When he got back, Zhao Feng had been poisoned and Mu Hou had been stabbed. “How did this happen?!” tucked away in the Pod, Remian observed the going-ons around town from a safe distance while eavesdropping on the thoughts of several specific people. It started with dinner at the Paramount Chalice Restaurant. Little Li had her steamed fish. Mu Hou ordered the best wine, and had the waiters slip a little special something into Zhao Feng’s and Big Li’s cups… Unfortunately, the kind of poisons the restaurant had were nowhere near potent enough to truly harm someone of Zhao Feng’s strength. The best they could do was a drowsiness drug, but that was too risky. Mu Hou opted for the next best option; a powerful laxative. Thus Zhao Feng soon found himself getting remarkably familiar with the restaurant’s toilets. As for Big Li, she only sipped a little of her wine before Zhao Feng got back roaring with rage. The following conversation basically went li

Three days and a whole lot of vinetraps later, Remian cautiously landed his Pod back in the river where he’d caught fish before. Having the pod made hunting for vinetraps a much more pleasant experience. With the red mists for cover, Remian basically flew around sensing out vinetrap nests, landing nearby, and harvesting their cores without any trouble. Half the time, the nests would have an adult Trap Vine nearby, and those, he just left for later until the big ones weren’t around, and then he’d come back and clear out the cores. Remian had close to half a hundred vinetrap cores by now. Maybe it was too greedy of him, but with the pod around, he basically went into a core-harvesting craze and only came to his senses after almost fainting from physical exhaustion. Even with the Pod flying him around, cutting vines and collecting cores still took some effort. After a few hours rest, Remian grabbed up a sack and headed out. With goods in hand, it was time to sell them o

“I thought you were trying to force Yin to come. I don’t see him here. Is he coming?” Gary asked. “He is.” Cooper said grimly. “No matter what!” Oh, by the way, because of the upcoming contest between the Cosmic Guild branches, Cooper was dead set on having the rather-stay-in-bed genius Tang Yin join the training camp. He was serious. Gathering three other guys from Club Saturn, they went to hunt… err… cordially invite Tang Yin the sleepyhead over to the Compulsory Camp That Everyone Must Go To! “Spatial Lock!” “Paralysis!” “Shock Stun!” “Living Chains!” “Binding Vines!” “Wind Whip!” “OW!” Tang Yin spluttered. “What’s with the whip!?” But nobody answered or apologized. They simply hauled him out of there bodily. They bundled him into a carriage and rode off into the sunset… Actually, no, they went to a large observatory on a tall hill just outside Ecclesia City. It took them roughly an ho

The Red Mists were fading, or shrinking. Remian wasn’t sure which, exactly, or why, but after couple of days harvesting cores with Xiao Yan’s help, he noticed that they weren’t as thick nor covered as big an area as before. Oh, right. Xiao Yan was the escaped slave girl who had followed him ever since he’d helped her out back then. It wasn’t her original name, but she tried to adopt Remian’s name. Since ‘Remian’ was ‘Lem Yan’, she wanted to be ‘Little Yan’, so that together they could be Big Yan and Little Yan. As for the ‘Xiao’, it actually meant ‘Little’, but oddly enough, could also suffice for a surname. Apparently it also meant other things like ‘dawn’ or ‘sunrise’, or even ‘respectful’, depending on how it was written. Xiao Yan wrote her ‘Xiao’ name following the meaning of ‘dawn’ and ‘Yan’ following the meaning of ‘beautiful’, thus her name meant ‘Beautiful Dawn’, reflecting her hopes for a new life. Anyway, she called him ‘Big Yan’, and he called her ‘Little

Eh…? There was a sudden, dumbfounded silence from everyone present. “Where is that?” Little Li asked, suddenly curious enough to forget all about chairs and such. “That’s… where I come from.” Remian tried not to blurt out anything else that might get him more attention. He was in enough trouble as it was. “There is truly no slavery?” Little Yan stared at him, eyes wide. “There was, but not any more. We ended it.” Remian told her. “How?” “We killed the slavers and drove them out.” That was as simple a summary as he could make it. Zhao Feng snorted. “You? You couldn’t kill time if you tried.” Big Li let out a snort of laughter. Hearing that, Mu Hou’s laughter suddenly stopped. [Crap. Zhao Feng scored a point on humor.] “I had a crossbow.” Remian said, not mentioning magic. “And a lot of friends who fight in close combat much better than I do.” [I see. It wasn’t like he was their leader. He just happened to