The creature that brought Zhang's message was a translucent spirit, and as soon as it appeared, it nearly scared me to death. When I was preparing to start a fight, thinking it was one of my dead enemies, it bowed respectfully, left a glowing sphere the size of a marble, and disappeared into thin air as it had arrived.
When I held the ball in my hand, several pieces of information appeared in my head, and the system began organizing them all in the form of notes. The first was a letter; Zhang said that he was fine and that he had arrived safely at his new master's tower. He didn't go into details about the city, but he said that he was safe inside the Tower of the Immortal.
When I looked at the rest of the information inside the small sphere, it left me breathless for a long time. Not only did it have the recipe for all the totems of all existing magical affinities, but it also had several spell books.
Zhang was very specific and methodical. Most of the books he sent were not available in the shops in Asshai or even in the library in the Garden of Beasts. This greatly increased the options everyone had when learning new spells, which would greatly influence one's base in preparation for casting higher-level spells.
I should point out that although I had at least 6 new books of each element, most of them represented soul affinity, totaling almost 20 different spells. As soon as I finished looking through them all, I asked an apprentice to prepare the blank books and began transcribing them all.
As for the totems, only Zaya, Vitarys, and Jhon had already mastered a spell and could create their first totems. As for me, I had enough ingredients to create up to two new fire totems, but I hadn't mastered any spells. My Fire Breath couldn't be stored in a totem because it was an innate spell. But I was sure it wouldn't take me long to create my totem now that I could purchase potions from the Adventurer's Alliance that would speed up my learning.
Speaking of which, Old Xu's message came with very specific terms. He accepted my proposal to grant him some information but increased the percentage from 15% to 20%. He also agreed that after signing the agreement, he would let me see all the details and benefits of the position of vice-leader of the Alliance. Miss Liana requested something that I fortunately had in my possession, a purified soul stone.
Furthermore, thanks to Zhang, I now know what these items were used for. These stones were simple to create, but took a whopping 10 years to complete their ritual; their effects, of course, were worth the 10 years spent. Their first use was to imprison a soul in its perfect state after death, then a necromancer could create a higher intelligent undead or even resurrect the person. Its second use was exclusive to soul affinity, which was to be transformed into an extra life for necromancers facing death, through something called a resurrection totem, and finally, its third use was as one of the ingredients for soul affinity totems.
I had left five of them with Zhang and had five more in my possession. Now that I knew their value and the method for creating such an item, I could finally use them to my advantage. Although all three methods were exclusive to necromancers with soul affinity, there were still some ways to use the stone, and Zhang explained this very well.
So, I signed the Order's contract with the Alliance, created a second blood contract containing the information that old Xu wanted, and then sent it to him through an apprentice of the Order. Now, I just needed to wait for the samples of the items I requested and begin the cultivation experiments. But before focusing on such experiments, it was time to talk to the 10 disciples I selected to undertake a dangerous mission…
Inside the dining hall of the Tower of Sages, 10 disciples lined up as they awaited instructions from the leader of the Order who now stood in front of them along with two beauties that all the new disciples admired. These two were Zaya and Aisha. They didn't know the details of the mission, only that it would be dangerous, but the rewards were too tempting. They would receive one alteration before the mission and one after the mission, two magic books in advance, a shadow bag, the valuable book of animal taming, all the blood crows they needed during the mission period, enough gold to buy an artifact for themselves in advance and borrow 2 more artifacts from the Tower during the mission period.
In the end, after completing the mission, they would receive 10 soul stones and 200 lesser soul stones. All that was left was to listen to the details of the mission; they couldn't give up after that. So they were excited about the rewards and also worried about the dangers. As apprentices who had been living in Asshai for a few years, they knew that there was no such thing as a free meal in this world…
"Apprentices of the Order of Sages, you will be sent by ship in the next few days to Pentos, from Pentos you will be sent to several cities in Essos. Your mission is to take advantage of the wars happening in the next few years to collect human souls. That's right! You didn't hear wrong, I don't plan on killing innocents to collect their souls, but if many are going to die anyway, I don't mind obtaining their souls for the benefit of our Order."
All the apprentices swallowed hard when they heard the initial details of the mission
"You will collect all the souls you can on the battlefields. After the battles are over, you have less than 48 hours to perform the necessary rituals. Be careful during the collection and act like scavengers who are searching the dead in search of some treasure. You will all have a team of Pentos mercenaries working as your bodyguards. And you don't need to risk going to very dangerous places. Prioritize safety so that you can do a lot of collecting instead of dying trying to do too much at once."
Rafael paused again, as the apprentices felt comforted by his statement to prioritize their lives during the mission, then Rafael concluded the remaining details:
"The leader of your group will remain in Pentos and provide support in case of danger for the other 9, in addition to maintaining direct contact with the base, he is also the only one who will be in contact with the Masters of our Order. Zaya will be the leader of the mission here in Asshai and will be the one who will approve the budget for supplies and any other items you need during the mission. Aisha will be responsible for monitoring the ravens that your leader sends daily. The number of souls collected from each member will be determined by your leader as the mission begins. If you have any further questions, you can ask your leader who has already been informed about the mission, or send a raven to Aisha. Choose carefully the two artifacts you will take, they may save your lives..."
"I wish you all good luck."
As soon as Rafael finished his explanation, everyone bowed, and he left the room accompanied by Zaya. Then everyone started talking about the mission. Some found it easy, and others not so much, but now it was too late, and no one could give up on it…
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