Chapter 1251 Live
Emma held Lory to the side while carefully looking at the people that had been taken care of by her father. She was making sure that none of them stood back up and started attacking her father.
Ning crouched in front of the man whose head he pulled up by his hair. "Speak. What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I…" the man started speaking but stopped as the pain he felt in his hands exceeded what he could handle.
Ning sighed and left him, looking toward one of the men that clearly weren't hurt much and walked up to him.
"Did you come here for the beast?" he asked the man.
Emma's eyes narrowed and tightened her grip around Lory. They had come here for him?
"You said something about only 1 being here. Considering that the only thing that we have 2 of are the two beasts," Ning said. "So are you here for the little cubs?"
The man grunted a little and suddenly pulled out a sword from somewhere. He went in for a stab with the sword, hoping to kill Ning while he wasn't paying attention.
However, when the sword struck Ning's neck and didn't pierce through him, he panicked. For the first time in his life, he felt fear for his life on a level that he hadn't before.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk!" Ning said, holding the sword in his hand. "You shouldn't have done that."
He crushed the sword and in an instant the wind that made up the sword filled the room with a book, destroying it a little.
The man who had just gotten up to kill Ning fell to his knees at the sight of a man destroying his sword with just his hands.
He had gone too far and now he was going to die.
"Get up!" Ning said.
The man didn't get up. He had resorted to his fate. He was going to die now, and he could only regret listening to his friends today.
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"Get up!" Ning said again. "I'll let you live."
The man prepared for his death. He took a deep breath, remembering his parents and feeling sorry that he had grown distant from them. Had he not become the man he had become, maybe they would have still called him their son.
In the end, it was all regrets that he held. At least he would now be rid—
"Wait, did you say you'll let me live?" the man asked as he quickly looked up.
"Yes," Ning said.
His eyes narrowed. "Stop giving me hope and just kill me," he said, looking down.
"I'm not joking," Ning said. "I'll let you live."
The man looked up once again with a frowning face. "What's the catch? There is a catch here, right?" he asked.
"Of course," Ning said. "Why would I let you go here for no reason after you came to steal from us?"
The man stared at Ning for a moment before asking, "So, what do I do to gain my freedom? Do you want me to lick your shoes? Become your slave? What do you want?"
Ning smiled. "I want you to fight him," he said, pointing toward Emma.
"The girl?" the man frowned. "You want me to fight her?" The man was a little confused. Why would anyone tell a big man like him to fight a little girl like her?
"I didn't say her. I said to him," Ning said. "I don't want you to fight the girl, I want you to fight the beast. His name is Lory and I think you will make an excellent fighting partner."
"In fact, I think everyone here will make for an excellent fighting partner for him," Ning said. "Ah, speaking about that, I'll have to say goodbye to you all for now. Prepare in your little abandoned warehouse on the south end, next to the bakery that makes the sweet donuts. I'll see you all tomorrow morning at 7."
Ning snapped and everyone disappeared, including the rocks and all. The mess in the room ordered up and every else went back to being normal.
Someone knocked on the door.
"Sir? Miss? Is everything alright in there?" a voice asked.
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Ning opened up the door. "Yes?" he asked.
There was a young boy outside who leaned in to look inside. "Is everything in here alright? We heard complaints from outside," he asked.
"Everything is fine as you can see," Ning said opening the door to see everything in pristine condition.
The young man frowned a bit and nodded. "Sorry for bothering you," he said and turned to leave."
"Wait a moment," Ning quickly said.
"Yes?" the young man asked.
"Is there any freshly made food we can eat?" Ning asked. "Maybe some hot food."
"Ah yes, you can go to the cafeteria section at the lowermost floor," the young man said. "Or we can deliver it to your room for a slightly extra cost."
"What do you want, Emma?" Ning asked.
"We can go down," she said.
"Thanks for your help," Ning said and sent the man on his way. He closed the door and turned around to a frowning face from his daughter.
"Why did you do that?" she asked.
"The food? Did you not want to eat?" she asked.
"No! The men from before. You let them go without punishing them at all. Why did you do that?" she asked. "And instead, you are now putting Lory in danger."
"Danger?" Ning chuckled. "Do you really think I would do that?"
"Then? What was that? Why must he fight?" she asked.
"So he can train," Ning said. "He needs to be in some serious fights so that he can learn to protect himself."
"But what if he is hurt?" Emma asked.
Ning chuckled. "Do you think I would let him do it if it was dangerous?" he asked. "You don't seem to realize just how strong Lory has become in the past few years."
"Just wait for tomorrow. You will be quite surprised."
Chapter 1252 Selling
Ning and Emma arrived at the abandoned warehouse sometime before 7 am in the morning the next day. When he arrived, he saw 4 people who sat there in fear, waiting for them to arrive.
When they saw Ning, their soul almost left their body in fear.
"Huh? What's up with the number?" Ning asked, looking around. "Weren't there 4 more of you the last time?"
The man at the front with his bandaged hands hesitated before speaking. "They ran away," he said. "We couldn't stop them."
"Hmm." Ning looked around the group. "And you stuck around? Why?"
"We… "
"We were afraid of what you would do if you found out," the man said. "You are definitely not a normal person and most likely have a lot of influence. You could easily find us if we tried to run away."
"You're not wrong," Ning said softly. "Alright, forget about those who ran away for now. You guys have something to explain, don't you?"
The four men hesitated.
"Come on, spill," Ning said. "Who sent you? Who do you work for? What was your exact purpose in coming to find us."
"It… it was to steal the beast you had," one of them said.
"And how did you know what beast we had?" Ning asked. "Where did you get the information about my beasts from?"
city, and the one at the hotel. Which one was it?"
"You… you walked around the town with the bea—"
"Come on now. Do you expect me to believe that you knew what my beast is just from looking at it?" Ning asked. "There are 3 places where I showed my license. The dock, the beast repository in the city, and the one at the hotel. Which one was it?"
