After clinching a huge deal with Feng Wu, Mark left the place.
Feng Wu later returned to the bandits' village and called for an urgent assembly.
The elders were summoned to the council room where they usually discuss the matters going on in Western Yan. They had their own group of loyal spies working in the kingdom, of which, one of them was even a eunuch working at the palace.
Never once they had abandoned the idea of reclaiming their throne and returning to their homeland. But, the conditions in the past decade weren't in their favor.
When Feng Wu explained about the panzer that can take on 4-circle realm experts with ease, the elders were baffled and later, expressed their support to him.
After deciding on the numbers, he summoned merchant Huo Fen, who was imprisoned here a few weeks ago and later, got trapped by working as an instructor to the bandits that were new to firearms.
As he was given good accommodation and food and was treated considerably better than prisoners or other low ranking bandits, he settled down there, although not abandoning to leave the place.
And at present, Huo Fen was standing before Feng Wu, waiting for his order.
The latter handed him the scroll, "I want you to make a trip to Imperial City and hand it to the owner of Genesis Store. From now onwards, you will be our envoy and will act as the middleman between us and the store. You will resume your normal life as a merchant too. But, before you leave, take this."
It's a mysterious purple-colored pill with red dots, looking bizarre in one glance but Huo Fen's heart skipped a beat when he saw it. It's as if he had the knowledge of it.
"Your Highness, this pill…" His voice started to shake as he stayed on the spot. He doesn't seem like he wanted to take it.
Feng Wu furrowed his brows, "what I'm about to give you is the heaven-defying pill, which is only a few numbers left in existence. You don't want to appreciate the favor?"
Huo Fen stepped back in fear. The risks were well known even to the public. After all, this is the pill that brought the downfall of the 2000-year-old mighty Feng Dynasty.
"Yes, your highness." He stepped forward and took the pill into his hand.
Feng Wu and the other elders were kept staring at him until Huo Fen clenched his fist and took the forbidden pill.
The moment, the pill is digested, extreme heat regenerated in his body.
"argh…" Huo Fen screamed in pain as he collapsed on the floor. He was absorbing the natural energy at a rapid rate.
"Just hang on for 18 hours and your fate will be changed completely." Feng Wu said to him before ordering the subordinates to take him to his residence.
It is a forbidden pill that will give a bloodline to a Spirit Warrior, although there are risks of the latter turning into a beast or worse, half-beast.
And if a civilian takes it, they will be forcefully turned into Spirit Warrior using the same method the system did to Mark.
However, it was an unsafe process. The person who took it will have a 60% survival and even if one succeeds, after becoming Spirit Warrior, his/her maximum potential will be stuck at 2-circle at best.
The good thing is that the survived civilian will have a high chance of acquiring the bloodline of the beast that this pill was made from.
As its creator is dead, they don't have many in stock. By giving it to Huo Fen, Prince Feng Wu is really taking a serious gamble on partnering with Genesis store.
"Let's hope those metal puppets can give our victory. Now, all I need to wait for Grand uncle to finish his decade-long close door cultivation with a successful breakthrough," Feng Wu mumbled to himself while a couple of bandits were taking away Huo Fen.
Meanwhile, Mark left the Kunyu valley and returned to his land. He was faced with after-effects of the pill, feeling very weak. Mark just stayed in the carriage as they started traveling towards the south at a slow pace.
By the evening, they reached someplace in the wilderness. Since Alina wouldn't need any food, Mark eats on his own and then, had an uncomfortable sleep in the carriage while hypnotizing himself that he was sleeping in the back seat of a car.
The next morning, they started the journey once again, and by the time, the sun is at its highest position, the carriage stopped at the third destination.
"Big Brother, we are here," Alina informed him.
"Finally," Mark let out a sigh of relief and stepped down only to see a large number of adventurers ahead of him, some of them were entering the giant blue portal, some of them were calling out people to join them, some were asking a fee for letting the people join them, and some of them were arguing about something.
Apart from the adventurers, there are also infirmaries, food stalls, stables, and such businesses that were set up nearby, trying to make a profit out of the situation.
A nearby adventurer team of four-spotted the carriage along with Alina and Mark. Their looks were hard to ignore, especially Alina's when she was in the midst of adventurers who usually don't have any love life.
Seeing the outfits of Mark and Alina, and sensing no ether energy from either of them, they thought Mark must be a rich noble and Alina might be his servant.
One of them walked towards Mark and greeted him, "Hello, Sir, are you looking for a team to guide you?"
"You are…" Mark looked at the person and inspected his details. Upon finding that he's only at 3-circle and didn't have much background, Mark relaxed a bit.
"I belonged to an adventurer team called, "Freemen." We don't belong to any guild and our job is to guide first-timers or low realm Spirit Warriors or tourists by taking a fee.
We charge just 2 gold coins per hour. If you need exclusive security and guidance, it'll cost 10 gold coins per hour. Oh, our leader is a beginner stage 5-circle realm expert. As long as we don't enter the core region, your safety is guaranteed."
Mark felt amused by his explanation. He couldn't help but widened his lips as he commented, "interesting. I didn't expect such a business tactic exist."
Maybe, because he was feeling rich due to the enormous amount of gold coins in his inventory, Mark felt like playing along. As the team was quite weak, he wasn't bothered about getting ambushed later.
"Everything is fine but I'm not sure whether I can strangers and follow them inside only to get robbed later." Mark then said to him as if he was really considering it but worrying about the matter.
The adventurer didn't get offended as it is something people like them were used to it. People are wary of them even more so because they don't belong to any guild but their leader wouldn't want to be restricted by rules.
He said, "Well, in that case, you can join our Spades."
"Hmm?" Mark looked at him, asking for an explanation.
Seeing that he was really able to lure a client, the adventurer patiently explained, "Basically, our adventurer team was divided into two groups, Spades, and Diamonds.
Diamonds is a group for exclusive clients and Spades is a group for the general public where we take five members with us but it will take a while for us to gather five people and our strength is also considerably lesser compared to Diamonds. So, the region we explore is also quite limited."
"What about the treasures that we find or the carcasses of the beasts?" Mark asked another question.
The adventurer was taken aback at first but then, he thought it is possible for this rich young master to not be familiar with the dungeons. In the end, he answered, "We strictly follow the adventurer code. The carcasses naturally belong to the one that kills it but the treasures will be divided equally among the group no matter who finds what."
Mark was impressed by his answer and let out a smile, "my final question. Suppose I want to enter the dungeon with my horse carriage, will you charge me, 8 gold coins?"
"Eh? Horse carriage?" The adventurer couldn't help but glance at the horse carriage in surprise. Is there any special thing about them?
