"Not here," Asher muttered while going past the thin vines growing in this place.
His movements were as light as they could get, and even while stepping on the vines and using Mir Steps, there were no marks on the ground.
Recovering his mana and waiting for Dane and Kai allowed Asher to move much more quickly.
"Somewhere hidden..." Asher remembered the conversation in his previous life when he found out about this place.
***
*Slash*
A black sword moved extremely fast as it left trails of blood, but what was more menacing was the man wielding that sword.
Behind him were the corpses of multiple high-ranking hunters, and his black clothes were stained with blood stains of the people he killed.
He opened a door where a man stood with a strange collar on his neck.
"Asher Von Greville," He muttered as he looked behind.
"I was expecting you to visit this place," he said as he sat on his chair.
"Sam Allister," Asher spoke as he entered the room.
"What you want is written in this diary," Sam said as he touched a diary on the table before him.
"But I am surprised," Sam said as he sat in his seat.
"I didn't think you would come yourself," Sam said with a faint smile on his face.
His behavior was strange because he was sitting in front of the man who had become a threat to the whole High Council in a few years since his disappearance.
Normally, someone would either be nervous or be ready to fight for their life, but Sam was relaxed.
Or rather, he didn't care what was going to happen.
Asher's indifferent eyes looked at the diary, but despite his expression, his killing intent was still present.
"You look nothing like the person I had seen at the World Academy," Sam said as he looked at Asher.
"You have become a monster," Sam said.
Suddenly, another person behind Asher appeared, and his appearance made Sam's expression change.
".... how? Those red eyes!" Sam's relaxed face changed.
"I have made sure to kill every messenger around this place," Lucas spoke as he looked at Asher.
"Nobody will know what happened here till tomorrow morning," Lucas said as he looked at Sam, whose eyes had widened.
"So you were the one that sent us that message?" Lucas asked.
"Who are you?" Sam asked.
"Those eyes..." Sam was about to ask when Asher stepped forward.
But he soon appeared behind Sam and took the diary in his hand.
"Don't move if you don't want to die," Asher said in a cold tone as he opened the diary.
Sam calmed himself down as he leaned back and started laughing.
Lucas stared at Sam's strange actions while Asher flipped through the pages.
"That diary contains everything you need to destroy the Allister Family and the identity of all those that are involved with that damn family," Sam said.
"Why are you giving it to us? Aren't you the Second son of the Allister Head?" Lucas asked.
"Son? Family? Hahahahahaha, if I could, I would have killed that man with my own hands," Sam replied as his eyes turned lifeless.
From the moment Lucas had entered this place, Sam looked like a weird person to him.
Lucas had seen the reaction that others had when they were around Asher's killing intent, but Sam depicted none of those.
'He has already given up on living,' Lucas thought,
These eyes that Sam showed a resemblance to another one that Lucas could see beside Sam, but he didn't say that out loud.
"Anyway, I completed my side of the deal," Sam said, shifting his eyes toward Asher.
"Let's leave," Asher said, looking at Lucas.
Lucas was confused, but he nodded his head. He activated the teleporting artifact, leaving Sam alone in this room.
"I have done it, Mother," Sam muttered as he closed his eyes and relaxed his body.
"I wonder how you felt for those years. I am sorry," Sam muttered as the collar started glowing.
A smile crept onto his face.
"I guess they can't let me go away this easily; controlling my whole life wasn't enough for you, I guess," Sam muttered as he opened the drawer where many empty vials were present.
"I guess this is the last one," Sam spoke as he took the only vial that had a liquid-like substance available in it.
Gulp!
"Still doesn't taste good," Sam muttered, throwing the vial on the floor.
Far from this place,
Lucas and Asher appeared in an abandoned region where the diary was stored in his storage ring.
"Was it okay to leave him alive?" Lucas asked.
"They might learn about our movements from him," Lucas said.
"They would not. The dead don't speak," Asher said as he touched the mountain rock and activated the runic formation.
"He was already half dead when he spoke with us," Asher replied.
Lucas stopped momentarily, and everything about Sam's behavior made sense to him.
Asher flipped the pages one by one as he arrived at the last entry of the Diary.
It was about the Miracle Golden Pond, which was the biggest reason for the growth in power of the Allister Head, and it also mentioned what that Golden Pond was.
Asher entered the hidden base, leaving Lucas, who looked at the sky and raised his hand, covering the entire mountain with his magic.
***
Asher remembered the description he saw in the Diary, but it was inaccurate.
In his previous life, Asher never visited this place because there was no need, as Sam had already mentioned that going there was useless.
Because the Golden Pond was already empty when Sam handed over the diary to Asher.
But right now, it was different, and Asher knew that Golden Pond would become empty in the next five years.
And it was around then that the Allister Head reached SS+ Rank, reaching the power of a Pseudo SSS Rank Hunter.
Soon enough, after going around, Asher stopped and looked at a certain tree with an opening in the middle.
But what made him stop wasn't the tree itself, but the massive space beneath the ground he was standing.
"So there it is," Asher said as he looked at the opening.
It looked like a normal tree, but Asher touched the opening, revealing a runic formation.
Changing the runes and the flow of the mana around the formation, Asher deactivated it.
Stepping inside, a large cave-like space was revealed when Asher used a fireball to illuminate his surroundings.
But instead of stepping further, Asher stopped and activated another Runic Formation that was hidden on the wall that lit up the whole cave.
It also reveals the 'Golden Pond' in the middle.
Suddenly, Rifir came out as he looked at the Golden Pond, and Asher could understand Rifir's reaction as this pond was the blood of an SSS Rank Monster who had died long ago.
Before even Halcyon was formed, this place was where it died, and his mana core became the mana vein beneath the ground, covering what once was the Domain of this powerful monster.
Also, this Golden Pond was nothing but the pool of blood, the blood that was present around his mana core, which was not removed from his body, allowing that blood to accumulate above the center of the mana vein formation in the ground.
"Domain of a dead calamity, something that wasn't hunted but died of age," Asher muttered as he stepped forward.
It was the description that Sam had mentioned something he had heard from his older brother Jack before he was imprisoned in that place.
Rifir looked at Asher, but Asher shook his head.
"Not this one," Asher replied as Rifir soon disappeared.
Despite his instincts to devour the strength of a powerful being, Rifir quietly went back as he could understand Asher's intentions due to the connection between them.
"So this is the Blood that created the Golden Fountain," Asher crouched and touched the pond.
The Golden Fountain was a fountain that was present in the Main Mansion of the Allister Family.
It looked like normal golden-colored water, but it was a highly diluted form of this very blood that was being converted into an elixir.
This was a secret that nobody except the late and the current Head of the Allister knew.
That golden fountain was made by an artifact that could dilute this blood over time, making it possible to drink the elixir made from it.
Although such a thing wasn't possible as the wild mana in the blood wasn't suitable for it, the Last Head of the Allister Family had somehow made it possible.
But even if one couldn't make an elixir out of this, the value of this pond that had become so enriched with mana present in the mana core that had long become a mana vein was immeasurable.
This was something that would cause even SSS Rank Hunters to fight. Although not comparable to an SSS Rank Mana Stone, this pond was still valuable.
Especially for people below the SSS Rank, just entering this pond would strengthen their mana veins inside the human body.
Sam mentioned this in the diary, as well as that the one who benefited from that effect was Jack Allister before the Allister Head used this entire pond.
But instead of going inside, Asher stepped closer and took a sample of the blood inside a vial.
As someone who knew something that even the dying Sam Allister didn't know, Asher didn't bother going inside this pond.