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The men's eyes widened in surprise and they looked at each other with a fearful look. After a bit, one of them spoke up.
"We get notified by a person in the dock," he said. "Then someone starts following you and when you are settled, we come in and take away your beast."
"Someone at the dock?" Ning asked, remembering the man that was shocked to see the Shadow Puma back at the dock. "Are you saying we got unlucky?"
"Umm…"
"Are you saying we got unlucky with the man who checked our papers at the dock? Or is it something else?" Ning asked.
The man gulped before speaking again. "A-actually, everyone at the dock is in on it," he answered.
Ning sighed. "I knew it," he said. "What do you do with the stolen beasts?"
"There is a demand of young beasts that can be tamed by rich individuals. People pay big sum of money for exotic beasts, which is what we do," the young man said.
"And how many people does this organization have?" Ning asked.
The man gulped once more and stuttered a bit. "5-50," he said. "There are about 50 of us altogether," he said.
"Hmm, and only 8 of you came to take two of my beasts huh?" Ning said. "What is the price of a Shadow Puma? How much would my beast have sold for?"
"The one you had, depending on how well trained it is, could have been sold for anywhere from 10 thousand to 30 thousand Fire Coin," the man said.
Ning's eyes narrowed for a moment. "Wait, he could have been sold for that much?" he asked.
"Yes," the man said. "Do- Do you want me to tell you how?"
"What? Of course not, you idiot," Ning said. "What is this little group of yours called?"
"We… don't really have a name for ourself," the man said.
"Ok, and does the government officials not know this is happening?" Ning asked.
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Legacy Fate: SacredFearless
"This far out in the corner of the empire? No," the young man said. "The mayor barely cares enough to look after his own town either. If not for the many trained soldiers keeping peace, this city would have turned lawless ages ago."
"I see," Ning said and sighed. "After we are done with it here today, you will all go and deliver yourself to the authorities and tell them who you are and what you have done, understood?"
"G-give ourself up? Sir, can we not do that?" one of the young man asked. "I—"
Someone slapped him in the back of his head, shutting him up. "We will do as you say," the other man said. "We will give ourself to the authorities."
"Good," Ning said. "And don't think you can just say that and not do it. I will be watching your moves even when I'm not around."
The men gulped, but they weren't going to believe him just yet.
"Now, about the fight I told you about yesterday," Ning said. "We can start it— oh wait, we're still missing a few people aren't we?"
The four men looked confused for a moment before Ning snapped his fingers. In an instant, they saw something appear in front of them, all falling to the ground.
"What's going on?"
"Where are we?"
"Who?"
Four men had arrived out of nowhere and looked around for a moment before they saw the man in front of them that smiled in their direction.
They were sure that was no man but a devil instead.
"I hear you guys tried to run away," Ning said. "Did you think that was going to work?"
The four new men instantly broke down and started crying, begging and pleading for their life, and saying how sorry they were for running away.
Ning sighed and looked at the other four that had been there from the start. "Once we are done here, it is your job to explain to the what they are supposed to do, okay?"
The four men nodded.
"Alright," Ning said. "Now stop crying. It is time for you all to do what I brought you all here to do."
"It's time for you to fight," he said, and looked next to him. "Umbra, come out."
A darkness became visible a few steps away from Ning as as the shadowy veil lifted itself and Umbra showed herself. 𝓷𝙤ν𝙚𝒍𝔟𝔦𝙣.𝗻𝚎ｔ
On top of her were the two little pumas, Lory and Lyra. The ones that were going to fight here today.
Chapter 1253 Lory's Attack
Lory stepped up front with no hesitation at all. He was excited with the prospect of fighting and was more than willing to do it.
Lyra on the other hand was much more shy and wasn't really into the mood to fight at all. But, with even Umbra telling her to do so, she really didn't have much choice in the matter at all.
Ning stood back with a massive smile on his face as he waited for the other people to step forward.
The men lined up as per Ning's orders and the one at the front of the line looked toward Lory before turning to Ning.
"That… that beast is only in the 5 Sense Improvement realm. Are you sure that you want me to fight him?" he asked.
"Of course," Ning said. "Why else would I ask you to fight him?"
"But… I'm in the Essence Sense realm," the man said.
"I know," Ning said.
Emma frowned from the side. Was there something that her father knew that she didn't? She had asked him not to teach her much about Essence aside from providing her with the best techniques, but she had wanted to learn the rest about Essence herself.
There was definitely something here that was making her father really confident in Lory and Lyra's capability.
The man that was to fight Lory didn't trust Ning still. He looked at the baby puma and back at Ning again. "Do I just stay and let him attack me?" he asked. He could do that, even thought he would probably be bruised by the end of it.
"No," Ning said. "I want you to fight him serious. No holding back at all."
The man was finally more surprised than suspicious. "You want me to seriously fight him?" he asked.
"Yes," Ning said. "Use any swords or weapons you might have too. Its all fine."
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"If you say so," the man said and pulled out a normal metal sword.
Ning finally reacted a little. There was something about this entire thing that he had been curious from the start, and seeing it now, he was even more surprised.
'There's someone here that is capable of making Spatial artifacts very cheaply,' he thought. There shouldn't be any other reason why a thug like them could have so many storage artifacts.
Ning was curious for just a moment before his curiosity waned and his focus returned to the fight at hand. He looked at Lory who as raring to go.
"You can fight now," Ning said.
As soon as the words left Ning's mouth, Lory dashed forward. He sprinted forward and ran toward the man, who had reacted a split second late. He quickly swung his sword, stopping Lory from getting too close.
Instead of stopping, however, Lory ducked and went under the swing before jumping up and hitting the man in the chest.
The man was sent flying back as he flew straight to the ceiling and came down with a large bag. A small dust cloud rose that quickly settled down.
