Sage only learned that there was more to the Ghostwood after Voctem died. At the same time, he was also wary of the strange tree as he now knew there was far more to it than they’d first realized. Since Voctem tried to use it as an escape method, than it could really be used by others to enter or leave the Inner World. This meant that it was imperative that Sage take control of it so others couldn’t use it without his permission. The only problem was that he wasn’t sure how deep the connection with the Ghostwood went.
“You’re already working for me. Are you planning to get more into debt for this answer?”
“Oh? Then that means the Ghostwood won’t take over my mind, or you’ve already got a prior contract with the Ghostwood so it doesn’t matter when it does take control. Thanks for narrowing it down.”
Sage tried to ask Guan Zhenyan, but even now the man wouldn’t do anything without proper remuneration. Even so, the fact that Zhenyan didn’t immediately try to stop him from contracting the Ghostwood meant it was not that dangerous, or at least the move would still be beneficial for him. Sage still didn’t rush to action. Without any comprehensive information on the Ghostwood, he wasn’t going to form any connections to it. There was subtle confirmation that it wouldn’t control him, but there was still the chance it might come with great drawbacks. There was no telling how much of Count Voctem’s weirdness was caused by the Ghostwood. It wouldn’t surprise him if Guan Zhenyan wanted him to use the Ghostwood so that he could offer a solution to the drawbacks it caused.
Sage tried to meet with Tao Ba, but recently the pot-bellied boy hadn’t been meeting with him. Ever since that time when the Universe Ring was damaged, Tao Ba had no longer been acting so friendly with him. Tao Ba didn’t specifically seem angry with him, but Sage got the feeling that Tao Ba got scolded. It felt like he was getting freebies from a store employee, but now that employee got in trouble from his boss and now he got no freebies. Sage couldn’t really be mad about this change, but the problem was that he didn’t have other avenues for obscure knowledge.
I’m in the Tianxia Capital, they’ve got to have options here, right?
With this idea, Sage stopped on the next of the ‘main’ levels to gather information. It was quite common for every tenth floor to have information booklets about everything going on ten floors above and below them. The local residents didn’t want to travel too far for advertising, and every tenth floor seemed to be able to report to the next hundredth floor. He also found out that the hundredth floors reported to the thousandth floors, who in turn reported to the ten thousandth floors.
Sage went to the nearest hundredth floor to gain information on the prior and upcoming hundred floors to search for places with obscure information about high level materials. Most information related businesses were related to espionage and not pure knowledge or learning. They collected information that could be used for business deals or about specific individuals for those who might want revenge against them. Most pure knowledge was hoarded by organizations to be used by its own members. It would be much more difficult to find a business dedicated to learning or the sharing of knowledge.
Or at least that’s what Sage thought.
He browsed through the information about the two hundred nearest floors, which essentially listed the name of every business or organization and a short line about what they did or were known for. He saw only a single information dealer on his current level. After heading to the business in question he told them he was looking for information about a specific plant, the Ghostwood. Unfortunately, they were just an espionage style broker as he guessed, but then they surprised him.
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“You need to head to Clear Sky Academy on level twenty thousand. There is an academy every thousand levels, but only a truly powerful one every ten thousand.”
Sage was still a few thousand levels away so he took this new knowledge into consideration and started climbing the levels of the Tianxia Capital once again. He confirmed this information a hundred floors later at another info broker. It was possible that the academy on the next thousand level floor could have what he was looking for, but the issue was that enrolling in an academy was costly. If he had the resources to travel far enough, then he should go to Clear Sky Academy, rather than go to a closer academy that might not have the information he was looking for. It was only a guess on their part, as they had no idea what a ‘Ghostwood’ was. They merely made the note that the Clear Sky Academy had far more rare and obscure information than the more local academies did.
Since he had to climb the tower anyway, Sage agreed with their recommendation and returned to working for Guan Zhenyan while heading upwards. He was quite impressed by the idea that people might travel hundreds of levels to enroll their children into an academy. It would take weeks of travel and tens of thousands of Spirit Stones per person they bring along. There were always parents willing to pay a great price for the change for their children to do better than themselves.
Along the way he stopped at the home of a couple Debtors. One of them was just as easy as the last one. Sage waited patiently for an audience, careful not to reveal his identity. Then, when he had visual confirmation of his ‘target’, he released the team of Poison Mist Sect members while simultaneously setting up a Formation Array to block the Debtor from activating the array within his home. The poor man was trapped by the Expanding Ethereal Chains formation that they released through their Formation Armor and exposed to a poisonous miasma. It was only then that Sage showed Guan Zhenyan’s token and explained the reason for his visit. The poor man was already on the verge of defeat and if he didn’t sign a Blood Contract to immediately pay, he’d be captured.
The man was terrified by the miasma around him and quickly read and signed the contract. As soon as he asked to see the contract the miasma receded and he quickly left to round up his payment. After the contract was signed, Sage wasn’t worried about anything as it specified harsh punishments if his debt wasn’t paid within a few hours. The next debtor was much less fortunate. Sage caught the man while he was leaving a tavern, and just as he separated from his friends, the Purple Mist Sect was waiting for him. Worse yet, they were a little too eager and the slightly drunk man was too confused to understand what was happening. Sage didn’t feel like reasoning with a drunk, so he let the man succumb to the miasma. With his organs failing, the man was incapacitated quite quickly and sent into the Inner World.
Sage cared little about a few healing pills, so they extracted the poison from the man along with the powerful wine that could make a Cultivator drunk. They didn’t bother to heal his injuries yet, as Sage on the Inner World showed him Guan Zhenyan’s token as well as the contract. The man’s storage treasures were already snatched away from him, so he couldn’t heal his own injuries. The storage treasures were locked to the man’s blood, and they also weren’t thieves so they didn’t try to take his belongings randomly. It was only after it was confirmed that the man had no intention of paying that they could take his possessions to pay the debt. This small distinction is all that kept the work Sage was doing from being a crime. Due to the pain and forced purging of his inebriation, the man was quite dizzy and it took him quite a while to finally read through the contract properly.
He was adamant about not signing without proper understanding, which Sage felt was reasonable, but it was also possible the man was just trying to stall. Sage offered healing pills, but the man refused because he was worried it would not just be a healing pill. If that was the case, Sage could have just force fed it to him, but the man was too addlebrained to think things through. Eventually, the man figured things out and signed the contract, at which point he was given his storage treasures and Sage followed him back to his home. Sage could swear he saw tears on the man’s face when he was sorting through his possessions to hand over the payment, but Sage didn’t care. No amount of sympathy would remove the debt owed to Guan Zhenyan. Sage still had an agreement that required Guan Zhenyan’s help and so he had to hold up his end of the bargain.
After the two Debtors, Sage drove up a few hundred more ramps before he finally reached level 20,000 and approached the illustrious Clear Sky Academy.