"Do you disagree with the rules of the house as well?" Asked Daniel to the young mistress of the Bizac family with a menacing voice.
The girl felt a shiver run down her spine. She looked back at Daniel with conflicted eyes, and simply said "No..". She then turned to look at her slave, and said "From now on, you are free."
In her mind, she was already thinking on how she would vent on the freed slave at the first occasion she would have. But then, she heard Daniel's words.
"You two, want to work for me?" Asked Daniel to the two shocked ex slaves.
The two were looking around in a confused way. The young mistress' slave kept looking at her, as if waiting to hear her orders.. While the slave of the Lones family was uncertain about what to do. There was no trace left about his master.
Before the two could respond, a voice arrived from the other side of the ballroom. It said "Why don't you try doing something like that with me, kid?"
The owner of the voice, was the head of the Lones family. The middle aged man clad in black armor.
He was walking towards Daniel, and was visibly angry.
The other guests made way for him to pass, and the young master that had happily chatted with Daniel until now, slowly backed away in fear.
"Do you want me to teach you how to treat an honored guest?" Asked the head of the Lones Family in anger, after assisting to the scene where his son had been helplessly teleported out of the castle, as if punished.
Daniel looked back at this man, then at the young man carrying the shield. He then asked with a plain tone. "Is that your slave?"
The sound of chatter started to resound in the air. Without even considering the man's words, Daniel had asked him a question in the same exact way he had asked it to his son before throwing him out of his castle.
"So what if he is? Are you going to kick me out as well?" Said the man sarcastically.
"Yes."
The man reached for the handle of his sword, but before he could even unsheath it, a loud 'thud' sound could be heard. The man's eyes opened in shock for only a moment, then, he fell on the ground unconscious.
When the robust man fell, Daniel saw Jerigh standing right behind him.
During the past two and a half years, Jerigh had become extremely powerful. Just like Buriath had grown to the power of a late eight rank human cultivator thanks to the immense help of the perfect earth sphere, and thanks to the group's effect, Jerigh was the one who had received the largest increment in speed of progression.
One could consider Jerigh to be a prodigy amongst prodigies. His speed of cultivation was as high as a dozen time the speed of a normal prodigy, and thanks to the group bonus, which increased his speed in cultivation by an additional 120%, and the time sphere, which increased his already enhanced speed by three times, after two and a half years of constant cultivation, he had reached the peak of the eight rank of martial cultivation.
His very power, paired with the thirty-five percent increase in prowess from 'Karmic Aura', was enough for him to knock the head of the Lones family out cold.
If his power was not enough, he had studied dozens of martial arts from within the martial section of the library. A library which the group had filled in during Daniel's absence, and that now counted thousands of books.
Standing just a meter away from the unconscious head of the Lones family, Daniel took a step towards him, grabbed his collar, and opened a portal in space. He then went through it while carrying the unconscious armored man.
Jerigh followed him quietly.
Nobody knew what to do. They looked at the stable portal in silence and waited for something to happen.
Only after a brave young master entered the portal did the spectators start to go through it as well.
When they reached the other side, they appeared right in front of the mansion of the Lones family.
In front of the gates, Daniel stood quietly.
The large metallic gates opened, and from it, a few old people with some guards walked out of their land.
One of these old people looked at Daniel and at the man he was carrying. After recognizing him as the head of their family, he looked at Daniel with hostility.
Most high level cultivators within the city, along with the heads of the rest of the families, were standing in the vicinity and observing the events take place.
Daniel looked at the old man that seemed to be in charge, and said "Slavery is forbidden in my pocket dimension. Your family has an hour to free every single slaves it owns, or you'll be forcibly evicted and kicked out. You won't receive a second warning."
His voice was extremely calm, and his face lacked any form of expression. He was simply stating a rule, which others had to follow.
After a second of thought, Daniel added "If instead of freeing the slaves you touch a single hair on them.. He goes out of the dimension first.. In pieces. And this is my space.. Trust me if I tell you that I'll know about it."
The old man's face changed into one of worry. He turned to look at the members of his family, and after conferring for a minute, they nodded at Daniel, and went back into the mansion.
It was at this moment that the head of the Lones family had started to wake up.. His body and organs were extremely strong, so, keeping him unconscious for a long period of time was impossible.
Before he could fully wake up, Jerigh approached him, and gave him a solid punch to the back of his head, knocking him unconscious once again.
