The Elder from Poseidon academy did go with a certain agenda in his mind.

But when the scroll was signed by Sam, it didn't take any effect. Sam was standing there like a straight flag pole without so much as a change in his expression as he signed the scroll.

However, the Elder didn't have the privilege to check why in that setting and had to leave.

Now on his way back he is trying to see if the trick they left in the scroll is actually working of if it got faulty. However as he injected his energy into it…

*SPARK*

It started burning. The scroll caught flames starting exactly from the blood drop and spiritual signature Sam left on it before the whole thing burned. The Elder didn't even have time to react as it happened.

He had a bad feeling and ran to the academy.

Meanwhile, as soon as Sam the scroll burned, Sam got the message in his head. It was linked to his spiritual signature and in turn his soul after all. As soon as he got the message, he got into work.

In the meeting while everyone else is discussing the possibilities and completely ignored him, he closed his while sitting in his chair.

Only Ling Tian and Dove noticed this. While the latter just believed he was resting, the former had a bad feeling.

At that moment, some of the systems of the hub were activated without making much noise. Since no one is here in the building and the rest of the building being shut down, there is no disturbance.

Sam first tapped into the surveillance data.

He looked for the Elder of the Poseidon academy that came with the scroll. After locking in on him, he went through all the information to pinpoint all of the people that are close with that elder.

His favorite students, direct disciples, confidants, servants, friends, partners both sexual and business, descendants, both of legitimate and private. Most of them are unsurprisingly part of the Poseidon academy in one way are the other.

After identifying all of these people, of which the total number added up to a little more than sixty, Sam went through their histories to identify their dark acts. To see if any of them have any saintly qualities that could mark them as innocent.

Unfortunately for them, none of them do.

His descendants in particular…. Sam would have killed them to just avoid breathing the same air as them. They are that rotten.

Then he started checking for their bird puppets and their wrist bands. Unfortunately for him, not all them had these. Only around half of them maintained and luckily for him, all the descendants of the elder maintained their wrist bands.

Sam took a deep breath at this point.

Because he is using one of the functions of the hub that he hasn't use at all. It is also part of his latest technology. Maybe not too latest, but something he discovered before he got into the academy realm.

Something that helped him kill people that are a lot stronger than him.

The Energy Resonance.

And he is now combining them with what he learned from the special book tha Gambler got him from Hel.

Dark elemental energy that was stored in one of the cores of the hub was utilized as it gathered on a special platform that he created. It couldn't exactly be considered a platform, more like a secret chamber.

In that secret chamber, based on Sam's will, the gathered ark elemental energy is mixed with fire elemental energy and Sam manufactured a curse.

A curse that is powerful, dangerous, painful, but not lethal or life threatening. However, he is sure as hell that they would wish that they could die. The moment the curse was manufactured, wrist bands of thirty five people all of them at various corners of the Poseidon academy started glowing.

Sam's vein on his forehead started bulging a bit. He is sweating. This is a big operation, even bigger than launching Divine Plane Consummate level defenses and attacks using the hub.

The problem is not with the level of the energy or the attack, instead because of the distance and most importantly the resonance.

He had to use the surrounding energy of the wrist band, which is mostly in the control of the people who are wearing it.

However, there is indeed some aide for him. The bird puppets. They have energy cores. So, the people among the thirty-five, that still had the bird puppets were the first to get affected. The birds flew close to the wrist bands and supplied the energy.

Even though it took a lot of effort, the upside is everything happened fast enough to make sure that they couldn't resist even if they did notice it before the curse manifested.

The curse immediately latched on to them.

It is a very powerful curse and since there is bodily contact with the users, it didn't really discriminate based on the cultivation levels. Of course, for the truly powerful, it didn't really hurt that much.

Like for the people in the later stages of the Divine Plane transcendence.

However, there are only four people like that and even they felt a bit drained as they fought against it.

The rest of them however…. Particularly the weakest of them all. The offspring of the elder. They took the brunt of it, the true effects of the curse are displayed on them.

First, following the veins, the curse spread all over their bodies creating a burning sensation prompted by the fire elemental energy injected into the curse. The energy was imprinted all over the veins and the pain intensifies with time as blood circulates within the body.

The only way to stop the pain is to either diffuse the curse or stop the blood from flowing.

The first one is very complicated. Sam believed that unless people from Hel academy visits here, not many people would be able to diffuse it without harming the people.

The second method is to stop the blood from circulating altogether. Of course, that has a small side effect called death.

But those are the only ways. Of course, they could also strongly resist it with their own spiritual energy and negate it, but not a lot of them are that skilled.

By the time the elder reached the academy, these people that were cursed are already noticed.

They also identified the pattern. The elder went to the dean and reported that the scroll didn't work. Then he also received the news that more than half of the people that are important to the elder are cursed.

A curse that is so potent that even the Dean at the first glance was not able to identify the complexity of.

As for why Sam did this?

It is simple.

The scroll that the elder brought to Sam was a trap. A curse was associated with the contract in that scroll, but it was hidden by some special means as it was ingrained in the scroll material itself.

Once Sam imprints his blood and spiritual signature, the curse will be activated. And by the nature of the curse, it had only two effects. One of them is that it will cause a lot of physical pain, gradually increasing with time.

The second one is that the pain multiplies every time he lies.

Sam didn't know exactly what the Poseidon academy wanted to gain from this. Either that they trusted Sam to identify the curse and come crawling to them, or they believed in gambler academy to get the truth out of Sam in that condition, along with the secrets.

The first case is farfetched, because there is no way in hell the gambler academy would let him out of their sight.

Then, the second case, is likely, but with the condition that the Poseidon academy has means to know the information learned by the Gambler academy after interrogating Sam.

Which means, there could be a spy in the gambler academy.

Of course, the best way to counter a curse is always diffuse it the moment it applied on someone.

Sam, as soon as the curse was activated, managed to break it down. It is of high level in terms of energy, but not in terms of quality. Compared to the curses in the book from Hel, these are mediocre at best.

The moment he broke the curse, the scroll started burning. And Sam sent a return gift to the elder.

"It seems our plan backfired. But we can be sure about one thing. Sam is definitely related to Hub somehow.

The wrist bands are the origin of the curse and the curse effect is similar, only they used fire elemental energy to cause the burning sensation.

"

Dean explained o the elder.

"Then, we must apprehend him. This is enough evidence.

" The Elder said with grief and sorrow overwhelming him.

"We could. But we need to prove that we used a curse against him and this is a consequence of that. However, as you just said, the scroll is burned. And even if we can prove that, then we would have to give an explanation why we encroached on the rights of Gambler academy now.

We can't use direct methods regarding this incident.

However, I think we can find another way.

"