After a few days of continuous search for a town, Ming Li caught sight of many seekers in a certain mountain. When he followed where those seekers came from, he found a town just below the mountain.

This town was surrounded by mountains and was bustling with people. Some people were even flying around and many were doing transactions even outside the town. Ming Li's eyes shone with delight as he approached the town. There, he saw the name of the town written on a gigantic boulder. "Ten Mountain Valley". 

Immediately, he entered the town looking for demon's grace. He has never touched or seen demon's grace after the war, so his thirst for it was greater than ever. Also, his excitement to use the skill from the puppet triggered him to buy more than necessary.

This time he bough around two hundred demons grace and some other plant to be used to make demonic nature's dew with all of his soul ore. He does not care how much he spent, he only wanted to buy as much as he can and as fast as possible.

After spending all of his hard earned soul ore from killing people in the war, his eyes turned bloodshot, his breathing was rugged and his hands were trembling as if he did something extremely regretful but at the same time fulfilling. Only one word could explain his actions and that was addiction.

Without further delay, he proceeded outside the town and looked for a cave to stay. Currently, he was too poor to even afford a room. However, he does not care at all; the only thing in his mind was to use the skill the puppet was talking about, and to increase his level and possibly enter the soul realm.

Breathing ruggedly, he called the puppet and presented it thirty demon's grace. Its eyes shone greedily, but quickly faded away as it said "This is not enough to activate my almighty skill."

Ming Li then clicked his tongue as he tapped his cube and pulled out twenty more demons grace. The puppet then looked at the demons grace intensely as if it wants to collect them, but after a while, it moved backward a bit and said "Still not enough."

"But that's all I have." Ming Li looked at the puppet with a pleading expression.

The puppet looked at Ming Li with discerning gaze as if it was trying to guess if Ming Li was lying or not. In the end, it still said "Nope really, I can't do it with this much."

With the expression of the puppet, he was now sure that if the puppet is in the book, it could not see or hear the things happening outside. It could only probably hear his voice if he was speaking with it.

Being sure his lies are working, he then sighed and pulled out five more demon's grace, and claimed, "This is really everything I have. No more no less."

After seeing only five more demon's grace added, the puppet seemed to be suspicious of Ming Li, so it replied "No, That's not enough."

Ming Li's expression turned disappointed as he looked at the demons grace and made them float slowly towards him while saying "Alright, since it's useless, lets forget about everything. I think I don't need that skill afterall. So I'll just take all of this back."

The puppet's eyes went wide as it shouted "NO!". Then cleared its throat as its behavior became nice. "Alright, I think I can find a way to use that much for the skill."

Ming Li's eyes flashed with joy as he thought "A stupid puppet like you can't steal from me!"

When the puppet held the demon's grace, it was filled with exhilaration as it floated around seemingly happy of what it got from Ming Li.

It then started chewing the demon's grace while making clanking sounds. Ming Li's eyes went wide when he saw this. The puppet was actually eating the demons grace instead of absorbing the energy from it like what a human would do.

Slowly, it bit the demon's grace and chewed it with pleasure as it floated around seemingly unconcerned with its surroundings. After several hours of pleasure, all the demons grace were consumed, and it burped out loudly feeling completely satisfied. Then it yawned while floating towards Ming Li's cube as if it was going to sleep.

Ming Li noticed the act of the puppet and immediately blocked its path then said "So can you enlighten me on the skill now, so I can use it?"

The puppet then shifted his gaze away from Ming Li trying to act as if he does not want to do what Ming Li was saying. 

"Seems like you are useless afterall, I guess that's the last demonic energy you will get."

Immediately, the puppets gaze shifted back to Ming Li as it touched Ming Li's forehead and an enlightenment suddenly occured to him.

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Quickly, he waved his hands making the man he recently captured to appear, and he slowly touched its head where a strange light appeared on the man's eyes. 

When the strange light vanished, the man slump to the ground unconscious. Ming Li then smiled viciously and walked away with the puppet, leaving the man all alone as he murmured I'll name you Sappy.

...

After a some time, the man woke up with a strong pain in his head, his vision was a bit blurry, but in only a few breaths it slowly came back to normal. When he can to his senses, he thought deeply why he was in such a place, but all he could remember was him looking for the man who killed their young master.

He thought deeply but got nothing. He even meditated to recover his seemingly lost memory on why he was in his current location. But, he still got nothing. Without anything coming to him, he gave up and thought that he might have been attacked secretly and was left alive in this area. 

