Chapter 360: Pinning Suspicions
For the next four days, the war in the western continent cooled down completely. Sam sent the Barrels of liquid to the remaining cities through the train service and within a week, almost all the cities got the barrels with the liquid and the followers turned into meat on the chopping block for them to kill as easily as they can.
On the fourth day, someone visited Sam's city.
Sam is expecting one of them sooner than this and that person is Arc, but he only came now, but judging from the guest he brought, he could understand the delay.
The guest who came is none other than Moriya, the leader of the Nascent stage cultivators within the thunder god temple.
When Sam got the news that Arc and Moriya both visited, he asked an attendant to direct them to a meeting room within the skyscr.a.p.er.
"Hello, how are you doing?" Sam greeted both of them as soon as he entered the meeting room.
After exchanging some polite pleasantries, Moriya directly came to the point.
"How did you get that liquid?"
"Oh, I made that myself."
"You made it yourselves? But even the Pill masters and the Potion masters of the Six major powers are nowhere near developing a cure for those pills, and from what we know, you are not supposed to be in a health condition good enough to conduct extensive research…"
"So, what do you want to say by pointing out all this? Do you think I stole it from you or do you think I stole the idea from one of your refiners?"
"That's not what I meant…"
"Then what do you mean Mr. Moriya? Just because the people you hired don't have a solution, do you want the rest of the world to be sitting ducks?
Whether you believe it or not, this is something I made with my very own efforts.
Anyway, sometimes it is not necessary to find the cure for the main cause, there are many other ways, if the person who wants a solution is flexible enough."
Sam really became angry at Moriya's question. He doesn't know what he wanted to achieve from asking those questions about how he got his hands on the liquid, it might be trying to pin Sam as an acquaintance of the Old one and make him an accomplice to the war.
This way, according to their plot, Sam would become desperate and deliver all the liquid and recipe for free just to clear his name.
But the thunder god temple or any other power who is behind this clearly underestimated Sam.
Sam stood up from his chair as he adjusted his clothes and said.
"I am sorry. I don't think I can help you with anything and I don't want to help you with anything now that you seem to have some doubts. I hope that you go back and clear your doubts and come back to discuss.
But after this, I highly doubt we have anything useful to discuss between us."
With those words, Sam was about to leave the room, but Arc stopped him and said.
"Sam, I am sure Moriya didn't mean what he said, you can understand the situation, right? Please don't be like that."
Arc then looked at Moriya and tried to gesture something with his eyes.
Sam looked at both of them and said.
"I will give you guys some privacy, while I deal with something. After I come back, we can discuss, that is if we really have something to discuss."
With those words, Sam left the room leaving the duo alone.
"What is wrong with you Moriya?" Arc couldn't hide the frustration in his voice.
Moriya also sighed and said. "What do you want me to do? I have orders to follow."
"I don't know what kind of orders you have and what goals they have in mind, but trust me. Don't try to push your luck too much in front of him. His brain is too sharp and lethal to allow that and you would be creating a new enemy and I don't have to tell you how bad it would be for you to make him an enemy.
Because, I only heard details about the Beast faction, but I am sure you knew more than I do.
Just because, he is away from the scene for a few months, you cannot just forget what he is capable of doing.
In fact, if he really disappeared for a few months, I would bother about what he was planning all this while.
Just give what he wants and take what you need."
Moriya exerted a long sigh.
Even he felt that this whole farce is stupid. His orders are simple and that is to pin some suspicions on Sam.
And why would they do that? To avoid the price they have to pay for what Sam would bring to the war. But that is just plain greed and blatant underestimation of Sam's intelligence.
When he was talking to those higherups there is one thing he noticed from them and that is they are clearly underestimating Sam due to his age and cultivation. Even the loss of the beast faction was simply attributed to the carelessness and stupidity of the Beast faction themselves, Sam's role was downplayed.
And there is one reason for that happening and that is one of the basic qualities of the people, they tend to judge people by their own standards, all the higher-ups have only one thing in mind.
'Will they be able to do that when they were at Sam's age?' when their answer is no, they would think that what happened is a load of bullshit and there is no way to convince their plain stupidity and selective ignorance.
Meanwhile, within the central continent. A group of people is running around and the one in the lead is none other than the former head of the Beast faction, Sanjay's father.
He is leading a group of six transcendent stage cultivators as he explored the central continent bit by bit.
He has been doing this since the day Old one was confirmed to be the leader of the church.
There are four more teams just like this that are sent to the central continent. They are here because they wanted to find the place where the old one and the rest of his team are staying.
The human explored area within the central continent is not vast and the places they had to explore also not enormous.
Apart from that the Fortune tower, which specializes in fortune telling is also trying to see where the future crux of the war lies and where it all starts, but since Old one is too strong, even the tower head of the fortune tower is having a hard time showing an exact location, but he did give an area of manageable space for them to explore.
As for the help of the Seer tower, it was completely out of their hands, more than half of the Seer tower's higher-ups are missing from the Judgement tests. Half of the experts of the Seer tower are in Old one's hands.
Apart from that there more than half of the higher ups of the Space gate association and had too much access to the rest of the world, they knew that it is hard to fight with Old one in this way and they are trying to find his hideout.
There are not many places that are unexplored in the world and except for the central continent, there is no better place for hiding.
As Sanjay's father is searching for the place for a few days, he almost covered the entire region and there is only a small area left for them to search.
After more than an hour, they finally reached a seashore and the scene at the shore shocked him.
There are a lot of followers who are gathered around some platforms on which various people are sitting with their faces covered with golden masks.
There are more than thirty Transcendent stage high priests who are absorbing the strength of the followers one by one.
The followers who are absorbed are turning into undead and all the undead are being sent to various space gates that are near them.
Sanjay's father who is looking at the whole scene from far away is having a hard time digesting the matter.
From what he understood, all these transcendent cultivators are trying to become consummate realm cultivators.
He wanted to make a move and end some of them while, they are still unprepared, but to his dismay, he saw something even more horrible.
There are four people who are wearing the golden masks who came out of the tents and their aura shocked him.
They are all already turned into Consummate realm cultivators.
All this while, they thought that there was only one Consummate realm cultivator and that is why Old one is dragging the battle.
But from the looks of it, he understood that Old one is not looking for an endurance battle. He is just looking for the new followers so that he could successfully ascend the rest of his high priests to become Consummate realm cultivators.
As he was thinking about what sort of consequences they have to face, if this happened, one of the consummate realm cultivators, sensed his presence and looked towards him.
Sanjay's father immediately turned around and started running as he signaled the transcendent realm cultivators who are at the rear to run as well.