Ch193-Let’s Get Down To Business (Patreon)

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Ch193-Let’s Get Down To Business

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“Stop squirming,” Sylver cautioned, as he tightened his grip around the youth’s leg, and against the screaming youth’s protests, poured the remainder of the health potion’s contents over the very recently severed ankle.

Sylver’s stitches were spat out of the flesh, as it stretched and followed the blueprints Sylver had forced the foot to adhere to, and within 30 seconds, only a razor-thin white scar remained. It was so clean that it looked like it was a tan line from wearing a small bracelet around the ankle.

It was quite lucky that the cut had been so smooth because otherwise, the young man would have lost the ability to walk. Then again, considering the insane speed he was moving at, anything less smooth would have been strange.

“You’re a witch,” one of the kids said.

Although, now that Sylver got a better look at them, he struggled to put a number to their age.

They weren’t exactly malnourished, but there was something off about their bone structure. They weren’t crippled, but even the way they sat wasn’t quite right. There was a stiffness to all of their movements that shouldn’t have been there.

“I am over seven feet of pure muscle, what part of me exactly makes you think I’m a witch?” Sylver asked as the kid that had spoken stared at him with a confused look on his face.

“The magic?” the kid asked.

The two near him didn’t quite nod, but their souls did. Sylver accepted the slightly dented pan from one of the shades and stored it away within one of his bones.

“I used magic, yes, but what makes you think I’m a witch? Is it the hair? The eyes? That I’m pale?” Sylver asked as he gestured towards himself, with his seemingly painted black fingernails.

“Only witches use magic,” the man Sylver was still pinning in place while he waited for the bone to finish fusing said through gritted teeth.

Sylver forced his mana into the man’s ankles again and adjusted the structure one last time.

[Mutating Override (II) Proficiency increased to 6%!]

[Vigorous Conditioning (III) Proficiency increased to 57%!]

[Mirage (III) Proficiency increased to 91%!]

It might have just been Sylver’s imagination, but he could have sworn the system has gotten a lot better at waiting until he wasn’t occupied before bombarding him with notifications.

The man who had forced Sylver to sacrifice his neck wiggled his toes around and seemed insultingly surprised by the fact that what Sylver had said came true.

“I think I get it, when you say “witch” you mean anyone who uses magic… That’s going to be annoying…” Sylver said at the group, some of who nodded, and added the last part to himself.

Sylver stood up from where he had been sitting and felt something near the back of his neck. He touched it with his hand and pulled out a small stone that had gotten healed between his head and neck.

“What did you mean by work for you?” the man that was mostly responsible for Sylver’s decapitation asked.

Sylver mentally nudged Mora and got the response back that Faust didn’t want her to leave yet. Sylver quietly split Spring into two and sent one half towards her.

“I don’t know… For starters, I’m going to ask that you clean this place up. It’s filthy. And please tell me you’re very closely acquainted with the local black market,” Sylver said, and only got a blank stare in response.

It quickly turned into anger.

“We’re not thieves,” the man said, with a subdued tone that suggested that if anyone other than the witch who was able to survive being decapitated said what he said, they would be dead.

Despite the upsetting revelation, Sylver couldn’t help but smile at the young man’s intensity.

“Then I have been misled. I came here because I was told you are a fringe sect that all the others wouldn’t mind disappearing. And that you make your living by stealing from other sects,” Sylver explained.

“We’re not thieves. We only take what is owed to us,” the man repeated.

“But you are without any allies, right?” Sylver asked, to at the very least make sure he wouldn’t have to kill Xalibur for lying to him.

The man stared at Sylver for around 10 seconds, and Sylver stared back at him with his melted-off eyes and face.

“Yes,” the man answered, and Sylver was more relieved than he thought he would be.

Spring’s half returned and whispered into Sylver’s ear before he merged back with the Spring that had remained in Sylver’s shadow.

“Alright, I can see none of you are in a mood to talk. So for now, please go tell everyone about me, and if anyone needs medical treatment, let him know,” Sylver said, as Spring materialized next to him so Sylver could gesture at the shade.

He let Spring take over as he walked away from the mildly uncooperative group, and formed himself a seat out of his shadow while he waited for Faust, Mora, and Xalibur to return.

Sylver sorted out his [Bound Bones] inventory and moved everything valuable into the small bones he had spread out inside his small ribcage. He also had a handful of shades materialize, had them sort through the pile of garbage for anything useful, and had the genuine garbage moved into a different pile for Sylver to burn, or bury.

