After seeing the old man’s expression, Daniel could roughly guess what he was thinking. He then said:
“Let’s go.”
No one in the Element Temple could stop Daniel.
“I… I will guide you, Master,” the old man said, rising to his feet.
Although he was severely injured, it was not a fatal wound.
It was something that could be healed with rest and time, and it didn’t affect his core strength.
In this regard, Daniel had held back a little.
Daniel nodded without saying anything.
Behind him, the grand steward shook his head and sighed.
“It’s such an easy problem to solve. Why make it so complicated? If only Element Temple wasn’t so stubborn. Fortunately, Dragonscale Bank has me, or this place would have fallen apart long ago!”
…
The old man led Daniel to a stone tablet.
“This is where the lord usually resides,” the old man explained. He activated his golden law once again. Soon, ripples appeared on the stone tablet.
“Please follow me,” the old man said, stepping forward and disappearing into the ripples.
Daniel and the grand steward followed.
Very soon, a golden grand hall appeared before them.
The entire hall was like a mini world. However, it was already empty, with no one inside.
At this point, the Element Temple’s lord had already left this mini world.
“It seems Master Daniel was right. The Element Temple’s lord, just like our Dragonscale Bank’s chief, must have escaped ahead of time,” the grand steward remarked, looking at the old man.
The old man, too, wore a look of helplessness.
He hadn’t expected the truth to be exactly as Daniel had predicted.
If he had checked earlier, perhaps…
He remembered that Daniel had once said he did not wish to take action against Element Temple at first.
He didn’t want to disrupt the balance of the 1st Realm.
But because of his own impulsiveness, it had led to this result.
The old man was now feeling deeply conflicted.
Daniel didn’t notice the old man’s inner turmoil.
He began searching the grand hall, looking for traces of the lord’s presence to confirm his earlier suspicions.
Sure enough!
After Daniel found the residual aura of the lord and compared it to the five soul forms he had encountered in Voidland, everything aligned perfectly.
The five major forces, five soul forms.
With this confirmation, Daniel knew there was no need to visit the other three places.
The lord must have sensed danger and escaped early through some sort of premonition or danger detection ability.
At this point, Daniel realized that his efforts would be wasted if he went to the other places, as they would likely be empty.
He now needed to change his strategy.
While Daniel was deep in thought, the old man and the grand steward were speaking in low voices.
Suddenly, the old man’s pupils widened, and his face was filled with astonishment.
After a moment, he seemed to let go of the weight in his heart and exhaled deeply.
When Daniel looked back, the old man had already knelt before him.
“I, Element Temple, am willing to serve you, Master Daniel! We will follow you!”
Daniel glanced at the grand steward, then nodded and said, “You handle the matters here. I have other things to attend to.”
With that, Daniel vanished in an instant.
He had already decided.
Since the five figures could sense his approach and escaped early, he would go to a place where these five individuals could not leave.
That place… Voidland.
Daniel recalled seeing a giant snake there.
Just as he was about to investigate, those five soul forms had appeared.
It was clear that the five were deeply concerned about the giant snake.
Since that was the case, they would certainly appear there.
…
Meanwhile, in the far north, within a mini world, five powerful auras were seated.
Two of them were none other than the Dragonscale Bank chief and the Element Temple lord who had escaped.
“Damn it! I can sense that everything I set up in the temple has been erased by that guy! The Tree of Origin is absorbing power at an alarming rate…” one of them growled.
“So soon? In just a few hours, everything we’ve worked for has been completely undone…” another one added.
“Don’t forget, there’s also Karea Academy. While it’s not as strong as us, it’s no slouch either.”
“Damn it! That guy, he won’t come for my empire next, will he?” a muscular man grumbled.
The Dragonscale Bank chief sneered. “I never expected it. After all these years of competition, we’re the ones being outsmarted by a single person. And now we have to hide here.”
The Element Temple lord nodded cautiously. “Before, I had a feeling something was wrong, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. It was as though a fog was blocking my vision.”
“That guy’s rise has been too fast! Even if we had sensed it early, we still wouldn’t have been able to stop him!”
The others nodded in agreement.
Daniel had risen from nothing to where he was now… in just a few years?
They had no idea that if Daniel hadn’t been focusing on cultivating the Tree of Origin, he could have wiped them all out long ago.
“Years ago, I sensed an anomaly like this,” one of them, the only woman in the group, said.
“Years ago? Why didn’t you take action then?!” the burly man asked.
“You think I didn’t try? I used some methods to kill him, and even erased that time from existence,” she replied.
The others were stunned.
“Then why…”
“Later, I realized that the reason I felt something off wasn’t because of the man I killed, but because… he was the father of the person who is now causing us all this trouble!”
“When I killed him, I thought it was over, so I didn’t pay attention after that.”
“At that time, Daniel was just an average person, nothing worth noticing.”
So naturally, they had all overlooked him.
But what they didn’t expect was that a few years after that incident, Daniel began rising at an unbelievable speed. They couldn’t even keep up.
“Sigh… what should we do now?” one of them asked.
Should they just stay hidden here?
That wasn’t a solution!
For so long, they had looked down on the world, thinking it was theirs to control.
But now…
One person—Daniel—had completely disrupted everything, ruining all their plans.
“Damn it! How did that guy, Daniel, rise to this level so quickly?” the muscular man asked, scratching his head. “Even those unknowable beings in God Realm couldn’t have done it this fast.”
“At this point, talking about it is pointless! We need to focus on how to deal with Daniel!” the Element Temple lord said as he produced something from his hand.
“This is something I obtained from Karea Academy before leaving. I found some remnants there. Daniel had once taken action here, destroying a pen.”
In the lord’s hand were some fragments, still carrying the aura of this world.
“This aura…” the others immediately recognized it.
Without a doubt, this was the essence of the world itself!
“Could it be that Daniel’s rise was because the world itself is protecting him?” the Dragonscale Bank chief suggested.
The others thought the same thing.
Yes!
This was the only explanation.
Daniel had been protected by the world, and that was why he could undergo such a terrifying transformation in such a short time.
This was the world’s resistance to their plundering!