"A prisoner escaped!"
"Sound the alarm…Ackkk!"
In one of the prison cells, lacking any limbs and affixed to the wall was an old man. He was naked, strapped to a bunch of apparatus that were drilling into him like he was a mountain and mining for resources.
Affixed to the wall beside him was another him, his second body, in the same state as the original. A bit more to the side was his third body, fourth, and finally the fifth.
He was called Lurt, an ambitious commoner who was born in the slums of Ellora City and made his way to the top of the underworld, gaining him the nickname of Drug Lord.
He was a genius and with limited means, gathered resources and eventually created a cultivation technique on his own. By the age of forty, he entered the Body Stage and fused with a Silver Grade mineral called Roin.
By the time he finished building his Human Avatar and reached the peak of the Body Stage, his lifespan had increased by three hundred years, a significant sum. He was always careful, living in the shadows, for his battle power was limited at best.
Roin was a mineral that had drug-related properties, capable of affecting both human and Pranic Beast bodies. Thanks to it, he produced both medicine and drugs, flooding the market with his products.
The drugs made the consumers addicted to them. While at the same time, the medicine cured them. As a result, he had control over both markets, capable of collapsing Ellora City's economy overnight by releasing a bunch of drugs if he wanted.
Eventually, his drugs made their way to other cities through Ellora City's trade route. When the scale of activity became too high profile, the Information Team was dispatched, collecting information from the affected parties.
Soon, they narrowed down on him, and a raid team was dispatched, ending up capturing him. Gudora had personally taken the lead, severing Lurt's limbs from all his five bodies.
At the time of conflict, Lurt was at the 5-Life Stage. It had been sixty years since he had been captured. As he was the sole individual who figured out a method to create a Human Avatar out of Roin, the Information Team interrogated and eventually obtained all his secrets.
Unfortunately, even after training some people with the cultivation technique, none managed to reach the peak of the Body Stage, not to mention enter the Life Stage. As a result, they were primarily dependent on Lurt.
Every time Ellora City needed medicine, they forcefully extracted it out of him. Locked up in the cell for sixty years, Lurt had forgotten what the outside world looked like. And now, for the first time in decades, a tinge of hope lit up in his eyes.
He craned his head up and listened to the sounds of cries from the guards, followed by blunt impacts, resulting in eerie silence. "Here…save me!"
At his weak cries, the door to his cell slammed open as Inala sauntered in. Staring at his confident power-induced pose, Lurt said in a hurry, "Save me too!"
"I don't know who you are, but I'm valuable."
"You're valuable indeed," Inala nodded and approached one of Lurt's bodies, "Considering how you're the only other individual locked in the City Lord estate's prison cell. It's a show of your value."
"Your reasoning is spectacular." Lurt nodded.
"But, how will you escape with me?" Inala asked, "You lack limbs to move."
"Please carry me for a short while." Lurt said, "As long as I recover some Prana, I'll be able to rebuild my limbs. I need two days at most to heal one body."
"I see," Inala nodded and placed his palm on Lurt's forehead, causing the latter to be confused. But a moment later, there was a shrill scream.
"W-What did you do?" At the sight of brain matter leaking out of Lurt's orifices, his remaining four bodies shrilled in fright.
"Nothing much," Inala said and took out a skull covered by images of leaves, roots, etc. It was Lurt's skull, now containing all his data.
Through the Mind Slip Prime Skill, Inala entered its mindspace and commented, "Alright, it has all your information."
He surfed through it for a few minutes and muttered in praise, "You're indeed amazing."
'His power is similar to Oyo. He'll be useful.' Thinking as such, Inala broke the bindings of one of Lurt's bodies. He then encased him in a large Prana Bomb and activated his Internal Inertial Gravity at full power, bending space within.
Following that, he shrunk the Prana Bomb to a miniature size and swallowed it. Once it reached the biome in his stomach, the shell shattered, causing the space within it to spill out as the figure of Lurt fell on the stomach walls.
Two Empyrean Zingers constricted him, preventing him from doing anything.
"One is enough," Inala said and used Empyrean Extraction Prime Skill to collect three more Lurt skulls. The information in all four Lurt Skulls was the exact same, but the copies might come in handy in the future.
To avoid any variables, he intended to kill the extra Lurt bodies anyway. So, instead of wasting them, he added more skulls. Maybe he could imprint the contents of a Lurt Skull on an Empyrean Zinger and nurture it to control Lurt.
That way, he could make Lurt produce all sorts of medicine for his use.
"Get him…!" A guard shouted and rushed at him, his voice cut off when a Prana Bomb slammed into him after its weight was increased. The impact splattered his head while his Prana was absorbed into the Prana Bomb.
Four Prana Bombs revolved around Inala like satellites and attacked any guard that came within hundred metres. Slowly, he made his way through the flight of stairs, disposing every guard that came his way.
Soon, he created two Prana Hands, using them to replenish his Prana faster. Prana Hands had lower efficiency in Prana absorption from enemies, but it instantly added to his Prana reserves. So, it was better to use it during drawn-out battles.
But for resource accumulation, using Prana Bombs was the best.
Soon, Inala arrived at the ground floor of the City Lord mansion, spreading his Empyrean Zinger Scouts in their miniature form. Since they remained within his Spirit Weapon range, he could access their memories and see whatever they witnessed.
Instantly, Inala mapped out all the rooms in a hundred-metre radius around him, approaching one of them as he twisted the door knob open and stared at the figure of a woman inside, "You're here."
Followed by a grin, he entered the room and closed the door behind him. Two seconds later, screams echoed out.