The vast majority of the surrounding architecture wasn’t very tall, the norm seemed to be a wide 1 story house, with the roof being used as an uncovered 2nd floor. They all also had a barrier around them, some barriers were weaker, some were stronger, but when Sylver inspected them through Spring, he could tell they were all made by the same person.

While it was still dark enough, Sylver summoned Aleri and had the bird shade fly high up into the air. The shade flew around, while Sylver did his best to translate his avian thoughts into a map.

Aleri didn’t perceive the world the same way Sylver did, buildings, roads, territory, and other miscellaneous details that were important for Sylver weren’t something Aleri could comprehend. To make up for that, Sylver had Spring split off a piece of himself and had the shade hide within Aleri’s shadow, but the results Spring returned with weren’t great.

To his eyes there were no buildings, no roads, there was nothing, other than giant fuzzy spheres that looked a bit like bubble wrap, from the way they were positioned relative to one another.

Hypothetically, if there was a spell that relied solely on negative energy, Sylver could see through all of these Ki barriers as if they didn’t exist. But no matter from which angle Sylver tried to approach such a hypothetical spell, he couldn’t figure out a way to create one.

Pure negative energy spells did exist, and Sylver knew a very large number of them, but the act of “seeing” required interacting with the physical world, which required at least a droplet of positive energy.

As Sylver felt something shifting in the back area of his robe, he got an idea.

“Ria? Would you mind wrapping yourself around Aleri and mapping out the local area for me?” Sylver tapped out towards the small bundled up staff and liquid metal creature hiding inside of it.

“Alright,” Ria answered, as Sylver felt the staff in his back unfold, and then heard it snap into a single piece.

His robe moved it out from his back, and into his hand. Sylver watched as the black material clinging to the staff looked like grass swaying in the wind, and gradually became smaller and smaller, as the bright golden tendrils slowly moved towards the top of the staff, where the three ribs were.

Finally, the gold part of Ria formed into a sphere, like a pearl in a ring, and a droplet the size of a small gold coin fell out of it and landed into Sylver’s open palm.

The gold coin was smooth and polished enough that he could see his reflection in it.

Aleri didn’t bother landing properly and instead dived into Sylver’s shadow as if he was diving in a lake. He materialized on Sylver’s knee, as Sylver moved the Ria coin towards him. Without saying anything, Ria slithered up Aleri’s foot and moved up towards his head and chest, where she very gently wrapped herself around his neck, and then spread out on his chest and stomach, in an odd cone-shaped circle.

“Are you good to go?” Sylver asked, and heard a very muffled sound. He leaned forward so his ear was next to Aleri’s chest.

“Yes,” Ria squeaked, with such a high pitch that it almost hurt Sylver’s ear.

He nodded at her and instructed Aleri to fly in a grid formation, to make it as easy as possible for Ria. He also made sure to tell him to be quick about it, but not fly so fast that Ria would get ripped off him.

As Aleri took off, one of the Spring halves materialized near him.

“They’re all fucked up,” Spring said, as Sylver formed the shade his own seat, and he sat down next to him.

“Are we talking missing limbs fucked up, or-”

“No, thankfully no. No Night Fever either. But there’s something wrong with them. There aren’t any adults, for starters. The youngest is 10 years old, the oldest is that “man” you nearly saved. He says he’s 24, but his bone structure says he’s 15 or 16. The others are the same, they swear they are older than they appear,” Spring explained, as Sylver summoned one of his old body’s clones, decapitated it, and moved the body back into his [Bound Bones] storage, but kept the head in his hand.

“Are they lying?” Sylver asked, as he summoned a scalpel into his hand, and made a quick cut around the edge of the head’s face.

As a little sense crept into Sylver’s head, the head on top of his shoulders, he moved himself and Spring out of the doorway where a passerby could see them and hid behind the wall, out of sight.

“I don’t know. Some of them have a cough, some can’t stand, some can barely see, even the oldest is sweating so hard he’s leaving a trail as he walks. There are 21 of them, and the oldest seems to be the only one capable of fighting,” Spring explained, as Sylver used [Dead Dominion] to rip his face off from the head being held in place by his shadow.

He then shoved his finger into his eye sockets and popped both pitch black eyeballs out.

Sylver moved his bag over into his lap and started searching through it.

“Did you get any names?” Sylver asked, as he found the powder he was looking for, and moved the bag out of the way.

“They don’t have names,” Spring said, and the way he said it made Sylver stop what he was doing.

