In the forest near the southern star city.
Sam and the rest are having a break.
They are now moving towards some towns in the southern star to carry out their next plan. But they stopped moving on the roads that are laid down for regular traveling.
Sam is taking the most dangerous route that they could possibly take and that is the forest route.
When the empire started to build and the routes between the cities and towns are made in such a way that they wouldn"t disturb the habitats of the larger predators. There are many other beasts with Level 6 and higher in the nation.
So, the normal citizens wouldn"t disturb them are bring a disaster upon themselves.
But this time, Sam doesn"t want waste much time, for the journey and right now due to his improvement in cultivation and the Harbinger"s upgrade in the rank, the speed he can travel is on the same level as a peak stage Level 5 beast and taking the route through the forests will cut any journey within the whole empire to not more than fifteen days, if he moves nonstop.
But before he starts the journey, he has to give them some briefing on what their next steps are and Sam is sending three of them to the two floors of the library so that they could gather enough knowledge so that they would know what they are facing.
As for the threat of the beasts that might occur in the area, Sam"s beastly aura was fully released while he traveled and with that speed and the route he took, there are not many beasts that would care to try and mess with him and if one of them did. He had a large energy cell ready for some quick destruction.
The beasts wouldn"t really care if there is no apparent provocation from the intruder in their territory with the only exception being the intruder is as strong as itself. And from what Sam observed the humans of this world and the beasts don"t exactly have a peaceful relation, so there is a chance that there would be a problem if they detect him as a human.
That is why he is indicating that he is a beast and that is pa.s.sing by in an extremely urgent matter.
The officials didn"t know this and they are only searching for all the main routes of transport.
They all didn"t know that the fancy board Sam used to float around the city can actually turn this fast.
But the journey for Sam is not exactly smooth sailing.
The wind currents he is facing while traveling in the speed is actually making him face and all the other exposed skin bleed until he thought of a method and that is tempering with the wind elemental energy that he is facing on that board.
But for now, they are talking about their immediate plans.
"I stole the map of the whole empire from the Duke"s Palace. Our next stop would be the Herb Village of the southern star."
"Herb Village?"
"Yes, the Herb Village. That place has the most wood elemental energy in the whole Dukedom and the second most wood element energy in the whole empire.
That place is a great place to grow all kinds of herbs of the Neutral spiritual energy category and wood elemental category. Most herbs which a.s.sist in healing are cultivated there and it controls ninety percent of the herb supply of these categories in the southern star and thirty people of the southwestern star dukedom."
"What are we going to do there? Didn"t you say you are going to give them a month"s time, why are we moving this far?"
"I only gave them one month for their decision to be on the empire"s side or not, but that doesn"t mean I will stop bothering the empire.
Right now, we can move throughout the southern star dukedom in fifteen days and that only includes the journey time.
In one month, we are going to move throughout the territory and visit several special places that hold the specialties of their respective regions. And these specialties are mostly held by the Imperial authority so that they profit from selling the resources of the empire.
As I said earlier, I will pluck the t.i.tle of the emperor off that guy, and for that, I don"t need to kill him or threaten his position, I just have to make sure that there is no empire left for him to call himself an emperor.
And for that, all I have to do is eliminate the things that make this land an empire and this is the first step in that.
We will strike all the lands under the imperial authority in the herb village. The supply of the whole southern star would be cut off and from there we will move to the Blaze Count territory and then our stop will be towards the three seash.o.r.e counties."
As Sam explained, the remaining three were surprised and didn"t even know what to say for that.
They only came out of a daze when Sam started telling them their next targets.
"Aren"t they in a completely different area, they are literally three corners of the whole Dukedom."
Jack asked in confusion.
"Yes, and you would know why I want it that way."
After that, the next day they arrived at the Herb village.
It is only called a village because of its limited population. This village is mostly surrounded by the forests and it is situated on a small slope.
Most people cannot easily gain access to the village due to their importance and outsiders cannot easily buy the property here.
The natives protect their knowledge of growing herbs as it was their lifeline. Even though ninety percent of the cultivatable land is under the imperial authority, the people who work on that land are also the natives of this land.
Their herb cultivation techniques and the maintenance techniques are not taught to anyone that easily and they would rather die than give that knowledge away if they are forced.
