He was so impressed with his work that he sighed and said with uttermost sincerity, "I guess, sometimes, I outdo even myself. But what can I say? I am just too talented, so it can’t be helped."
There is no one around to appreciate his work, so if anyone will praise him for what he just did, it has to be him.
It is not a matter of pride, though. At least, that’s what he believes.
He believes that it is a matter of responsibility in that someone has to praise him for his work, and since he is the only one around who can do it, he has to do it.
So if there is anything to be proud of, it is the fact that he possesses the skill needed to tell how impressive the arrangement of the Curse Altar is. After all, not many people possess that skill.
He thought about this as he patted his back. Then he called the fat black worm over.
By this time, the Curse Worm has finished eating all of the materials. So the next step is to help the worm refine the materials.
After the worm crawled over to him, he went over its body checking for damage. He spent quite a while doing this.
Whenever he came across cracks on the body of the worm, he winced in pain as if he were the one whose flesh was cracked. Then he glared in the direction of the three from the Rein Family who were having fun in the distance, hunting slaves.
After glaring at them, he gritted his teeth and said, "This had better be worth it."
Then he got to work refining the material. He did this by widening the mouth of the worm and putting both hands into its guts through the mouth to work on the eaten materials within its stomach.
The fat worm has become fatter after eating all of that material. Its length didn’t increase, though, so it had become more stocky.
When he pried open the mouth of the worm and began working on its stomach, the stocky worm became a large black bucket of materials for him. It was a comical sight.
The death cultivator poured various materials into the stomach of the Curse Worm as he worked. He poured blood, fat, teeth, hair, and many more into the stomach. All of these things helped him to refine the remnants into a more useful form that he can use to curse his targets.
The materials that he used in making this useful form also determine what kind of curse he can execute with the material and what the effect of the curse will be. So this step isn’t one that can be taken lightly at all.
He spent another two hours on this step. By the time he was done, the Rein Family had had their fill of fun and had come over to watch him work.
So they were there to see him pull out a large black candle from the worm. The candle was short, but it was as thick as a tree trunk. It had a wick made of human hair and had white teeth stuck at various portions of its length.
He took out the black candle and placed it carefully beneath the testicles of the human organ arrangement on the white Curse Altar. Blood vessels immediately rose from the white bone altar and attached themselves to the black candle as if it were an organ.
The blood vessels snaked through the black candle and reached all the way to the top. It was only then that they stopped moving.
The death cultivator nodded in satisfaction when he saw this. Then he went back to recover his Crystal Worm.
He carried the black worm and helped it shrink down into a tiny portion. Then he opened his mouth wide and pushed the tiny black worm into it.
He swallowed the tiny worm whole. The three people watching by the side saw the worm wiggle down his throat as a lump that was too large for his throat.
It looked like his throat would break open rather than accommodate the worm. But the death cultivator managed to push the worm down into his stomach without causing visible damage to his throat. The three from the Rein Family thought that this was impressive.
After he had swallowed the Curse Worm, he said to Skarg, "It is ready, and I have good news."
When he heard this, Skarg said, "What good news?"
In response, the death cultivator pointed at the candle as he said, "I have done what you asked. The curse is slow-acting and will get stronger progressively. The curse can also be used to find the person you’re looking for, but there are some caveats."
This made Skarg ask impatiently, "What are these caveats?"
The death cultivator replied, saying, "The location tracking will work only when there is one person left for the kill, and it will only continue to track that person as long as they are alive. If that person can’t hold on anymore, we will be unable to track them."
Skarg nodded in satisfaction when he heard this and said, "You don’t need to worry about that. The person I am aiming for won’t die easily."
But the death cultivator wasn’t done. He said, "One last thing. The longer the curse lasts, the more you will have to pay to keep it active."
This made Skarg frown in displeasure. But before he could complain, the death cultivator said, "I am not doing this to cheat you. It is just that the materials that you gave me to use for the curse are lacking. I have made them work, but they can’t last long."
He pointed at the black candle as he said, "I can let them run their course and run out if you want. But if you want the curse to remain active for a long time, it will cost a lot more resources, which you need to pay for."