“They’re careful not to say their names while you’re around, or do they not have names at all?” Sylver asked.

Spring shook his head.

“The second thing. At least, that’s the impression I got… You’re going to get mildly offended by this next part,” Spring warned, as Sylver shrugged his shoulders, and in a single smooth motion made a long cut around his currently melted face, and used a finger coated in [Necrotic Mutilation] to dig out the gunk in his eye sockets.

“Can I guess it in 3 tries?” Sylver asked, as he opened the jar full of powder and gently sprinkled it onto the backside of his floating face.

It made the raw flesh melt a little until it was the consistency of jelly.

“Most of them think you’re here to “fatten them up,” so to speak, before inevitably eating them… And a few think you’re that black-eyed albino necromancer they heard about in songs, here to rescue them. Along with your merry band of “shadows.” One girl is especially excited about your merriest shadow, Sprigory,” Spring said with a wry smile.

“Sprigory? Really?” Sylver asked, as he reached up with his hand towards his forehead and with a quick tug, ripped his face off.

He had to use [Necrotic Mutilation] to remove some of the chunks that were left since his face had melted and wasn’t completely in one piece.

“Sylvar Senary and his trusty shadow Sprigory,” Spring said, partially in mock, but at the same time with an odd note of pride.

“So we just defeated the only defender of a bunch of crippled children… As far as adventures go, this isn’t the worst way I’ve started,” Sylver said and Spring got the message that he wanted to change the subject.

He still hadn’t decided if he was going to reward Lorn, the bard that wrote this song or do something else to him.

“We can go find a different sect to invade, and take over, and bring the kids into it?” Spring offered, but Sylver shook his head.

“Enemies, I don’t mind. More bodies, especially if this place works the way I think it does. Allies are a wholly different animal. I don’t mind breaking an alliance if I wasn’t the one who made it but… It would leave a bad taste in my mouth… And groups with lots of allies are typically weak. Political backstabbing, pussy footing, “oh we can’t offend or move against so and so,” I’d rather just fight it out and get it over with,” Sylver explained, as Spring nodded along and said what Sylver had been thinking about but hadn’t fully committed to yet.

“And this might be exactly what Faust needs to get out of his slump. They’re cultivators, he’s a cultivator, and nothing forces a man into fixing himself like having someone depend on him,” Spring said with annoying clarify into Sylver’s inner thoughts.

“If Edmund is locked up somewhere, somewhere tight… It wouldn’t hurt to have some allies to help out… Although how long would it take for Faust to train them? It would be good if their enemies are all local sects because then I would be able to enter other sects to search for Edmund, under the guise of trying to form a new alliance…” Sylver thought out loud, as he gently floated his face onto the front of his skinless skull, and waited for the various nerves and blood vessels to connect to the slab of meat.

“All relatively solid reasons for not abandoning them. Although you forgot the most important one. You decided you’re keeping them the moment that kid accepted his death without flinching…” Spring said, and Sylver smiled a little as he pressed his fingers along the edges of his new face, and felt the blood being drained out of it, as it got replaced with his new “blood.”

Sylver’s relatively tanned piece of skin lost color with every passing second.

“With the right guidance, who knows? Maybe the kid will love his people enough-”

“Love them enough to do the kind of atrocities you make yourself do,” Spring said, as Aleri returned and landed on Sylver’s knee.

Sylver moved his staff towards the small piece of metal wrapped around the shade bird’s body and watched as a small tendril stretched out towards the small metal sphere.

Aleri returned to Sylver’s shadow, as Ria reabsorbed the now empty straps into herself, floated the staff towards the back of Sylver’s robe, and hid inside of it.

“You’re not going to like this,” Ria said.

***

Sylver stood up from his shadow-made seat as Mora, Faust, and Xalibur approached. His expression was perfectly calm, both of his eyes were in their respective sockets, and his face looked the way it had been before someone spat acid onto it.

Sylver held up his notebook and gestured at the symbol marked on it.

“The White Genesis sect? What about it?” Xalibur asked, and Sylver felt a great weight descend onto his shoulders.

“I’ll pay you the remaining 30 grams of red jade a little later, but can you answer me one thing right now? When the [Hero] passed through here, was the White Genesis sect one of the sects he visited?” Sylver asked, even if he was already certain he knew the answer.

But instead of saying “Yes, I even heard a rumor he fucked up his sword there,” Xalibur instead said:

“We haven’t had a [Hero] come here in over 100 years?” Xalibur said, and Sylver felt the weight on his shoulders somewhat lessen.

