After thinking about what the man said and considering the numerous questions for a while, he said, "You don’t have to worry about me. I know what I was doing when I came here."
His answer was very unsatisfactory for the death cultivator. But the man didn’t complain anymore.
He just complained and said, "At least, you’re rank 6. So you won’t drag us down too much."
"We are also short of one more person and have been waiting for more than 5 years for you to come along. So even if you’re not good enough, I have to be satisfied."
He seemed to be thinking aloud or talking to himself when he said this. Loki thought that this was the case because the man wasn’t looking at him when he spoke. Instead, the man was looking into the distance with an unfocused gaze.
After convincing himself to accept Loki, he turned to Loki and said, "I am Nether Flame. I will be your partner on this mission."
"I won’t ask for much from you. I only hope that you won’t stab me in the back or something."
As if he suddenly remembered something, he said with uttermost seriousness to Loki, "I hope that you didn’t sign up for this mission so that you can use it to kill us when we have been weakened by the enemy. I’m telling you now to get that idea out of your head."
While he was speaking, the way he looked at Loki changed. For the first time since they met, he began looking at Loki like Loki was a threat.
His eyes had become firm and assessing as his gaze roamed across Loki’s body. It seemed that the possibility that Loki might use this mission to attack him made him decide to take Loki seriously.
In response, Loki chuckled and said, "I may be fresh, but I am not that stupid. I know the rules. If I want to kill you, I need to prepare 4,550 divine merit points."
"I’m new, and I don’t have that many divine merit points. I also don’t want to be enslaved by the sect, so you don’t have anything to worry about me regarding stabbing you in the back."
Nether Flame didn’t seem to believe him completely. He relaxed when he heard Loki’s reply, but he still believed that Loki was new and was prone to doing stupid things, so he didn’t let down his guard completely around Loki.
But he did nod and say, "I hope you meant it. Anyway, that is enough for an introduction. Let’s go and meet the rest of the party. Then we can go."
With that said, he turned to leave. Loki immediately followed behind him.
After a while, Loki caught up to him and flew side by side with him. As they flew past the ring, Loki said to him, "We are leaving just like that? I thought we had to wait for the others. Am I the last one?"
Nether Flame was still salty that his partner was going to be a weak noob, so he wasn’t enthusiastic about Loki’s question. But Loki’s question was related to the mission, so for the sake of the mission, he decided to reply.
He sighed and said, "Yes, you’re the last one. I’ve been waiting 5 years for you. Our other partner has been waiting for 11 years for this."
This made Loki say, "Wow. That’s a long time to wait for a mission. I wonder why this was the case."
What he said made Nether Flame look at him weirdly as he said, "We had to wait that long because no one was signing up for the mission. No one is signing up because outpost missions are the most dangerous kinds of missions."
"Outpost missions are so dangerous that the sect only holds one of them at a time. Until an outpost mission is completed, another one can’t start. Meanwhile, there are many other kinds of sect missions held at the same time."
"No one wants to sign up for something where they are most likely to do. Yet, here you are. You are new and untested and weak, yet you are quick to sign up for the most dangerous mission."
Loki didn’t take what he said seriously and instead said with a joking tone, "Here I thought that the mission to infiltrate other sects to help with stealing their pathways was the most dangerous one. Looks like I was wrong and had misjudged the situation."
Of course, he hadn’t misjudged the danger. The infiltration mission is the most dangerous sect mission, not the outpost creation mission. Nether Flame knew this and couldn’t dispute it.
But Nether Flame also knew that Loki had said what he said to tell him that he was overreacting. Since he was sure that Loki was an inexperienced and ignorant newbie, he knew that nothing he could say was going to convince Loki of the danger that he signed up for.
With this on his mind, he decided to let Loki see the danger for himself instead of wasting his time and energy trying to convince Loki of the danger.
He indicated as much by saying, "Seeing is believing. When we get to Oceania, I hope that you can continue to be jovial like this."
Then he became silent.
He was thoroughly defeated on the matter of the inexperience of his new partner and had accepted his fate. What he wanted now was to consider his plans in silence. But Loki didn’t plan to travel in silence.
Loki started by saying, "There is something I want to know. How much do rank 7 cultivators pay for their life-leech?"
Nether continued to look ahead as he said, "I don’t know."
Loki responded with a tone full of disbelief as he said, "I see. That sounds reasonable."
Then he asked, saying, "What is the limit of the size of the Cave Heaven for rank 7 divine beings?"
Without missing a beat, Nether Flame said, "I don’t know."