"Stop!"Alex ordered.
All the prison guards stopped at his orders but they still kept the same position at the time they had been told to stop.
"Here! Wipeout your soul mark from the Storage ring." Alex threw the ring at Joseph who still held down in the same position.
Joseph grabbed the ring and looked at it hesitantly. He tried injecting Qi into it but not even a drip came out of his body because of the Qi depriving pill.
He could still hear the heavy breathing of the prison guards looking at him expectantly as if saying not to open the ring.
Not wanting to get penetrated, Joseph bit his forefinger from where blood started oozing out and placed it on the ring's surface while closing his eyes.
Five seconds later the outer Interspatial Storage Ring shined with bright red light and then everything became normal.
Joseph looked at the ring as if he had lost connection to it but just after that, the ring was immediately snatched from his hands by one of the Prison guards by his side who then threw it in the direction of his master.
When Alex caught the ring, he poured his spiritual sense inside of it and this time his spiritual sense did not experience any resistance in its way. Soon, Alex marked the ring with his own soul using spiritual sense.
There are two ways to mark any treasure like this with your soul, first is the blood rite that is mostly used by cultivators who haven't awakened their souls making them not able to use their spiritual sense and the other method is for people like Alex whose soul is awakened and can use spiritual sense to leave a mark of their soul on the object directly.
The Interspatial Storage Ring shined with the same red light after which Alex felt a slight connection to the ring via his soul. Alex smiled as this feeling was the same as his connection with the Book in his soul space but the later was much stronger than the former.
Alex lifted his head up and said: "Alright, guards get out of the cell."
The prison guards stood up and chained Joseph back to the wall after which they came out of the cell as ordered.
Alex scan inside of the ring with the spiritual sense and found it to be filled with Low grade and mid grade spirit stones and also 10 high-grade spirit stones placed in one corner.
He also found various types of pills and some low and mid-grade Black ranked weapons. Also, in the ring, there were some big bags filled with mostly gold and silver coins other than some pretty looking gems.
Other than that the ring was storing clothes, food, and also some books. He also found the much hyped treasure map in the ring.
Alex took it out and looked at the two pieces of the same map that has clearly been joined afterward it had been torn in half for some reason. The map looked very old and was made of some Demon Beast skin.
The map looked a little familiar as one of the islands drawn on it had similar topography to the one he was standing on.
But the thing that differed in the map from reality was that his home Island called the Sea-Shelled Island has no other land above the sea in its proximity of thirty to forty kilometers which differs from the many small-sized islands drawn on the map near his own.
Alex thought maybe this map was very old and those drawn on it might not exist now as either they had been destroyed or they have submerged in the sea because of some incident the past.
Alex was deep in thought when he noticed a mark on the map which is pointing deep into the Swamp Marsh Forest almost all the way to the eastern part of the Island.
This was uncharted territory as no human had ever gone that deep into the forest.
That part is said to be occupied by some groups ferocious and powerful Demon Beasts.
But there was nothing on this map that told what the mark was all about.
Alex tried asking Jospeh again but in reply, he denied having any knowledge on it.
Joseph only said that Elder Rey was very serious about this map and the place depicted on it. Elder Rey only ordered him to check it out first for him.
Elder Rey had the plan of coming to this Island himself after he finishes his work back in the sect. Alex checked and found that Joseph was telling truth and not lying.
'Seems like I will have to check that place out myself soon.' Alex thought to himself as he threw all the contents of the ring into his inventory and wearing the empty ring on his forefinger as a disguise.
"Ok, that all for now. You guys sleep well." After saying that Alex exited the prison and leaving the puppets to keep an eye on them.
A puppet leading the three thousand soldiers to the border of the Merchant Union suddenly contacted Alex through the connection between them and said: "Master, because of our size we have been discovered by both the armies of Darren Dorbank and the Merchant Union having a standoff with each other. They have put their guards against as they do not know whose side we are on standing. What should we do next?"
"Um...is it possible to capture them with the least amount of casualty on both the side?" Alex asked the puppet.
"Master, we have some puppets in those groups too. If we kill the commanding group of both the army then we have a high possibility of catching the rest of the soldiers as they will have no to guide. But there are still chances of some people escaping as we don't have enough manpower to stop all of them."
"Ok, you can go on with this plan. After you take control of those people, send half of your men to escort the captured army back to the city and lead the rest inside the Merchant Union territory. Take back the villages that Darren had lost to them in the previous war. Also, gain control of as many villages as you can under the Merchant Union by the morning. The Merchant Union will soon be alerted because this and they will definitely send their reserve army to take back the villages that they lost so suddenly. I will be sending some reinforcement to you in some time so that you can defend all the villages after gaining control of them by this morning." Alex said in one go.
"As you command, Master."
Alex thought for a moment and then checked his faith points after taking a look inside the book in his mind.
"WOW!" Alex was surprised to find that the faith points gathered by the Book had sky rocketed in just one day. Before the Faith points were always maintained between thousand or two thousand points and increased at snail pace. Now his Faith points had broken through fifteen thousand point mark in one go.
Alex decided to let his puppet there on the border purchase a thousand more of his kinds and bring their level to the peak of Body Tempering Realm with the money that he had gained from the houses of the Nobles after he had defeated them today.
Alex cannot use all his money because that would create a shortage of Gold and silver coins on this island. What will he pay to the citizens with for their work or the islands he sends his people to do business? He has to keep some amount of money in is treasury so that his territory can continue to work properly.
Five thousand faith points were enough to sustain a group of twenty-two hundred puppets. Now Alex was sure that those extra puppets can defend the border fully with their capability.
The rest of the faith points can be used to purchase the things he always wanted to buy for so long from the book.
Suddenly another puppet contacted him when Alex was thinking what to buy first.
"Master, Lady Selena is heading towards your room currently." a maid/puppet informed Alex who then just after hearing that ran at full speed toward the mansion.
...
Knock! Knock!
Selena knocked on to the door of a room after standing in front of it for nearly five minutes.
She looked nervous and somewhat scared and fidgety of others finding her going to Alex's room at this time of the night.
Mostly it would be a matter of embarrassment for her since she is not married to Alex yet.
But what can Selena even do when the person who forced her to come here was none other her sister Anna.
Actually, what happened was that Selena and Anna were sharing talks between them mostly about Alex when they were sleeping in their room.
They are very close to each other like real sisters and share all kinds of girl talks between them.
Suddenly, Anna talked about how she was fearing the first night that she would experience with Alex. Anna heard from her mother that the first time is very very painful for girls.
Anna was not ignorant about sex as she had already been educated about it by her Mom Julie and Aunt Meg sometime ago but it's just that she was a little worried about the pain.
Selena unknowingly answered back to pacify Anna out of her fear. She said that you will feel a lot of pain the first time since it would be with Alex but that the pain will go away in a moment and you only feel very very good after that.
But just then Selena immediately knew her mistake that she had spilled out the beans.