(Brendan POV)
I punched the bandit leader in the face, sending a few of his teeth flying out of his mouth before pulling him back up by his collar.
"Stop wasting our time. I have enough healing pills here to heal you as many times as I want. Before my senior sister starts getting creative with you, I suggest you tell me where the damn bird is."
The bandit leader turned to look at me with a bruised eye and battered face, "Screw… You…"
This bastard knows that we won't kill him since only he knows where the bird was.
I already made him drink a truth serum so he cannot lie to us, but he figured out that all he had to do was not say anything about it.
Senior sister Eris sighed, "Stop being nice to him, Brendan. We're wasting time here. We could always just turn this entire place upside down to find it or just mind break him."
I stood up and dumped the idiot on the ground facing upwards, materialising a vial of clear liquid from within my storage ring.
The bandit's eyes widened when he saw me use my storage ring, something that shouldn't have been possible for males in this Plane.
I uncorked the vial and poured some of its contents on his crotch unceremoniously.
He looked down at his crotch before looking back up at me in confusion.
His face of confusion quickly turned into one of pain when the acid ate away at his skin.
The area around his crotch started giving off white smoke but yet, his pants still remained intact. However, even if his skin is visible, you wouldn't see it burning either.
It's something I admittedly created by accident when experimenting with Master's God Pill.
Normally what a healing pill does is speeding up a person's natural recovery ability, that's why normal pills are unable to restore lost limbs.
And for those extremely expensive healing pills that can actually restore limbs, they rely on the user's innate Quarks to generate the new limbs.
A non-Practitioner would have to rely on a Practitioner with healing Techniques to do the same thing.
Master's God Pill, on the other hand, has the innate property of storing an obscene amount of Quarks that it would use to heal practically any ailments upon consumption.
That is what makes Master's pill so special compared to the rest. Even someone with no innate Quarks is able to benefit from Master's pill and there were absolutely no drawbacks or side effects from taking it.
It's truly an elixir deserving of its name.
If I were to make something that could take advantage of the God Pill's massive reserve of Quarks to… Let's say, create an acid that would both burn and heal any organic material it comes into contact with, that would be quite devious, wouldn't it?
Thus the trash in front of me is now experiencing what it's like to constantly have his body eaten away and healed immediately without any signs of relief. Without the counteragent, the acid will just continue eating away at him till the end of time.
I still have to applaud this guy's perseverance though, he managed to last for five minutes of that torture before finally giving in.
"It's… AHHH!! It's in the Sect treasury! Outside... We… We kept it locked there! Please… Please make it stop! ARRGHH!"
"Now was that so hard?" I asked, pouring the solution that would negate the acid onto his crotch.
I turned back to give senior sister Eris a nod, prompting her to hit the bandit at the back of the head and knocking him out.
We're not done with him of course. For wasting so much of our time, we will definitely take him back and torment him thoroughly.
And if it turns out he was bluffing… I guess I'll just have to mind break him.
Senior sister tapped her chin, "If it's the Sect treasury… It should be built into the mountain itself. I saw a really big metal door on our way here just now."
The two of us left the remains of the Sect Master's building and headed to where senior sister had seen the door.
Unsurprisingly, it was located just a short distance away from us, no doubt the previous Sect Master preferred having the treasure as close to them as possible.
I tried the door but it did not budge.
"It's locked, should I go find the key?" I suggested.
Eris shook her head, "No need."
She dropped into her stance before slashing her sword out quickly, her movements a blur to me.
The thick metal doors were sliced apart easily, the cut portions crashing loudly onto the ground and shaking the very ground we were standing on.
There was the sound of glass shattering too, probably the treasury's defense inscriptions being activated and shattered by senior sister's sword slash.
"After you," Eris grinned, gesturing to the open doorway while sheathing her sword.
I took a step towards the entrance and I figured out why there weren't any dead bodies around outside the Sect. That's because every single body was thrown here and hidden away from prying eyes in order to welcome the next victims.
Where a normal treasury would be filled to the brim with countless treasures and secret Technique manuals, this particular treasury had mountains upon mountains of corpses just laying there.
That's not to say that there weren't any valuables around, there were still quite a substantial amount stored here and there, but the mountains of corpses far outweighs the gold in volume.
The fact that all of them were not in any state of decomposition meant either they were all recently deceased or there's some kind of preservation technique affecting them.
Seeing this sight also meant those bandits had no intention of letting any of their victims live from the start.
Senior sister Eris and I moved through the stone tunnel to reach the depths of the treasury, by which calling it a catacomb would be more accurate at this point.
How these bandits can store their valuables here amongst a sea of dead bodies I'll never understand. Maybe they just have some kind of morbid fascination for such things?
"Hey, ya don't suppose these 'ere are for that bird to eat, do ya?" She asked.
I admit I didn't think of that… That would explain why they dumped the bodies here at least. The records we found about the Phoenix were also dated several centuries back and none of them did specify its diet either.
I took out a few potions that should help me deal with the Phoenix should it prove itself hostile to us, just in case.
Not that I doubt senior sister Eris couldn't handle it of course.
Soon, we came to the deepest parts of the cavern and were greeted by the sight of something I did not expect.
Oh, there was a fire bird there alright, but I thought it would have been treated with proper care since it was the source of the bandits' power after all.
What we saw was a Phoenix that was chained at the neck which was connected to a stone pillar in the centre of the room. The chain was not even long enough to let it lie down on the floor, forcing it to lean against the pillar to rest itself.
The golden feathers that it should have been proud of had been plucked carelessly, making it look more like a hairless chicken bound for the chopping block instead of the majestic Phoenix it should have been.
It turned its eyes to us and I knew, judging by the hopelessness in its eyes, it was most definitely not a threat to anyone, much less us.
I don't really consider myself an especially compassionate person, but even I felt a twinge of sympathy for that poor thing.
Oh well, we still need its blood so let's see how cooperative it is.
