Unsealing Emptiness

To set up the communication, a group of men had come all the way from the Neutral City. Ozul left it all to Haley and Irvin, who worked diligently.

He did not know, but Alver and Raymond really could not wait to meet him, but at the same time, really nervous as well.

They wanted to come themselves, but the movement of a Rank-9 Mage wouldn’t go unnoticed by anyone around the whole Mainland. Just a single mistake could cause the entire structure of balance to fall apart.

If it was not for this simple fact that they, as Rank-9 Mages, could not even move long distances without making it seem that they had ulterior motives, the two brothers would’ve already been here long ago.

It also confused him when Haley had come to him once and asked a weird thing like, “Young Master, are you sure you did not sell those two to the Ashin family?”

When Ozul asked why she had asked such a thing, Haley replied, “They... they are giving so much for just a simple cooperation!”

.....

“From protective talismans to formations and even basic resources for people who had just started cultivating! They are not only doing their part of the deal but more,” Haley continued in excitement.

Previously, she too had thought that 10 years was too little of a time to not only establish an organization from scratch but also spread to every inhibited area of the Mainland.

Before she was planning to buy these things over the course of time. For things such as cultivation resources, only money was not the condition to buy them.

People needed connections and power to obtain these resources. They would have had to steadily build their organization till it got to the point where it would be able to obtain them, but now the Ashin family had directly sent these to them.

If they would keep the supply steady, then it might not sound so impossible as it did before.

For the most part, obtaining the cultivation resources required the exploration of unknown and dangerous places to find valuables that are high in demand. They would then trade these valuables and obtain the resources.

However, the exploration of such parts demanded people strong enough to protect themselves. But since they were a new organization, only a couple of people were at this stage. They were not even close to being enough for exploring any dangerous area.

That’s why it was a tedious process where they would have had to slowly raise the strength of the individuals first.

That is why Haley was so happy. The Ashin family saved them months and months of time only by providing the resources that they probably did not even need much.

Though Ozul ignored this part as he hadn’t been familiar with them so much. Even the enthusiasm shown by Haley and Irvin, Ozul thought was natural as things were going smoothly till now.

Even when Haley had told him that the Ashin family was going out of their way to help more, he did not put much thought into it.

Days turned into weeks and weeks into months.

Irvin had gathered enough men that they could start tens of branches at the same time in different cities, but they were still waiting for any reaction from the Royal family.

Only a few weeks after Ozul’s orders had Haley realized that Irvin was only hiring strong men and not the ones actually capable of stealth. What use would their organization be if they did not even have information that others would want?

So, she had to take an hour or so from her schedule just so she could reassess people who Irvin had chosen as strong people.

Slowly but surely, their strength rose along with information that was useless at this time, but it helped the recruits hone their skills.

Most of the people did not know, but there were at least five people having an eye on everything around almost every other block of the city.

It was at this point when Ozul decided that it was time that they announce their presence to everyone. Unlike what others would’ve thought, Ozul did not care about how many people knew about their organization.

He wanted the people working as the Three-Eyed Strangers to be so skilled that most ordinary people wouldn’t believe even if they confessed themselves that they were spies from an organization.

Also, there was almost no one who had come to ask for their services. Unless he spread the rumors that there was an information-gathering organization in here, no one would walk their way.

Ozul wouldn’t have cared about this since he wanted to build this place solely for himself, but the problem lay in the members. What if the Ashin family stopped providing the funds at one point and the members are not ready?

For relying too much on external forces, the people under him would become useless. They would not be able to work once that load falls on them.

That’s why he wanted whoever joined the organization to start gaining experience.

Haley had wanted to mark a tattoo of an eye on the people who had joined, but Ozul immediately rejected the idea.

Anything that gave away the identity of the members was not needed. At least not when they had just started.

With his command, Irvin slowly started to spread the rumors of their presence. As they had expected, no one came their way for a few days.

Irvin and Haley knew that it would be like this since people would not just simply believe and come running in for some information from an unreliable organization heard only in some petty rumors.

A couple of days after Irvin had spread the rumors, some drunken men entered the alley seemingly too drunk to understand where they had stumbled upon.

However, their loud talks were enough for people to understand that they were here just for fun after hearing a random passerby talk about some hidden organization that sold information here.

However, Ozul had already informed Irvin on what to do to deal with certain types of people. The men keeping watch outside the building quickly dealt with the drunkards.

Just like that, there were also some people who actually came their way to ask for help. It was at this point when Ozul had called Irvin to stop spreading the rumor.

‘This should be enough for almost every Noble to hear about it... It depends on them now,’ Ozul thought as he walked around the city to look at the situation.

Irvin hadn’t told everyone that Ozul was the actual boss on the latter’s order. That is why almost no one in his organization knew about him being the actual person they worked for.

These people had only joined them under a month, they could never be trusted with inside information.

As he walked around the streets, he could easily notice the elderly or some children passing their time while looking around once in a while.

These old people only had to live their lives like they did before and would be paid if they provided some interesting information. The children, on the other hand, were some of the orphans that Irvin had picked up.

He was not even a little bit easy on them as he told them the basics for a week before making them start working.

It was a world where people had to prove their worth to get important positions. It was the case in this as well. If these kids got in trouble even without doing anything, then it only meant that they had not accepted their harsh reality yet.

However, Irvin was surprised to find that some kids had already started to work. They were the ones who had been orphans from the start and knew that they could only fend for themselves.

Ozul was also impressed with these kids. He was always able to figure out people’s true faces instantly because of their emotions, but kids at their age were sometimes even able to mask their own emotions and lie to themselves.

‘Hmm, I should just focus on this,’ Ozul looked at the book in his hand. Although he had completely read it a couple of times, there were things that he could not understand.

And it was probably because he had no Mana in his body that he was not able to perform the basics either. These formations were created by people who did have Mana and knew their core functions.

But Ozul had not given up trying to understand it even after realizing this fact. Though he was starting to understand the basics after consulting with Haley and Irvin who seemed to be quite knowledgeable in this.

Keeping the situation around the organization was too bothersome. That is why he had helped Irvin and Haley that day in the first place.

He left these matters to them and decided to wait until the Royal family finally decided to declare that it was enough.

Ozul hadn’t gone away to do other things he had planned precisely because he first wanted to see what stand the Emperor decided to take.

‘He should have already heard about me killing the three Rank-8 Mages...’

If the Emperor was aggressive in dealing with them, then it was necessary that he stay here until things calmed down. However, if he was passive, then he would be able to leave without any worries.

But there was no way for him to understand Emperor Luthien’s thought process when he could not even enter the Royal Palace.

There was just a feeling that if he were to fly over the walls and enter the Palace, then it would immediately alert everyone.

‘Hmm... I should just wait it out,’ Ozul thought as he went back to the base.

In the blink of an eye, half a year had flown past...