56 Encounter 3 - The Short Meeting (1/2)
Due to working all the time in his previous life, Stigma had eventually developed a habit to waking up earlier than usual upon seeing daylight.
After sitting up from the bed, Stigma came across a soft sensation when his hand landed on the side, mistaking it as a pillow he pushed it down without much thought and heard a cry of a woman afterwards.
Turning his head from the source of the sound, he found his hand on top of the hourglass sister's well endowed chest, sleeping beside his bed like it was natural thing to do. Unfortunately, her mask was on, so Stigma couldn't tell if she was still asleep or wake from the sudden weight on her chest.
With such a provoking figure resting right next to him, Stigma would feel very embarrassed from what he did. But when Stigma heard the sound of someone moaning from the other side the tent, he found a tied up man on the ground and a short woman clutching on his head.
Like the woman beside him, they were both wearing their mask. These people are the ones from yesterday who claim to be assassin, if Stigma remembered correctly the sound of the beating ended really early, so he didn't even know what happened afterwards.
Looking around, he found that the furniture disarranged and bottles were littered around them, some torn fabric or cotton from the furniture were found along with some broken shards of ceramic. If Stigma didn't knew what happened yesterday, he would had thought that the aftermath of his cruel joke would just be them trying to sleep off a hangover.
Stigma would have felt bad for the man, but when he squinted his eyes to look at the entire scene, he had lost all intentions of trying to fix it.
What he saw, was a man being embraced by the chest of a short girl, his face was drooling with a blissful smile. But that wasn't bothered him, after looking around the man, Stigma had changed his opinion completely from HIM a pedophile to a complete pervert.
Beside them was a dresser, but what was on it was what caught Stigma's attention, after all, what could be more disturbing than seeing a man restrained in ropes and his pants were hanginG by the dresser.
'....So he isn't just a pedophile but a lolicon as well.'
With a sheet covering the short ones body, it was hard to tell what she was wearing.
Eventually Stigma looked away and ignored them, as he got out of bed to stretch. At the same time, the hourglass sister sat up, but unlike Stigma who was already awake, she was still little light headed from suddenly waking up.
Without her cloak on, Stigma could see her entire body. She wore a sleeveless purple turtle neck emphasizing her chest, while she wore a skirt that reached to the way down to her feet showing of the out lines of her thighs.
She had long blue hair was tied to the side, and had a pendant with a flower engraved on it with a small ruby that shaped like the center petal. If Stigma had to guess her actual age, she would still be in her twenties and mistaken as someone as someone that was married.
Unlike yesterday, she removed the leather vest that held some small containers that were the size of her palm. Without the vest, her body was now free to show of her natural mounds, even with the mask covering her face, she still looked stunning.
” *Yawn!*...Good Morning boy....you woke up early, do you perhaps have somewhere to go at this time....” Even when she asked the question, her head was still swaying from time to time, trying to keep herself awake.
”Yeah, I have to meet up with my friend who I left outside the forest, something happened so I had to find a living space. He is still young so I'm kind of worried about him, since I found a place, I can't waste time anymore...”
After stretching a few more times, Stigma peeked with one eye to each side to find Dusk still standing by the sidelines. If they did something to him, Dusk would have retaliated by binding them by their limbs, and Dusk would resort to breaking their limbs or snapping their necks if things got out of hand.
With a flick of his hand, a small pouch appeared in thin air. With the events that transpiredyesterday, he had given up in hiding the space ring and used it in front of them to store the ax, but he avoided using his original space ring and used the one he got from the follower.
All he had to do was switch between using his original and the followers and no one would know the difference.
...
”...Hey”
”Hmmm”
”Can you not stare at me I need to focus, when I's counting...”
”But... do know the actual pricing?”
”....”
”I'm curious though, why do you want to sell these? You can use them in your cultivation training.”
”...What do you mean, I sell them and buy resources that can help me in my cultivation, right?”
”There is that, but you can also use and absorb the energy inside the core. Most clans use that approach in an early age, so most of their members are in the average of the Zero to First Tier, with a handful of Second or Third Tier, though larger clans have different statistics.”
Stigma stopped and looked at the sister with a baffled expression, this new piece of information was like a gold mine to him. From what Felix said, Stigma had already accumulate enough to live of in luxury for about twenty years in a small empire.
He even told him he would be willing to buy them but he refused.
He understood why most non-cultivators like mercenaries or hunters risk their lives to earn and make a living, but Felix never told him why Cultivators liked to buy them, he assumed it was the same reason. He only told Stigma that they are an important part that can help develop a society, especially a clan.
If he go by how the bandits from yesterday reacted, Felix and his group must had their eye on the 2nd Tier core, after seeing it. But they didn't take it even with their number, so it only indicates they don't want to antagonize Stigma if he had more, which he in fact did, hidden in his space ring.
”How does that work?” Stigma already has the 'Soul Eater' skill, but the issue was the skill indiscriminately absorbs anything, be it souls or energy. So he wasn't risking his skill to reach to a point in where he would be reaping a living person's life by accident in one go.
”Hmm, you don't know... well it's fairly simple and most clans don't circulate the knowledge for a reason...”
After grabbing a Zero Tier core, she made a simple explanation along with giving a visual explanation for Stigma to understand.
”As long as you can pay the appropriate sum or find someone to train you in the underworld, you can find out. Since you already made some contributions like providing living arrange for us, I will teach you as my form of thank you.”
”Now pay attention, all you need to do is insert your Zen energy in the core and pull the energy inside it like this...”
The core in her hand had started to emit some light, the more he observed the clearer the veins were seen from a red hue, afterwards the core lost all colors and became a colorless stone. But she didn't stop there and grabbed another one.
She then explained that this method of accumulating Zen energy is not actually perfect, as many people are not capable in perfecting the training, unless one was confident in molding energy the results would vary.
Too much energy and the core would be destroyed and turn to dust and the energy will disperse in the air, too little and the one to lose energy would be the possessor, while the core would be the one taking the energy.
Many clans use higher Tier Beast Cores for young or lower Tier Cultivators in their clans to train in, but the higher the Tier the more difficult it was for them to mold their energy, especially to higher Tier Cultivators who are trying to make a breakthrough.
”...Thank you for the advice.” With such valuable, how could Stigma not be excited, an immediately decided to add energy molding in his quota of training in the future. If he can master it, then he can fill in the time gaps in his experience by training with the Demon, along with mastering his new techniques and speed up his accumulation and breakthrough in the future.
”Your Welcome, after all you are going to be like us, so I have to make sure we have a powerful ally in the future.”
....
Within the thirty minutes Stigma grabbed everything that was needed then went out, but he left behind his sac filled with his preserved food and clothes and second Tier Core from yesterday, but the most important thing he left behind was Dusk.
He gave Dusk an order, if any of them tried to take the core, they are to be left alone, but it had to point out who took it when he comes back.
Now that he had some people to look after his current base, Stigma was now free to move around the market and gather supplies, so he can't waste anymore time,
Luckily the hourglass sister was the one who set up the barrier, so she made a special key by pulling out a talisman and made some hand seals.
”Here, as long as you have this talisman, you are free to leave and enter the area, but you are the only one aloud okay. Have a safe trip!” The Talisman she handed over had a lot of inscription that looked alien to Stigma, but he didn't had time to study it since he had other plans.
”....I will.”
***