Chapter 130 - "You're Insane."

"Hold on to it for now. I have something to ask of you. If you accept it, it's yours. If you won't then, I will have to take it back." Red says.

Fumio frowns. This is the first time he is seeing Red ask something like this.

"How bad could it be?" He asks.

"First of all. Take a look around. What do you think?" Red asks.

Fumio scans for a while and comes up with a few observations.

"It's just like the hill in Hinohara? We're inside a natural spirit gathering formation?" He asks.

"Exactly." Red confirms.

"And it feels like the spiritual energy here is a bit thicker." Fumio reports.

"Yes." Red nods.

"Thankfully, it's private land. Rizretheen, with some… persuasive methods, managed to sell the landowner to sell." He chuckles.

"Ugh…" Fumio feels disgusted.

"Relax. The young man spent a night of unbridled pleasure with a very beautiful woman, and able to sell the land he thought was an insult for an inheritance, for above average price… It's the best thing that happened to him in a while, don't you think?" Red smirks.

"It's not about the previous owner… It's about Riz-san." Fumio frowns.

"What? The man was her type. It was also her who proposed the 'method'." Red shrugs.

"Good lord." Fumio's frown deepens.

"Your fault. She once told me that you never helped her to 'recharge'. She had to look somewhere else." Red says.

"Oh… Right. A demon of lust…" Fumio shakes his head.

"Anyways…" He wants to change the subject.

"You didn't bring me here to ask me to manage it, right boss?" He asks.

"Good. You're quick to pick up." Red nods.

"Wha-…" Fumio is taken aback.

*snap* Red then snaps his fingers and suddenly beside them, two small traditional houses appear out of nowhere a few steps away from them. 

Fumio then sees someone familiar lounging at the veranda of one of the houses.

"Nishiki-san?" He cannot help but call out to demon of sloth in surprise.

He now realizes why Nishiki has been absent in the hill in his past two visits, and has only seen Goichi tending the land.

"Fumio-san." Nishiki greets back with a wave.

"Let's go sit." Red leads Fumio to the veranda of the other house and they sit down.

"What do you think? Can you watch over the land?" Red asks.

"It won't be a problem, boss. With the flying sword, the distance to the city doesn't matter anymore. I can also cultivate here without worrying of anyone interrupting my concentration." Fumio is quick to accept the job.

"Don't say yes yet." Red stops Fumio from getting carried away.

"Take a look at this first." He then pulls out what looks like a tennis-ball sized metallic orb from his pocket and tosses it to Fumio.

"What's this?" Fumio asks as he studies what looks like a small mechanical object.

With his sharp eyes, he immediately sees the mechanisms and parts in the object that look to be even more intricate than what is found in a well-engineered watch.

"Oh…" He then notices that at the center of the orb, is a wood chip.

"That is just a trinket I whipped up. It can be used to activate that treasure fragment." Red explains.

"Huh…" Fumio looks at the object in wonder.

"Why don't you…" Red starts instructing Fumio on how to use the trinket.

Soon enough, *Vmmm* a familiar light portal appears in front of Fumio and Red.

Unlike Red who has a spirit sense that can see the lines of insight in the treasure fragment, Fumio cannot. Even if Fumio has activated his spirit sense, he does not have the spiritual energy control to align or re-align the lines of insight in the treasure.

With Red's trinket however, Fumio can now activate the treasure fragment without Red's help with just a bit of his spiritual energy.

"This is really what I want to ask you about." Red takes Fumio's attention away from the portal.

"I want you to keep the treasure fragment in your care." He reveals.

"…" Fumio does not even know what to say.

"I can't let you cultivate peacefully for years. Getting the strength of possibly an S-Class superioris like that is too easy, don't you think?" Red asks.

"I admit, it's smooth, boss. But… wouldn't the tediousness of it make up for the difficulty?" Fumio chuckles nervously, fearing another hellish training.

"I don't think so." Red shakes his head.

"So. While you cultivate here, I want you to protect this treasure fragment from interested parties." Red reveals.

"Do I get to use it too? You know, for studying herbs or seals?" Fumio asks, relieved that Red is not proposing what he feared.

"Of course." Red nods.

"Do you dare accept the job?" He asks.

"Dare? Why wouldn't I?" Fumio says out of excitement.

"There's a risk for death." Red is a bit taken aback at Fumio not seeing the dangers of the task.

"I know, boss." Fumio nods.

"Those who will come looking might even be more powerful than that angel that Yoshiko killed, but if the statistics is to be believed, then only a few thousand people in the world can beat me."

"…" Red smirks at Fumio's shortsightedness.

"I won't allow the treasure fragment to leave this place. Will you still accept?" He asks.

"…" Fumio this time is taken aback.

"Boss. If… an opponent I can't possibly match comes… I'm not allowed to flee with it?" He asks.

"No. Either you protect it, or abandon it." Red shakes his head.

This silences Fumio.

"I knew it wouldn't be that easy." He sighs after a few seconds of pondering.

"It wouldn't." Red agrees.

"And if I fail to protect it?" Fumio asks.

