Unsealing Emptiness

Chapter 356: Wild Beastkin.

Ozul read her emotions and confirmed that she was genuine. They weren’t trying to harm their friends.

“They would be in a hotel near where your people failed to kill that young master of the Han family.”

“It would be wise for you to know our mission didn’t fail,” the old Beastkin lady huffed in response.

“They died...”

“They were supposed to die.”

Ozul noticed her indifferent eyes but kept quiet. These people couldn’t be trusted after all. He had to be careful when working with them.

“What do you gain by a failed assassination attempt?” he asked curiously.

.....

“You have too many questions, boy...”

The old lady squinted her eyes at him. She wouldn’t tell him anything before confirming the location of his friends.

At the same time, she had used one of her Spiritual Tools and already relayed the information to her men. They were already searching for Ozul’s friends.

“...”

“...”

The two continued to stare at each other without saying anything. From another person’s point of view, this scene was quite awkward but the two people involved didn’t think so.

The old lady was too busy thinking of all the possible future outcomes and the prospects of getting the famous ‘Dragon Hatchlings’ on their side and Ozul felt at ease since the room was completely silent except for Jinx’s purring occasionally resounding through the room. But that was, for some reason, bearable for him.

The only thing currently not so comfortable was the pandora of emotions brewing inside the old lady. They poked at him every now and then.

This confirmed his suspicion that the people brought from Broken Worlds were a big deal in this Realm.

After a little while, the old lady came out of her daze.

“If you and your friends were to join us, you would have received unconditional rewards after proving your loyalty. Only working for us will barely get you any low tier Earth Grade Spiritual Arts and Spirit Weapons and barely any 9 Star Mortal Grade Cultivation Techniques.”

In her life, she had never expected such a god-send opportunity to fall into her hands today. The least she could do was tempt him.

That, however, seemed to be a mistake because she forgot that Ozul wasn’t familiar with the rarity of any of the resources as he was new to this Realm.

“You may not know, but generally the resources a cultivator needs consist of Cultivation Technique, Spiritual Arts, and Spirit Weapons.”

Ozul became a little interested since he was learning about this directly from an expert.

“Cultivation Techniques are divided into Mortal Grade, Spiritual Grade, and Transcendent Grade. Mortal Grade Techniques are divided from 1-Star as the lowest quality and 9-Star as the best quality technique.”

She paused, as to make him focus on the next part of her sentence,

“In this Howling Province, it is impossible to find a Cultivation Technique above Mortal Grade... unless you have someone backing you.”

“Same with the Spiritual Arts and Spirit Weapons. Both of them are divided into Earth Grade, Spiritual Grade, and then Transcendent Grade. Spiritual Arts’ Earth Grade is divided from 1-Star to 9-Star while Spirit Weapons’ Earth Grade is divided into tiers, such as Low Tier to Peak Tier.”

“In the Howling Province, you might not even come across any Spiritual Arts or Spirit Weapons. Even the Han family, the most resourceful family of this area, is only in possession of two of each.”

Ozul recalled the green sword in the hand of that Young Master Han when he was fighting his assassins, ‘That must be a Spirit Weapon then...’

“If you were to join our organization, you’d get far more than that. Spiritual Grade Cultivation techniques and even Spirit Weapons and Spiritual Arts at Spiritual Grade won’t be out of the question...”

The old lady said this and let it sink.

She realized that she couldn’t persuade him now. Not when he hadn’t experienced firsthand how important these cultivation resources are. Once he faced someone with better Spiritual Arts and better Spirit Weapons and cultivated with better Cultivation Techniques, he would surely not think for a second before joining them.

Ozul listened attentively but didn’t show much interest.

Even if they gave him unlimited resources, he would think twice before working under someone else.

After all, no matter how many benefits, he would lose his freedom to do whatever he wanted at any time.

“Is that your cat?”

The old lady asked curiously.

“...Yes...”

Ozul took some time to answer that since he had to ask himself internally if she really belonged to him.

Although the answer he came to was a no, he still said yes. She was currently sleeping on his lap; she was his.

“Is it a Contracted Beast?” the old lady asked.

“Contracted Beast?”

