The Daemon Guard

The fourth floor was not like what Zaka had imagined where a customer counter filled with many wondrous items and many polite attendants were serving the customers.

Instead, the hall was a thousand square meters. In the center, there was a hexagonal prism stone at a height of twenty meters. Countless formation runes were engraved on its surface, flashing with golden light from time to time.

Many comfortable sofas were placed around the stone forming a circle. The sofas were arranged in a group of twos or threes. Between each group of sofas, there was a long distance.

Cultivators were sitting with their group. Almost all of them were extending their divine sense toward the hexagonal stone.

Sometimes they would stop their divine sense and discussed something with their friends with a hushed tone. Occasionally, there was a cultivator who entered one of the doors located at the side of the hall.

The doors have numbers written on their surfaces.

"Huh? Where are the items?" Zaka vaguely knew what he should do after observing the people inside the hall, but he wanted to be sure to not make a fool out of himself.

"Mr. Zaka, if you want to look for an item, you have to extend your divine sense into the stone that was covered with runes at the center." The attendant pointed his finger to the stone in the middle of the room.

"Inside, you can just think of the item you want and there will be details provided by the pavilion. Whether there is stock available or not and the price for each item.

Or you can select a category and browse the items that suited your needs. Once you make a selection, you can just think that you want the particular item.

Afterwards, the stone will instruct you which door you should enter. In the case that there is a queue, the spirit of the stone will contact you through divine sense communication.

While you make your selection, you can sit at one of the sofas." The attendant explained with a slow and professional tone. This shows that the pavilion had done a good job training these attendants.

Zaka and Zaki then sat at one of the sofas.

"If you still have a question, you can ask one of the attendants here. Hope you have a pleasant experience at the pavilion." The attendant pointed at other attendants sitting beside the entry point.

Zaka tried to extend his divine sense to the stone. His vision suddenly turned black and a projection of Zaka's body appeared within the darkness.

He could control the body as usual and he could use his divine power and qi. He couldn't 'see' the inside of his body but he could see and hear his surrounding just fine.

Suddenly, a projection of Zaki appeared beside him.

"Huh? Boss? When I arrived at the dark world there was a voice asking me whether to enter Boss's room or not. I chose yes." Zaki said happily.

All of a sudden, a one square meter glowing blue-screen appeared in front of them.

Zaka could think of the item he wanted ant the description of the item appeared on the screen. He could also go back to the previous main screen and choosing a category within the screen.

A long list of items within the chosen category would appear and, when Zaka press his finger to one of the things, a 3D projection of the item appeared in front of him.

The projection looked real: He could touch and smell the item just fine. When he chose an artifact he could fill it with his qi and automatically refined the artifact. He could control the artifact to test the performance of the artifact.

His main objection to coming here was to buy a transportation artifact. This type of artifact was made specially to carry people inside it. It could fly much, much faster than riding a weapon artifact.

The main advantage of using a transportation artifact was that he didn't have to use his qi to power the artifact. The artifact had a qi gathering array engraved inside.

As long as he did not exceed the speed that was allowed by the array, the artifact could fly using the energy gathered by the formation. If he wanted to go faster, he had to use his qi or use liquefied nature-essence.

Searching through the section of a transportation artifact, he found that the price of the artifact was generally higher than the price of a weapon artifact of the same grade.

He could only buy a low-grade heaven-artifact at the price of two thousand kg liquefied nature-essence.

However, the usual price of a low-grade heaven-artifact for transportation was four thousand kg liquefied nature-essence and above.

The reason why he could buy the transportation artifact at that price because there was a little defect on the array engraved, making the flying speed only comparable to top-grade earth-artifact.

However, he had the confidence to fix the array.

As soon as he bought the artifact, he didn't have money left to buy anything. He exited the mind transfer formation and bought the item.

The transportation artifact was in the form of a flying ship. It was ten meters long and five meters tall with the color of fiery red.

He could change the appearance and enlarge the artifact to the maximum length of one hundred meters. Despite the flying speed only comparable to a top-grade earth-artifact, it had a much tougher defense because of its material.

Walking out from the Myriad Treasures Pavilion, Zaka and Zaki chose a decent restaurant and decided to have lunch there.

"To think I thought to buy several heaven-artifact." Zaka sighed. He had no idea that the price of a heaven artifact would be that huge.

"Don't worry Boss. as soon as we enter that Daemon Guard and kill a lot of evil guys, we will get rich." Zaki tried to cheer up Zaka. But, he didn't look sincere since he did that while… his mouth was stuffed with food.

Zaka didn't bother to respond to Zaki's word and continued eating.

He knew that the reason Zaki wanted to kill those evil cultivators was to collect karmic points. Helping its host to collect karmic points was the sole reason for Zaki's existence.