The man that was the reason for the dust cloud, however, could no longer get back up at all. He had lost consciousness from just that one strike.
The remaining 7 men slowly turned their head toward Lory and their eyes went wide with shock.
"What… just happened?" Emma couldn't help but ask in shock. It wasn't just her either. Even Umbra was shocked.
She had let her children take part in the fight, not because she believed in them, but because she believed in Ning. She had assumed that this was going to be training to prepare them for the day when they would ahve to fight for real.
However, this was no what she was expecting at all.
"What did Lory do?" Umbra had to ask.
Ning smiled and turned toward Emma. "Remember the story I told you, about me going through my journey?" he asked.
"Yes," Emma said. "What about it?"
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"Do you remember how even though my body and talent were normal, I was still doing quite well? Especially in terms of my physical strength and Senses," he said.
Emma thought for a bit and nodded. There were parts of the story that mentioned that. However, she didn't imagine why that was useful right now.
All she could think was the fact that her father had most likely abused the system as some point and wasn't telling her about it.
"The reason I was so strong back then was simple," Ning said. "I… accidentally… formed a Pure Essence core."
"So?" Emma asked.
"So, Pure Essence core gives you quite the bit of benefit. It makes your physical strength superior to your peers. It makes your senses stronger, and it improves your ability to go through ranks so that you easily enter the higher ranks and don't have to struggle through any of it," he said.
Emma frowned. "It has such properties?" she asked.
"Yes," Ning said.
"I thought you gave them the fruit because you could use any sort of Essence with pure Essence," Emma said.
"That is the main reason," Ning said. "But not the only reason."
Emma frowned for a moment. "Did I make a mistake by not choosing Pure Core too?" she asked.
"No," Ning said. "You have little use for those benefits. You strength and senses are already strong, and I have given you the best books to aid with your speed."
"As for using any Essence you want, well… that one you chose yourself not to do," Ning said.
Emma thought for a bit and nodded. "That makes sense," she said. "Then…does that mean that Lory and Lyra are now as strong as Essence Sense realm fighters?"
Ning smiled. "They are even stronger," he said.
Emma couldn't believe his words. "How?" she asked.
Ning's smile widened even further. "They don't only get their benefits from the Pure Core," he said.
Emma's eyes widened. "Ah! They have added strength from their Shadow Core as well?" she asked.
Ning nodded. "Now you see why I wanted them to fight. This is perfect training for the two."
Chapter 1254 Continued Training
Lory and Lyra's fights against the men left them bloody and bruised. They only now realized why they hadn't been punished the other day. They were clearly being kept to be punished today instead.
They were also surprised at how tough the two cubs were. They had all seriously tried to fight them and yet they had lost so easily.
In the end, it only stopped when they could no longer move.
Ning walked upto them and crouched in front of them. "Do you know how long it has been since you all started fighting?" he asked.
The men shook their heads. They were in so much pain that they would rather not talk at all right now. They didn't care how long it had been either. Why would that have mattered at all?
"15 minutes," Ning said. 𝚗𝑜𝐯𝖊𝒍𝙗𝔦𝘯.𝓃𝙚𝐭
"What?" one of the men asked, even as his body hurt from the vibrations from his own voice. "We've fought for longer than that surely."
"Nope," Ning said. "Just 15 minutes. Well, closer to 16 minutes, but who's keeping count, right?"
He looked at the men that realized that they had been beaten to this stage by two beasts in no more than 15 minutes.
How was this possible? How were the beasts so strong?Up/dat/ed fR[o]m N/0ve/lbi/n
The men could not make sense of any of the situation, and in the end could only resign to their fate of being left alone while they were beaten and swollen.
"Do you know why I asked you how long you fought for?" Ning asked them.
None of the men cared enough to answer him.
"Because I wanted to tell you all that it is a bit too early to just give up on fighting," Ning said.
The men quickly perked up, not understanding what Ning was talking about at all. So what if it was early to lose? They had lost. That was it. What else could they do in their current beaten up cond—
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"You are all healed!" Ning said.
A seconds later, each and every young men inside of the warehouse were fully healed. Even the man who had his knuckles broken the other day was surprised to see his knuckles be healed as well.
"What? What's going on?"
"I don't fell any pain?"
"Am I hallucinating?"
"Mother, your son is coming to see you very soon."
The sudden absence of apin caused them all nothing but confusion and somehow bliss. They were happy at the suddne lack of pain as well as the ability to move around without in pain.
"Thank you!" one of them shouted.
"This is like heaven. Am I in heaven?" another one asked.
"We must be in heaven."
NIng sighed. "Stop being so dramatic," he said. "It is time for you all to go and fight again."
The men paused. They looked down at Ning and then at the two cubs, one of which was more than excited to fight them.
The men gulped and looked at Ning. "Can… can we not fight? We already fought," they said.
"Oh, is that so?" Ning said. "Well I guess then I must take back all the healing I just did."
He cracked his knuckles to make a large cracking noise. "Come. Let me break your bones in the exact same way you were beaten earlier."
The threat was more than enough.
"No, no, no, no, no, no. We will fight," one of them quickly said and turned around to the pumas.
The men gulped and quickly formed in line. The front portion was taken up by the people that wanted to get this over with. The the rest of them that hoped Ning would get bored at some time and stopped making them fight.
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Lory looked at the man at the first and charged without even waiting for the fight to begin.
The man quickly reacted and placed his hands forth, but it wasn't enough. He was struck so hard that he was sent flying away by a single strike.
In the end, that man got what he wished for. A swift dealing of matters. They wanted it all to be over with quickly and it was.
However, they hadn't realized that being beaten up early meant that they had to stay in pain for a long time still.
Lyra made the second attack. She ran toward the other man, copying her brother as she did so. When she arrived there, however, instead of headbutting them, she ran underneath their legs and jumped before slamming their back with their paws.
