A few days passed by quickly and Max was back to his routine of stat maximisation.
Being the only one who was below tier2 amongst all his friends, Max was hell-bent on promoting himself to tier 2 before the expedition to Dragon's Paradise.
If there was one big improvement for Max since the tournament, it was that he had stopped second guessing himself on a lot of decisions.
Max's confidence saw a huge boost once the tournament ended and a big reason for it was the meetings he had with various recruiting officers of various factions.
The minimum offer that Max received was a yearly pay of 4.5 million gold to work as a police captain, while the best offer that he received was of 12 million gold coins a year alongside many other added benefits and resources allocated towards his growth.
Naturally Max did not accept any of these offers, however, he realised that with just about 10 months worth of solid consistent efforts he had changed his fate of being an office clerk working for 25,000 gold coins a year to becoming a man worth 12 million gold coins a year.
Even Though Max was not tier 2, the confidence he gained from going toe to toe with tier 2 warriors and defeating them gave him the confidence in his path as he decided to persevere on it without thinking about short term benefits.
*********
( Meanwhile Sebastian )
" At Least give me some water you fuckers, it's been 5 days since you tied me up " Asmodeus shouted, his body was in a lot of pain at the moment, as although being a demi-god he had a better constitution than mortals and could last 2-3 days without water, it was already day 5 and the dehydration was finally kicking in.
His lips had become dry, his muscles spasmed due to lack of water as his consciousness became blurry.
To make things worse, the church people forcefully fed him the driest of oats and cereals which were difficult to swallow as it is, but impossible to swallow without saliva present in one's mouth.
' The demonic torture of just whipping an enemy is more humane than what these light faction fuckers do '. Asmodeus thought as he cursed the soulmancer young boy for the millionth time in the day.
" I'll kill you …. ". He murmured as he saw the young boy enter his prison cell.
" You can surely try ". The young priest replied cockily, as he was confident in his own abilities to fight demons.
Like everyday, even today the young priest looked into Asmodeus's eyes and into his soul as he tried to weaken Asmodeus's grip over Sebastian's body, chipping away at his soul power bit by bit.
" No - no - agh ". Asmodeus shuddered throughout the session as he felt bits of his priceless and ageless memories, his knowledge, his identity being slowly washed away by the power of the soulmancer.
The pain of the soul, was a thousand times more painful than the pain of the body, and for Asmodeus the loss of his precious knowledge was even more unbearable than the pain of the soul.
Eventually, their session ended as the soulmancer exhausted all his powers and stood up shakily.
" I'll kill you, you bastard, I'll kill you for sure " Asmodeus roared maniacally but the guard slapped his face hard when he tried to bite the young priest, as a handprint became visibly imprinted on Sebastian's face.
" How's the boy's condition? " Gunrir asked, as he was supposed to report on it to Thor today, but looking at the sighing expression of the priest, he understood that it was not good news.
" The grip of the demon on the young master's body has weakened considerably. However, the demon has somehow rendered the young master powerless in his own body as despite the demon being weakened the young master's soul makes no moves to reclaim his body.
I'm afraid even if I forcefully exorcise the demon, the young master will only become a shell of his previous self with how weak his soul is ". The young priest said, as Gunrir shrugged helplessly.
Gunrir did not care too much about the young master, he was loyal to Thor and Thor himself and Thor had hundreds of children and not just one.
If Sebastian could not be saved, he did not really care too much about it and was only following up on him because Thor had asked him to.
Scratching his head, Gunrir asked " Is there no way to save him? "
The young priest replied in a solemn tone " There is a way, but it will require the lord to utilise some divine essence ".
Gunrir paused when he heard the word divine essence.
Divine essence was the most valuable currency of the universe. It was a force like mana that allowed gods to unleash their world shattering tier 6 and higher attacks, and was a stat only exclusive to the gods.
It was valuable because it could not be generated naturally and only generated by mortals in their reverence and worship towards a god.
The reason why god's visited primitive planets and brainwashed entire cultures to worship them was because they wanted them to become a farming colony for their divine essence.
" This…. I don't know, only the lord can decide this ". Gunrir said, as he noted everything the priest had to say and departed to report to Thor.
********
( Meanwhile the red-hand group )
" Your orders sir? ". A mercenary asked Master Of Chaos
The latest intelligence report suggested that a lot of the dragon's paradise slots had been sold to the dark faction members. So much so, that the difficulty of the mission had turned from ' Death can occur ' to ' most likely death '.
Masterofchaos hesitated. Most of the mercenaries going into the dragon's paradise from the red-hand group were either E or D ranked.
Mercenaries of this level were not supposed to be assigned ' Most Likely Death ' missions, but the times were desperate, the dark faction could not be allowed to gain the dragon egg.
' Damn it Thor you money grubber, how can you betray the light faction like this?' Masterofchaos wondered as he cursed Thor.
To him it seemed like it was Thor who approved of these shady dealings, but little did he know that Thor was clueless of everything that happened under his own nose.
That the thunder nation itself had been corrupted from head to toe.
" Prepare for deployment. Open the warehouse, let the participants choose whatever equipment they want.
Send 50,000 gold to each of their families with a promise to send more should they never come back". Masterofchaos said, as he made his decision.
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/// A/N - Bonus chapter for hitting the power stones target, good job everyone! ///