Unsealing Emptiness

Haley evaded her eyes, but managed to answer nonetheless, “There are 35 people, young master...”

Looking at her, it was obvious that she didn’t think that she had gathered enough people, but Ozul simply nodded his head and asked, “Give me the details.”

While Haley took out the documents, the others in the room began to take their leave under Irvin’s order. A few minutes later, only Irvin, Oliver, and Haley were left in the room together with Ozul and the duo.

“Young master, all of these people are Rank-8 Mages at the very least,” Haley said after she had gathered the documents. She offered them to Ozul for him to take a look at it, but he was too lazy to read.

Her words caused a great shock to Raven and Blaze who were also in the same rank, albeit in the upper level. Since when did finding Rank-8 Mages had become so easy?! They couldn’t help but doubt her words.

Unknown to them, the resources that Ozul had allowed Haley to use far exceeded what any other organization might offer their members. If she could find these Mages, roping them in was not a problem.

.....

The fact that the Three-Eyed Strangers was an information gathering organization also helped when she had to find these people.

Oliver at the side couldn’t help but sigh as well. With the organization’s resources and the pressure from all around him, he had managed to break through to Rank-7, but it now seemed that he was nowhere near strong enough.

Haley herself had also become a Rank-8 Mage, so she had an easier time dealing with all of this mess.

“Majority of these people are at the Initial Stage with just a couple of them at Middle Stage. Sadly, I wasn’t able to find any End Stage Rank-8,” Haley sighed since having a peak Rank-8 Mage as the leader of this division would have ensured its success.

“It doesn’t matter. Just inform that if any of them managed to reach the End Stage before others, they will automatically be made the division leader. Only if you can’t find anyone either,” Ozul calmly explained to which Haley listened with care.

She planned to do the same before but had stopped since she would obviously need Ozul’s permission before choosing the division leader.

“Since you had told me to hurry up, I could only look for people from the outside,” Haley continued while skimming through the documents once again.

Surprisingly, Blaze spoke up, “Wouldn’t it be hard to ensure their loyalties?”

His question was valid since rapidly recruiting Rank-8 Mages from outside would obviously mean that all of them only joined for their own benefits. But loyalty had to be built with time; it was not something they could buy with resources.

However, Haley shook her head and replied, “Don’t worry about that. First of all, most of them are runaway Mages from other popular factions. They are being hunted down by their respective organizations and had nowhere to go.”

There were all kinds of reasons that an organization would hunt their own member, but one thing was assured, no small faction would ever take in such runaways as it meant declaring open war.

Many of the other core members had shown their disagreement when they had learned that Haley was recruiting these runaways. After all, it might have been fine if it was only one or two people, but Haley accepted any Rank-8 Mage that she stumbled upon!

There were 35 people currently, and it meant that they would have offended tens of factions if they learned about any of this.

Of course, Haley didn’t listen to any of their protests. It was a direct order from Ozul after all. Even these core members shut up when she told them who had given this order.

Earlier, they were voicing out their complaints, but that was because they had found out how many resources were allocated to this new division formed by Haley. Most of them found it unfair that this division would be receiving so many benefits when many of them were Middle Stage Rank-8 Mages.

What they didn’t know was how stricter the conditions placed on the members of this division were compared to theirs.

“Not just that, all of them have taken oaths. So they wouldn’t even think about betraying the organization,” Haley added with a confident smile.

Since all the members of this division were getting so many resources, they also had to take much more restrictive oaths than the normal core members.

The core members, at most, had to swear that they wouldn’t betray the organization and would never spill out its secret. Other than that, they had free will and could make their own decisions and point out their dissatisfactions anytime they wanted.

They could even leave the organization. Of course, they had to take another oath to never spill any secrets of the organization even after leaving.

Unlike them, the members of this new division didn’t have any of that privilege. One such oath they had to swear was that they would follow any order given directly by Ozul!

“Even if you tell them to give up their life, they will have to do it,” Haley added, startling everyone in the room except for Ozul.

Even Irvin and Oliver didn’t know that Haley had made those members take such an oath!

However, considering that all of them were hunted down and lived in fear of dying every day, it wasn’t surprising that they would accept such an oath. It also helped the fact that Ozul was a Rank-9 Mage in their eyes and people naturally wanted to follow a strong figure.

It was better to give their life to a powerhouse than to get hunted down like a street dog.

Before Blaze raised another question, Haley explained, “Though that is only limited to Young Master. Otherwise, they are free to do whatever they want except harm the organization or leak any information.”

Blaze stopped in the middle as it seemed that he had his question already answered.

“Good. Don’t stop looking. If you can find any Rank-8 Mage and they agree to take the same oaths, recruit them. I believe we have enough resources to accommodate even more members,” Ozul nodded his head in satisfaction.

Thirty five Rank-8 Mages were more than what he had expected. But it was exactly what he needed.

“Yes, young master,” Haley respectfully bowed. She could see that Ozul was more or less satisfied with her work, so she could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

The only reason he had come back to the headquarters instead of directly going towards the ruins was because of this division.

Although for him, a Rank-8 Mage was nothing. But it was an undeniable fact that Rank-8 Mages were the main force of any big faction. Just this fact alone that the Three-Eyed Strangers now had a secret division that consisted of thirty five Rank-8 Mages was enough to put them in the ranks of those older factions.

Of course, now that Ozul was stronger than Rank-9 Mages, there were only four factions in the entire continent that could compete with the Three-Eyed Strangers.

Now that he had confirmed that this secret division was already more or less established, it would be useful for his exploration.

Following that, he had some other things to test as well, so he looked at Oliver and Irvin, “Come here you two.”

The two men were confused why Ozul had called them closer but they complied nonetheless.

Ozul first placed his hand on Oliver’s chest, confusing him even more.

‘Hm? He has it way less than Raven and Blaze...’ Ozul found that compared to the duo, the traces of his essence inside Oliver was marginally low.

After that, Ozul placed his hand on Irvin’s chest. They didn’t question what he was doing as they didn’t want to break his focus.

The amount of traces around Irvin’s heart were even lower than Oliver’s.

‘Does it have to do anything with me staying around them?’ Ozul could only think that such was the case. Since he had lived with Raven for the longest, she had it the most while Irvin had the least traces of essence which also matched with his hypothesis.

He would have to examine the body of people who he hasn’t been around for him to confirm his suspicions.

“Bring me two people. One of them must have taken that healing potion at least once, and the other shouldn’t,” Ozul ordered to which Irvin nodded his head before moving out of the room.

It was truly a bliss when he didn’t have to do his own things and could order people under him instead.

After a while, Irvin came back with two such members who were sweating like crazy. They didn’t know why they were directly called to the seventh floor where only the core members were allowed, so they were both on edge.

Ozul neared them and placed his hand on them one by one before thoroughly examining their bodies as well.

‘As I thought...’

Ozul could more or less make a solid conclusion that the longer one stayed with him, the more traces of essence they would have.

“You can go,” he waved his hand and the two members hurriedly left the room, glad that they hadn’t done anything wrong.

Since he was done here, he was about to move to his room on the 8th floor when Haley suddenly stopped him, “Young master, what should I name this division...?”