Knowing this, he felt sorry for Zaki. Despite his childish acts, Zaka had long considered Zaki as his younger brother.

Zaka was born within a conglomerate family where every family member scheme with each other. To survive in that environment, Zaka had developed an ability to read the real intention and emotions of others from their eyes.

The first time Zaki had appeared in front of him, he could sense Zaki's nervousness while explaining the general information of this world. Zaki seemed afraid that Zaka wouldn't like his performance.

It was the first time Zaka had witnessed purity and innocence within someone's eyes. Zaka was stunned!

'Such a pure soul truly exists?' Zaka thought, 'maybe, this person could be a true family.'

The moment Zaka told Zaki that from then on they will be family, not only Zaki, but Zaka was also overjoyed.

Deep within Zaki's eyes, Zaka could feel the longing and extreme curiosity hidden. A longing of experiencing the world and curiosity to its myriad wonder.

That was why he let Zaki materialize in the real world, letting him running all over the place within the five-element school's dimension and eating his grilled meat.

Observing Zaki's uncouth manner of eating, Zaka curled his lips into a smile slightly.

'Let's experience this world together, brother.'

The smile disappeared as soon as it appeared.

While paying his bill, Zaka asked the waiter the direction to the headquarter of Daemon Guard.

Sensing the aura which Zaka had intentionally released that was at the eight-layer of qi gathering, the waiter reminded kindly, "This… mister, the minimum level of cultivation to become a Daemon Guard is divine sea realm."

"Hahaha! Don't worry I won't gamble my life just like that, there are still many things within this world that I wanted to experience. I just wanted to take a look at the headquarter, there is a rumor that the headquarter of the Daemon Guard is unique." Zaka laughed.

The waiter then gave Zaka a detailed direction to the Daemon Guard's headquarter.

In front of the Daemon Guard's headquarter.

"Wow, so imposing." Zaka looked at the headquarter. It was in the form mansion residence. The very front building was used as a registration for a new Daemon Guard and to accept or issue a mission.

The blood-red building was five stories tall with a height of a hundred meters. There were four huge statues of the same height as the building in the four corners of the building.

The statue was a strange creature with the body of a human and the head of various beasts. The beasts' head was a dragon, bird, turtle, and tiger. Each creature was standing straight wearing and armor and weapon.

The area behind the building was a vast and beautiful land with many small buildings with their carefully arranged courtyard.

The front gate of the blood-red building was guarded by two guards wearing blood-red armor. On the right chest of the guard, there was a special insignia.

The insignia was in the form of the shadow of a beast's head, similar to a wolf, with full blood-red eyes.

The guards were standing straight and keeping their vision at the front. Despite not intentionally releasing their aura, the guards gave of a heart-palpitating aura.

There wasn't any person who walked in a radius of thirty meters in front of the gate.

Cultivators could be seen walking in and out from the gate. Some are giving of a bloodthirsty aura, some are reserved, and some are giving off an ice-cold aura, but all of them could be described with one word: Strong!

The weakest ones among them were at the peak of the divine sea realm. Even the cultivator with a reserved aura, when someone observes him further, would give of unfathomable aura.

Zaka and Zaki had adjusted their aura into a peak divine sea realm aura. They were both wearing a normal black robe and a mask. Even if he wore a mask there wouldn't be anyone who suspicious since there were others who register while wearing a mask!

The mask had to be removed in the registration process, though. This was to prevent evil cultivator to join the Daemon Guard. The only function of the mask was to prevent others besides the Daemon Guard to know one's identity.

Sometimes, there would be the friends or the relative of the killed evil cultivator seeking revenge against the killer.

These cases, however, were very rare because the one who dared to kill a member of a Daemon Guard would face full retaliation from other guards.

The masks are smooth without any holes, the only protruding part of the mask was the nose. This mask was special since it could even block the sense of a true immortal. But, if the true immortal focused his sense toward him, his true face would be discovered.

Even then, the true immortal would only see the face that had been changed using [Thousand Mask] divine ability. Meanwhile, Zaki could change his form as much as he like.

Zaka had bought the mask from the system store with the price of [500 KP] each, making his heartache. Zaka, however, felt that this was worth it!

He could fool everyone and even if someone could bypass the mask and observe the face behind it, would be fooled thinking they had known the true face.

Zaka and Zaki had agreed on a face they would use as a Daemon Guard that looks a bit more heroic and handsome. Their face was also quite similar, hinting the observer that they were a sibling.

In everyday life, they would change their face into the ones they use to enter Blazing Flame City. The face was very ordinary just like the face of mob A and mob B.

Of course every time they change their persona, they would do it outside the city before entering it again.

Zaki's eyes behind the mask were full of excitement. 'Finally, the Daemon Guard!'

Zaka's eyes also hold some expectations. 'This is a critical step for me to collect karmic points.'