“They’re the most powerful sect, aren’t they?” Sylver asked, and again, Xalibur surprised him with his answer.

“It’s debatable, but I wouldn’t say they are. They’re in the top 50, that’s for certain, but they’re not even close to the top 10,” Xalibur explained, as Mora lowered Faust from her back, and the man just barely managed to stand on his two feet.

Sylver was about to ask something he had promised himself he would forget about, but he simply bit down on his tongue before the words had a chance to form. He didn’t draw blood, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience either.

Xalibur’s dog, aptly named, Dog, walked through the broken double gates and found a large stick in the burn pile to chew on. Given that it was strong enough to bite through Sylver’s skin, why it wasn’t biting through that stick with a single chomp, was a mystery. The animal looked a little livelier than it had been, and even the patches in his fur had somewhat filled out.

Sylver’s worry, because of the way Ria had described the enormous mansion that was directly on the line Edmund’s tracker had made, was that this giant mansion was home to the strongest cultivators this country had to offer.

“You told me the people here are all thieves,” Sylver asked, even though he somewhat already got an answer.

“They are,” Xalibur answered.

“From what I’ve seen so far, they’re mostly crippled children,” Sylver said.

His tone was perfectly neutral, he could tell there was something he was missing and chose to believe that Xalibur hadn’t simply lied to him.

“You didn’t ask me to find you a sect of grown adults, you asked, and I quote “a sect that doesn’t have any allies, only enemies. One that could be robbed without anyone raising a fuss.” Even if you were to slaughter of all them, no one in the red rim would raise a fuss,” Xalibur answered, and Sylver couldn’t figure out if he should laugh.

“How exactly does a group of crippled children make a living by stealing from other sects?” Sylver asked, and Xalibur answered without any pause to think it over.

“I don’t know,” Xalibur said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“They’re practitioners of the [Lunar Tide] technique,” Faust interrupted before Sylver could continue his questioning.

“Certainly feels like it,” Xalibur said, with an understanding nod.

“Faust?” Sylver asked the tired-looking man.

“It’s a cultivation technique that turns your conception vessel into a valve. They store all of their Ki within their governing vessel, skipping their conception vessel entirely, and when needed, release it all at once,” Faust explained, while Sylver did his best to jog his memory regarding what conception and governing vessels were.

“Next time you ask me about something magic-related, I’m going to use the fanciest terms I can think of,” Sylver said, as Faust closed his eyes for a moment.

“They build up strength over time. It’s called the [Lunar Tide] technique because it can be extended to be as long as a month. They build up strength for a month and release it in one day. Or, that’s what they should be doing,” Faust explained, and Sylver could do little but furrow his brows at him.

“Not with the amount of Yang in the air here. They’re not waiting long enough for it to build up,” Xalibur added, but Sylver kept staring at Faust.

“You said they’re crippled children. Without a functioning conception vessel, their bodies aren’t getting enough Ki to grow, or repair themselves. The [Lunar Tide] technique is meant to be used over long periods of time, by fully grown adults, whose bodies are done growing,” Faust explained, and made a slight gesture with his eyes towards Xalibur.

“Would you mind waiting here for a bit?” Sylver asked the one-legged Xalibur.

Sylver gestured with his hand towards the soil near him, and the earth rose into the shape of a couch. Sylver gestured with his hand again, and the grass trapped within wove itself around the mound of dirt, until only bright green grass could be seen.

Sylver walked over to Faust, and made the man a seat out of his shadow, and floated him alongside him as they walked towards the house.

“So they are powerful, but only after they’ve had enough time to build up their strength?” Sylver asked, and Faust nodded along.

“Not if the amount of tainted Yang is anything to go by. It’s like… I can’t tell how many, but one of them is at the edge of dying. They’re like balloons that are being blown up and deflated, slowly becoming bigger every time they are filled, stretching the material, up until-”

“Pop…” Sylver finished and waited for Faust to continue.

“Did you let them live because they’re children? I don’t mean to offend you but-”

“Then don’t finish that sentence. I’d like to ask something of you Faust, but I want to emphasize that I’m asking, as opposed to telling, or ordering… Could you handle them for me?” Sylver asked, and could tell by Faust’s soul’s reaction he misunderstood him.

“By handle you mean-”

“Yes, you guessed right, by handle I of course mean to teach them, train them, and make them into the kind of men and women I could trust with my life,” Sylver said and felt Faust’s soul release the breath it had been holding.

