Jack had long designed his plans for the far future. In general, protagonists are the key to advancing quickly; he has already located another protagonist but has been unable to obtain him until now.
The one he saw was on an island close to the South Appel Continent; as far as Jack discovered, his cheat should be extremely overpowered.
So far, Jack has been quite lucky. In just a few centuries, he encountered two protagonists; that is very fortunate. He discovered the first protagonist through a system task that was issued to him, but for this one in the South Appel, he discovered it thanks to the puppet.
The puppet was a perfection level powerhouse; even with its divine sense not spread out, it could know a lot about 100 geographical ranks.
Because of its preoccupation with finding possible protagonists, its brain's calculative ability has been used up almost entirely. Still, Jack knows discovering protagonists is more important, so he is fine with it.
Even though Jack knew the new protagonist's location, he could not find obtain him for a long time. Too many perfection cultivators were paying attention to the North Apple, and if any of them found out about the protagonist, things would have gotten ugly fast.
The other perfection cultivators surely kept an eye on the puppet and the entire continent; The risks were high. One may think those old perfection cultivators are peaceful and won't move, but that is a grave mistake; if they find anything that can help their path to immortality, they will fight for it tooth and nail.
After a few centuries, however, those old monsters finally started diverting their attention away.
But even now, he cannot just order the puppet to teleport and get the protagonist; such a decisive move would definitely alert those old monster perfection cultivators.
But violence isn't the only way. Jack is not extremely rich; he has the entire wealth of the four great sects, the Brown dynasty, and the Blood Sea inheritance.
Using his wealth, it shouldn't be impossible to solve it without violence. Money matters even in an immortal world; the rich have it easy, no matter the world.
If he succeeds, he can get the protagonist without war, with minimal exposure.
Fortunately, the protagonist had quite a high defense, so even though hundreds of years passed, he is still alive and well, completely unharmed.
Well, at least physically unharmed.
…
People don’t understand how serious solitary confinement is; there are horror stories of people spending years, even decades in solitary.
Basically, as long as one has a reasonably healthy brain, one needs interaction with other human beings or at least with other living things. Solitary does not directly harm one physically but could make one go crazy.
But those are decades; what if someone spends centuries in solitary?
That is what happened to Cedric.
He used to be a young man who, while not so right in the head, was a game developer, a functioning, successful human being.
A few centuries ago, he suddenly ended up in this new world; just as he was experimenting with his new cheat, some random, extremely powerful cultivator came and caught him.
At first, Cedric didn’t quite get the gravity of the situation; he thought that his defense, unimaginably huge HP bar, and amazing recovery ability would force the cultivator to come and negotiate.
He was wrong.
The cultivator experimented on him for several years, then left completely, forgetting about him.
He has been imprisoned in a space as large as his body for hundreds of years; he cannot move his fingers or even scream.
It is like putting someone in a coffin and burying them, but it's worse. At least the person in the coffin dies; Cedric, however, had an amazing recovery. Even though he had no air to breathe, his recovery passively healed him and kept him alive. He has been in a state of suffocation all the time he has been here.
But that is not all.
Cedric was not originally a powerful cultivator; he was just an ordinary person with good equipment. When he was imprisoned in this space, he gradually became more and more hungry until the hunger began consuming his muscles; such lack of nutrition could even be fatal.
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Fortunately, or unfortunately for him, his healing equipment considered anything that harmed him, including muscle loss, an 'injury'. His passive healing ability healed all 'injuries' that appeared as a result of his hunger. The healing ability, however, didn’t solve his hunger situation; he remained max hungry, with no way to alleviate it or stop it for centuries.
In simple words, whenever his HP decreased, the healing ability started working and healing him.
Because of this amazing recovery, he couldn’t even faint.
There is also the issue of not having any space for peeing and pooping. One cannot keep them in for long because it would harm the body; kidneys and intestines could be damaged if one tries. But, as before, Jack had passive healing, so no matter how much damage, it would heal as soon as it started affecting his HP.
As a result, he also kept his pee and poo for centuries.
In short, even the worst hell may not be as bad as what Cedric has been through.
What does such torture do to one's state of mind? Short answer: absolute destruction.
Cedric gave up on resistance after a single month in this state; back then, he decided to confess to everything if the cultivator ever allowed him to speak.