As he glanced around, he noticed that the place was familiar, so he stood up and floated in the air, then shot towards the north. On a cave not far away from the man, Ming Li sat crossed legged with closed eyes while smiling.

"This skill is so great. I can actually see and feel what he does, even though I cant see his thoughts, this is still a great skill! As what the puppet said, he has no idea he is being controlled! The only downside is that it consumes a lot of demon's grace to activate!"

Ming Li followed the man by foot - running - as he continuously observed his movements. The man directly went back to his tribe where Ming Li stopped several kilometers away. It was several day's travel by foot to get view of the place, which was located at a gigantic river that almost closely resembled a sea.  A land mass was formed at the center of the river, which the current was varying at different portion. It was so random that it was unpredictable and impossible to cross by swimming because of this current. 

Above the river, the space was blurry; it was as if space alterations were happening to it nonstop. It was as if anything that gets in it would be either torn to shreds and be transported to unknown location. Ming Li shivered by the sight of it, he knew that with his current state, he would be severely injured by the space fluctuations in the area. Even the water below could also turn his body into mince meat if he was caught in the random current.

Strangely, at the center of the river there was an island that was not affected by all the space distortion. Even the path towards the island was safe against the distortion. The water on the path was also extremely calm as if it was not flowing.

Sappy floated using the path Ming Li was observing to go to the island. It seemed like the path was actually safe for anyone to pass through, it was as if the laws of the path was completely different from its surroundings.

Ming Li gleamed with excitement on what he will find inside the island. The island itself seemed majestic. Being able to see inside of it seemed like a thing not anyone can accomplish.

When Sappy was almost at the island, there were several seekers floating about and sparring. Some were simply sitting crossed legged above the water meditating. The whole atmosphere seemed like a sect, however, all of the people of the tribe have noticeable similarities regarding their facial features.

"Hu Quan Have you found him!?" A voice echoed out from a tower not far away. The tower was made of wood, but it still span extremely high which made it stand out from all of the buildings near it.

Sappy shuddered involuntarily as he said "Senior Hu Shoushan, I apologize, but I failed to find the culprit."

The wooden tower shook as violent murderous aura erupted from it. Sappy's face went pale as his body felt as if it will explode from the murderous aura. The seekers walking and flying near it also trembled in fear, as the backed away from the tower trying not to look towards it.

With the murderous aura increasing, another voice resounded from a far away tower saying "Calm down brother Shoushan. Hu Quan will be punished severely for allowing your son to be killed, but it is not right to attack him like that."

"Brother Hu Tao! How could I calm down after receiving the news that my son died! Also, these idiots allowed him to die while coming back to the tribe with their bodies fully intact and with only slight injuries!" The murderous aura erupted violently making Sappy cough out blood as he slowly descended downward.

"I assure you that we will find the murderer of your son and make him suffer." Hu Tao said in a comforting tone.

"Alright, but bring him to me alive!" Then the murderous aura in the tower slowly faded as the two voices also stopped talking.

Ming Li from far away was staring wide wide eyes from what he heard. He does not know if he should cry to laugh at what happened to the young master of the tribe. The words spoken made him realize how important was the person he killed.

"I really screwed up this time!"

From the aura at the towers. it was obvious that those two already reached Soul Ascension and probably at the peak of it. Which means he could die any moment those people found out his whereabouts.

With this, he hid deeper into the cave while murmuring "Why the hell did that idiot die easily."

Several seekers flew in Sappy's location and grabbed him, then sent him to a secluded location where four more seekers were kneeling in front of giant stone carving of a river where an exquisite sculpture of a deity can be seen at the top of the river.

All of the seekers kneeling in front of it were pale faced and trembling as if they were asking for forgiveness on a crime that they did. Behind them, there stood a tall man who was more than 2 meters in height and was at the early stages of soul ascension realm.

This man we constantly putting pressure at the kneeling seekers, and a water whip materialized by the man seemed to be constantly hitting them at their back which caused miserable shrieks to be heard. 

Sappy trembled at the sight of people, he knew that the punishment would be severe so he did his best to look for Ming Li, however he failed. Also, this was only the first part of the punishment, most people who committed grave crimes would die from the five punishment of the tribe for severe crimes.

"Arrgg! Divine deity we apologize for allowing a direct bloodline to perish in battle!" 

As he was dragged towards the seekers he heard this words as they were being whipped viciously by the tall seeker.