Chapter 192 - Contributing to the Cult

Back at the Beastmaster Corp’s camp, Princess of Light and her group were waiting for Knight of Sunlight to return before they contacted the imperial army. If Knight of Sunlight returned with some valuable intel then it would be very helpful in their negotiations with the army. But things didn’t turn out as they wished.

"Sunlight, are you ok?"

Hearing a bird's cry, everyone was very surprised to turn and see Knight of Sunlight limping off of his familiar. Knight of Moonlight quickly stepped forward to check on him with a worried expression.

It was clear that Knight of Sunlight was still frightened. Space Mouse’s fur was also bristled as if it had been greatly startled.

"I'm fine, it’s just a scratch," Knight of Sunlight finally said after catching his breath.

"How did you get hurt?" the princess asked with an incredulous look.

Knight of Sunlight was very rarely injured since he contracted a Space familiar and mastered the Ethereal skill. It allowed both him and his familiar to slip between layers of space, essentially becoming ghosts, to avoid incoming attacks.

Other than attacks of the Space attribute or capable of distorting space, nothing could injure him. Although the Undead attribute was mysterious, it wasn’t more profound than Space.

Everyone else just blankly stared at Sunlight. He left with full confidence but came back in such a miserable state.

"It was a piece of grass. I was injured by a strange blade of grass." Knight of Sunlight gritted his teeth.

"My body was completely etherealized, but the grass could hit me. I don't know if it was the grass, or maybe the attack contained some unique intent formation. Whatever it is, it is capable of distorting space.

"Fortunately, it didn’t do that much damage. The wound on my leg is just a scratch. Moonlight, if you can help me heal it later that’d be great."

"Of course, but did you say it was a piece of grass?" Knight of Moonlight was a bit stunned.

"Didn't you go to infiltrate the Undead Cult? How did you end up hurt by a blade of grass?"

"I don't know either." Knight of Sunlight wanted to cry.

"It may be a skill from a Grass familiar that combines formation and projection. The attack was extremely powerful. Even if the one who used it is not on the same level as a Legendary realm boss, it’s not far behind."

Everyone remained silent, especially Knight of Glory, Knight of Moonlight, and Princess of Light whose expressions shifted slightly.

"Tell me everything that happened after you entered Ming An City," Knight of Glory instructed.

Knight of Sunlight nodded, and began his recounting.

"There were two necromancers roasting souls and laughing creepily.”

This made everyone’s face turn pale.

Knight of Sunlight went on to accurately recount the scene of how he got scared away by a blade of grass without even seeing the enemy’s familiar.

Everyone sank deeper into thought. Knight of Sunlight didn’t hold back out of embarrassment. He didn’t conceal the slightest detail for the sake of their mission.

"The mission introduction is wrong. The enemy camp definitely has an expert. It’s not as simple as we hoped," Knight of Sunlight said dispiritedly.

"Strange. Why is there such a powerful Grass-attribute familiar in a necromancer camp?" Beast Doctor asked in confusion.

"It doesn’t make sense. Could they be competitors in the ascension realm like us?" Fina asked.

"Impossible, I memorized all the notable fourth-generation beastmasters on the Blue Planet. None of them are proficient in the Grass attribute. Besides, even if someone chose the side with the Undead Cult, who the hell would be so into the role that they would be roasting souls," Knight of Sunlight analyzed.

"Right, the Other Shore necromancers aren’t so over the top. They usually kill and eat their prey while it's still fresh. This kind of evil can only be found in the birthplace of necromancy," the Southeast Asian young man added.

Compared to the garden variety of necromancers that killed people to devour their souls, this was much more terrifying. They actually roasted the soul after extracting it. If the soul was consciousness, then it must’ve been suffering excruciating pain.

"It has to be something to help balance out the mission," Knight of Glory theorized.

"The trialists would obviously side with the Empire so the Undead Cult is at a disadvantage. So to maintain the difficulty, it’s reasonable for an expert-level NPC to appear on the enemy team.

“Also, it’s not impossible for them to have a Grass familiar. Cult members don’t exclusively have Undead familiars. Some do have normal familiars. But that does make things more troublesome."

Someone who could scare off the Knight of Sunlight with a blade of grass was a part of the enemy’s camp. Combined with the missionaries, capturing Ming An City appeared even more difficult.

Everyone had an ugly expression on their face. They didn't expect ascension mission to be so difficult.

"As expected, we need to somehow get support from the imperial army. Let’s see how the cultists respond to the attack first,” the princess suggested.

An evil necromancer...

Knight of Sunlight brooded.

***

Back in the city, missionary Gao Li was personally teaching the new recruits about the art of necromancy. He was here despite being able to assign the task to his subordinates.

It was a missionary's job to recruit new members. If the recruits were talented and had good potential then they would be taken back to the headquarters by a divine emissary for further development. If they were just average, then they would remain and become his subordinates.

The advantage of personally training the recruits was that no matter where they ended up, he could leave a good impression. For a recruit like Lu Ran, Gao Li knew that he wasn’t qualified to teach him so he used notes and the Soul Calming Stone to butter him up. This way, when Lu Ran became successful one day, he would have a friend in high places.

If that happened, it would also increase his prestige amongst his subordinates.

"Arise, my familiar!" a young man suddenly shouted.

A ghost rose up from the dead familiar beside him and began to appear more tangible. As he watched his dead familiar resurrect as an undead spirit, the young man's emotions were in turmoil.

Just as he was about to thank Gao Li, Black Feather appeared and whispered something into Gao Li's ear.

Gao Li was shocked by Black Feather’s report.

"What did you say?"

He immediately looked at the many new members and said, "That's all for today. You can do as you please for now. I have some things to take care of."

