining group of soldiers finally arrived, when Dumas walked to where Minos was standing with a serious look on his face.
He still didn't know precisely where Peter had been taken. Still, his group was almost there, having even discovered which family had bought the young Seargent.
Minos then commanded the soldiers to be silent when he finally asked. "Sergeant Dumas, what results have your group found so far?"
Hearing this, that man immediately responded, narrating all that they had discovered. "Young master, we still don't know where Sergeant Peter was taken, but we do know about the family who bought him at the Black Market auction."
"Oh?"
"It was a noble family from the Cromwell Kingdom, the Chambers family."
Hearing this, not only was Minos surprised by this outcome but also by the two women who were accompanying him.
Both Abby and Eda knew about what had happened to Minos and Leroy during the Spiritual Tournament, so they were pretty surprised that this family had now reappeared in the young Stuart's path.
It seems like the saying went, enemies indeed are always crossing their paths...
The Chambers family was not supposed to know anything about what had happened to Minos, and this young man was not supposed to go after them either. However, still, here they were, again on opposite sides.
Fate had put them back into disagreement as if it was something predestined, or something like that... It was really curious for both of them to see this happening up close.
As for Minos, he was a little surprised, but only because of the coincidence that he had to face another Chambers. But for him, something like this was not wholly unexpected.
Like a scum, Leroy shouldn't have turned like that overnight, without outside influences. Of course, a person could go downhill and become a person without decency or principle, but that would take a long time.
The only way someone Leroy's age could have turned out like that was if, as a child, that guy was influenced by people who had that twisted personality he had. That is if his family members were like him.
And, as an apple does not fall far from the tree, Minos was confident that the power behind Leroy would be capable of enslaving people, as he was now learning.
'How intriguing, it appears that even if I didn't know that guy, he would almost certainly die at the hands of my forces, as this Chambers family will almost certainly fight me in the future...' Minos thought for a moment, feeling the implications of this matter.