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nThe planet suddenly stopped just a few hundred kilometers away from the barrage of ships, which in terms of space travel, might as well have been a few centimeters. In front of these ships, were numerous extremely powerful cultivators, ready to destroy the planet at any moment. What stopped them was the oddness of the planet slowing its motion.

nWith the lack of any gravitational force that could direct a celestial object, said object would never slow down, and keep going until it would encounter another object on which it could crash into, hence the surprise of these cultivators, who did not expect for a planet to slow down to a stop.

nWhat they were expecting even less, was for the planet to suddenly become smaller, and disappear in the hand of a young looking man, who floated in the space right in front of them along with a few other peculiar individuals.

nDespite the surprise, half a dozen cultivators immediately appeared in front of Daniel and his group, each dressed in different kinds of armor that displayed the same insignia.

nEver since the moment they had appeared, Daniel and the rest of his group had guessed them to be different mercenary groups who had been hired by the same employer to work as some sort of spatial patrol. That guess was proven by the golden circle with a dark interior littered with small bright lights that was shown on the armours of each of these cultivators.

n

"You are entering the government's ring of commerce. What is the purpose of your visit?

" Asked a tall and fit woman with a dark green heavy plated armor that gave away more of her skin than her own identity. Behind her, were at least thirty ships with banners colored of a similar color.

nBefore Daniel could even respond, a man clad in black armor, and whose face was covered by a helmet with two short horns that moved out and up of the two sides of his forehead, asked,

"Wait, before that, don't you think we should ask him what the hell was he traveling on?

" He then turned to look at his four other peers, and added with open arms,

"Am I the only one who is curious?

" Behind him was a single black ship from which the two closest fleets, kept the same distance they kept from any other.

n

"I am headed in that direction.

" Said Daniel while pointing at the core of the system called

"ring of commerce

", the system of which Cato was the main planet, as well as the core of the universal government's commerce.

nThe ring of commerce was widely known in the territory of the universal government. If someone wanted to sell or buy something of value, that was where they would have gone. Daniel's vague response had made these six cultivators suspicious, as he was heading straight into Cato, while he did not seem aware of what its name was.

n

"Do you even know what is there?

" Asked the man clad in black armor with doubt.

nUnfortunately, Daniel's system only gave him a direction and a specific time count which he needed to follow in order to find his friends before they were killed, or died of unfortunate accidents. So when he found himself in front of the question, he was unable to answer it.

n

"Is there a specific reason why you'd stop us from entering this system?

" Asked Daniel, ignoring the question.

n

"We weren't here to stop someone from coming in at first, but to destroy a damn rogue planet that was headed for the system. We definitely were not expecting for it to be some odd spaceship.

" Responded the only one of the six whose appearance was not masked by his full armor. He was a muscular old man with a face covered in scars, and body clad in silver armor. Behind him was the biggest fleet, composed of at least five hundred ships placed in meticular order.

nIt is important to understand how vast Daniel's planet was. With a size that could compete with that of any other big sized planet, even if one of these cultivators was able to destroy it before it could reach Cato or any other planet, they would only create a barrage of comets that would inevitable do some damage, hence the large number of ship and cultivators assigned to stopping its motion. There were enough cultivators to turn the planet into dust.

nDaniel wouldn't have bothered with these people if he had not felt that the power of each and every one of them, was leaps and bounds beyond his. In comparison, the many demon lords from hell were not as scary. This group of six was part of the protective system created by the rich merchants of Cato. Hired mercenaries that kept order in the ring of cummerce.

n

"Answer the question.

" Added the female warrior with a slightly less cordial tone.

nBefore answering, Daniel turned to his right, where Aeron was floating. The two did not speak to each other, and the only semblance of cummunication between them was a feeble shake of Aeron's head.

nThe very moment they had arrived, Daniel had asked Aeron to try and read the mind of these individuals in order to find out what their intentions were. Now that he required that kind of information, he found out that Aeron had been unable to peek into their minds due to some type of odd mental barrier that protected each of their minds.

nThis warned Daniel about the experience of these individuals, who had immediately recognized the ascended mental warrior in Daniel's company, and activated their protective talismans right away.

n

"We are here to find some friends who we know that they were headed in this system. This place is our only lead.

" Responded Daniel to the woman's question. He then turned to look at the other five cultivators, before adding,

"You don't look like the typical army. Why are you questioning us? Are we about to get robbed?

"

n

"Just mercenaries, hired to make sure that nobody with the intention of causing a ruckus, enters the territory.

" Responded the scarred old man before turning to look at the woman, and adding,

"They look alright. Just let them through.

"

nThe woman did not acknowledge what the old man said, and instead said,

"You are not allowed in with your.. Spaceship. Leave it outside of the system with one of your friends.

"

n

"Why?

