Rainwallow city was also known as the city of lumber and was situated on the borders of Extreme Misty Forest, 120 miles north of the Capital. It was a small city with a population of 10,000 but it was full of hustle and bustles with lumberjacks working their magic to fell forest trees, and maybe one day open a route to the sea in the far north. The difference between the state of the city and the Capital's Lower Districts were like night and day. It was so vast, it was like heaven and earth.
At the outskirts of Rainwallow city, Lord Weld arrived at the doorstep of a small cottage.
"Come in. The door is not locked."
A young voice spoke to him from behind the doors. Seeing that the other part had sensed his arrival before he could even knock on the door, Lord Weld was instilled with a deeper sense of respect towards the other person's ability.
"Sir Zagan." Lord Weld entered the cottage and greeted.
Behind the door was a room filled with opened books and papers scattered throughout the entire cottage. Sir Zagan did not raise his head to greet him but continued to read through his research papers instead. His appearance had not aged over the years and still retained his youthful look.
"Why have you come?" Sir Zagan asked after a short moment. He had skip the pleasantries and cut straight to the chase.
"I wonder if Sir Zagan is interested joining forces to overthrow the Crawford royalty to explore the underground ruins?" Lord Weld asked straightforwardly with a smile plastered on his face. Although Sir Zagan failed to greet him, Lord Weld did not seem to mind. In fact, he did not dare show any form of discontent when he has come to ask for a favor.
Sir Zagan appeared to be gentle and scholarly but he was far from what he made himself out to be. This was a person who could be smiling in one moment and kill people in the next. His outer appearance was a facade to hide his devious and wicked nature. His strength wasn't something Lord Weld could trifle with and the secrets of his youth wasn't something he dare look into. Lord Weld felt an invisible pressure on his mind and had the illusion that the other person could interfere with his thoughts to some degree.
Lord Weld was aware that coming to this person for help was the same as looking for help from the devil. However, nothing was more important than his waning life, even if it meant selling his soul to the devil. He was long aware that Sir Zagan had ulterior motives to sow seeds of chaos in the kingdom, when he taught them the origin of Aldrich Crawford's transcendent-grade breathing technique. He knew but didn't care, as the information was useful and he was more than willing to spearhead the chaos to achieve his goals.
"Oh? You have finally come to ask for my help." Sir Zagan said with keen interesting. "Tell me everything that had happened."
"Yes." Lord Weld answered obediently as if he was compelled to.
…
In the courtyard of the Weld's family, a batch of freshly recruited and untrained servants stood before steward Alf. The recruitment and filtering went quickly and smoothly. The commoners were like an open book; easy to read. It did not matter if the Weld family was the source of their problem or the root of all evil, it would not stop the desperate ones from becoming servants of the Weld family to better their life when their carrot is offered. Depraved or not, when faced with choices of life and death, the common choice would always be life. Their morals mean nothing to them if they could eat their fill.
Alf had no doubt that they would listen to his orders obediently. Since time did not wait for them, Alf did not teach them discipline and jump straight to teaching them [Ignis's Dominating Inner Obliteration Technique]. He had read through the breathing technique multiple times and already memorized the content. The manual was on him, but he did not need to refer to it when teaching.
"Alf, who are these people and where is my father?" Cayden arrived home and noticed the new faces immediately due to their malnourished body and terrible stench. Although Alf had them fed and washed beforehand, it wasn't something easily changed in one session.
"Young master, you are home." Alf ordered the new servants to practice the technique on their own before greeting his young master and answering his question.
"Master is dead along with the rest of the servants. These are the new servants I have recruited under the Old Master's instructions."
"Father is what?"
Cayden was rooted on the spot at the breaking news. Cayden had no doubt in the authenticity of the news. Alf would not joke about his master's death. Cayden took a moment to grieve for his father, before his eyes turned sharp like drawn daggers. Evidently, he was good at controlling his emotions, otherwise he would not have been able to pull the wool over Edric's eyes.
