A day ter, Ren and the others followed the road, twisting and turning around the hilly forest, going towards one of the crossing points on the Shert River. Not long after they were on their way, just after breakfast, they were surrounded by a dozen bandits wielding looted pte armor along with broadswords. 01 and 02 were about to fight them, clearly not afraid, especially not after sensing their enemies were all in the body refinement realm. However, Ren stopped them quickly, giving a look to Lacuss also, who already held his saber with an indifferent expression to stand down.

  "Oh, please don't hurt us!" Ren said with a soft voice, and although she sounded scared… her expression was devoid of it, "We surrender!"

  "We… do what?" Isha turned her head slowly, like some mechanical being, looking at Ren with one eye already twitching. What the hell was she pnning?!

  01 and 02 also looked at their master, surprised, but dared not say anything; they just stood behind her, following her orders. Lacuss, hearing her words, put away his saber without arguing and stood there calmly, clearly following her pns, whatever they may be.

  "Smart!" the group leader ughed, not even catching the weirdness of it all, and he was already coming closer to them.

  "Captain…" his second in command whispered to his ear. "That small one seems… strange or… familiar? No? Doesn't she have the looks of some big-shot nobles?"

  "Dunno. Boss will know, but they fit the description we got… and if they remind you of a noble line, they must be worth their weight in gold! Ahaha!" he ughed, feeling even better now, "Okay, don't try anything funny; you have no chance! We are all above the fifth stage, just so you know. You try something; we break your bones!" He warned them, and soon their hands were tied together as they were hurriedly escorted away.

  "Damn you…" Isha sent a voice projection to Ren, "What are you pying at?"

  "Hey, I'm just curious; I was never robbed by highwaymen before; I want to experience what it is like!" Ren sent back with a happy, carefree voice. "Isn't it fun?!"

  "You surely were dropped on the head at least once. This is ridiculous!" Isha grunted, wanting to strangle her, "If they try something, I'll bash their heads in; I don't care about your py, I warn you now! You mad fucker!"

  "Yeah, yeah, no problem!" Ren nodded rapidly. "Just let me see what they are going to do when they notice I am a 'Naulin,' ahaha! That will be hirious!"

  While talking, 01 and 02 also did the same, menting the bandits' fate.

  "Want to make a bet?" 02 asked.

  "Of what?" 01 sent back.

  "How many of them will survive? Or will we have a 03 or 04? If we do, we should enforce our seniority. We were here first; they shouldn't take our pce." 02 said hurriedly.

  "I think they will die." 01 said, scoffing at the idea, "Look at them; they are not even at Harmony; Master won't take useless garbage; they must be at least at the same level as us."

  "You're right 01… but still!" 02 agreed, "We should think about what will happen if the Master takes in others… we should go by seniority by the time we served under her and not by power level!"

  "I agree; if there ever is a 03, we should properly help him, or her... It would be great if it were a her... Khm, anyway! We should make them adjust to the new life... With our hierarchy in mind. That is important!" he agreed immediately.

  The only one who was calm and silent, not even asking questions, was Lacuss, who just followed the others' footsteps, not bothering to interact with anyone, seemingly more interested in the scenery than in the fact that they were captured. After half an hour of walking, they arrived at a backwater of the Shert River, and, surprisingly, in the middle of it, in a circur shape, was a tall structure blocking the water. It was made to cover up an underwater ruin for who knows how long, which was now, slowly but surely, being excavated.

  "Oh?" Ren looked surprised as she got a weird, familiar feeling from the ruins and their shape, and her surprise was soon repced by realization... a realization she hadn't thought about... for eons. Not since... she... Or in this case... Since he became a God.

  As for the others, they also got a strange sensation, but for a different reason: The air around here was surprisingly cold. They could feel it even though they had a high level of cultivation... The coldness wasn't natural.

  "Strange…" Isha murmured as her powers circled inside her, bancing the sudden chill.

  "Interesting," Lacuss added, but then fell silent again, not bothering to make eye contact with Ren, who gnced at him.

  "Boss!" their captor shouted as they neared the camp beside the backwater, where around fifty or so bandits had made camp.

  "I see, I see, you succeeded?" came a ugh as a bear of a man walked out of the digsite, wearing work clothes, covered in mud and dirt, clearly having been digging with his own hands.

  He was around multiple heads taller than any of them, with a body that could best be described as "thick" from any and all angles. His legs were as big as Ren's or two of her whole body, not to mention his hairy arms and belly that rivaled Boursat's. Gncing at his head, his bald dome was shinier than polished marble, and when his dark brown eyes looked at Ren, who was checking him out with a curious look, he immediately froze.

