Every city had their own use and festivities, but due to the young age of the city within the ring, the past two and a half years and gone uneventfully for most of the inhabitants.
As the rumors about the party traveled from one person to another, they were magnified to a point where, in a matter of hours, Daniel's simple dinner had become an exclusive party of which people could not help but talk about.
The masters of five of the seven families had arrived on time, along with their elders, sons and daughters, and with various other human and non-human cultivators.
During the party, Daniel had met many of his new group members and had learned of the current powers within his small town.
The families of cultivators were, counting the Saullet family, seven in total.
Three of these seven families practiced martial cultivation, two practiced spiritual cultivation, and the remaining two, were mixed.
Their names were Abiret, Lones, and Lamaze for the martial families, Bizac and Rockorb for the spiritual families, and finally, the Saullet and Glowmore for the mixed ones.
Three of these seven families were more powerful than others, as they had at least one or more ninth rank cultivators. These families were the Lones, the Bizac, and the Saullet family.
Two of these three families had arrived much later than the others, led by the current heads of the Lones, and Bizac families, that were accompanied by their children, and a few of their slaves.
Daniel didn't think of himself as someone important, so, even when he noticed people showing up late at the party, he didn't care in the slightest.
What he could not stand, was seeing enslaved people.
The two family heads didn't even consider greeting Daniel, and instead, they went to meet with Edmund. They also refused to greet the less powerful family heads, as they believed themselves to be superior to them.
The head of the Bizac family, was a man in his late fifties. He was reasonably tall, and hid his thin body underneath a white robe devoid of any wrinkle, and spotlessly clean. His grey hair were kept short and in a quiff cut.
Standing next to him, was the head of the Lones family. A tall and muscular man that wore a ceremonial black armor embroidered in gold. His brown hair were styled in a haircut that many assumed to be the most popular choice for martial cultivators, a buzz cut. Hanging from his leather belt, was a sheathed golden sword.
Behind him, a fourteen years old boy followed quietly while holding a heavy looking shield.
"Edmund. Why don't you get that young man we have so much heard about here, so we can meet him.." Asked the head of the Bizac family.
"Indeed, I want to ask him to sell me his castle.. It doesn't look pretty by any means.. But it has some useful features." Said the head of the Lones family with sarcasm.
The way these two individuals had come to inhabit the ring was most peculiar. It had happened at the same time, two years and four months earlier.
It was a time when Edmund, Heimart and the rest, still did not understand the meaning behind Daniel's words. They didn't know what it meant to 'go around and do good', so they decided to help people in any way they could.
They hadn't done much progress at first, but after the first four months, they had felt another increase in their progression speed. Edmund and Emelnie were shocked, while the rest still weren't able to feel any difference.
Enthusiastic about being able to increase their power in such a way, they took helping people to a whole new level.
They started to clean countrysides from bandit groups, all the way up to eradicating evil sects and joining wars.
They had once found themselves in the position to help the citizens of a small and independent city-state to evacuate their territory, as a storm of immense proportions was about to hit their city.
The city lord had long abandoned the city along with his army, and had left the citizens to die.
This city-state had three main families. The Lones, the Bizac, and the Rockorb family.
The Rockorb family and the citizens were the only reason why Edmund had considered this city worth saving, as the Rockorb family was good-willed, and had tried to create a refuge within their ground to save as many people as possible.
When they evacuated the city, the Lones and the Bizac families joined as well.
Since then, these two families had constantly questioned the decisions of Edmund, and each of Daniel's friends. Especially after learning about the presence of a castle equipped with all sorts of facilities, and a near perfect atmosphere formed by high level spheres of water, air, and lightning. If that was not enough, they had learned about the perfect earth sphere.
These two leaders were fundamentally greedy people, and had long started to prepare to take over.. Unfortunately for them, since the very first time they had attempted a coup to take control over the pocket dimension, Edmund and his wife Emelnie had easily shown their superiority in combat and put the two back in their place.
The two family heads did not expect that at all, as they had encountered the two outside of the pocket dimension before, and knew fairly well about their cultivation level. But within the pocket dimension, they appeared to be much stronger.
The only thing that was left to do, was to make alliances, and work together in order to overthrow the Saullet family from the leadership position amongst the seven big families.
Part of their plan, was to challenge them outside of the pocket dimension, in order to avoid whatever was increasing their power from happening once again. Unfortunately, they were not aware of the fact that, now that Daniel was here, that plan would not work either.
Two years later, when their two families had gathered enough supporters, and had bought their way to popularity with the citizens.. Just when the plan was about to be put into motion, Edmund and the rest had decided to support the wood elementals against the Tiyar empire.