The strength of these cubs were enough to send the man flying through the room.
He flew in Lory's direction, who quckly jumped and dealt the knock out blow that sent the man's body flying like a ragdoll.
The fighting continued a little more before Ning arrived around them.
"Not yet!" he said, once again healing them all.
"No."
"Please! We will leave this business."
"Please, I will give up myself."
Ning shook his head and smiled. "My beasts need training and you guys are the perfect training materials. You all showed to our door so easily. We didn't evne have to go find some targets," he said. "Thank you."
These men had heard nothing more demonic than the words 'thank you' that they heard just now.
The fight continued for 2 more hours in which the most the men had managed to last was no more than 20 minutes.
Each time they lost, Ning would heal them and make themf ight all over agan. The men wanted to cry blood in the end by all the pain and suffering.
The fighting stopped when Lora and Lyra were tired and wanted to go sleep.
Ning nodded and let Umbra and Emma take care of thei two kids. Then, he finally turned around toward the men in front of him.
"You have two choices now," he said. "First, you will come here every morning and train with my beasts."
"Or second, you will go and turn yourself over to the authorities, while also telling them everything about your little organization."
The choice for these men after today was obvious.
Chapter 1255 The Conversion Shop
"Emma, do you want to learn about Conversion too?" Ning asked.
"Conversion? What is that again? The one where you make swords?" she asked.
"Swords, shields, armors, anything," Ning siad. "But yeah, people mostly just make swords."
"I'm fine," Emma said. "I don't plan on learning those. You can have fun with that."
"Alright, you can go around the city then. Enjoy some alone time, see what you want to do," Ning said.
Emma nodded. "I will," she said. "Let's go, Umbra."
Emma, Umbra and the two kids made their away away from the warehouse, leaving Ning behind.
Ning looked at sun outside and realized it was close to 10 in the morning. 'His shop should be open by now,' Ning thought and made his way out of the warehouse as well.
He walked back in the direction of his hotel and quickly made it to the Trobble Conversion shop. He entered the shop and found quite a few types of weapons and artifacts in display.
Swords of bright red, armors of deep azure, spears of dark brown, axes of bright yellow, shields of stark white. All sorts of items seemed available in this shop.
"Not bad," he thought and looked around. "It's quite large on the inside as well. It didn't look like it."
A young woman quickly walked up to him. "Hello, sir. How may we help you today" she asked. "Are you looking for weapons? We have a new batch of supplies right this—"
Ning put up his hands to stop her from continuing. "Your boss called me. Is he in yet?" he asked.
"Our… boss?" the girl looked around, a little confused.
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"He's talking about me," Byron quickly walked out from behind after hearing his voice and walked up to Ning. "Haha, please come with me."
The girl moved aside and Ning walked away with Byron, making their way to the back half of the shop that wasn't available for the customers.
"Please don't call me a boss again," Byron quickly said. "I'm not the boss."
Ning frowned. "I thought you were the owner of this place," he said.
"I'm just a manager. The boss is my cousin, but he doesn't work. He just owns the place, passed down from my uncle," he said.
"The mayor?" Ning asked.
Byron nodded. "Anyway, you came later than I thought you would. I thought you wanted me to train you," he said.
"I had a prior appointment," Ning said. "Don't worry though. I'm free now."
"Okay," Byron said before hesitating a little. He wanted to ask about something, but he wasn't sure if it was right for him to begin. In the end, he decided not to.
"So," he said. "Let's go over our agreement again."
"Sure," Ning said. "What are your terms?"
"I will teach you the way to Convert matter into conduits," the man said. "In exchange you must give me a sizable piece of Essence crystal containing very pure lightning Essence."
"Sure," Ning said without thinking much.
The man man frowned a little seeing Ning's such nonchalance. He started worrying if this was a way for him to scam him somehow. Would he be able to do anything if he was scammed?
"Would it be alright if I saw the lightning crystal before I taught? Just to make sure it is of quality," the man said.
"Sure," Ning said, bringing out a white crystal with a bluish hue to it. He tossed it over to Byron who quickly looked at it and started judging it.
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He stared for a while before he nodded to himself.
'Amazing,' he said to himself. He was done with the test, but even after that he kept staring. It was just too amazing to not stare at it.
After all, this was even better than the one he had tested the other day. This crystal was 95% pure. He had never seen such a pure crystal ever in his life.
"Where… where did you get this from?" he asked.
"Is it good?" Ning asked. "What's the purity?"
"95%," the man said. "I have never held something so pure. Not even Pure Crystals are this pure. Where did you get this?"
"This…" Ning thought for a bit. "I believe it found it at the peaks of Mount Deathfire in the northern regions of Springwind continent."
The man looked at Ning with a strange look on his face. 'Mount Deathfire? Who names a mountain that way? And Springwind Continent? Is he lying just because he knows I can't verify this?' he wondered.
There was no way for Byron to tell whether the name and words he had heard were real in any way. But he wasn't just going to come out and call Ning a liar. He had more urgency in his own life than that.
A man who would run around with a beast as strong as that Shadow Puma was not someone he wanted to be on the opposite side of.
"So this works for our agreement, correct?" Ning asked.
"Yes, this works," the man said before handing it back to Ning.
However, Ning didn't take it. "Keep it," he said. "If that makes you feel safer. Just teach me what you can."
Byron was a little surprised and nodded. He kept the lighting Essence and moved to an open space.
Ning ignored the many smiths that were working and followed the man to the open space.
Once they arrived there, Byron started speaking.
"I will teach you the basics of Converting now," he said. "Converting, in essence, is very simple. All you have to do is take a natural object that is as close to an Essence as possible, and use that Essence to convert that object into something else."
Ning nodded. "I think I get the gist of it," he said.
