Ken observed Tiara's battle, silently acknowledging her prowess as the second strongest in the group. With her enemies momentarily frozen in a solid wall of ice, Tiara seized the opportunity and swiftly eliminated one opponent with a simple swing of her saber.
'Her power must stem from her manipulative nature. She probably gained many benefits from others in the Phoenix Feather Sect,' Ken thought to himself.
Meanwhile, Daisy and Bryce, in perfect sync with each other, confronted four enemies with unwavering concentration. Their years of camaraderie and shared experiences in battle allowed them to move as one unit.
Armed with her spear infused with Wind Qi, Daisy executed her technique, Gale Thrust. She unleashed a flurry of rapid thrusts, each strike sending a sharp wave of Wind Qi. Her opponents struggled to defend against her spear's swift movements, accumulating wounds and cuts.
Bryce, wielding his weapon infused with Club Qi, tapped into the power of his technique, Stone Spikes. With a heavy swing of his club, he sent shockwaves rippling through the ground, causing spikes to come out of the ground.
Their four enemies tried using their techniques to block the duo, but their teamwork wasn't as polished as the pair's. The first one to kick the bucket was a woman after her Darkness Qi dissipated from Daisy's wind, and a stone spike stabbed her feet, making her unable to dodge Bryce's incoming club.
One by one, the evil cultivators fell. Ken killed his enemies first, but he only watched the others fight without intervening. He wanted to see their strengths and weaknesses through the battle. Tiara finished second, showcasing her exceptional strength given her origins from a weaker sect.
"Good job, everyone. You could've helped us finish faster though."
Daisy's remark was met with silence as everyone collected their spoils of battle and enjoyed the sudden surge of BP into their tokens. Their previously dim tokens now emanated a strong bloodlust.
"Junior Brother Ken, how do you hide your token's bloodlust? I can feel a powerful bloodlust from it whenever you use a technique, but it's gone right after."
Daisy was the only one who asked Ken questions. Tiara was nearly always silent, while Bryce still feared their leader.
"I have a special technique for it and I'm not sharing it."
Ken simply told the truth and denied any possible request to teach it to them. His Sheathed Man technique was canceled every time he used a technique, so he nearly never used one. He only used techniques as instant killing moves, and when fighting with monsters, he never showed any.
"Stingy."
Daisy spat that word out with an exasperated tone and returned to organizing the loot from the fallen evil cultivators.
Meanwhile, Ken just put the rings in his pocket and went to a man lying down, almost unconscious. It was a young man wearing white robes with the symbol of a sword on his shoulder. The man's token was empty, showing that he transferred his BP to someone else.
'Now, let's see who this man is. He doesn't seem like he was part of the group.'
Ken shoved a Healing pill and a Qi Absorption Pill into his mouth. Ken felt that the man's Qi was depleted, and his core was on the verge of cracking. The man's eyes were slowly regaining their focus, and Ken fed him with an additional pill, the Core Expanding Hastening Pill.
Although the original goal of this pill was to help the core expand by absorbing more Qi from the body, Ken noticed that the main danger for this man was how dry his core was. With the aid of the pill, his core could refill itself with Qi faster.
'He should be fine now. He just needs to rest for an hour or two before I can ask him what's going on.'
From the young man's discipleship token, he learned that his name was Alaric \, and he was indeed a core disciple of the Divine Sword Sect.
While Alaric was recuperating from his wounds, Ken took out all the stuff he deemed as garbage from the evil cultivators' rings and placed the rest into his.
'I should decide what to do with those three. They don't know much about my techniques, but it's better to get rid of them. I like Daisy, but I don't want to get attached to someone again. She also has principles and is probably loyal to her sect, so we aren't compatible to become companions.'
Ken pondered about his next actions while looking at Bryce and Daisy. He was delaying it for later since he enjoyed the woman's company, but he knew it'd be worse the longer he dragged it out. If she stayed by his side for long, she'd eventually know his secrets. If she knew his secrets, he'd have to either let her stay by his side or kill her.
As for Bryce, the man originally planned to kill him. He didn't have to think twice to decide the man's fate, regardless of how well-behaved he acted later.
'I can't leave her here. If there are more such teams lurking, she will die before she gets to the final boss, and she won't be able to defeat the boss by herself. To get out of here, she must reach the last room first.'
With a sigh, he decided to part with her only after they make it to the last room and defeat the final boss. As for the other two teammates, he still had plans for someone as corrupt as Tiara, and Bryce was sentenced to death long ago in his mind.
"Hello, Alaric, seems like you woke up. Take it easy, we saved you."
Two hours later, when Alaric opened his eyes with a groan, he saw a group of four people looking at him. The speaker was a young woman with long brown hair that seemed to be flowing on her back to her buttocks.
"Who are you?"
Alaric asked suspiciously. He didn't trust a single soul in this secret realm anymore.
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