When they heard about Edmund's decision, they immediately thought about commencing with their plan right away, and avoid getting caught in the war between two countries. They had changed their minds after they went with Edmund, Emelnie, and the rest, to offer their help to the wood elementals, and after learning about the perfect wood treasure they were hiding.
During the war, they had done the strict necessary. They didn't want to meddle too much, as they wanted to use the defeat to discredit the Saullet family.
What they did not expect, was that instead of surrendering when the situation became dire, Edmund had still decided to welcome the armies of the 'Garden of Past Times' within the pocket dimension.
Trapped in a crazed hunt, they stayed quiet, and waited for the events to unfold.
After months spent living in constant fear of being caught and slaughtered by the Tiyar empire, they had started to formulate plans on how to capture the wood elementals from within the spatial dimension, and offer them to the Tiyar's pursuing parties in order to buy immunity for themselves and their families.
Once again, before they could act, an event which had wasted their months of preparation, had taken place.
The young man of which they had so much heard about.. The owner of the castle.. The creator of the perfect earth sphere.. Had returned, and saved them all.
Before they could even confer between each other, they had started thinking of all the ways they would be able to discredit Daniel in front of the citizens of the city, and by extension, the leader of the families, Edmund.
The first part of their petty plan, was to not show him any respect at his own welcoming party. Then, they would try to coerce him into giving up the territory to them.
Edmund showed courtesy to them, and instead, he simply said "You should go introduce yourself then. You'll definitely find him somewhere around here."
Angered by Edmund's words, they turned around and left.
In their city, they had never had to go and greet someone themselves. Only the city lord deserved such a honor, and even then, they would send their children and not go personally most of the times.
On the other side of the ballroom, Daniel was interacting with the young masters of the other few prominent families that inhabited his city.
Each of them had been instructed to show as much respect as they would show to a city lord, but after seeing how amiable and down-to-earth Daniel was, they had ended up talking to him just like they would have talked to another young master of the younger generation.
"Really?? In prison? What for?" Asked a twenty something years old girl with a stupefied expression.
"I was framed for espionage.. But in truth they wanted to know the secret of how to practice both martial and spiritual cultivation." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.
The few young masters around him showed deeply confused faces.
One of them asked "What do you mean? Are you saying that you know a method to do that?"
Daniel turned to look at this young man, and with a plain face he said "I'm saying that I've discovered one."
"HA! That's rich!" Said a young man out loud from behind Daniel.
When Daniel turned to look at the owner of the voice, he saw a young man and a young woman standing one next to the other. The young woman seemed to be eighteen years old, and wore a tightly fitting green dress, along with many golden accessories on her neck, ears and arms.
Next to her, was an arrogant-looking twenty years old man. He wore a leather armor, and hanging from his leather belt, he kept a sheathed rapier.
After the young man noticed Daniel's eyes on him, he continued by saying "There are things you shouldn't boast about kid.."
A faint smile formed on Daniel's face. He looked at him straight in the eyes, and said "Exceptional things will always amaze the common.."
The smile on Daniel's face disappeared the very moment he noticed two people following the young master and young mistress. They wore servants clothes, and had slave marks on their cheeks.
"You should be careful who you insult.. Do you even know who I am?" The young man was enraged. Never before had he been addressed as 'the common'. He felt humiliated and was thinking on how to teach Daniel a lesson.
Being used to this sort of events, the young man had grown up with a sharp tongue. His tone turned into a derisory one as he said "So then, why is the com-"
He was immediately interrupted by Daniel's words "Who are those two?" he asked while pointing at the two slaves to the young mistress.
Taken by surprise, the girl flinched with her head. Then, she said "They are just slaves."
"Slavery is forbidden in my pocket dimension." Said Daniel out loud with a domineering tone that was heard in the entire ballroom.
The room quietened down immediately.
For a good minute, nobody made a sound. The first to talk, was the young man of the Lones family, which said with as much arrogance as he could muster. "Says who?"
The moment the two words were uttered, a small portal appeared behind him.
This portal wasn't a normal portal one would see a spatial user create. It was made out of pure darkness, and it had the spatial qualities of gravity and attraction.
The young master was only a cultivator at the peak of the sixth rank. So, when the portal behind him appeared, he was pulled into it by the extreme gravity and attraction, and disappeared.
He reappeared outside of the castle's entrance.
When he tried to re-enter, a powerful spatial shield which surrounded the entire castle forbade him.
"Do you disagree with the rules of the house as well?" Asked Daniel to the young mistress of the Bizac family with a menacing voice.