Next day morning. The herb village is in utter chaos. The large fields under the imperial authority were completely emptied out.
The lush vegetation of the herbs of various ranks was completely gone and what replaced it are the rows or withered stalks of herbs in line.
Apart from that they noticed a letter left in the center of the field and when the person in charge read the letter, he was dumbfounded and when he remembered a portrait that came with a wanted notice a while ago and when he compared the name and the signature of the person, he was stunned and his face turned pale in fear.
"SAM WAS HERE."
This is the only line that was written on the paper with the symbol of Sam"s signature the double S painted in the background like a watermark.
He didn"t know what to say about this and he felt his legs shaking because the word got out that Sam who recently broke through the Great realm, just dealt with the all-powerful General Spark who is now rotting away in his bed and no healer can take care of it.
He quickly started his journey towards the southern star and he has a peak Level 5 beasts at bay luckily and he went back to the southern star territory.
When he wanted to enter the central zone though, he was blocked completely, because there was a plague that started inside the central zone.
Some of the people who visited General Spark is infected and those who didn"t take immediate actions are already suffering.
Only the powerful experts such as the Duke and the tower heads are safe and even some Family heads of some n.o.ble families are no exception.
So, the Duke ordered a lockdown just in case it turned into a Pandemic.
The guards who are blocking sent him to a temporary meeting room that was set up in the nearby woods and the Duke came to him after some time.
When he looked at the letter, he almost broke the table and destroyed the residence. But he gritted his teeth and controlled the anger and heard the details.
"Ask the herb experts to see what happened to the land, that guy wouldn"t take so much effort just to destroy the yield."
He tried to sound as calm as himself, but inside he was burning from anger. He knew that Sam meant what he said, he is going to do whatever he wants and the main problem is Sam is so small compared to the whole empire and since the whole empire is his target, he can attack wherever he wants and do whatever he wants to do and it would damage the empire.
But they have many difficulties in finding a trace of Sam.
"Sir, May I know how General is doing?"
Duke came back from his thoughts and answered in a bitter tone.
"Three days at most."
The person who came here, understood clearly what that means, so he didn"t push further and asked something else.
"What should I do next?"
"Don"t get involved in Sam"s investigation, your priority is checking if the lands are okay, and if the spiritual energy in the area is alright or not. I will deal with the rest."
The man left after that and the Duke who couldn"t control himself anymore smashed the table into pieces.
After he calmed down a bit, he conducted an urgent meeting on how to deal with Sam. Sam is now like a fishbone in his throat.
He doesn"t know how to report the matter to the Emperor.
And after some long and hard discussion and debates, they came to the conclusion.
"We will organize a special investigation team which would be led by a Nascent and the rest being Grand Realm cultivators. Since there is a high chance that the lands will be damaged, then we will report to the emperor after we catch him and hand him over.
Send someone to visit anyone who he was friendly with in the past. Everyone who had a relationship with Sam and is still in the Southern Star, enquire them and bring them here. After catching them release a rumor that we caught them and are planning to use them as hostages for Sam to come out."
Even though all of them agreed for the first half of the plan, the second half was completely surprising them and there was a person who rejected as soon as the Duke spoke.
The Deputy General.
"Sir, I strongly oppose and disagree with this." He stood up from his seat and said this out loud.
The rest of them although someone disagreed internally, didn"t have that big of a reaction.
The Deputy general continued.
"You might have forgotten the report on Sam. He is very sensitive when the people near him get targeted because of him. Why do you think the Cougar family disappeared? You would just increase his rage and his wrath is not something that we can estimate.
Because, from what I saw and observed, the most dangerous trait he has is not his professional t.i.tles, not his high talent, and not his off the charts battle prowess. It is his calm during rage.
He wouldn"t act like a normal person. If you try to play with his emotions, he would just leave them completely and if you start using the people who have a relationship with him, he might involve commoners and the military. We have more to lose."
"Do you have a better idea?" Duke asked frustratingly.
"I think it is better to negotiate and if possible and you want to save the Dukedom out of the mess, drop the whole Sam thing and wait for the thing to pa.s.s and that is if we cannot catch him."
"Negotiate? Leave that guy and drop the investigations? The whole Dukedom against a Great realm youngster."
One of the officials yelled even before the Duke and the Duke himself silently approved of the question.
That meeting ended and they don"t know what they have brought upon themselves and the worst part is the Deputy General was in charge of the investigation while another squad went to bring people who are friends with Sam previously.
But Deputy General didn"t want the things to blow out of proportion and followed them in the name of investigating the places that Sam previously stayed which are "coincidentally" same places as the previous friends of Sam.
At least, he made sure that they aren"t hurt or mistreated by the arrogant officials.
They got their hands-on Shawn, Freya, Haley and they didn"t even leave Hawk and Kelly despite their elders" authorities, and even Drew and Ray wasn"t spared despite their not so close relationship.
But the Deputy General got something else when the rumor started flying around about the hostage situation.
The person from Violet dew family contacted him on his own accord when he was in the Falcon Cliff city as he was searching for clues in Sam"s old house.
And he got the most shocking news which he was most afraid of and wanted to contact the Duke as soon as he can and he was praying that the rumors didn"t reach Sam yet.
So, he went to the Marquis city as fast as he can so that he can talk to the Duke in the emergency communication device.
While all this happened, Sam was also busy.
As soon as he was done with the fields in the Herb village, he went towards the Blaze city. This is the fire elemental herb and fire elemental spiritual stones of the southern star.
This city controls the forest in which they made fields of fire elemental herbs and a mine of fire elemental stones with a mine.
He came two days after he was done in the Herb village. The Blaze city"s core is the Earthen fire of the magma that was under the ground and all the fields and the mine are above that earthen fire which spread over thousands of yards.
After Sam entered the city, they didn"t have to do any preparations because Sam already prepared whatever he wanted.
At night, the guards are having a meeting with their superiors, because they just got the news that Sam dealt with the Herb village and they have to be careful. But they didn"t know they made the stupidest decision because of their a.s.sumption that Sam wouldn"t be able to come to the Blaze city at all in this short time.
But what he doesn"t know is Sam is fully busy with his new invention, he was directly using here for the first time and he came up with just now.
This is a formation he made based on the design of a formation blueprint he obtained from the Palace of Inheritance.
The formation he referred was a formation named Lightning Cage. This one is actually a way to use large elemental storage that will be placed under the ground and the nodes will make the energy to form a cage around them.
It is used for defensive purposes and guarding a post or a house.
He looked through it and understood what is happening almost instantly. He knew that it is a complex design and it is a high level on at that, but it is still very simple as he followed the energy patterns and, in few hours, he was done finding an equivalent form of this formation for fire elemental energy.
So, they scouted the whole field which has earthen fire and when they got the proportions right and when the meeting was held which saved effort for Sam to make a distraction, he and his friends started planting the specially made formation nodes which are a form of a fire elemental energy cells.
But before activating the formation, he blew up a large energy cell in the middle of the field and escaped the field and started the formation.
By the time the guards came to the field all they could see was a series of fire pillars around the whole formation and the magma seeping outside from the center on to the fields and the mine going unstable with the spiritual energy currents.
The in-charge understood they are in a formation but before he could decide what they have to do, another explosion was heard and they ran back to the office in which they just had a meeting.
And over the rubble there was a letter.
And the content was the same as the letter that was obtained in the Herb Village. But there is an additional note.
"Sam was here.
And by the way, if you want to smash open the formation I advise you don"t because, once you do that, the mine will become unstable and out of control at the same time, the magma will start spreading all over the city.
With that, all the fields, homes, and the lives of the citizens will be gone."