“Are you referring to this?” Han Wu tossed the bead over.
The leader caught it, sensed the energy inside, and nodded with visible excitent. “That’s the one. Thank you for sealing it.”
He and his unit had been tracking this six-Ring hundred-eyed spider for five days without managing to seal it. Yet two young strangers they t entirely by chance had done what they couldn’t.
“You’ve done Panyang City’s Guard a great service. If you have ti, would you co back with us to collect a reward?” the leader offered.
Qin Shuang glanced at Han Wu. They had co to the Sealed Civilization and needed to travel anyway to search for information on countering the Magic Sealing Wave.
Han Wu nodded. “Sure.”
The leader was delighted. Anyone who could casually seal a hundred-eyed spider was no weakling. Bringing back the sealed spider alone was a significant achievent. Bringing back two capable fighters on top of that would surely earn him a generous reward from the city lord.
“After you, please,” he said respectfully.
As they traveled, Han Wu asked many questions about the Sealed Civilization, including what the Ring Count ant.
According to the leader, the Ring Count represented both a person’s strength and highest rank of Seal Arts they could use. He himself was a five-Ring Seal Master. His strongest usable Seal Art was five-Ring, and attempting a six-Ring Seal Art would risk backlash.
The success of a seal depended heavily on the relationship between the Seal Art’s Ring level and the target’s Ring level. A six-Ring Seal Art used against a six-Ring beast had at least a fifty percent chance of success. A seven-Ring or higher Seal Art used against a six-Ring beast pushed the success rate toward one hundred percent. A five-Ring Seal Art used against a six-Ring beast, however, dropped the success rate to a ager ten percent, though an attribute advantage could improve those odds.
After explaining all this, the leader asked Han Wu and Qin Shuang their Ring Counts.
Han Wu decided not to reveal his true power and answered plainly, “Eight Rings.”
Qin Shuang followed suit and lowered her count by three Rings. “Six Rings.”
Both concealed their real strength to avoid drawing unwanted attention. Even so, eight and six Rings were enough to surprise the leader. A six-Ring Seal Master was already the backbone of a city. An eight-Ring ranked at the national level. Nine Rings were enough to lead a kingdom. Beyond that were the legendary ten-Ring Seal Masters, so rare that only the most powerful empires could have either one or two.
Han Wu asked what eleven Rings and above would represent.
The leader laughed and said that an eleven-Ring Seal Master had never been born in this world.
Han Wu touched his nose awkwardly. That gave him a clearer sense of where his twelve-Ring rating stood.
They followed the unit into Panyang City. The city felt lively, with trading stalls lining the streets. Many were selling sealed-beast beads, priced according to Ring level and attribute.
Han Wu wanted to buy so for experintation, but he and Qin Shuang had nothing to their nas at all. They couldn’t even afford food. For now, they had to follow the unit and et the city lord.
When the city lord heard that an eight-Ring Seal Master had arrived, he hurried over with evident excitent. However, seeing how young Han Wu was, doubt flickered across his face.
To ease the tension, Han Wu offered a demonstration. He asked the city lord to bring him a magical beast to seal.
The city lord produced a two-Ring ram. Using an eight-Ring Seal Art on such a creature was rather excessive, but Han Wu didn’t mind. He activated the Reaper Seal, and a fearso pale phantom manifested behind him. In a single, fluid motion, it extracted the ram’s soul and swallowed it. An instant later, the ram compressed into a bead.
The display won over the city lord and every city official present. A soul-attribute eight-Ring Seal Art was undeniably powerful. After that, no one questioned Han Wu’s Ring Count.
The city lord beca even more attentive, visibly wishing he could offer Han Wu his daughter’s hand in marriage, or at least keep an eight-Ring Seal Master in the city by any ans available.
Han Wu had no intention of staying, but he didn’t ntion when he would leave. He wanted to review the records in Panyang City first and gain a clear picture of the Sealed Civilization’s situation. He also intended to find an opportunity to ask the city lord about any information related to the Magic Sealing Wave.
The banquet was a pleasant occasion for all.
Han Wu and Qin Shuang were shown to their guest rooms to rest.
anwhile, the city lord took the hundred-eyed spider bead and made his way down into a hidden chamber beneath his bedroom.
Inside the chamber was a large cube. Within it, a powerful magical beast was sealed. It was known as the Feral Beast, a real nine-Ring magical beast.
Sealing it had cost more than 100 five-Ring Seal Masters their lives years ago. They had only succeeded through a combination of terrible odds and sheer collective sacrifice. Even so, the seal was not stable. Every seven days or so. It required one bead of six-Ring or higher light-attribute energy to sustain it.
The city lord had spent years losing sleep over that requirent. At tis, he had to hunt six-Ring beasts himself and seal them into beads just to keep the enclosure intact. No matter how many beasts he secured, seven days always ca back around.
Light-attribute beasts were also rare in the forests outside the city, and those that had reached the six-Ring level were formidable enough to trouble even the city lord. Today’s find was a pleasant surprise.
However, what excited the city lord even more was Han Wu, an eight-Ring Seal Master with a soul-attribute. Eight-Ring against nine-Ring gave a ten percent success rate, but Han Wu’s attribute had a decent advantage over the Feral Beast’s type, which would push those odds higher.
The city lord had already made up his mind. Whatever it took, he would persuade Han Wu to try sealing this Feral Beast. He was genuinely terrified that the creature would burst free one day. The chamber was directly beneath his bedroom. If the Feral Beast broke out, he would be its first target.
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