  "What the fuck did you do?!" He yelled, rushing up, making the ground shake, smacking the captain to the ground, making him cry out like a poor dog whose tail had been stepped on.

  "W... what…?" the captain tried to speak, spitting out dirt as he pushed himself up from the ground.

  "You kidnap someone from the bloodline of kings?! Are you out of your mind?! You want to kill us all?!" He yelped hurriedly as he was cutting the rope off of Ren. "This is a grave misunderstanding!" He tried to expin to her, who just nodded, smiling.

  "It is. I am not of the Naulins. What would I do here anyway? This is the Empire's side of the river." She said simply.

  "Ah." The big man stopped the knife in his hand as he cut the ropes, thinking it over, and finding logic in her words, but it also made him even more afraid. Something was telling him this was wrong on so many levels... Everything seemed out of pce; the captives were calm, even helping him out...? To stay… captured? This rang every arm bell in his head, so after a short moment of hesitation, he continued releasing them.

  "There, there, this was a complete misunderstanding!" He ughed nervously.

  "Really?" Ren tilted her head, looking up at him. "But I heard they talked about us as if it was the pn all along… to earn money."

  "Erm… they don't know what they are talking about! We are here to… um… excavate an old ruin, not to rob, kill, or plunder! Yes, yes! We only rob the dead!" He patted his giant belly, "We aren't bandits, naah! We are... researchers!"

  "You could've fooled us." Isha sighed, rubbing her neck.

  "It… was a misunderstanding!"

  The others, seeing their Boss, a Harmony Realm expert, show such a weird side of himself, sent the rest into a frenzy, looking at those who brought them back with an unkind expression, causing trouble for the group. Even if they didn't know what was wrong... it was clearly, very, very wrong!

  "What…? It was the order of-" The captain tried to defend himself, but he was just sent back to the ground with a sp of his boss's palm.

  "Misunderstanding… huh…? Well... You are no fun." Ren sighed, shrugging her shoulders, making the bearlike man twitch his mouth.

  "Let… let us talk this out, hm? My name is Devitt." He tried to keep a friendly face as he invited them into the camp, "Come, let us talk while drinking something!"

  "Sure, I am Ren," she nodded. "She is Isha, he is Lacuss, then he is 01 and 02."

  As Ren introduced them, Devitt nodded as a few names sounded familiar, but he couldn't put one and two together; instead, he was focusing on treading lightly while his instincts were still screaming inside his head.

  "Nice to meet you." He smiled as best as he could.

  "Yeah, sure." Isha rolled her eyes, while 01 and 02 just nodded, and Lacuss, as absentminded as he was, ignored everything and followed them silently.

  "What are you guys doing here?" Devitt asked as he strolled towards the bank of the backwater, looking towards the strange excavating site built in the middle of it all.

  "Nothing much," Ren answered without looking at him, instead, towards the water.

  Looking over it, the hole in the ground was surrounded by thick, sturdy walls of earth, stone, and wood, forming a circle that kept the water completely out. At the same time, the inside of it was decorated with stairs and pathways, leading down so that men and their crude machinery could dig downwards and dispose of the earth outward as they dug the ruin out of the sludge.

  "Nice..." Isha muttered, realizing the scope of it all.

  "We found a ruin underwater, and for a year now, we have been working on excavating it…" Devitt sighed as he expined, "Sadly, it's… well... it did not go as pnned."

  "I can see that the water and the earth near the source are almost frozen." Ren nodded, her eyes barely looking elsewhere than the center of it all.

  "You have sharp eyes." Devitt agreed, "There is an old, pagoda-like building there. It had sunk into the ground, with only the top protruding, and it had been underwater before it all. It oozes incredible coldness like a weird wound. It is so cold that it freezes anything after an hour, so we can't work on it all the time… And... near the tip of the ruin, it sucks out the warmth from everything, living or not."

  "..." Ren just slowly closed her eyes as more of her memories returned to her before letting out a sad sigh. "There is an artifact deep under it, which was used by an old cultivator in the demigod stage... but he sealed it here ter. Out of... pure sentiment."

  "What?" Devitt asked, looking at Ren with question marks in their eyes. "That would be the first time I heard something like this, but sure, we also think there is some kind of secret buried here! Or a treasure!"

  "So you are trying to get it out… I advise you against it." She shook her head, eyes still closed, her face becoming serious.