"Who killed him?" Cayden questioned coldly. He did not grieve for long. It was more important to find out his father's killer for revenge.
"It was the Duke's side." Alf answered. He didn't personally witness it and only received the news from Lord Weld. They naturally assume Kasif was on the Duke's side since he intervened in their favor.
"Makes sense. What are they practicing? Doesn't seem like the normal breathing technique we have for servants." Cayden naturally noticed something different about their breathing technique. At the center of the courtyard was an intense campfire billowing towards the skies, while the servants surrounded it in meditative posture. He would not miss such an obvious sight.
"They are practicing the technique we have stolen from the Duke's home. This is the technique, Young Master." Alf handed over the breathing technique, before resuming watch over the new servants.
Seeing the new servants making progress and being able to start drawing the flames into their bodies, Alf became impatient. He had to start from ground zero if he wanted to practice the technique and would naturally be at the same starting point as the servants. Being the steward of the family, he did not want to fall behind the servants in cultivation.
"Young Master, please excuse this servant as he joins the new servants in practice. The Old Master has already given the approval."
Alf impatiently sat cross-legged by the fire and severed his connection to the earth seed with his will like severing off a limb. Steward Alf paled from the pain as the earth essence started to dissipate from his body, leaving behind a hollow seed.
An awakener's elemental seed was like their limb. They could control it however way they want, including but not limited to self-destructing and cutting their connection to their elemental law. Normally, no sane person would ever do such a thing, but for a brighter future, steward Alf had done exactly that.
After the dissipation process ended, he commenced practice in the breathing technique without delay. While this was happening, Cayden had taken a quick read through the physical copy of the technique in his hands with a frown. Why is the name so strange? Cayden had his doubts.
Without the intimacy of the fire laws to grant its users heighten resistance, Alf and the servants had to endure the searing flames they drew into their body, through their pores, their meridians and towards their mind to be refined in fire essence. Alf was amazed that the servants were able to endure the searing pain for so long. The path to natural awakening was naturally not as easy as taking an awakening pill is what Alf thought.
"Huu…Huu…Huuu!"
"Eeek-aak-eek!"
A chain of ancient gorilla-like and monkey-like noises interrupted his thoughts. Alf opened his eyes to see what was going on, only to see total chaos among the group of servants. The new servants were no longer practicing the breathing technique and were practicing being monkeys and gorillas instead. They pranced around, beating and scratching their chest, while making all sorts of screech, chatter and gibber noises.
"W-What is going on? What the hell are you all doing!?" Alf and Cayden both widened their eyes in shock to the chaotic scene taking place.
"Huu… Huu… HUUU!"
"Stop it! Are you a f*cking idiot!?" Alf grabbed at one of the servants, but they reacted strongly to his grab as they pranced up and down violently in resistance.
"Huu… Huu… HUUU!!"
Boom… It was like Cayden had just receive divine enlightenment as he closed the manual and reread the name on the cover.
"Igris's… Dominating… Inner… Obliteration…Technique…?"
"I…D…I…O…T!? IDIOT!?? F*CK!" Cayden cursed out. "Motherf*cker, this is a bogus technique!"
"Alf, you've all been training to become idiots!"
"W-W-W-What did you say, Young Master?" Alf stuttered hard as he looked back at his young master. Did the bogus technique already affect him this much? He already destroyed his cultivation… there was no way he could regain it... Color drained from his face and the light in his eyes started to dim.
"You don't understand what I said?"
Cayden was ticked when he thought Alf couldn't understand his words.
"You've been frying your brains into idiocy, understand!? These servants are all brain-dead!" Cayden roared as he pointed the monkey-like servants.
"Huu…huu… huuu!?"
His finger pointing seem to signal one of them over as they tried to pounce on him.
"F*ck off!"
A vein popped out on his forehead as Cayden kicked the thing flying.. He wondered how he was going to salvage the situation.