The current Palace of inheritance is being held in a realm that is powerful than the Charbhum realm and might even be powerful than the realm that was superior to the Charbhum realm.
Because the noble family heads here are all in the Astral Plane of cultivation.
A plane of cultivation is a set of cultivation stages. The cultivation stages from Initiation to the Consummate make the Mortal Plane and the Astral Plane is the next set.
The astral plane is not as divided as the Mortal Plane though.
It only has four different stages, each having four different sub-stages.
The current person in charge is in the second main stage of the Astral plane and the noble family heads and big shots are in the first stage of the Astral Plane.
This realm is also where the expansion plans are going the slowest as they have to be careful. As of this moment, Sam only has one Astral Plane cultivator, three if he counted the Raiju beasts that recently broke through.
There is a suppression placed on Raijus within the Desolate, so Sam is the one who moved them out and now they cannot go back to the Tempest valley. They are currently residing in the Feathered Planet so that they can reach any realm easily and help out if needed.
Anyway, back to the topic, the expansion in this planet is actually slow and steady and Sam had minimum influence here.
But he still made some contacts, the last time he visited here.
The ruling race in this realm is the Winged race. The very race Sam used as a reference for the first puppet he made in competition with Sirona.
The Winged race has wings that are similar to that of a Bat.
They are strong, have a superior bloodline and physique to humans and they don't have problems like elves in terms of fertility rate.
They have numbers too.
Sam is currently in the capital of this realm and he is meeting with a Noble kid who is of similar cultivation as him.
They already gained access to the Palace of inheritance, there are around two weeks for it to open. So, meanwhile, Sam just wanted to discuss some possible business deals.
But while they are discussing, someone ran into the room and spoke to Sam in a hurried tone.
"Boss, Arkiv was attacked. He is not feeling well."
Sam frowned and ran out of the room.
They are currently in the residence prepared for him by the employees and Arkiv wanted to take a look at the city.
Sam followed his subordinate and soon found Arkiv in the middle of the street sitting while holding his chest tightly with his right hand. His bow is placed on the side and he is swallowing pills like crazy with his other hand.
Sam ran towards him and finally Arkiv relaxed and fainted.
Sam examined the wounds.
There are many flesh wounds that looked like a piece of it was cut off from his body. Sam frowned and looked around. The battlefield is full of traces of fire elemental energy, but the wounds turned out to be flesh cuts, this is a bit confusing.
He first, gave him some heavenly wine and set the broken bones back, before letting his subordinates take care of him while he inspected the battlefield.
There are some traces of black flames still burning around. It is the first time he saw black flames and the fire elemental energy is extremely concentrated in there.
He looked at the black flame that is burning the surrounding rock off and was surprised. Even with the energy vision, he couldn't understand how the flame is burning for so long. There is no vegetation, flesh or even any other flammable component, it is just rock.
He used his earth element to make the rock protrude out with that burning flame and it is right before his eyes now.
He let it burn slowly and stood there for minutes without doing anything, except holding that extended protrusion, at least that is what it looked like.
But he is using observation ability to take a look at the flame and what is happening to the rock and he soon got the answer.
For some reason, the black flame can burn the rock and it is not melting it, instead, it is evaporating it. But it didn't stay there for long, it started dwindling as the spiritual energy within the flame was being consumed slowly.
He injected some spiritual energy through the rock and as long as the active spiritual energy stayed, it is burning and later with his manipulation he sucked the energy dry which made the flame go off instantly.
He now understood why Arkiv has flesh wounds on his body, he cut the flesh off when the flames are burning so that he could stop it from spreading.
He went to meet Arkiv who is resting. By now Arman also returned.
"How are you doing?" Sam asked Arkiv after checking the condition.
"I am alright."
"Who attacked you? Those flames are weird."
"I don't know, she looked like a woman. Her whole body is covered in the black cloak."
"Why did she attack you? Is there a conflict?"
"Conflict my ass. She just ambushed me out of nowhere. She seems to be proficient in hiding her own presence, she is almost as skilled as your shadow mice.
Damn it, I want to kill her so bad. Those flames are torturous."
Sam went and meet with the young master with who he was in contact.
"I want some details regarding this incident, can you put a word out?"
"Sure."
Sam carefully checked Arkiv's condition again and again for the rest of the day. He felt like the flesh that came into contact with the black flame is completely different from any burnt flesh he saw before.
It almost sucked the vitality and spiritual energy along with the normal burning process.
By evening the young master came back anxiously and said.
"Sam, the guards at the city gate found something in the nearby forest. You might want to take a look at it."
Sam took off on harbinger hurriedly and within a few minutes, he is already at the city gate. On the way, he could see some black smoke coming out of the forest as he neared it got clearer and clearer.
There is a patch of forest burning in these black flames. Sam activated energy vision and tried to concentrate to the maximum.
He could see the vitality of the forest leaving as the flame spread.
If this goes on, by the end of it the patch left wouldn't be good enough to even grow grass for the next few years.
Sam circled on the harbinger as he created a fire in an opposite direction with his golden flame around the patch with the black
He didn't let the golden flame spread and instead just let the contacted trees burn and this created a ring and now the black flames will be cut there, not spreading directly.
If it is a normal flame, this would have been good enough, but this black flame is even contacting the soil and rocks, so this would be a bit troublesome.
But he remembered the spiritual energy requirement of the flame and was a bit relieved. The soil doesn't contain as much active spiritual energy as the trees, so it wouldn't be a problem for a bit, but it would take a long time for the whole patch to go off.
So, he took this chance to experiment a bit with this.
He threw some water at the flames, but it also got caught and burned. He then threw some wine, biofuel, a methane gas container, and such.
The reaction with wine is not much as for the Bio-fuel and Methane, they didn't give off the expected reaction. The flame is burning them down instead of using them to propagate more.
After some thought, Sam took off his feather coat and went near the flames. He activated partial fusion and placed his hands into the black flame.
He felt like something foreign is trying to invade him when the black flame tried to swallow the golden flame. Both of them are clashing together.
Sam retracted the fusion and let his arm burn.
He felt a hissing pain as he took his arm back.
He now understood why Arkiv said it is torturous. The flame is not just burning, the spiritual energy that is responsible for easing the pain and heloing him with endurance was being sucked out along with vitality.
Which makes him both weak and vulnerable.
He didn't who anything on his face as he observed the whole process carefully.
While burning in the flames, his arm is slowly withering, but the flame didn't spread up his arm, because he tried his best to cut off the connection between the spiritual energy in the arm and the rest of his body.
Arman was anxious when he saw the arm being burned like this, even the young master who followed is feeling a bit afraid at Sam's nonchalance.
At this moment, all of a sudden the black flame on Sam's arm was replaced by the golden flame and his withered arm slowly started getting back to normal.