Unfortunately, the cultivator always experimented on him, attacked him, trying to break his defense, but never allowed him to speak.
Cedric couldn’t even surrender.
It was as if the other side didn’t see him as a living being at all.
At first, he tried finding a way to use his developer system, but no matter what he did, he needed to move his fingers to code; no matter how hard he tried, he failed to type with his mind.
Not even his cheat helped him.
He had quite a few thousand brain and heart strokes because of the massive stress and anxiety, depression, etc, but unfortunately for him, they were all healed up.
As time went on, he began getting used to his situation.
After the first year, he began doubting whether he had ever had any life outside this eternal darkness.
After five years, he was finally sure he had never had any life; he just imagined things. He became sure it was always like this; this darkness was always all he had, all that there was.
After ten years, he forgot everything outside this darkness.
After twenty years, he stopped thinking, only staring at the eternal darkness without any activity in his brain.
After a hundred years, he was physically in excellent shape, with his HP full, but in his brain, it was no different than a person in a vegetative state; there was no thinking happening up there.
After two hundred years, his situation was the same; it was him, but only his shell; his HP was full, so his healing ability didn't change anything.
After three hundred years, his situation was far beyond any hope. Even if the guardian, the cultivator who caught him, frees him, he would just drop to the ground; he is like a brain-dead person.
It's not like there is no way to help him; some spells can remove memories. If someone accurately wipes out all the last three hundred years with a spell, Cedric would return to his past self. But that is not easy; no spell would work for him because of his defensive equipment.
So, unless someone could break through his defense, it would be impossible for any spell to work on him. The armor blocks all spells, even positive ones. In the games, players could form alliances; allies can cast spells on their teammates without armor blocking them. It's a pity for him that the alliance system didn’t come into this world. There are two sides to everything; even though the armor was extremely helpful, it also blocked spells designed to help.
Finally, after four hundred years, a man started to look at Cedric's seal again.
…
The guardian sighed as he looked at one of his failed experiments.
He researched this 'thing' a lot but failed to understand exactly how a 'thing' with no cultivation base could be so tough. He drew up and crafted all kinds of powerful formations, even getting the help of his entire dynasty and empire, but no matter what, they couldn’t even scratch this 'thing.'
Seeing he could not make any breakthrough, he put it away a few centuries ago and gave up on it.
A few days ago, some people from the North Appel Continent came and offered him a void soul puppet in exchange for this 'thing.' At that time, the guardian was extremely surprised; after all, all of these events happened hundreds of years ago, and nobody knew about them.
In any case, the other side had two soul transformation cultivators, so even though he was very wary, he didn’t react in a way that could provoke them.
Honestly, the guardian was not opposed to selling this 'thing.' In any case, he left it here with no plan to research it again.
But that doesn't mean he would sell it for a void soul puppet; after all, two soul transformation cultivators from another continent bothered to travel here for this 'thing', so its worth was definitely very high.
After days of haggling, they finally agreed on a price: One soul transformation puppet, 100 billion high-grade energy crystals, and knowledge regarding Blood Dao.
Those prices were unimaginably high for something unknown, but the other side accepted it. Their acceptance caused the guardian to hesitate about selling it, but again, he was one person, while the other side had at least two soul transformation cultivators. They were willing to pay so much, which means they wanted it badly; even though the guardian had a home-ground advantage, he was not confident of fending off two soul transformation cultivators.
By observing them for these few days, he was sure if he refused, they would not leave; they would resort to violence.
He agreed to the deal, which was a big win for him. The soul transformation puppet itself was more valuable than everything on this continent.
Sighing again, he picked up the yellow-colored rock seal and moved out of the room.
…
Master Stormy was relieved; she was worried that the guardian might not agree to the deal. Fortunately, he agreed. If he didn’t, they were ordered to get it by force; who would like to fight a cultivator of the same realm, especially on someone else's orders?
Looking at the first elder of the Brown Dynasty, who failed in his breakthrough a few centuries ago, Master Stormy said, "What does senior brother think is sealed inside?"
The first elder said, "Junior sister, it's better that we don’t know!"
Master Stormy smiled self-deprecatingly and nodded.
Indeed, sometimes, knowing these things can cost them their lives. Thinking of their miserable state, becoming slaves to others, both became dark; they increased their speed, intending to deliver this seal, whatever it is, to Jack as soon as possible.