A knock was heard against a door outside a lavish office at main temple in Corand. More specifically at the inquisitor headquarters.

"Come in", said a man handling reports by a table with a calm voice.

The door opened and a priest quickly and quietly stepped in, closed the door and then bowed deeply.

"Lord high inquisitor", the priest said while still bowing. "One of our inquisitors has perished."

The high inquisitor stopped going through the numerous reports.

"Who and how? I assume the death vision formation functioned", he asked.

Inquisitor rarely died. They were higher church members and they were the ones who decided who lived and died. Very few could or dared do the same to them. Each death was a serious matter. To prevent and punish those who dared do so, all inquisitors carried with them certain type of formation that sends out information of recent moments should they ever perish. This information is received at the inquisitor headquarters. Each of these items were extremely valuable.

"It was inquisitor Weils", the priest continued, still having slight bow. "He was on a common investigation mission to a remnant and review a new sect and their god. The latter was completed succesfully, but it seems once he came out of the remnant, a beast, a Lower Cari, ambushed him and assaulted the team. At moment of Weils's death almost everyone were already dead. No expected survivors."

"A beast?" The high inquisitor muttered to himself. "Perhaps we should bring up the scheduled extermination. Loss of a good inquisitor is unfortunate. We will plan a retaliation soon. You are dismissed."

The priest bowed more deeply again without saying anything and turned around and then left the room.

The high inquisitor creased his brows for a moment, but then continued browsing his reports as he had before.

----

A few days later Kaden was traveling towards western Saint Empire shoreline. It was still long travel there and he was just barely out of Centralean Forest and was in the human territory. Kaden was intending to eventually make his way to Brit, but not right away. There was no need to rush.

The trip to the remnant with the church had not been a complete waste of time. Even if Kaden didn't gain much of any concrete benefits, the situation he was in had changed significantly. He could act by himself for a while. As for what he would tell the military when someone asks where he disapeared on his own. An excuse could be crafted.

"Perhaps I could say I was injured?" Kaden muttered to himself as he rushed through the forest. "Once I'm done, I could easily come back and say that I survived by chance, but was heavily injured. Then I hid myself to heal. Very believable."

It wasn't perfect, but would get him out of trouble. There might be some consequences, but nothing he couldn't deal with. There was no reason to return to Corand and be supressed by the nobles again. He also had plans to cultivate too. A remnant to search through. Perhaps hunting some people from Sacronan's side who should just die. Like Juren or Maren, the monk.

"So many choices again", Kaden continued thinking. His career at the military had been useful and could likely still be used, but it did reduce his freedom. "Once I get strong enough, I'll separate myself from them. I won't need them at that point."

That time wasn't yet, though, but neither did he exactly require them all the time. Kaden had grown a lot over the last few years. Going solo for a while was a good idea.

Kaden only knew where he wanted to go to. What to do in between was in question.

"I think I'll take my time", Kaden thought to himself. "I'll take a few stops and cultivate. I have a bit of Weils with me. His flesh with high mana content will be a boon to me. I can also take a better look at what I got from the remnant."

There was in fact a good place to stop. Kaden knew the area from seeing maps and there was a town nearby, within less than a day travel. It was a good place to stop for a while.

Indeed, later that day, Kaden walked into the town with very little notice. He was even hiding his appearance this time.

He got a room from a local inn and prepared to cultivate. Kaden put up a few simple temporary formations to block anyone from spying on him and also a few protective layers. Whatever happened in the room would stay there leaving no sign that anything strange had happened.

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It had been a while since Kaden had last progressed. With the materials available, he expected to have good progress this time. He did lack fire or wind type mana to feed to his core, but pure refined mana still remaining in Weils's flesh would be good. Kaden fully expected his human side to get to roughly same level as his beast side.

"If I'm lucky, I might even get both close to next stage! Flesh from a Condensation stage expert is no joke", Kaden thought to himself as he pulled out the parts from his bag. Specifically the arm.

Condensation stage was the time when cultivation progressed by compressing more and and more mana into yourself. It was beyond anything Formation stages had.

As Kaden was burning the arm, he pondered whether he should use Devour or actually eat it. The stentch of burning flesh was making him feel peckish. He could imagine the wondrous mana in it and how it would mix with the charred smoldering meat.

