Two full days had passed since their evasion, and yet, Daniel and the rest of his party were still teleporting, and jumping through portals as if there was someone hot in their trail.
Roland and the other four couldn't really understand why Daniel insisted on keeping on teleporting, but since they trusted him, they did not complain.
Daniel, on the other hand, was much less relaxed than the rest of his group, and there was a very valid reason for that.
That reason, was that he hadn't received the message that signaled the completion of his mission.
Others might call him paranoid, but he knew for a fact that someone was following them, and if they stopped, the chaser would eventually catch up to them.
He didn't want to take his chances by battling against someone that was able to keep up with his nearly unlimited amount of spiritual essence.
After ten days of uninterrupted teleporting, the group finally managed to leave the Krehan empire.
It was only after they had left the borders that the window appeared within his mind.
____________________________
*Freedom for All!*
First objective complete.
Reward: 3,000,000 Karma Points
____________________________
"Finally!!" Shouted Daniel out of the blue, scaring the unlucky Gens and Roland that happened to be right next to him.
"WHAT!!" Shouted Roland in anger. He was the type that didn't react well to being scared.
Daniel turned to look at him, and with a face glowing from happiness, he said "We are finally free eheheh.." He then took a moment to think, before saying "I need to do something.. I need to stay in the ring for a day or so. You guys don't split up." He then left the ring on Roland's hand, and entered it.
"Do you guys think that he went crazy behind bars?.." Asked Rexx while forcing a small strand of ki out of the tip of his finger. He then straightened it, and used it to shave and shorten the length of his hair.
"Mhh.. Maybe.. But he did got us out of there.." Responded Gens with a matter-of-fact tone.
Within the ring, Daniel had created a small atmosphere for himself to breath in with his spiritual essence.
He was currently sitting on a pavement of sheer space, and he didn't seem to mind the low level of pocket dimension he was in. Instead, he sat quietly and with his eyes closed.
In his mind, a large window had appeared.
____________________________
System Upgrades Lv.2
Reap What You've Sown = Purchased
Time Is Precious Lv.6 = 9000 KP
(Active: Multiply the cost of karma points in order to multiply the speed of progression. +100% of cost and effect. Max lv.20)
Reduced Cost Lv.5 = 5000 KP
(Passive: Permanently decreases the consumption of karma points by 10%. An additional 10% per level. Max Lv.20)
Bonus Points Lv.1 = 1000 KP
(Passive: Permanently increases the karma points received by 10%. An additional 10% per level. Max Lv.20)
Second Chance Lv2 = 5000 KP
(Passive: Once per month, the system's owner will be brought back to two seconds before the moment of his death. 2 additional seconds per level. Max Lv.20)
Second Chance Upgrade = 50,000
(Passive: Halves the cooldown of Second Chance.)
Karma Debt = 250,000 KP
(Passive: Allows the system's owner to continue utilizing the system's active features even when out of positive karma. Karma consumed becomes negative karma.)
Karmic Retribution = 1 KP
(Active: Allows the system's owner to force karmic retribution upon a target. The cost is directly proportionate to the level of karma points possessed by the target. Each use consumes 100,000 Karma points.)
Karma X Luck = Purchased
____________________________
Accumulate 5,000,000 Karma points to unlock System Upgrades Lv.3
____________________________
Daniel currently had a bit more than three million karma points, and right at this moment, he felt like a kid in a candy store.
The first thing he did, was to read every new effect or changes unlocked by the second level of the System Upgrades feature.
Similarly to the changes to the Group Upgrade feature, Daniel noticed that the second level of System Upgrades had doubled the max level of all of his pre existing upgrades, except for single purchase abilities like 'Karma X Luck', or 'Reap What You've Sown'. Additionally, he had noticed three brand new effects.
'Karma Debt', 'Karmic Retribution', and finally, an upgrade to his existing skill 'Second Chance'.
Right off the bat, Daniel purchased all of the new abilities, at the cost of 300,001 Karma points. Then, he upgraded 'Time is Precious' to the tenth level, and maxed out 'Reduced Cost', 'Bonus Points', and 'Second Chance' at the cost of 607,500 Karma points.
At the end of his crazy spending spree, he closed his System's upgrades, and opened his personal profile.
____________________________
Dan Hiel – Karmic system's wielder.
Age – 18
Rank
– Peak rank 6 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Human)
– Peak rank 6 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Synchronization)
Karma – 2,092,999
____________________________
Weapons Masteries (Details)
Martial Arts (Details)
Skills (Details)
Spells (Details)
____________________________
Reap What You've Sown
Time Is Precious Lv.10
Reduced Cost Lv.20
Bonus Points Lv.20
Second Chance (Upgraded) Lv.20
Karma X Luck
Karma Debt
Karmic Retribution
System Upgrades (Details)
____________________________
There wasn't much to say except that Daniel had transcended what a normal human should be capable of.
His current progress speed was eleven hundred times faster than that of an untalented cultivator, and that was without his old time sphere, which would increase his speed in cultivation by threefold.
Unfortunately, he had used that time sphere to create a cultivation room for his friends within the castle.