Right, now Sam is inside a field that is under the imperial authority and he is checking the boundaries of the field. Actually, the village is guarded because it is one of the important resources in the empire, but with the shadow mice as long as the person doesn"t have a higher cultivation level than a Nascent, then they are safe.
The person who is in charge of this village"s security is actually only a Nascent at the initial stage. So, this operation is as good as done.
At this moment, Watt and others are scouting some other areas of the land. The land is so vast that it is almost impossible for people to be at all places at every instant of time.
And this time is the shift changing time and along with the fact that there are no attacks for at least the past decade, they are extremely lax.
After scouting the area, the four of them left the field and went into the nearby forest to discuss.
Sam explained the plan and they are good to go at the night time, but there is a beast that has to do its job before they could proceed.
This beast was caught by Sam on his way here and it is an extremely versatile beast that can even survive in the territory of a Level 6 and Level 7 beasts because they are too troublesome to catch even if their residence is known.
This is a Drunken Mole. That is right, this is a mole and it is extremely good at digging in every direction.
It is extremely similar to a normal mole. The Drunken mole is only a given nickname given by humans due to its infatuation towards the wine. It likes to drink alcohol more than an alcoholic.
So, Sam caught it by baiting it with a huge vat of wine and when he showed the amount of wine, he can provide it directly obliged and made a contract with him.
That night, this Drunken mole which is named as the Drunkard is on tiresome duty.
It went deep into the ground with a s.p.a.ce jade collar to store away the earth it dugout.
The drunken mole actually lives alone unlike a general mole, and it makes its home by digging a huge way down underground and this process will be slow and it is not because of the digging speed rather the method it uses to throw away the earth. Far away from the hole.
Now, this problem is taken care of everything goes smoothly.
Sam noticed that the formations around the fields are not exactly complex and he knew the reason. They don"t want to mess up the energy flow of the spiritual energy too much so that it wouldn"t affect the herbs inside. And particularly the formations wouldn"t cover the underground part of the field, which made it easier for the mole to do what it is best at.
After it dug the hole, it came back, and now it is the turn of the shadow mice and the Zoi termites.
The shadow mice made some small holes inside the large hole that the drunkard made so that the small lines will spread all over the field.
Then they took out gla.s.s bottles poured the fluid in the main hole and the liquid started spreading all over the field.
At this moment, a bullet was shot by Sam in the night and it created a nick in the formation, enough for the termites to enter the field.
The guards who are on guard are alerted by the bullet sound and made their way towards Sam"s spot only to find nothing.
They were alerted and distracted with the small commotion and started searching for the intruder.
But what they didn"t know is the termites that are slowly moving inside the formation are having a feat of their lives. The herbs are slowly withering.
"Is the liquid the same thing you used on the general?"
Philip asked Sam curiously.
"No."
"What is the difference?"
"What I dropped under the field is the concentrated urine of the yellow-skinned monkeys. It has a corrosive effect on the vitality and it doesn"t have much effect on the bodies of humans and other beasts. But for the plants, the constant or concentrated application will corrode them and this is due to some microorganism in the urine.
What I used, in general, is a c.o.c.ktail of microorganisms from the feces of the Racc.o.o.n, mucus of the koala, and the urine of the monkeys.
Mucus has an ability to resist the attacks of the spiritual energy, the koalas will use this mucus to stop their predators from using the spiritual energy, and the bacteria in the feces has a high rate of reproduction while the effect of urine I already explained.
These three organisms will make it hard for them to heal because they are wounds or poison they are living beings and the vitality that the healers emit will be consumed by that c.o.c.ktail and they will grow reducing the effect of healing on their host. The organs will slowly rot away by the long duration and the fast reproduction inside the host.
If the body is not disposed of properly, there is a chance it would spread, of course, that is on the premise the person who is touching lets his guard down and let the spiritual energy make way to the organisms without any resistance."
"Doesn"t that mean, given enough time, it can kill any person?"
"No, a healthy person might notice in the initial stages, that is my I made an attack on the general and used the poison as the distraction. With the burns and the poison, the general is in his weakest stage letting the c.o.c.ktail grow."
"d.a.m.n, it must suck so hard to be your enemy."
"That is actually true."