297 The Next Stage of Immortality (1/2)

After the Universal Government had destroyed the Garden of Death as a response to Daniel's threat to deliver his recipes of the poison immunities to them, Iewah had reintegrated the rule that stated that the only encounters allowed amongst his children, were the casual ones, and the programmed ones.. And that his children were not to use their powers in order to track one another.

The reason for that, was the unnatural desire for conflict that his children felt towards each other.. A desire which had caused his earliest offspring to kill each other until only two of them had remained..

In an attempt to indirectly affect his life, and the life of his friends from the massive distance that separated them, Daniel had decided to gain as much karma as he could. The more karma points he possessed, the more he could be sure that his family and friends would be safe. That, was the driving factor behind his wars against the factions.

Now that he was free from the pursuit of Sewah's four brothers, Daniel had picked his second target for his karmic crusade. That target, happened to be the Church of Damnation..

Contrary to what part of its name suggested, the Church of Damnation was not a regular church devoted to the worship of a superior being, or a god. Instead, it had been founded by a particular race amongst the demonkin whose entire growth revolved around the absorption of the suffering caused by emotional, physical, and mental abuse.

Even amongst the demonkin, while not the most dangerous, the race which had formed the Church of Damnation was considered the most evil.. And were despised to a point where the more moderate races of the demonic family, which despite the name were not necessarily evil, had tried to destroy the Church of Damnation in order to avoid their kin's name from being attached to their acts.

The political aspect of the Universal Government was a game which all factions played, and for the demonkin to be directly linked with a race formed by the most evil and depraved beings in the universe, was something that had tarnished their reputation greatly more than once in their history.

So, Just like the human races would kill the worshippers of death on sight, the other demon races would not see the demons of the Church of Damnation as companions to be proud of.

However, for how despised of a faction the Church of Damnation was, it was still a faction which possessed the same power and rights as any other.. So after being targeted by Daniel and his companions, they were still in the position to demand to be added in the list of factions that had a legitimate right to Daniel's head, and the permission to put a bounty on him.

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For the past few weeks, Daniel had traveled through the shared galaxy in order to kill the demon to which the unlucky planets that belonged to the Church of Damnation, were assigned to. After ridding the planet from these demons, he would move on to the next planet before any of their strongest members could appear.

While traveling through the galaxy, Daniel had learned something extremely interesting from Xargy. He was curious about the reason why the mercenaries and merchants were so obsessed by the gems which Virgil had found, so once they had escaped the void, he had taken a water gem out of his spatial ring, and asked to Xargy and Aeron whether they knew what mana gems were.

While Aeron became pensive and tried to recall whether he had read or encountered a similar object, Xargy's large eyes had opened as wide as they could. ”Is that a gift for me?! Hahaha!” He said in enthusiasm while looking at the nail-sized water gem present on Daniel's hand.

Daniel looked at the gem in confusion, before turning to look at Xargy once again, and saying ”Maybe.. Tell me what it is, and you can have it.”

”DEAL!” shouted Xargy in happiness before breathing in heavily, and forcing the gem to fly off of Daniel's hand, and into his mouth. ”Gems are cultivation resources.. While crystals are formed by large amount of pure natural essence.. gems are even better. You need the power of billions of crystals compressed together for a ridiculous amount of years, in order to form a single gem.”

Daniel ignored Xargy's actions, and while hiding the shock and happiness that he was feeling, he asked ”Sounds like an awfully rare item.. Why shouldn't people simply cultivate with perfect crystals?”

”Because at some point in cultivation, your body will become too resistant to be effectively refined by perfect crystals.. Why do you believe the universal government keeps exploring new galaxies? Perfect crystals are not that rare.. Or they wouldn't be used as currency.” Responded Xargy with a matter-of-fact tone.

”When will Aeron and I need them, then?” Asked Daniel. He had felt the effectiveness of perfect crystals become lower the more his cultivation rose, so he had no problems with believing what Xargy was saying.

Instead of responding, Xargy hid the water gem underneath his large tongue, and after moving his massive head next to Daniel, he inhaled deeply once again. He then asked ”Do you have any more of these?” His tone was that of somebody who had finally been able to find a piece of bread after starving for weeks.

”I might have another one.. If you keep talking.”

”Fine.. Gems are better used for high immortals. My cultivation is the equivalent of a human's high immortal cultivation, or someone who is beyond the ten stages of lower immortal cultivation. This means that these gems are useless for your current stage.” Responded Xargy while directly looking at Daniel's eyes.