The man nodded. "To learn to Convert, you need to have a very precise Essence control. Show me how good your Essence control is," he said.
Ning nodded and then paused. "Essence control?" he asked. "I… can't do that. I'm not in the Essence Manifestation realm."
Chapter 1256 Shock
Byron looked at Ning with a weird look, not understanding what he was saying. "You… just have to use your Essence," he said.
"Yeah I get that," Ning said. "I'm saying I can't do that. I'm not in the Essence Manifestation realm."
"Huh? But just use your Essence," the man said.
"Are you not hearing me?" Ning asked. "I can't use my Essence like that. I'm not in the Essence Manifestation realm. Or are you saying there is a way to do that without even reaching the realm?"
The man paused for a bit and gave what Ning said a strong thought before looking up with a massively confused face.
"You're not in the Essence Manifestation realm?" he asked.
"That's what I've been saying," Ning said in an exasperated voice.
"You're not in the Essence Manifestation realm?" he asked again.
"NO!" Ning said. "I'm just in the 5-Sense manifestation realm."
Byron couldn't believe it at all. "But… but that beast. It's in… isn't the beast in the True Essence SOul realm?" he asked.
"Stellar Harmony realm," Ning corrected him. "And what does the beast being high in the Essence rank have to do with me?"
"You are that beasts's master. How could you not have a strong Essence base?" he asked.
"Ah! That's what you were confused about?" Ning asked before shaking his head. "Don't worry about it. That beast is a special case. I do not have a high Essence rank." 𝚗𝑜𝐯𝖊𝒍𝙗𝔦𝘯.𝓃𝙚𝐭
The man frowned. "Then I can't teach it to you," he said. "You need to be in the Essence Manifestation realm to even understand what I'm going to be talking about."
"Someone who has never known what it feels like to pull Essence I'm going to be talking about."
"Someone who has never known what it feels like to pull Essence out of their own body will not understand this," the man said. "Much less someone who can't even sense Essence in the first place. How old are you again?"
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"Uhh…" Ning thought for a moment. "I have a child. How old do you think I am?"
"I don't know. You don't look very old, but you have a child that's in her teenage years, so at the very least you're in your 30s. 35 maybe?" he asked.
"Wrong, 32," Ning said, making himself younger. "I was a young man when I married my wife. Anyway, back on topic. Let's start learning about Conversion."
Byron frowned. "Did you not hear anything I just said? You can't learn anything," he said.
"I did," Ning said. "You need someone with the experience of an Essence Manifestation realm, correct? Then it works for me. Just tell me what it is I need to do."
"But, you can't—"
"Do you want the lightning Essence crystal or not?" Ning asked.
Byron shut up. "Yes," he said.
"Then let's start, shall we?" he said, and moved his hand to the side where suddenly a boulder appeared out of nowhere.
Byron moved backward in fear. "What is this? Where did it come from?" he asked.
"Someone idiots gave it to me in my room yesterday," Ning said. "Don't worry about it. Just show me what it is that you can do with your Essence."
Byron frowned a little. "It would be so much better if you could sense it. Putting everything that is happening into words is a lot harder," he said.
Ning sighed. "Fine," he said. "Wait for a second then."
He sat down on the ground right in front of Byron and pulled out a Lightning Essence Crystal, one that was clearly shaped differently from the one that he had pulled out before.
"What are you doing?" Byron asked, a little confused.
"What you asked for," Ning said and started absorbing the lightning Essence crystal.
When he absorbed the Lightning Essence, his Essence core switched, going from Sound Essence core to Lightning Essence core, which surprised Byron beyond belief.
He stepped back in shock as he realized that the man before him actually had a Dual Core.
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'Dual-core… one with lightning and one with an Essence that even I don't recognize,' the man thought. 'Just who is this man?'
The technique Ning used allowed for rapid Essence absorption. Not only was it absorbed rapidly, but it also refined the Core just as fast, making it strong enough to handle the next tier of Essence.
As easily as that, Ning entered the Essence Sense tier with his Lightning Core.
It was because of Emma's request to go on an adventure before her Essence cores were too strong, to enjoy mundane life.
If not for that, Ning would have entered the Essence Manifestation realm with all of his cores before leaving the secret realm.
Now that it had come to this, there was no point in waiting anymore, so he did as he was asked. After a minute, he opened his eyes and looked toward Byron.
"This is enough for you?" he asked.
"It… it's only been 5 minutes," the man said.
"Can you start?" Ning asked.
The man's eyes remained wide and he did not answer Ning's question at all. It was doubtful if he even heard it at all. "It's only been 5 minutes," he said. "How did you break through so quickly?"
Ning sighed and waited for the man to come out of his shock.
The man's eyes moved left to right trying to understand anything he could before he came out of his stunned state.
He looked around and settled on Ning who was watching him with crossed arm.
"You done?" Ning asked.
"How did you do that?" the man asked.
"I was close to a breakthrough," Ning said.
"NO," the man said. "You can't lie to me. I saw the speed at which you took Essence from that crystal. That is not normal."
Ning smiled. "Well, there's your mistake," he said. "You tried to find something normal in me. Have I not made it abundantly clear how that is a bad idea."
The man's shocked expression still didn't leave his face, but his emotions calmed down a lot.
"What… what now?" he asked.
"What else?" Ning asked. "Now that I'm done breaking through. It's time for you to teach me what I came here for."
Chapter 1257 Conversion
Byron was still very confused and shocked as to everything surrounding Ning, but he still managed to start teaching Ning.
"Alright, I'll show using this rock," the man said with a sigh. "I have a Fire Essence Core, so doing a rock is not really considered a good idea, but why not. I won't fail."
"Do you fail when you try to make Essence artifacts using objects that aren't the same as what your Essence core is?" Ning asked.
"Yes," the man said. "More accurately, there is a chance of failing as the more different your energy is from the object, the higher the rejection rate is. Fire to Earth doesn't have much rejection, but something like Light to Earth has way more rejection."