  "Thanks, but no thanks." Devitt furrowed his brow, getting a bit cautious towards them. "I get it; you guys are probably strong cultivators, pying around who knows why, but don't even think we would fall back and let you all take the fruits of our bor just like that!" He raised his voice as the others were getting ready to fight if necessary, gathering around them.

  "You misunderstood me." Ren shook her head again. "I just say if it is sealed here, it was done so for a reason. Prod it, and... suffer its consequences."

  "You say it was sealed; I say time buried it here." Devitt snorted, "Girl, I know you may think you are smart enough for your age, but don't try to swindle us out of it; we were in the business for far longer than you walking this nd!"

  "Do what you want." Ren shrugged, turning around while Isha sent over a message.

  "So, there is really a treasure deep under? What now? Your trick didn't work to send them away; should we use force?"

  "Trick? It wasn't a trick." Ren answered, looking at her with one eye, "I was honest. Don't touch it; it won't bring luck, only misfortune." She shook her head, surprising Isha with how serious she was.

  "What? Were you real? But…”

  "I read about it," She lied, "Anyway, it's not important; they would need a ton of resources and luck to get to the bottom of the pagoda; they just dug up a tiny portion of it, scratching the surface. They are decades away from getting it."

  Still, her previous words struck an idea into Devitt's head, and those who heard her. A treasure from a demigod, a being of legends… something left behind by a cultivator of that caliber from ancient times, should be something empires would fight over. It was unheard of to ever find something like this, or it was just kept secret by the top dogs of the continent... Now they were standing at the bank of one; of course, they were more than fired up to dig it out.

  "How did you find it?" Ren asked suddenly.

  "By accident." Devitt said absentmindedly, "Our ship was damaged, anchored here... It hit something weird, and we found the ruin underwater after checking what happened."

  "I see. Anyway, I lost interest; we should go." She said with a disappointed expression, speaking to Isha and the rest.

  "Wait!" Devitt cut in suddenly. "You are clearly a strong group, and now you know about it."

  "Yeeees?" Isha turned around with a smile that was not a smile, fmes flickering around her sleeve.

  "I mean… what if we work together?" Devitt gulped, raising his hands.

  "You want to use us to dig it out?" Ren tilted her head, smiling at him.

  "Of course." Devitt nodded. "I mean, not to use you! Damn it… I mean, we... work together! We have been at it for a year now. It took so many resources just to get this far... We robbed who knows how many caravans to keep the operation going!"

  "You are possessed." Isha snorted, disgusted by him.

  "Maybe we are." He agreed, "We were about to give up a year ago, but we captured an interesting fellow, and because he helped us the big time, we let him go and be free."

  "Oh?" Ren crossed her arms, intrigued once again. "What kind of guy?"

  "He was some kind of scaly fel, never seen one before." Devitt snorted while expining, "He was strolling in the forest in expensive garb, so we wanted to rob him. But it turned out he was a poor bastard, cast out, a mix between a demon and a human. Anyway, he was talented with water magic, so we made him clean the water around the ruin so we could build up the obstruction around it and work without issues!"

  “Hey… isn’t that…” Isha whispered, and Ren just nodded.

  "Yup, our fishboy," she answered. "Do you know where he went? Honestly, we are looking for him."

  "You know him?" Devitt asked, shaking his head, "Sorry, I don't know more; he wanted to cross the Shert to get into the Kingdom's territory. We told him where the closest crossing points were and let him on his way. Can't help you with that."

  "I see. Then we are done here." Ren nodded, determined to leave, but she met with the pleading faces of Isha, 01, and 02, and even Lacuss was looking at her now. "What?"

  "We should help them." Isha cut in.

  "Interesting ruin," Lacuss added while 01 and 02 just nodded.

  "See? Your friends are willing to help. Look, we don't ask you to do it for free. We can strike a deal. We want the treasure; you can have anything else down there. What do you say?" Devitt rubbed his hands together, feeling in the clear now.

  "Are you sure?" Ren asked, ignoring Devitt and looking at her comrades.

  "Yes! Look, this is fun, aren't you about having fun all the time?" Isha ughed, making Ren just sigh and shake her head.

  "They will betray us at the first moment, you know that, don't you?" She transmitted it to them, and they just nodded, without a worry.

  "Big deal, we are stronger." Isha grinned confidently.

  "Okay… if you wish so." She murmured, shaking her head a bit more before turning to Devitt. "Lucky you, eh? You got yourself a deal. Get us a raft or something, and let's get to this ruin of yours. But I warn you… You asked for this." She said, looking into Devitt's eyes... but her warning was nding on deaf ears, be it the bandits... or her companions.