"Devour is probably more efficient", Kaden muttered to himself. Despite being aware of this, he still nibbled on the fingers.

Almost immediately a rush of mana spread through his body. While it was still small amount, the density was high. Perhaps, if he had been weaker, the tiny, yet dense, mass of mana would have wreaked havoc doing so. Since it was just a small piece, Kaden's core quickly dragged in the mana. While doing so, the mana system also did its work and sent quite a bit of the mana into Kaden's internal formation.

The difference was like having a cup of water and drink it. The flesh from Weils was like that water in the cup was frozen solid and attempting to swallow that one solid piece in one go.

"I have to take this slowly", Kaden thought. "Weils was no weakling. If I take too much, it might be a problem."

Afterwards, despite his desire to eat more, Kaden used Devour. As expected, the effect was better and the mana was easier to control and it was absorbed quicker.

Kaden felt slight bit of disapointment. Imagine having extremely tasty food in front of you, but you have to consume it in a way that you won't get to taste it. Kaden pushed these feelings aside. What mattered was strength. Flesh from someone at Condensation stage was rare. It would be best to use it as efficiently as possible.

He began to carefully, piece by piece, Devouring the flesh from the arm. It did not take long for Kaden to gather enough mana together to expand and extend his internal formation further from the main formation. Towards the end of the Formation stage, these smaller lines would extend everywhere. It would be possible to start condensing and controlling mana all over the body, breaking into Condensation stage.

For Kaden there was still obviously a lot of work to do to reach that far, but with the mana he had now, he easily took the step into the mid Formation stage!

Seeing how his internal formation grew, he also got more inspiration on how to upgrade his mana system. There was always something to upgrade. He just had to discover it.

"There is still the leg left", Kaden muttered to himself. "Getting to mid Formation stage was easy. I have been cultivating just with mana system for quite a while. I doubt the next step will be as easy. I think I should let my current success to stablize a bit before I use the leg."

Kaden decided to wait. There was no need to rush. He had just extended his internal formation a bit and he wanted them to solidify properly. Only then perhaps put his own adjustments in. He would want to be ready before he would see how far Weils's leg would take him.

Therefore Kaden continued cultivating with his mana system and observing the changes. Additionally, his human and beast side were roughly on the same level now. The beast side had not progressed. Core seemed a bit brighter with the extra added mana, but it did not progress. Like usually, it just consumed all mana thrown into it like a bottomless pit.

Purified mana from humans, in this case Weils's arm, was very good, but directly absorbing the right types of mana was still better. Whether or not Kaden found such sources, his mana system was doing the job for him slowly, but surely.

By next morning, Kaden left the inn he had been staying in without attracting any attention. Any signs of whatever happened in the room was gone along with the formations Kaden had arranged.

Since he was going to go on a relatively lengthy trip, Kaden went to look for things to refill his supplies. While the town lacked wide range supply when compared to Corand, Kaden was able to find some basic things.

While he was doing this, he happened to notice someone he did not expect to see.

"Is that Nelsen?" Kaden thought to himself and took a few steps to side in an attempt to not be noticed. "What is he doing here? He should be at Corand dealing with repercussions of protecting Erral. There is almost no chance he is in this random town by chance."

To begin with, Kaden did not wish to be noticed right then. It would make his excuses far more difficult. There was also no telling why Nelsen was there. It surely wasn't a coincidence.

"He has to be here because I am here", Kaden continued his thoughts as he took another direction moving away from Nelsen and where he was going. "This is far from the sect of Awu and the remnant. Nelsen shouldn't even know I am here. How and why is he looking for me?"

This was bad. Kaden was sure of it.

"Could it be that I left behind some clue regarding Erral?" Kaden thought as he made his way out of the the town. "What else could it be?"

Kaden picked up the pace once a bit further out of the town.

"...", Kaden was silent as he pondered the matter. "Oh well, I'll just kill him, if I need to."

It wasn't something Kaden would do casually, though. Even Erral needed to be weakened and ambushed. If Nelsen was there truly for him and had some reason to suspect him, he would be prepared and surely as prepared as he could.

No, it was not something Kaden wanted to do, but in life there are things one has to do, even if they don't want to. If possible, Kaden wanted to evade Nelsen, but he was no stranger to doing what needed to be done.

If Nelsen was going to be an obstacle, the course of action was clear.

Obstacles needed to be removed.