" Asked Daniel back.

n

"The size is too big. If you resize it to the dimensions we have seen before, it will distrupt the system's orbits before we are able to do something.

" Responded the man in black armor, clearly aware of the woman's reasons.

nTo Daniel these people did not appear as evil individuals. Their karmic points were all in the negative side, but their behaviour did not show greed or aggressiveness, meaning that they were paid enough to not want to screw up their job. The fact that they wanted one of Daniel's friends to stay out with the planet could have appeared as some sort of robbing, but when considered that each of them was stronger than Daniel, if they truly wanted to rob them, they would have done it directly.

n

"I am not going to leave anyone behind, but I understand.

" Said Daniel before pretending to take his planet out of his spatial ring. When the eyes of the six cultivators landed on it, he tightened the grip, and shattered it into a thousand pieces.

"Can we enter now?

" he then asked.

nThe sight of Daniel destroying the small planet surprised the six cultivators. After all, Daniel's planet was the fastest and biggest vessel that they had ever seen in their tens of thousands of years spent as mercenaries. If they had something like it, they would treasure it greatly, instead of wasting it just to gain entry to the system.

n

"Is there anything wrong?

" Asked Daniel with a smile, after noticing the confused expressions of the six cultivators.

n

"I'll take a look at your ring. If you don't have anymore of those, you can pass.

" Said the woman before suddenly appearing in front of Daniel, and causing the invisible darkness that was right next to his body, to condense into a growling fearless young demonic wolf.

n

"It's alright.

" Said Daniel before pressing his hand over the wolf's head, and calming him down. He then turned to look at the woman, and handed his rings over to her. What was contained by those rings were only a few cultivating resources, and a pocket dimension where two sleeping cultivators and a bunch of low level cultivators were living, which he did not believe these cultivators to be interested in.

nAfter taking a quick look, the woman handed the two rings back to Daniel, and disappeared once again. When she reappeared, she was standing over the end of the bowsprit of the biggest of her ships. Following this action, the ships that belonged to her fleet slowly turned around, and departed into separate directions.

n

"Well, welcome to the ring of commerce.

" Said the scarred old man before disappearing along with his own massive fleet.

nFollowing the old scarred man was the man clad in black armor, who said,

"Kid, you better stop destroying your wares if you want to make some money here.. hehe. But if you find yourself with another one of those things in hand, before you throw it away, come find me. I might take it off your hands.

" He then disappeared before waiting for an answer along with his sole ship.

nWhile most would wonder what a person with a single ship would do with Daniel's planet, Daniel, Nova, and Aeron, had noticed that the ship itself was nothing but a massive pocket dimension which likely hosted a larger number of cultivators, and considering how large the pocket dimension of such a powerful individual would be, Daniel could guess the number of mercenaries in it to be no less than millions.

nThe remaining three mercenaries left as well, freeing his path to Cato, which was orbiting around a large bright yellow star that was the only thing visible from his position.

n

"Are we going to..

" Began to ask Xargy before being interrupted.

n

"Yes, we'll fly the rest of our way there.

" Responded Daniel, fully aware of the six cultivators who, while not visible anymore, were still keeping an eye on them.

n-----

nBack in Cato.

n

"What do you mean you want to break the contract? The last time we spoke, your employer was thrilled to send the shipment. What has changed in the last two days?

" Asked Emelnie with confusion to the nicely dressed woman that was sitting on the other side of her desk.

n

"I am sorry lady Emelnie, your company has a bigger target on its back that we imagined.

" Said the woman before standing up from her seat, and walking towards the door. She then added,

"Good luck..

" and left the office.

nAfter the woman left, Emelnie delved into her doubt for a few minutes before muttering,

"another one..

" What she did not know yet, was that the large companies had decided to allow one of the major merchants in Cato to destroy the Golden Karma company, and take away the only thing of value that they could see in it, the academy.

nWhile this merchant tried to further his plans, the other merchants had agreed on taking the academy off of his hands, and share its possession, so that their children could receive an adequate education while also preventing it from interfeering with the market. That was the only reason why they had agreed on the man's ridiculous claims.

nWhat they did not know, however, was the fact that there was no academy without the golden karma company, as the link between the two was not an economic one, but a personal one.

nAfter only a day from the meeting between the ruling merchants of Cato, Daniel's company had begun to struggle even worse than before, and was now rejected even by the cultivators who had no problem with trading with them when they had just arrived.

n

"Don't put yourself down. You are doing your best.

" said an old man who suddenly appeared within Emelnie's office, a man who she immediately recognized as the old man Golden Cauldron. He was used to these types of schemes when he was in charge of his very own company, and would often spend a few reassuring words for Emelnie whenever things went south.

n

"Do you have any idea why they would suddenly pull back?

" Asked Emelnie in confusion.

n

"I do..

" He responded before slowly sitting on one of the chairs, and adding,

"We might have touched a nerve..

"

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