As soon as my guide introduced himself, the face of the guard turned from annoyed to furious. It had to be quite a rare sight for any of the subjugated tribes to come to this city voluntarily!

"I"ve brough a survivor from the seas with me. From what the elders of my village said, he showed the signs of a certain degree of talent!"

In an instant, the face of the guard turned from furious to happy, as if he realised that a pile of s.h.i.+t in front of him was, in fact, a treasure hidden under a thin layer of mud! Instantly lowering his weapon, he looked sternly at the Keno.

"You two stay right here. I will bring someone to appraise the talent of this… survivor!"

Looking at my body, there was no hints of a dire fight for my own life. Even if my robes were all torn and mostly missing after the orgy at the beach, a single look from someone well versed in how a normal fight would go was enough to spot that I didn"t bore any marks of hards.h.i.+p!

And just like the guards have told, after waiting for barely a few minutes, he came back with some robbed elder to his side. At first, the face of the other guy could be told to be sceptical, but upon gazing at me like some pervert for a few seconds, his pupils suddenly dilated, as if he was unable to stand the glory of my body before his knees gave up making him fall on all fours.

"He… he is… he has enormous potential!"

Screaming openly as if unbothered by the fact that Keno was still here, as curious about the results of my appraisal as the guard, the elder quickly fixed his posture and behaviour, moving closer to the guard and whispering to his ear.

"We need to bring him right to the sect elders before others will s.n.a.t.c.h him right from our hands!"

While he attempted to make his voice too silent for me to hear, just like my talent or whatever he saw in me upon his appraisal was way greater than what this elderly man expected, so were the sensitivity of my senses! Even if most of the time they were simply dulled by myself in order to prevent myself from going crazy, whenever I deemed it fit to use them, I could achieve feats unimaginable to those people!

"Here, this is your reward for bringing someone with potential."

After rummaging through his pockets, the guard pulled out a few silver coins and a strange token before throwing them to Keno. At this moment I also connected the dots and understood why he was so keen to bring me to this city!

"Sir… Looking at how strong he already showed to be in our village, and just gauging from your reactions… isn"t this a bit too low of a reward? A single token? How many years would it take for this entire island to produce such an outstanding disciple!?!"

While I got where Keno was coming from, I barely managed myself from stopping my head from striking my own temple, in the most glorious facepalm that those people could see. With how he reported my presence in such a remote and unofficial way, the entire business would be wrapped up right here and now! 

Sensing the greed coming out from him, I was eager to just let him be and watch as the guard would pummel him for having the audacity of not falling to his knees and praising him for the little bit he was offered for bringing me, the fact that I actually had my fun with his sweetheart made something tingle in my heart. 

Just as I was about to step forward and stop the fist that the guard already sent his way, it was actually the elder appraiser that held the guard"s attack back.

"Pay him his due. If others learn of this matter… Just pay him up properly."

Considering how they believed my appearance to have some kind of great value, it was only sensible for the appraiser to prefer to keep this matter under wraps. As long as commotion big enough would rise, people of the competing sect would be bound to appear!

"This is your lucky day. Know my generosity!"

Reaching to his pockets once again, the guard pulled out three more tokens and a bunch of coins, with even a hint of gold flas.h.i.+ng amongst them. Instead of throwing them on the ground in front of Keno"s legs, this time he pa.s.sed them to him properly.

"And now, f.u.c.k off. You there, come with me."

After dealing with my guide, the guard turned to me with an amiable look on his face. Even if for a moment I considered making things a bit hard for him by refusing to follow his words and just smas.h.i.+ng him aside as I would enter, just like raising a commotion didn"t work for them, it neither did for me. 

While I had to make a name for myself rather quickly if I wanted to have a freeish hand while learning new stuff and looking for Jeleria"s sister, if I brought more attention to my person than I could handle, all I could was to either kill everyone in this city before the guardians of the realm would be alerted, or just escape!

With this thought popping in my mind, I realised that I didn"t place my teleportation seed either! To fix this mistake, I approached Keno whose eyes were tightly glued to the coins he was holding and brought him up in my embrace.

"Thanks for everything. It"s my turn to repay you guys!"

While this was what I told him openly, as I slipped a small, completely black stone in his hand, when my head was pa.s.sing right beside his ear, I whispered.

"Don"t forget what I did for you. When you walk a few paces away, just throw it to the forest for me."