Chapter 902 - Soul Monarch
Apparently, the monarch was a wandering soul.
However, it was not just any wandering soul, but that of a Yinar.
It had great talent, tremendous combat prowess, and a soul that allowed him to bind multiple wandering souls towards it.
The man had been at the Specta stage and was powerful enough to defeat numerous opponents.
Unfortunately, he had gone down the wrong path and begun devouring the wandering souls he had bound to his soul.
Instead of allowing them to live inside him and become stronger, the man had devoured them.
This cruel act was forbidden in the rows of the Yinar race.
After all, trust was the most important factor in the bond between a wandering soul and a Yinar.
If news about the Yinar race betraying the trust of the wandering souls that voluntarily entered a bond with them were to leak, the Yinar race's reputation would be tarnished.
But that wouldn't be everything because not a single wandering soul would dare create a bond with someone belonging to the Yinar race.
As such, Yinars that devoured their wandering souls were pursued, caught, and executed in order to free the wandering souls of their misery.
This was necessary to clearly show the wandering souls that the Yinar race didn't support the forbidden technique.
Yet, there were a total of 13 Yinars that had done exactly this.
One of the men was known as the Monarch and the remaining 12 were his guards.
This meant that the monarch was their leader.
This was quite ridiculous, but all of them were powerful enough to defeat dozens of Yinar at the same cultivation base.
In the end, their combat prowess had already been tremendous before they devoured their wandering souls.
However, after using the forbidden devouring technique, they not only became stronger, but gained the advantage of the wandering souls' strength.
Turning into wandering souls themselves, they began to devour the energy from within the Soa crystals.
They also had an additional benefit of not receiving a relaxation from the usual restriction.
Normally, wandering souls would not be able to devour as much energy as they wanted.
But, this did not apply to the 13 Yinar wandering souls.
Whether this was because they devoured their own wandering souls, or it was because of a different factor was unknown.
What was certain was that they were so powerful that even the City Lord would have to fear them.
This was worrisome, and when Jason got to know all of this, he couldn't help but be a little bit confused.
'Why would the Soul Monarch, and his guards even bother about this small city? We are surrounded by more than a dozen settlements of other Agran that are contracted by foreign races. And from what I know, there are not many Soa crystal sources around here.
And the ones that are found here are not that big if the information is to be trusted!'
Yet, the more Jason thought of it, the more reasonable it was for the Soul Monarch to choose their direction as his path of advancement.
'If the City Lord cannot even fight one of the Guards, how should he and the Elders be able to defeat 12 Guards and the Soul Monarch himself!
Furthermore, if I heard it correctly, they can control wandering souls to a certain extent…and in that case, we will just be stampeded!'
Realization struck him, and Jason could only grow disappointed while his mind was deep in thoughts.
Nevertheless, even if he could come up with a solution, it was not exactly his business to figure out something.
After all, he and Jennifer had the option to leave whenever they wanted, but others didn't.
At least not without leaving behind their house and settlement!
Jason believed that the Yinar race had put in some countermeasures against the Soul Monarch, to begin with.
Because of that, he quickly calmed down, thinking that it was better to allow the City Lord to act however he pleased.
Meanwhile, Jason turned towards the receptionist, who had sent out Miles to report about the recent developments to the City Lord.
Having witnessed everything, Miles was the best person to relay the required information.
Thus, only the receptionist with his worried expression was left behind, if one were to exclude the other people in the room who had turned into statues as they eavesdropped on everything being discussed.
This gave Jason the opportunity to approach the receptionist as he asked,
"It might sound weird, but can we still hand over the goods for the mission?"
We have successfully completed all four missions, and if possible, I would like to apply for a mission that rewards Soa crystals!"
He was extremely calm and unruffled by the news of the Soul Monarch as if it didn't bother him at all.
Astonished about this, the young receptionist momentarily forgot what he was about to do.
As he stared at Jason blankly, he received a bunch of herbs, the notes about the infested lands, and a small spatial ring with the content of all beasts he had hunted in the territory of overpopulated Prismar stage beasts.
Understanding that Jason had not just found Miles, but that he completed every mission before searching for his brother, the receptionist could only look at Jason with renewed interest.
The young man with golden eyes appeared to be extremely admirable at the first glance.
But after observing him for some time, the receptionist had no idea what Jason might be thinking, or who the hell he could be.
This was confusing because he was known for being good at analyzing other people, yet, he seemed to have failed in Jason's case.
While slowly moving his hands, the receptionist looked through the items Jason had handed over before halting in his tracks for a moment.
He realized what Jason had been speaking about, which caused him to eye the young man for a moment.
Only then did he hand over the rewards of the missions that had been completed successfully.
"Alright, here are the rewards…but about the Soa crystal rewards…I'm not sure if you already heard about that, but Agran are not allowed to accept or complete these missions!"
Accepting the rewards, Jason simply dumped them in his ring without bothering to look what it was.
Instead, he looked at the receptionist for a second before understanding the situation.
'Is Elder Ben not done completing the formalities to obtain the permission yet?' He thought, only to hear a familiar voice from behind.
"Myno, that's not quite correct. Jason is allowed to accept missions that provide Soa crystals as a reward. I got the City Lord's stamp for this. Here take a look!"
As if on cue, Elder Ben appeared in front of Myno, the receptionist, before showing him a simple piece of paper that had a silver sigil on it.
Even after reading through it for a moment, the receptionist looked at Elder Ben in doubt.
His eyes clearly showed depicted his confusion as if he was asking if the situation was real before shrugging his shoulders.
"In that case, it's fine! But Elder, why didn't the City Lord personally come to take care of the issues? Is he already occupied with planning something against the Soul Monarch's possible advance towards the city?"
The moment Myno finished his last question, the smile on Elder Ben's face froze, replaced by confusion and doubt.
"What…exactly do you mean? Why would the Soul monarch come here, to our little city?!"
At this moment, everyone realized that the Elder was oblivious to the truth, and that he had passed by Miles as he was occupied with Jason's permission, which he had handed the golden-eyed young man.
'I guess it's time to explain the situation!'