The Tale of the Void Emperor

"Alright, we'll be leaving now. See you after six months, aunt Elena," Athan said with a smile.

Linci also hugged her mother.

"Take care, my daughter. Athan and you all too. Don't be too reckless."

"Don't worry, mother. We will take care of ourselves," Linci said with a sweet smile.

She then looked at her father, but she only glanced at him before returning by Athan's side.

It was clear that Elena's plan didn't get much success.

Elena and Gaarshil saw their daughter entering the cosmic path portal with others and left.

Gaarshil grabbed Elena's hand as he trembled a bit, his eyes were filled with sadness and regret.

"Sigh...All those years of resentment can't go away in just a few years. However, I believe there will come a day when she will accept you as her father," Elena said with a hope-filled voice.

"You believe in Athan?" Gaarshil asked, "the thing he said he would do after six months...it sounds ridiculous."

Elena smiled and nodded, "he solved my problem and Linci's problem as well. It was something that no chaos saint or chaos monarch could do, but he managed to solve it. So, there's no reason not to believe him."

"I believe him. Even though it sounds ridiculous, I believe him," Gaarshil said as his eyes were filled with hope and determination.

...

Drizzly, Athan, Tiana, Sen, Avelia, Shiromi, Linci, Tealery, Lady Fu, Arcued, Dean Lenix, Theo, and four Nimpere brothers, a total of sixteen people came out from one of the portals in the trading post's Portal zone.

This place was crowded, and there were people of all kinds and shapes.

Everyone was busy with their things, and nobody paid any particular attention to Athan's group. However, they didn't know that this group of people would bring a storm in this Chaos zone pretty soon.

Dean Lenix took out a contact card and talked with someone before he turned to Athan, "Zangrel is waiting for us with Mike and Qerin at the market entrance."

"Alright, I'll call that bunch from House of Vora there as well," Athan replied as he called Tamiril to meet up at the Market entrance.

After a while, everyone gathered at the Market entrance.

"Hahaha bro, long time no see," Mike laughed loudly and punched Athan in the chest.

Athan was surprised and asked, "did you regain your memories of me?"

Mike grinned and shook his head, "not completely, but I've been seeing many flashbacks of the past."

"Me too, but not as much as Mike," Qerin said with a smile.

"That's already great," Tiana said as she smiled, "well, if you want to, Athan can show you the memories."

"Dang, if it's possible, then go ahead and do it," Mike said as he looked at Athan with a grin, "I want to know the full picture."

"Alright," Athan nodded as he pointed at Mike's forehead and used his soul power to transfer the memories directly to Mike's brain.

After a while, Mike opened his eyes and looked at Athan with doubt, "I regained all memories, but...how did we forget about you in the first place?"

"I'll tell you about it later. For now, let's enter the market and buy some important thing for our plan," Athan said with a grin as he patted Mike's shoulder.

"Athan, I feel left out," Qerin said with a pout, "give me my memories of you as well."

"Alright."

After recovering Qerin's memories of him as well, Athan turned to Tiana and others, "since you all got some ken stones, then buy some armors and suitable weapons for yourselves to increase your battle capabilities."

"Athan, are we going somewhere after this?" Mike asked.

"Yeah, we are going to conquer a lord-grade Island bubble and make it our base of all operations for the next six months," Athan said.

"Actually...an unfathomable human lady approached us and told us that she wanted to recruit us to become her candidate. She said she would help us reach the chaos king realm in a month since we got decent comprehension power thanks to you, Athan. However, she didn't say why she wanted us to become her candidate or about this whole candidate thing."

"You too?" Tiana and others were surprised, but they somehow expected it.

"It seems that everyone related to Athan is getting such offers and strange requests of becoming their candidates," Lady Fu said.

"Hmmm, you two can accompany her and power up yourselves after two days. Tiana and others were invited to a test by a strange joker as well and reached chaos king realm in a month," Athan said.

Athan narrowed his eyes as he remembered Dreevindo's words and said, "all of this candidate thing is related to something very grand and...this is just my guess, but I think they can't harm the people weaker than them. More like, they are not allowed."

"Alright, let's put all of that aside and focus on our current situation," Athan said.

...

Everyone entered the market, and after entering, Athan, Dean Lenix, and Head Zangrel separated from the rest.