“Ah... Contracted Beasts are the Beasts who bind themselves to another being, thus losing the ability to acquire human form...” as the old Beastkin lady explained, she realized why he had said that it was his first time seeing their kind. Since he was from the Broken World, he might not know much about Beasts.

“Broken Worlds are usually like that. It’s very rare for people there to think of Beasts as anything more than monsters... However, that is completely false. Beasts are much more than that.”

Ozul listened attentively. He was also interested in how the Sovereign was able to transform into the human form.

“I was reported that this time, a Beastkin had come from the Broken World. We refer to her as the Wild Beastkin. They are the Beasts who have amassed enough power to transform into humans. After obtaining the human form, Wild Beastkin must strengthen themselves a little more in order to reclaim their Beast form, which will be even more fierce than before.”

“She has unimaginable talent...” the old lady muttered at last.

Ozul pieced everything together from people’s reaction to the Sovereign and came to a conclusion that if all of the ‘Dragon Hatchlings’, the people brought from the Broken World had the potential to become overlords in this Realm, then a Wild Beastkin could go beyond.

“Are you a Wild Beastkin?” Ozul asked.

He couldn’t think of a Beast who had such elegant grey horns.

“I... I am,” the old Beastkin Lady sighed with a downcast face, “Though the rest of my people here were born a Beastkin...”

Ozul realized he must have asked some sensitive question. He didn’t regret it though. The more he knew about the people he was dealing with, the better.

“What about the other Beastkin?”

“Ah, they are born like this. Mostly human but with characteristics of Beasts. If a Beastkin were to mate with a human, the baby is always a Beastkin. But when two Beastkin mates, the baby could either be completely in Beast form or may have human characteristics,”

The old lady explained as if she was tutoring young kids. Since it was Ozul’s first time coming in contact with Beastkin, she would do her best to teach him about them.

“When do Beast change into Beastkin?”

“In here, the Beasts who manage to reach the Transcendent Realm can choose to transform. They can proceed to become more powerful without becoming a Beastkin, but becoming a Beastkin has uncountable benefits. Being able to use the Spiritual Arts and Spirit Weapons is only one of them. Although are temporarily weakened, they can regain their power by simply sleeping.”

“Hmm...”

Ozul made a thoughtful face when something hit him, ‘If this old lady is also a Wild Beastkin, doesn’t that mean she has surpassed this Transcendent Realm?’

“How high is the Transcendent Realm?” he questioned.

“Seems like you really don’t know anything...” the old lady mused, “After Foundation Building Realms, there is Core Formation, then comes the Nascent Soul Realm followed by the Origin Realm. The Transcendent Realm comes after the Origin Realm. ”

“Transcendent Realm experts are the real proof of the strength of any organization. Although we don’t lack them.”

“That lady who brought me here... she was at the Nascent Soul, right?” Ozul asked, questions piling over his head, though he maintained his composure.

“Ah that lass... yes. She is at the first stage, Soul Nurturing, of the Nascent Soul Realm. Why do you ask?”

‘That doesn’t make sense...’

Ozul was confused because he could sense people’s power.

He knew that the girl who was at the initial stages of the Nascent Soul Realm was weaker than this old lady, but the gap wasn’t so large.

And although he had never seen a Transcendent Realm expert to compare, he was pretty confident that someone two whole Realms above the other person wouldn’t only be that much stronger.

‘Since the old lady said she was a Wild Beastkin, and the Beasts transform after reaching the Transcendent Realm, she should be a Transcendent Realm expert too. Did she recently transform?’

“I know you must be thinking that I don’t seem like a Transcendent Realm expert, right?” the old lady smiled lightly.

She seemed to have read his thoughts.

“It’s because I’m not.”

Her emotions darkened once more as if she was reminiscing about the painful past.

She clenched her fists and couldn’t help but grit her teeth, “It’s all because of the Humans!”

Sighing, Ozul realized that he might have jumped into some ‘Humans versus Beasts’ war.

‘This might be bigger than what I initially thought...’

Humans were probably everywhere in this Realm. And from the looks of it, it seemed that the Beastkin wasn’t much behind in numbers, ‘This could be a war between two species spanning across the whole Realm...’

Ozul wondered once again if he was ready to involve himself in such a thing.

A moment later, he stopped a smile from creeping up his face,

‘This is exactly what I wanted...’

.....