"Although that isn't to say its not possible," the man said. "It's all about control. You have to force your Essence to properly cover the entire object while it is constantly rejecting."
"If you can do that, you can do it," Byron said.
"Is that so," Ning said, let us see then.
"Alright, make sure you're feeling it all," Byron said and started.
Byron started once he said that. Fire Essence flew out of him and entered the rock in front of him.
Ning felt what was happening and noticed that it was being rejected somewhat, but Byron was quickly working on it to force the Fire Essence into the rock. The more he put in the harder the rejection became to handle.
But Byron didn't seem phased at all. He followed through with task he was doing and even slowed it down for Ning to look at it all.
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Once he was done, the rock glowed bright orange, as if it was no longer a rock at all. Byron took a deep breath and let it go.
"That was the easy part," he said. "Now the difficult part."
He reached out to the glowing ball of orange and pulled a small portion of it out from it, along with which came a long strand of orange color.
A Hammer and Anvil appeared in front of Byoron as he pulled the Orange ball and started hammering.
"You don't need to do this part just as I do," the said. "This is just how I have come to learn it."
He hammered away, not speaking for a short while. As he hammered, he pulled on the orange rock and hammered more of it on top of the anvil.
"If you can find some easier method for yourself, you should try it," the man said. "The most important part is visualization. Whatever helps you visualize that thing over there into something physical, do it."
He hammered for a while longer before speaking again. "At the end, you will have to use what method serves you best to create something that is in your mind using the Essence that is in your body," Byron said.
He stopped hammering as all of the orange rock was gone, turned into a brown sword that was now an Earth conduit. Byron put away the hammer and anvil and raised the sword high.
"See?" he said. "This is how you make conduits."
"I see," Ning said going close to it. He took the sword from Byron's arm and flipped it around before handing it back. "There's a nice set of designs on the sword. Is that something you are used to by now and can visualize?"
"Yes," Byron said. "I don't suggest you start with making intricate swords tho. Just make simple swords that look worse than wooden swords. While the physical application of such swords won't be more than as just a club, the practical application as a conduit won't be very different."
"I see," Ning said.
"If you want to learn how to make swords or armors—"
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"Oh you don't have to worry about my visualization skills," Ning said. "I can guarantee that they are top notch. Let's just say I spent a lot of time make thinks for others when I had nothing else to do."
"Oh, then I suppose that works," the man said. "Did you understand how it works or do you want more examples?"
"I think I get it?" Ning said. "Although, one thing is a little confusing to me."
"Go on, ask," the man said.
"Uhh… let's say there is a large wave, tall enough to kill hundreds of thousands of people coming your way," Ning said. "How would you turn all that water into a Sword while its coming your way?"
"Oh… that's a difficult task," Byron said.
"Is it impossible?" Ning asked.
"Not in the last," Byron said. "What you would do is something known as Instant Conversion. Its a method of conversion that instantly turns any object into the intermediary blob of half-matter half-essence that you saw earlier."
"Once you have that, you can easily turn that into a sword," Byron said. "That is difficult though of course. It requires not just a great deal of control but also a very pure and large Water crystal to do so."
Ning frowned a bit. "Water crystal?" he asked.
Byron thought for a bit and said, "I can tell you exactly what it is that you are supposed to do, but it will be easier if I showed you instead."
"You're going to show me how to capture a wave?" Ning asked.
Byron shook his head. "Waves are difficult to catch because they are hard and fast. You have no time to capture it through normal method, which is why the other method was created."
"While I could show you with a wave, I can do so with a lightning bolt that is just as strong and fast. I think it might be better for me to do two things at once," he said. "I can show you what exactly is that is done during Instant conversion by converting a lightning bolt."
"And I can gain a lightning sword for myself."
Ning's eyes widened a little. "We're gonna catch lightning today?" he asked.
Byron looked at the sky. "In about 4 to 6 hours, it will rain," he said. "We should go out to the sea and wait for the storm."
Chapter 1258 Emma's Interest
Emma wàlked along the streets of the city, not sure what she really wanted to do. She knew that she wanted something to pass her time, to feel a sense of adventure that didn't come from her own planet.
But how was she going to do that? By joining a jewelry shop? By going to the fish market?
She held tightly onto Lory as she looked through the streets. As she did so, she came across a shop that was less a shop and more a place to do random job to find work for some money.
She found a place that would be equivalent to guilds back on earth.
It was a place that was simply called 'Farque's Daily Mission Shop', and there were quite a few people that went in and out of the shop.
Emma finally found a place that intrigued her. She read the sign that read that beasts weren't allowed inside.
Sadly, she had to let Umbra right outside and go in.
She walked up the stairs to the shop and walked inside. It was quite spacious inside and quite cool too for some reason.
She looked around, unaware what she was supposed to do here. 'If this is like the guilds, then I must accept a mission from…' her eyes scanned the room as it finally landed on what she was looking for. '… the mission board.'
She walked toward the board and saw all the various missions that were listed there for people to perform. Her eyes fell onto various ones, unsure which ones she should take.
In the first place, she wondered if there as a procedure to it. Did she need a guild card? But then, this wasn't a guild.
"Excuse me," she called out to the young man next to him. The man didn't seem to hear Emma's calling, so she had to tug on his clothes to make him turn around.
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The man turned to find a little girl that was barely in her teenage years tugging on him.
"What's wrong, little girl?" the young man asked. "Do you need some help?"
Emma nodded. "Can you tell me how I can take the missions?" she asked.
"You… want to take the missions?" the young man showed a curious expression. "Did you parents send you here to look at the missions?"
Emma shook her head. "I came here on my own to take a mission," she said. "What am I supposed to do?"
"You… you shouldn't be here if you aren't with your parents," the young man said. "This is not a place for a little girl like you."