Daniel, which was now standing near the unconscious body of the head of the Lones family, without even moving his eyes from the Lones' mansion, said "The same goes for the rest of you."
Those who owned slaves immediately understood what he meant. Especially the leader of the Bizac family.
Slaves were a huge no-no for Daniel, but the same wasn't for the rest of his group. They had lived in large families, and they were used to the concept of slavery. Even if they themselves didn't felt that it was right to keep a slave, they wouldn't go out of their way to banish slavery from the world, as having lived in that world their whole life, they couldn't put the idea of owning a slave into the box of 'deeply devious acts' which a person should not commit.
Of course, this view was not the same for all of his friends. For example, Jerigh's view of slaves wasn't like that of the rest. To him, slaves were prisoners who would have the chance to free themselves if they were powerful enough.
That was how he had been raised. He had even been forced to kill other slaves in order to survive.
That didn't mean that he was okay with a person claiming another person's life in any way.. It was simply part of the culture he had grown up into.
The ideas about slave which Daniel's other friends had were also different from theirs. Having been with Daniel, they had been influenced by him, and even if they didn't find slavery a sin perse, they would still never enslave someone, nor would they deny help to a slave whose master was being overly abusive.
Their ideals could be changed, but that would require time.
Oddly enough, the only other portion of Daniel's original group, aside from Buriath and his kin, which as elementals, they believed that every life had the same value, which despised the idea of slavery, were the members of the Saullet family.
Edmund and Emelnie had never taken possession of a slave before, not even when they were two of the most powerful cultivator families within the Krehan empire.
Everyone, included the head of the Bizac family, after witnessing Daniel's decisive actions, went back to their home to obey to the order he had given to them.
Those who were against Daniel's decision and instead of freeing the slaves, attempted to kill them, were sent out of the pocket dimension the very moment they tried to strike at them.
When they were sent out, they would immediately notice that an arm, a leg, an ear of some other part of their body was missing.
These body parts were quickly teleported next to Daniel, and formed a small, bleeding pile of flesh.
After Edmund understood what was going on, he had left the pocket dimension and had taken over the job of carrying the ring, making sure that none of the expelled cultivators would try to attack the current carrier, or destroy the ring.
Of course, he was not worried about Daniel, as the presence of his wife, Jerigh, Buriath, and the small army of cultivators which had already accepted him as the leader of the group, made it almost impossible for the rest of the cultivators to actually endanger him within his own pocket dimension.
When the elders of the Lones family left the mansion along with a couple dozen of badly dressed men, women and kids. They then saw the small pile of body parts next to Daniel, and felt a shiver of terror run through their spine.
He was not kidding, and they were glad that they hadn't put his resolve to the test.
Daniel threw the unconscious body of the head of their family to them, then, opened another portal that led to the ballroom of the castle, and went back in.
The rest of the guests followed him.
At first, the atmosphere was different. People didn't dare to approach Daniel lightly, and instead, kept to themselves or talked to the people they knew.
This had left Daniel free to talk to whomever he wished to talk to, people like the rest of the powerful families, or his friends.
At some time during the night, Daniel had sent an invitation to the races that inhabited the Garden of Past Times that were now occupying their very own part of the pocket dimension.
Once they arrived, they mingled with the other powerful cultivators.
Leffe in particular, interacted with Buriath.
Earth and wood, just like water and air, were very close to each other, after all, wood grew on the earth.
A good hour had passed since the event with the Lones family had taken place, and now that the guest had had some food and drinks, the situation had gone back to a happy level.
—–
Later during the night, one after the other, the guests had started to leave.
Before leaving, they would always approach Edmund and Daniel, and bid farewell to them.
Oddly enough, one of these people, was the head of the Bizac family.
What had changed his mind, was thinking about the major consequences of leaving the pocket dimension of which he found two.
The first one, was that his family would end up stranded in the middle of nowhere, and with nothing but their possession to hold on to.
The second consequence, was losing all the possible benefits that inhabiting Daniel's pocket dimension could bring to a family that practiced spiritual cultivation.
Even though he wasn't allowed to approach any of the high level essence spheres, just the idea of having all the concepts he needed to comprehend so many essences at just a few kilometers from his home, was enough for him to consider this land as 'a sanctuary for spiritual cultivators', and since he didn't have the power to take it for himself, he would bow his head, and do what was better for his family.
