Chapter 1072: Clues

Two days later all the missions were finished and coincidentally almost at the same time.

Sam couldn't feel the location of his spiritual imprint at the moment because the user might have placed his golem in his spatial storage. All Sam could feel is that the spiritual imprint is there on the golem and was not removed.

When Five elemental King arrived at the city, he went to the inn he was residing in and waited for Sam's call.

This time, Sam didn't let them all come to him, instead, he decided that it is a great chance to test one of his new toys.

This one uses the hologram technology he came across along with the live broadcast function he used and the communication device all three techs merged together making the video call possible as if they are talking side by side and face to face.

Even though this tech is not new in this world and in fact used in many places, the scale of usage is different. Nobody uses this type of tech to make individual calls as it needs some large-scale formations and resources.

They set the time for the call to be that night.

Sam is currently focusing on his spiritual imprint. Since the missions are over, the batch of main branch members are going to leave and even if they didn't use the ice golems when they are going to sect, once they are at the sect, he is sure that they would use the ice golems back in the sect where they train.

And that would be the time, he could estimate the location of the sect.

But to his surprise, that night, Sam felt the spiritual imprint location. He closed his eyes and focused and from what he could sense, it is from the external branch of the sect. Sam frowned at this.

Even if they are still at the external branch, there is no need for them to use the ice golems, from what he observed, the sect members don't use the ice golems that easily, they would only take them out when they are serious.

He immediately left the inn and went to the bar nearest to the external branch, so that he could have a better estimation. 

The ice golem is at the rear of the external branch.

He could sense that it is standing in the same location for a while.

Sam closed his eyes and kept his focus and soon he sensed a movement from the ice golem, it seemed to be descending downwards from the spot, not front or back and not even flying through the air.

It jumped downwards and soon he felt it rapidly moving downwards before suddenly going through some rapid twists and turns like a roller coaster and then it moved forward. The motion is fast, but it is against something and the location is completely different from what it was a few seconds ago.

The ice golem is already out of the city. Sam was shocked and he came out and took off on harbinger in the direction of the ice golem.

He kept on trying to get the location, but the ice golem is moving constantly and all of a sudden Sam suddenly lost the connection with the spiritual imprint.

It is not like the previous time when the golem was stored in the spatial ring.

At that time, even though he couldn't feel the location, he can at least sense the existence of the spiritual imprint.

But at the moment, the spiritual imprint didn't exist at all, it completely disappeared.

Sam frowned and he immediately returned to the city at full speed.

He didn't dare stay out in the open and definitely not pursuit the ice golem's last signal before it disappeared.

Because there are two cases in which the spiritual imprint might have gone, the first case would be the golem is damaged somehow and the piece where the spiritual imprint was placed was destroyed and the second case is that they detected the spiritual imprint of the golem and destroyed it willingly.

If it is really the second case, then the situation would be dire.

As soon as he went there he would be suspected and they would come after him. Once they realized that someone is searching for their lair they wouldn't let them off easily. And when preparing this plan, Sam didn't rule out the scenario where the spiritual imprint was discovered. But the plan to go smoothly, even if the other party discovered that, they shouldn't confront them at this point.

After returning to the city, Sam made the conference call to the teammates and said.

"The plan with the spiritual imprint failed. The imprint was destroyed, but I don't know if they knew about it and destroyed it deliberately at a specific place to lure us out or it is just sheer coincidence.

But I discovered something. There is a passageway from the external branch to the outside of the city, we don't know where it is and how it can be accessed, but there is definitely a way."

Sam explained his findings.

"Boss, I got a few hints from them. But all of them are regarding the environment around the sect.

First, they have their own fields and they don't explore herbs that much. They have a strong source of frost essence with a decently high purity nearby.

The person that came with me is fond of many fish that are common in this place and he seems to be used to eating them daily. But among the fish he mentioned, one of them is not so common in the stream near the city.

It is rarely seen in the stream but mostly stays in some relatively stagnant water, at least according to my inquiry.

They have mountains in their region and the wild beasts are not so common in their territory as they would send all the people to the city to take missions related to wild beasts to get the basic battle experience.

I don't know if this is useful. But this is the only thing I could get."

Five Elemental King explained his findings.

Sam couldn't help but feel surprised by his findings and then he gave out a smile. Because, even though these findings look normal, they are absolutely not.

They are actually very important and narrow down the search for a few places in the vicinities.

The first clue is that the sect grows their own herbs, if this is a regular place then this information is not worth the trouble, because every sect would have its own herb field. But they are currently in ice plains, every part of it is covered in thick layers of snow and ice, it is not easy to maintain a field, and finding land that could be cultivated year-round is a task that would make one curse their own ancestors.

The source of frost essence is also an important clue. Even though the frost essence is not that rare in these ice plains and they could be seen everywhere, in the stream, on the mountain, sometimes in the forests too, but it is mostly crude and impure. To have a pure frost essence resource, the places are few.

In the same way, even the location of the fish is a hint.

Now they can narrow down some locations and search to see if they could find any clues.

The meeting was over after the rest of the team described whatever they learned.

There are not many significant discoveries they got. 

The next day, they focused on getting the layouts and maps of the surrounding areas. These are mostly bought by some low-level cultivators who are amateurs in exploring, but they didn't mind, they got everything they could get and then they marked the areas with all the discoveries that Five elemental King made.

And then the searching began.

While the team went to different locations, Sam followed the route left by the golem before it disappeared.

Of course, he didn't go to the rear of the external branch, he went to the place outside the city and started his search from the point which is the first location he sensed from the spiritual imprint.

But when he went there, he was surprised to see that there is nothing there.

He couldn't see anything.

There was only an ice field without anything in the sight, but he still followed the path he could map out with his memory and finally stopped at the spot where the spiritual imprint completely disappeared.

This made him feel a bit confused. There are no signs of battle and in fact, there is not a single sign of any activity except some Frost Elks that are moving around in the field taking a bite of some frost grass that was growing there.

Sam hunted an elk and went back to the inn with it as he cooked the food.

He was confused by what he saw. The whole path is completely clear and there is no sign of anyone moving there. But the spiritual imprint definitely disappeared there.