He left with Black Feather once he finished dismissing the recruits.

"Someone snuck into the City Lord's Mansion to assassinate you?"

"To be precise, someone sneaked into the City Lord's Mansion and Sudden Death King detected their hostility. He had his familiar attack the assassin and scared them away. The assassin had a Space-attribute familiar that was very strange so we couldn’t capture him.

"Sudden Death King thinks that it’s someone from the imperial army, but I am certain of it. He was wearing an imperial army badge," Black Feather recalled.

She didn't pay attention at first, but after thinking back carefully, she was confident.

Knight of Sunlight came to stir up conflict between the Cult and the army so he obviously came prepared.

"Space attribute..." Gao Li's expression sank. Such a rare attribute could easily garner someone wealth and honor no matter what branch of the Empire they joined. Why would someone like that appear in some backwater like Ming An City?

It couldn’t be the imperial army! The army will never assign a Space-attribute beastmaster dirty work like assassinating cultists.

The cult doesn’t warrant such attention from the Empire. Could it be that a passing genius beastmaster has a grudge against the Cult?

That should be the case. The Undead Cult had a very bad reputation because of the Empire’s propaganda. Many second-generation beastmasters took the initiative to participate in eradicating the Undeath Cult under the banner of “killing the wicked to protect the righteous."

If the empire was lucky enough to get the help of a traveling genius, then everything would make sense. Although the empire was now in turmoil, a starving camel was bigger than a horse. Many unaffiliated forces still sided with the empire.

However, what Gao Li still found unbelievable was that Lu Ran detected and easily repelled the assassin.

The Space attribute was in a league of its own. Even he would find it difficult to face such an opponent.

"Where's Sudden Death King? Take me to see him." Gao Li instructed.

"Okay."

Soon, Gao Li was face to face with Lu Ran again. His mouth twitched when he saw Lu Ran who was perfectly fine with Captain Doofus who was still holding the swordgrass while striking a pose.

"Brother Sudden Death King, how did you detect the Space-attribute assassin? Black Feather said that she heard him scream. You actually injured him. I assume that you just had a high soul talent, but I realize that I misjudged you. You are ridiculously powerful."

"Not at all; the enemy was just too weak. My strength does not affect my loyalty to the Cult," Lu Ran said. "Don’t worry, brother Gao Li. If the imperial army really attacks then I will fight alongside you."

Gao Li and Black Feather were both astonished.

Gao Li came intending to comfort Lu Ran and tell him to not be afraid. He had a speech prepared along the lines of, "Don't run off on your own. If you want to flee then we’ll escort you. Please don't give up on joining the Cult."

As a result, Gao Li was stunned by Lu Ran's devotion. It was on par with many senior members that have served with him for many years.

"Missionary Gao Li, you are not planning to run away, are you?" Lu Ran questioned, fearing that Gao Li would want to flee away after discovering that the army actually had a Space-attribute familiar.

If that happened then he would be forced to step up and carry the banner of resistance against the empire.

"I..."

If the opponent was overwhelmingly powerful then Gao Li would obviously choose to flee with his subordinates. However, the Space-attribute assassin was just defeated by Lu Ran, so he didn’t have an accurate gauge of the assassin’s strength.

"If I can stay, I naturally wouldn’t want to retreat," Gao Li replied.

"To be honest, besides recruiting for the Cult, I have other objectives for coming to Ming An City."

"Other objectives?" Lu Ran was stunned, but relieved. Sure enough, the necromancer camp wouldn’t easily abandon the city.

"Yes. I guess there’s no harm in telling you. It's not a secret mission of any sort. For the past two years, the Cult has been doing research." Gao Li elaborated.

"A major advantage of Undead familiars is that it can possess the beastmaster, which is essentially like a Fusion skill. It allows the necromancer and their familiar to fight as one."

Lu Ran nodded.

"Possession is a key characteristic of Undead spirits and it’s not limited to beastmasters. As long as the familiar properly trains their possession ability, they can even attach themselves to objects and evolve even further.

"For example, amongst the upper echelons of the Cult, there are elders and divine emissaries that were successful in their research and made their familiar possess dragon and beast bones. This allowed the familiars to evolve into undead bone beasts.

"This allowed them to retain their powerful soul attack techniques while giving the spirit a powerful body once more. The results weren’t inferior to Undead familiars that retained their bodies while developing their soul power.

"Nowadays, it’s not permitted to allow spirits to possess corpses so elders have begun researching having spirits weapons and equipment, essentially creating weapon spirits. Of course, this is significantly more difficult.

"A forging master in the Cult has theorized a method. Instead of letting a spirit evolve by forcibly possessing a weapon, a special weapon can be placed in the land of death to let the weapon naturally form a soul.

"Currently, I am carrying such a weapon forged by the cult. I have buried it in the area with the densest death qi in the city.

"The mission given to us by the cult is actually to occupy a city of death and cultivate a spirit weapon. If we easily abandon the city, then it will be too difficult somewhere else suitable for the project. My career will be over."

"Spirit weapon?" Lu Ran was stunned.

Was the forger of the Undead Cult so advanced that he began studying spirit weapons? Think about it carefully, it made sense. In many myths and legends that Lu Ran heard, many powerful artifacts had weapon spirits. Combining a weapon with a soul could really be possible!

"Don't worry, Brother Gaoli," Lu Ran said.

“You are treating me so well. I will put my life on the line to help you repel the enemy."

"This..." Gaoli was astonished.

As expected, sincerity begets sincerity. His way of fostering relationships was correct!

"Brother Gaoli, do you have any soul-type ores? Besides being a chef, I am also a forger. I find weapons spirits intriguing, and want to study this as well. I want to contribute more to the Cult."

Huh?