Emma couldn't help but frown. "Can you just tell me what I want to know, please?" she asked. "I just want to know how to take the missions. If I need to get registered first or if I need to have some sort of qualifications. If you can't tell me, just say so. I'll find someone else."
The young man frowned for a moment and sighed. "Fine, look for yourself," he said, moving a little. "These are the missions and you just do what you want to. You don't need to do anything. They will pay you if you come back with the proof that you did it."
"How do I gather proof?" Emma asked.
The young man tapped one of the mission posters. "It is written here at the bottom, see?" he said.𝖓𝒐𝐯𝖊ɭ𝔟Ꭵ𝓷.𝖓𝚎𝒕
Emma looked at the poster in front of her.
The mission was to catch some sort of exotic fish and bring it back to sell to someone. The proof was the fish itself, as written on the poster.
"And I don't have to let the people there know what mission I'm taking?" Emma asked.
"No, you do whatever you want from here," the young man said. "If you can complete any, you come back and get the reward, which is written here as well."
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Emma nodded.
"What if someone else gets to my mission before I do?" she asked.
"Then its your bad luck," the young man said. "You should have been faster."
Emma frowned a bit when she heard that. She didn't like the sound of that.
"Okay, so to make sure I understand everything correctly. I can do whatever mission I want from here and complete them on my own, without letting the people of this establishment know that I'm doings omething," she said.
"Yes," the young man said. "But I suggest you don't try this. There are many dangerous quests and as a young child, you won't be able to discern the good from bad."
"That's alright," Emma said. "I trust my ability to do so. Thank you for your time though. It was helpful."
The young man sighed, realizing that he hadn't been able to dissuade the little girl at all.
Emma ignored the young man and any other men or woman in front of the giant mission baord as she started looking at the various missions.
Her eyes darted through the pages as it was all stored in her mind. After going through it enough times, she memorized it all and walked away from the mission board.
The young man gave her a strange expression when he saw her leave so quickly, but he didn't think much about it. He found it better if she decided not to take the mission at all.
"Let's go, I got something for us to do," Emma said as she walked with Umbra.
"What did you find?" Umbra asked curiously.
"Its a mission that we have to do in the northern side of the city, in the forest," she said. "There are multiple missions that we can do at once. A few of them are gathering various types of medicinal and edible plants."
"Another few missions are finding various tpyes of flowers."
"However, they don't compare to the missions that ask to bring back a beast's child, which I'm not sure I want to do," Emma said. "But there is something I can do, I hope."
She smiled a little. "If I can do it, it will pay us big money."
Chapter 1259 Emma in the Forest
Emma managed to make it out of the city in about 2 hours by simply walking the entire way. While the city felt small while she roamed, it turned out to be quite big, the further she went the more rural it became.
At some point, she arrived in front of the forest where she was supposed to find her items.
"Alright, first is Maybell flowers," Emma said to Umbra who was next to her. "You two listen as well. This is what the flower looks like."
She created a picture of a beautiful pink layered flower that grew on a long stalk. "If you see these flowers, let me know," she told the two kids.
Lory and Lyra nodded furiously as they were happy to help.
Emma changed the pictures. "Next, we have the Stairway fern," she said, creating a picture of a fern that had leaves growing on it in circular patterns going all the way to the top as if it were a stairway.
"This might be harder to find, but just be on the lookout for it," she said. "Next, we have the Tremania fruit. This is apparently what it looks like."
She showed the picture of the fruit, exactly as she saw it back in the mission shop. It was a red fruit that was all jumbled up in a spherical pattern, somewhat similar to grapes.
Only these were a lot smaller in size.
"And we have this, this, and this."
Emma showed multiple images one after another explaining to the beasts what they were supposed to find.
Umbra was fine with the information dumped on her, but the two little ones couldn't keep up at all. They could only cock their heads in confusion while Emma explained everything.
"Finally, there is this," she said, creating the image of a dark brown moose with glowing red antlers.
"An Essence beast?" Umbra asked.
"Yes," Emma said. "This is the Flamelord Deer, and we will have to find this. We will be quite rich if we find it."
"Aren't we already rich?" Umbra asked. "Your father has all that you could ever need."
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"Uhh…" Emma paused for a moment. "This is a different type of rich."
"Okay," Umbra said. "Let us continue then."
Emma led the way with the beasts following behind her. Lory quickly jumped down from his mother and jumped onto Emma's left shoulder to look around the forest. Seeing her brother do that, Lyra did the same and jumped on her other shoulder.
Emma pet the two beasts as she walked.
The forest she was in went deep for a few hundred meters before it sloped upward, going up a mountain. There were also ways to go around it, but that took a considerably long time to do so.
Even after a few minutes of walking in the forest, she saw nothing. "Damn it," she said softly. "The others must have collected what was toward the front."
"Zam iz!" Lyra said, copying her.
Emma panicked a little. "No, don't say that."
"Zam iz?" Lyra asked.
"Don't say that," Emma said.
"Zam yis!" Lory said it too.
"Don't…" Emma sighed. She realized that she couldn't make them stop by telling them to stop. The only way to stop them was to stop paying attention to them.
However, for the next few minutes, the two siblings continued repeating the same words. She focused on the ground in front of her, rather than the siblings, and looked for the items she was here for.
"YIS!" Lory finally changed what he said.
"Oh, are you done saying that?" Emma asked, turning to Lory. When she did, she realized that he was pointing at something.
"Hmm?" Emma turned to look at what he was seeing and saw a bunch of humans walking around the forest, just like her.
"Oh, other people," Emma said. "I wonder if they are here for the same things as me."
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She tried to see if they had something that she could no longer carry, but they most definitely had a storage item and as such she couldn't tell.
She sighed. Just where was she supposed to find what she needed?
