'What seal is he talking about?' Void couldn't help but ask.
'Remember the War of Gods I spoke of?' Grey asked.
Void nodded.
'It was a battle between humans and another race. After years of fighting, a peerless expert appeared amongst humans. It was said that he almost single-handedly stopped the battle. From the look of things, he only sealed the portal.' Grey explained.
With the portal sealed, no more people from the other race could come into the Aurora Continent, this meant that their opponents will increasingly start to grow weaker with each death.
More than eighty percent of those from the other race was wiped out after the seal was closed, and the other twenty percent had to hide from the world.
Initially, Grey didn't know this much information, until he listened to the necromancer speak. This was a piece of shocking news since it was kept hidden. From Grey's guess, the top experts all knew about the true story, but they knew if the information was to leak to the public, it would cause unrest.
'So, you're saying just as you guys are invading another realm, there are people doing that to you as well?' Void clarified.
'Pretty much. However, we aren't a hundred percent certain if what he's saying is true. These people will obviously say it in a way to benefit them. But if the seal truly is weakening, then another is upon us in the coming years.' Grey's expression was grave.
A war would be detrimental to humans. Even top experts died, most of the budding youths will most likely die in such a battle. At the moment, he felt even more pressure to grow stronger at a faster pace. If the war started and he wasn't even close to the Peak of the world, he would only become one of the cannon fodders.
The necromancer continued speaking, but Grey was unable to learn where their base was. The necromancer also didn't know of it, he was taught by an Elemental Sovereign who saw his talent some years back. This Sovereign was the one who gave him all the books concerning the history of necromancy.
Grey signified to him so he could stop talking. It had been over twenty minutes now, and the necromancer still hadn't stopped talking. When he saw Grey's signal, he stopped immediately.
He didn't want to offend this Young Lord who he believed was from another race.
Grey thought for some time and asked for the techniques he had with him.
The necromancer paused, but after some time, he brought out the scrolls that were in his storage ring. There wasn't much, only about ten, all of them had the methods of refining and controlling corpses, there were even some that talked about how to improve the strength of a corpse after or during refining.
Grey wasn't interested in these as he glanced through, his target was the one that taught the technique on how to mark someone.
To his disappointment, it wasn't among them.
'It's not here.' He shook his head lightly.
'What to do now?' Void asked.
This necromancer should know the technique since it was something all necromancers know, well, so they thought.
When the necromancer saw Grey's expression, he was a little apprehensive and asked, "My Lord, is something wrong with the techniques?"
"They're just so-so. Don't you have any top tier techniques, these aren't even taught to newborns where I'm from." Grey said in disappointment.
His eyes showed that he didn't expect their techniques to be so low graded.
When the necromancer heard him say these techniques were low tiers, he was more convinced about Grey.
"My Lord, the thing is, I don't have the access to better techniques, I was only given these by my Teacher when he wanted to leave." He explained with a downcast expression.
"Just these?" Grey raised his brow, he shook his head when he didn't get a reply from the necromancer, "I'm disappointed at how low you humans truly are. Even after so long, no top tier technique. Looks like it was a waste of time to teach you all necromancy."
The necromancer kept his head to the ground, embarrassed with the way Grey was speaking about humans.
'You're getting good with your act. He doesn't even suspect a thing.' Void was quite impressed at how Grey was handling the whole thing.
"What secret techniques were you taught? Maybe I'll see something that might interest me." Grey asked.
He didn't want to go straight, so he had to go through different means.
After almost one hour, he finally lost his patience and asked about the method of marking someone with the guise that his method was a little different and he wanted to see how humans managed to do it.
"My… my Lord, I can't do that?" The face of the necromancer was ashen.
How could he show Grey the technique? He would die if he dared to initiate it.
"Why?" Grey pretended as if he didn't know that they would die if they wanted to mark an individual.
"Our method is very complex. We aren't built the same way, so to mark someone, we have to exchange our lives." The necromancer explained.
"Huh? That's a little stupid? Why waste your life just to mark someone? I can do that while sleeping." Grey replied offhandedly.
He wasn't bothered that the necromancer would see through his lies. The necromancer didn't know much about those from the other race, so Grey was still very much safe.
"I'm sorry My Lord, I will do whatever request you have for me, but this is out of my control." The necromancer said with a sad look on his face, disappointed he couldn't meet up to Grey's request.
"It's alright, can you explain to me in detail how it works?" Grey asked.
This was the most important thing, as long as the necromancer could tell him how it works, then he could be able to figure out a thing or two about it on his own.
The necromancer paused for some time, thinking about the procedure.
"It's like this…"
Grey listened to what the man was saying and got a rough idea. Unfortunately, it still wasn't enough for him.
If he wanted to lift this mark, then he would need to try some experiments. The mark was created by sacrificing the life force of humans, it was a very taxing issue and took a whole lot. From what Grey could tell, those above the Elemental Sovereign Plane wouldn't necessarily die when doing this, but it would take its toll on them. Only those in the Elemental Venerable Plane and below risk losing their lives.
'Do you think it will be nice to have such an individual on my side? One one hand, he's very useful to me since I'll have an informant on the side of the necromancers, but on the other hand, I might risk exposing myself to them?' Grey asked Void who was on his shoulder.
Void thought about it and replied, 'It wouldn't be bad. From the look of things, he seems pretty respectful. I don't know how he was stupid enough to believe you, but it's not that bad to have someone on the other side. I believe there's a way other necromancers meet up.'
Grey ingrained the information of how necromancers marked people. To try this, he would need to use the same method, sacrificing life force in return for it. This was the only way he could think of.
He didn't stay with the necromancer for long and told him to leave. Before the necromancer left, he handed him a communication device, this one was made exclusively for those under his command. The triplets were the first to have it, now, the necromancer was given one as well.
He also asked for the name of the necromancer and found out that it was, Sega.
Grey left, to test his experiments, he needed to think of a way to sacrifice life force.
'Whenever I meet a group of bandits, I'll use them. It's not like they're helping the world or anything.'
…
Two days later.
It didn't take long before Grey encountered bandits who tried to rob him. The strongest person amongst them was a Third stage Sage Plane Elementalist, and there were also two more people in the First stage of the Sage Plane.
The bandits numbered at around twelve, enough for Grey's experiment.
'Void, why don't you help me out on this?' He asked with a playful smile.
Void has been too free lately, not even bothering to fight whenever there was a battle. Grey was the one doing all the work.
'Okay.'
To Grey's surprise, the always lazy Void agreed to his request.
'Don't kill them, I need them alive.' He reminded Void.
Void nodded before going off.
When the bandits saw the small cat jumping off Grey's shoulder, they all laughed, however, their expressions changed when Void released his Rank Six aura. He was already in the Mid stages, so he had nothing to fear.
Void was fast and ruthless, even though he was told not to kill them, it didn't mean he couldn't wound them.
In the space of a few minutes, all twelve bandits were on the ground, unconscious.
Grey was a little stupefied by Void ability. It had been a while since he watched Void fight, so he forgot how powerful he was. And compared to the last time, Void had improved, so his strength was above what it previously was. Presently, Void shouldn't have any problems with fighting against someone in the Seventh stage of the Sage Plane if he went all out.
Void was only in the Fifth stage of the Sage Plane, but his battle strength was far above it.