“It’s funny that you said that. Because I had a thought while I was waiting for Dog to get healed. Do you know what women are attracted to, more than anything else?” Faust asked.

Sylver had seldom heard a good answer to that question.

“A nice face, good manners, and an optimistic outlook on life?” Sylver guessed, even as Faust shook his head.

“Power. They’re attracted to power. And while I’m going to be powerful after a bit of cultivating, what I really need to have women flock to me, is social power. I can feel it in my bones Syl. This is it! This is my version of Bruno’s fucked up spider hybrid army, that made Tera practically wet herself the first time she saw it,” Faust explained, as Sylver continued walking alongside the man and managed to successfully keep a straight look on his face.

As long as he’s motivated, does the why matter? Sylver wondered as he waited for a couple of seconds, before speaking.

Sylver decided that correcting Faust’s assumption that Tera was attracted to Bruno due to his army was wrong and that she was likely more attracted to the process itself, rather than the resulting army, wouldn’t do him any good.

More than that, the skip in Faust’s step, even though he was currently sitting, was a massive improvement, even if Sylver didn’t particularly like the reason for it.

Sylver scratched his chin and traced his finger along the thin line around his neck.

“I have a condition,” Sylver said, as he stopped walking and moved Faust so they were face to face.

“Anything,” Faust answered.

“If you’re taking responsibility for them, you take responsibility for them. If this place gets attacked while I’m gone, I expect to see your corpse at the bottom of the corpse pile. I want to know that if I leave them in your hands, you’ll die before letting something happen to them,” Sylver explained, and his opinion of Faust increased as the man responded without having to think it over.

“Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I know I’m not… I know I don’t seem as mature as Bruno is, but I promise you, I’m not doing this for the fun of it. This is it, Syl. I can feel it,” Faust said, with his hands weakly spread out on either side of him.

“You just said you’re doing this to attract women to yourself,” Sylver added.

“I swear on my name I will take this seriously. I’ve done this before. I’m sure of it. I must have. At least a couple of times. If I don’t do it, who will? Do you even know how to ease their conception vessels open? Do you even know what a conception vessel is? How many extraordinary meridians there are? How many standard meridians? What the difference between positive Yin and-”

“No, Faust, I don’t. I never researched cultivation all that much, because I normally snapped my fingers and the man armed with the path of the 9,000 punches dropped dead before he was done explaining how great his technique was,” Sylver said calmly, as Faust took a breath to calm himself and spoke with a less condescending tone of voice.

“I can do this Syl. I know enough cultivation techniques that I’m certain I can find a good fit for everyone, I know how to train people without killing or crippling them, and you trust me. Who else are you going to leave with them? Spring? Ria? Have Lola send you someone? Who?” Faust asked, and stopped talking just as he started getting condescending again.

“Faust… Don’t ever talk to me like this. We are two adults, having a conversation. Forgive me for saying this but you sound like a child convincing his parents to buy him a toy… What you’re saying is correct. I don’t know who else to ask to do this for me. And I do trust you,” Sylver said, calmly, quietly, in a relaxed and gentle tone of voice.

“I’m not… I don’t…” Faust took another deep breath, “I’m sorry. I sound desperate because I am. This is my element Syl. I know what I’m doing. And if everything goes well, I’ll be able to attract and marry a woman who isn’t going to see me as some kind of monster. I saved her, and she was afraid of me,” Faust explained, as Sylver figured out the odd sensation he kept feeling coming from Faust’s soul.

At least now he knew what happened with Faust’s fiancé.

“I’m going to say something, and you’re going to think I’m wrong. And when, eventually, what I’m about to say comes true, I’m not going to rub your face in it. I want you to know I want the best for you, Faust,” Sylver said, as Faust just stared at him.

“Just say it,” Faust said quietly, almost under his breath.

“You won’t be happy with a woman that loves you because of your power. That, I promise you,” Sylver said and could see that glint in Faust’s eye.

He wondered if he himself had that same glint when Nyx tried to get this message across to a much younger Sylver.

“Will you let me make this army for you?” Faust asked as he stretched his hand out towards Sylver.

For all of his experience, in his heart, Faust was still the same scared child that had nearly killed Bruno back in that dungeon.

“I’ll let you know after I figure out why Xalibur thought they were thieves. Something here doesn’t feel right,” Sylver answered calmly, and turned Faust, and his outstretched hand around, and continued walking towards the house.

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