The other people saw her as well and a few of them stared at her. Emma quietly bowed toward them and made her way away from them, deeper into the forest.
Finally, she saw the first thing she was looking for. Deep in the forest was a red clump of fruit, the Tremania fruit that she had been searching for.
'There it is!' she thought with a smile and made her way toward it.
"Emma," Umbra said. "There's that plant you wanted."
Emma looked to where Umbra pointed and found a small patch of ferns that were more than enough for her to claim the rewards of the missions.
"Yes!" Emma cried out and quickly ran to the ferns. "I found it. Thank you, Umbra."
Umbra smiled and looked at Emma quickly going and picking up the ferns.
Emma took her time as she properly pulled out the ferns from the ground. She didn't want a chance that her fern would be rejected just because it wasn't fully left or some other reasons that they could come up with.
As she gathered it all, Umbra spoke again.
"Emma!" she said softly.
"Yes, I'm done," she said. "Did you find others?"
"No, Emma!" she called out with a bit of urgency in her voice.
"What?" Emma quickly turned around and saw a bunch of people walking her way.
"We have guests," Umbra said.
Emma put the ferns into her storage space and slowly walked up front toward the people who had come.
She put the two siblings on top of her mother and stood before them.
"Hello," she said politely, quickly recognizing that these were the same people from earlier. "Can I help you, seniors?"
The group of 5 men had people that ranged from someone in their late 20 to someone in their mid-60s.
The man in his 60s was the one that spoke up. "Your beast, girl," he said. "I wish to buy it."
Chapter 1260 Darris
"My beast?" Emma asked. "I'm afraid Umbra is a friend and not someone I can sell."
"Everything is for sale, my girl," the old man spoke. "You can even sell your fiends for the right price. We will just have to find the right price for your friend too."
Emma frowned a little. "As I have said, my friend here is not for sale. If that was why you came here for, then you may leave," she said.
The old man laughed and the other men laughed as well, almost as if following the old man's lead.
"Are you sure you don't want for me to buy your friend?" he asked.
Emma nodded.
"Very well," the old man said. "I won't buy your friend."
"Thank you," Emma said.
"Then how about the little ones. How much will you sell them for?" the old man asked. "They will sell for even more. Maybe 40 thousand Fire coins each."
"That is a lot of money," one of the men said.
"That is life-changing money," another man said.
Emma was starting to get angry, but she held onto her anger. "You are being rude to me by asking me to sell my friend. Please leave and let me alone," she said before turning around.
"Let's go."
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Emma let Umbra turn around and start walking. Umbra walked away first with Emma behind her.
"You girl!" the man spoke again. "Don't you dare leave."
Emma frowned. "Please don't bother me. I don't want anything to do with you," she said.
"You little… do you even know who I am?" the man asked.
"Yes, do you not recognize him?" a young man asked.
Emma shook her head. "I only came to the city yesterday. If he is supposed to be someone important, I'm unaware of him," she said.
"You're quite well-spoken for a girl that is somewhat rude," the old man said. "I am Darris Tobbler."
Emma looked at him blankly for a second. "Okay," she said. "Can I leave now?"
"You… do you not recognize my name?" the old man asked.
"Like I said, I came to this city yesterday, I am not sure of anyone or anything in this city," she said.
"Do you know the name of the city/?" the man asked.
Emma thought for a moment. "Tobbler City? Oh, you're a Tobbler. Are you important to this city?" she asked.
"Yes!" the man said. 'I am Darris Tobbler, the mayor of this city."
"I see," Emma said. "Good for you. I will be leaving now then."
"What…" the old man was surprised. "This little girl is so rude. I'm done with this. Take her beasts. She shall be punished by having her beasts removed from here.
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Emma quickly turned around. "I dare you to try it!" she said with an angry look on her face.
The men were taken back for a second before they got their composure and started coming up to her.
A person brought out an Earths word and used it. A spray of rock spikes appeared around Emma, capturing her inside of it.
"Alright, go and get the beasts," the mayor said.
Just then, the rock that covered Emma blew apart and she walked out of it unscratched. "You really dared!" she said with an angry face.
She looked in front of her at the people and looked at the person that brought out a wind sword. He was about to attack her, so she picked up one of the rocks that she had blown apart and threw it at him.
As a Will, it was hard for her to want to cause pain to others. That didn't mean that her human side didn't have a say in her own will once in a while.
The rock she threw wasn't very strong. It was her barely using any force at all. Even then, the rock hit the man in the chest and sent him flying away, incapacitating him in a single strike.
"What? What did she do?" the people asked in surprise.
No one could make sense of what had just happened. As they were all confused, Emma pulled out another piece of rock and tossed it at the next person that was next to the first person.
The man tried to protect himself, but before he could do so, the rock smashed into him as well.
A massive rock in the shape of a fist flew toward Emma, but she casually punched it, breaking it apart at once. She caught one of the broken pieces and offhandedly launched it at the third man that with the earth sword and the other one was the 60-year-old mayor.
Emma looked at both of them and moved. She arrived next to the younger man and reached for his sword.
The young man didn't even realize that his sword had been stolen until after it had been. She remembered what her father did the other day and crushed the sword.
The sword turned into a large piece of rock that suddenly appeared in front of them, crashing onto the two. The two men fell to the ground, none seemingly getting up in time. 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝑒𝑙𝗯𝔦𝔫.𝒏𝔢𝒕
Emma walked around the rock and arrived next to the old mayor before looking down on him. "You may have sold your friends a lot when you were young, which is why you think everyone does that," she said. "But that's just you being a bad person."
She then turned toward the man that was looking at her in shock. "I shall leave you unharmed so you can take care of these men," she said. "Until then, they will be unconscious."
She turned to the mayor and gave him a sharp chop to the neck, knocking him out and possibly even breaking his neck a little.
Then, she turned around and walked away, making her way back to Umbra and the kids.
:)