If that wasn't enough, the twentieth level of 'Reduced Cost' eliminated the majority of the cost in karmic points for when he cultivated, or used the other system's effects like his newly acquired 'Karmic Retribution'.
Each level would reduce the current consumption by ten percent, and after twenty levels, it had reached a point where, to do something that previously required a thousand karma points, he would now only require to use a hundred and twenty one karma points instead.
Regarding 'Second Chance', it could now be used once every two weeks, and could bring him back to forty seconds before the moment of his death.
Satisfied by the result of his spending spree, Daniel started to ponder on what his next step would be. He wanted to go back home and see his sister, whom he hadn't seen for three years, and missed dearly, but he also wanted to make sure that all of his friends were doing well.
Plus, only his friends had the map of the continents that surrounded the Krehan empire.
His only option was to find his friends and then start traveling back home, and the only way to do that, was to follow the trail of reputation that his friends had left behind.
With a single thought, Daniel opened the details of his group's reputation within the Group Feature window.
Inside it, there was a very long list of countries and powers with whom Daniel's group had a positive or negative reputation.
Mostly, their reputation was positive, except for the last few on the list. Right at the bottom of it, Daniel found what he was looking for.
____________________________
Tiyar empire: Negative Reputation 100% (Details)
____________________________
"Woah.. what the hell did they do to piss off an entire empire?" Asked Sewah within Daniel's mind.
"I don't know.. Something big.. The power to whom they've lost that huge chunk of their members must be the army of this 'Tiyar empire'.." Said Daniel with a pensive tone. He then teleported back out of the ring.
Weiss was the first one to sense Daniel. He turned to look at him, and said "Hey.. It wouldn't be bad if you told us where we are supposed to be going.."
"I didn't tell you before because I didn't know.." Said Daniel in a cryptic way, then continued "But I do now.. We are headed to the Tiyar empire"
"Okay, and where is that?" Asked roland after suddenly stopping and turning to look at them.
"How am I supposed to know that.." said Daniel with an irritated tone.
This time, it was Bonas that turned to look at Daniel, and said with an angry tone "Let me get this straight.. You didn't know where to go before.. You've entered the pocket dimension for four minutes.. Now you know that our target is the Tiyar empire, and yet, you don't know how to get there!? Is that the plan you had?"
"I know that my group is in the Tiyar empire.." Said Daniel with a slightly startled tone. He didn't expect the usually quiet Bonas to suddenly burst out in anger.
Bonas had a good reason for being irritated, after all, they were all escapees, and they had no clear plan.
The fact that Daniel had become much more pensive than he was in the past due to his two and a half years spent in a prison, only made the others more nervous.
Daniel's entire plan consisted in backtracking his group's path through the chronological addition to the reputation details.
They were now in a kingdom that they did not know, so their first step, was to find a city, and purchase a map of the nearby kingdom.
—–
"Do you think they are still following us?" Asked Imblen to a focused and calm Roley.
He didn't respond, and instead put an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. An action to which she responded by hugging his chest and resting her head on his shoulder.
"Yes.. there are eight cultivators in the crowd that appeared out of nowhere.." Said Roley through an affectionate smile.
Imblen rubbed the side of her head against Roley's shoulder, and said with a loving tone "I can see a clothing store at the edge of the market.. Let's go there so you can buy me a dress."
"Okay.."
—–
Three hours earlier
It had taken almost a day for Edmund and Roley to force the extremely large amount of wood elementals and high ranking beasts inside Daniel's pocket dimension.
Once they had finished, Edmund immediately teleported the lot of them out of the ancient forest.
Of course, during the skirmishes between the two armies, the Tiyar empire had taken notice of the group of humans that had aided the forest's alliance. One of the people they had made the most preparation for, was in fact, Edmund.
They were more than aware that Edmund was an extremely powerful spiritual cultivator, and that he possessed a high comprehension of spatial essence. Therefore, they had decided to bring their own cultivators adept to spacial essence with them, in order to prevent a last minute escape.
The Tiyar empire was able to stay on their trail for more than two days, when finally, Edmund ran out of spiritual essence.
Before running out completely, he decided to use all the remaining spiritual essence he had to teleport into one of the biggest cities of the country neighbouring Tiyar. He then made Roley take his place.
Once in the city, instead of teleporting away, Roley decided to blend in the midst of the crowd and pretend to be a common citizen. In order to appear credible, he took Imblen out of the pocket dimension, and together they pretended to be one of the many couples that was strolling around.
The spiritual cultivators of the Tiyar empire were naturally capable of recognizing the difference between teleportation, and shifting in and out of a pocket dimension. Therefore, instead of teleporting away, they started to look around for people who showed a suspicious behaviour.
They couldn't act out in the open, after all, they weren't in the Tiyar empire anymore.
If a fight happened to start here, not only would they be forced to face the decision of either retreating and possibly losing Daniel's group forever, or fight their way through the army of a neighbouring country.. but they would also have to risk letting the existence of a perfect wood treasure known to another country, and possible spies from other kingdoms and empires.
Instead, they decided to spit into small groups, and search the city.