"Then you take the treasure fragment back from whoever took it. By the time you consolidate nine True Seas, and you don't have the treasure fragment with you, then I won't help you step to the next level. You will have to blindly figure it out, but if you mess up, you'll cripple your cultivation. Or worse, you'll die." Red presents the consequences.

"sss…" Fumio inhales sharply.

"So… If I refuse to take the job?" He asks.

"Then that's too bad. At each enemy that you thwart, and with each treasure fragment you gain, you will receive huge rewards." Red presents.

"W-what rewards?" Fumio asks in anticipation.

"Jade slips first of all." Red presents.

"Jade slips…" Fumio gets interested.

After all, his knowledge of herbology and spiritual seals are passed down to him from Red through jade slips.

"Jade slips can also contain my knowledge on spiritual energy techniques." Red adds.

"Spiritual energy techniques…" Fumio's salivary glands are activated at the words.

"Yes. And second. Demon cores if I have them, and if you want to use them to speed up your consolidation." Red presents.

"Demon cores?" Fumio is surprised by the benefit.

"They can help me?" He asks for clarification.

"Yes. Like I said before, they contain souls, and souls are pure spiritual energy. Not only do they help you recover, they can speed up your cultivation"

"…" Fumio is immediately tempted.

He currently has two Soldier-ranked cores and one Knight-ranked core which he harvested during his lunch with Sayuri.

"But with your strength right now, cores that belonged to soldier-ranked demons and below, are no longer useful to you." Red informs him.

"Oh…" Fumio is both disappointed and relieved at the information.

Disappointed because knight-ranked cores and above are very rare. Relieved because he the difficulty of finding rare cores stops his temptation from using them and therefore preventing himself from eating up souls, though indirectly, like demons or angels.

"So. Now that you have all the choices. What now?" Red asks, interrupting Fumio from his internal discourse.

"I'll do it, boss." Fumio figures that if pure spiritual energy, and the increase in the quantity of it, is not enough to add to his strength, then spiritual energy techniques are the only things that can help him get more fire power.

"Very good." Red nods.

"I've carved a cave under the hill. You put the treasure fragment there later." He orders.

"I will." Fumio nods as he deactivates the treasure fragment and its portal.

"Oh. You're carrying demon cores." Red changes the subject. "Ah. Yes." Fumio is not surprised that Red is able to detect his demon cores as he himself feels the aura coming from demon cores.

He then takes them out, not fearing that Red will take them away from him.

"Wanna trade them?" Red asks.

"T-trade for what?" Fumio asks in return.

"Money." Red shrugs.

"I … can earn money myself." Fumio is disappointed.

"I'm just kidding. How about some basic spiritual energy techniques then?" Red presents.

Fumio gets excited with this.

"What are you going to use them for, though?" He asks.

From what Red told him earlier, he figures that with Red's strength, the level of his demon cores are useless to Red's cultivation. 

"I use them to grow spirit herbs..." Red explains. 

"Ah..." Fumio has learned one more thing today.

Meanwhile, next door, Nishiki has actually been eavesdropping.

]"Master got you, kid … " The demon shakes his head.

He failed to follow Red and Fumio's conversation about cultivator stuff, but he catches something in the conditions of Fumio's job that Fumio failed to realize.

"… You will have to kill…" He cannot wait for Fumio to ask him to kill intruders so he can snack on some souls.

<>

The next day, 8 AM. Pacific Ocean, 500 km East of Kiribati.

"..UHmmff…" Samuel wakes up and finds himself in a beach.

"…Fckkk." He immediately feels that he still gagged like the last time he was awake. He also cannot move as much as he wants as the ropes that was tying him up the last time he was awake, is now changed to chains.

He can only look around and it does not take him to realize that he seems to be in a deserted island. That would be the case if he did not find a familiar figure sitting beside him.

"You're awake?" Red, disguised as a Caucasian man in a suit, greets Samuel.

He also removes the gag on Samuel's mouth.

"Where's Eliza?" Samuel asks in panic.

He does not know how long he was kept captive, but he figures it must have been days at the least.

"Oh. Don't worry. She's unhurt. She's probably in dreamland right now." Red assures the Australian.

"She better is. Because if she gets even a papercut, I'll cut your throat. I don't know how I'll do it, but I'll bleed you dry." Samuel promises.

He knows that he is powerless for the moment, but him being still alive means that he is valuable to his captor. He also hopes that his sincerity will keep Red from hurting his wife.

"Bah. You don't have to tell me. Hurting her will be bad for business." Red says in dismissal.

"As long as your families will cooperate, you'll all go home just fine." He adds.

"How long was I out?" Samuel asks, immediately feeling comfortable from Red's words.

"Nine days." Red chuckles.

"How the F-…" Samuel is shocked because he actually feels perfect. Not only does he feel sluggish from being out for so long, he also feels that the injury inflicted upon him by Yoshiki is no longer there.

"Looks like you do this often. You treat your hostages well." He then starts to chat Red up as he starts to plot in his head how to take revenge.

"Who's going to pick me up?" He asks.

"Dominic Little." Red says in dismissal.

"…" Samuel's eyes go wide.

"You're insane."