Tiana and others went to buy armors and weapons of their choice while Athan, Dean Lenix, and Head Zangrel went resource trading shop.

[Tronntil Company Shop]

After entering, Athan went to one of the available desks and said plainly, "I want to sell resource treasures of Evagon-grade."

The staff member who had fish heads and jelly-like bird wings pointed at one of the many small platforms in the large shop and said, "you see that empty platform? The person besides that platform will assess your resources and tell you the appropriate price for them."

Athan looked at the platform and frowned a bit before turning to the staff member again, "the number of resources I have are....much larger in quantity, they won't fit in that platform. The deal is big, and I want to do it privately."

The staff member looked at Athan for a second before pressing a button on a stone tablet.

"Wait for a minute."

Athan nodded.

After a minute, a middle-aged man with a pure humanly appearance arrived.

"What's the matter?"

The staff member pointed at Athan and said, "This person wants to do a private deal since his resource quantity is larger."

"Please follow me," the man looked at Athan before saying politely, "please follow me."

Athan, Dean Lenix, and Head Zangrel followed the middle-aged man upstairs and entered into a large room that looked like a warehouse.

"Please take out the things you want to sell."

Athan turned to the large empty space beside him and...took out 857 evagon-grade resources.

There were all kinds of plants, flowers, fruits, strange-liquid-filled bubbles, etc.

Seeing so many evagon-grade resource treasures, the middle-aged man's eyes popped out of his sockets.

He looked at Athan with a speechless expression, "did you steal a resource warehouse of an organization?"

"Of course not. We roamed in island bubbles and collected these resource treasures. It's our hard work of several years," Athan said with a serious expression.

"Ohh..." the middle-aged man had some suspicion regarding Athan, but they were not enforcers here. So...all he had to think about was the profit for their company.

"Wait for a few minutes while I assess all of these resources and give you an appropriate price. Also, we will only give you low-tier ken stones for evagon-grade resources," the middle-aged man said politely.

"No problem," Athan nodded.

The middle-aged man was a chaos king powerhouse as well, so he hurriedly assessed all resources.

"17,290 low-tier ken stones. We can finish the deal right now if you agree to it," said the middle-aged man as he looked at Athan, Dean Lenix, and Head Zangrel.

Athan turned to Dean Lenix because he didn't know much about their price in ken-stones.

"Make it 18,000 low-tier ken stones, and these resources are yours," Dean Lenix said with a steeled expression.

The middle-aged man frowned and shook his head, "17,500. I won't go above that."

"Deal," Dean Lenix said.

The middle-aged man nodded and stretched his empty hand towards Athan, "give me a storage pouch or storage ring."

Athan handed him a storage pouch, which the middle-aged man took before he made a fist with his right hand and touched the storage pouch with the ring he wore on that hand as he transferred 17,500 low-tier ken stones from the storage ring into the storage pouch.

After giving back the storage pouch to Athan, the middle-aged asked with a strange expression, "why aren't you wearing any storage rings?"

"Because I don't need it," Athan said with a grin.

...

After leaving the store, Athan met up with Tiana and others. Mike and Qerin didn't have any low-tier ken stones, so he gave some to them as they bought their armor and weapon.

Athan didn't buy anything for himself because he didn't want to. However, he purchased high-tier power sensors that could measure up to 5 million battle power for everyone except Dean Lenix, Head Zangrel, and the squad from House of Vora.

"Athan, let's visit the Alchemy store and buy some traps and poison clouds. Since we are going to conquer lord-grade island bubble, we will need such things for emergency against lord-grade chaos beasts," Head Zangrel said.

"Alright," Athan nodded because, in this team, he and Linci were the only ones who could properly deal with lord-grade beasts. Aside from him and Linci, others had just entered the chaos king-realm, so they weren't capable of dealing with lord-grade chaos beasts.

Naturally, that's why Athan decided to conquer the lord-grade island bubble. Against powerful beast and a high-level area, Tiana, Avelia, Sen, Drizzly, and others could make progress faster.

Lord-grade island bubbles contain more king-grade resources and king-grade chaos beasts while less lord-grade resources and lord-grade chaos beasts.. So it was a perfect spot to train everyone who had just entered the chaos king-grade realm.