Elder Forsham extended his senses to see who all was in this space, and then paused as he found much more than he had expected.
It wasn’t all refugees like the Shaman, who was still branded with an aura from another Immortal World. She was definitely held captive for most of her life in that world, before whatever brought her to Karl had happened.
There were also people who had grown up in the same mortal world that Karl and his team had come from, and he had a sneaking suspicion that this place might still be linked to that world in some way.
If Karl was still accessing the mortal realm, the power level of that place was going to skyrocket, just based on the castoffs of his crafting.
What he couldn’t know was that the Darklight Host didn’t rely on his castoffs. They had Mythic craftsmen already, and Karl wasn’t selling Immortal Rank gear to the Guild, as per his agreement with Azov.
Technically, it wasn’t prohibited to sell to the Guild Members themselves, but realistically none of them actually needed it, as just having Epic Grade Mythic Rank gear was more than enough to take care of everything that they were facing in that world.
If there was another invasion, or they were threatened to an extent that they couldn’t deal with, then Karl would ship them better stuff.
"You know, other than the fact that they’re still mortals, you basically have your own Clan here.
Or if you were one of the Consumption Clans, you would be set to produce a Supreme Ranked leader within a generation." Elder Forsham noted.
"A Consumption Clan?" Karl asked.
"Ah, I suppose that you don’t know the term. It refers to a form of skill that consumes the power of those weaker than you to fuel your progression. The general rule of thumb is that it takes the full power and souls of a thousand Void Rank Immortals to bring one of their leaders from Ascendance to Supremacy.
Now, that’s not realistic, as they would only be a bit weaker than him. But five times that many Spirit Immortals would be about right.
That’s one of the more common uses of these separate spaces.
Push everyone up to a certain level, then have them work hard to progress while you siphon off their gains. As you can likely guess, it’s considered one of the evil techniques, but many Systems include a skill of a similar nature." The Elder explained.
Behind Karl, Cara burst into laughter, while Thor turned away and whistled innocently.
"You know of the method, then?" Elder Douglas asked rhetorically.
Obviously, they did.
"Karl actually has a sword that steals soul and life essence to fuel his power. It’s not just a System Skill, it’s a physical item where we come from. But he’s too pure and innocent to have thought about farming people for their power.
He doesn’t even use the blade in combat most of the time unless it’s a duel, or he doesn’t like the person," she explained.
"Seriously? Karl uses a soul stealing weapon? I wouldn’t have guessed, given his personality. Does it not corrupt with use? Or is it a matter of time?"
Karl shook his head. "No, the sword purifies the energy before transferring it. So it doesn’t matter what the life essence or soul energy came from, only that I challenged and defeated something higher ranked than I was.
It does collect from everything that dies around me, but it’s not the same level of gain.
Something like using an under ranked instead of an over rank potion."
"Wait, are these all Darklight Host Guild members?" He asked.
"Uhm, yes? We inducted them so that we could send them to dungeons on behalf of the Guild. It’s the only way that they could build up the skill points that they needed after starting at Mythic Rank." Karl explained.
"And you don’t see how that might possibly be an issue?"
"No?"
Elder Socrate patted his counterpart on the shoulder.
"Let me handle this, I have experience.
You see, if we bring in a bunch of randoms, that’s one thing. But he’s not the only one who is going to notice that they’re all your Guild members. And what do you think is going to happen when the Clan sees you bring dozens of Immortals from your Guild into the Clan?
Half of them will think you’re staging a coup, and the other half are going to think that you have a secret skill to improve progression speed."
Cara raised one finger, as if she wanted to speak, and Elder Socrate laughed.
"Let me guess? He does have one, doesn’t he?"
"Not just one. But we have a really good Guild Skill. Who would want to leave?"

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