Sam is currently outside the city on a hunting ground. The hunting ground was reserved for the strongest people among the ice elves.

After the wager is over, there is no way the ice elves are going to pay up.

Sam would be surprised if they did actually pay up with that ridiculous bet. He might not have a keen understanding of the situation of the Ice Elves.

But he knew they have a scarcity of resources. If a billion spirit stones worth resources are lost, particularly when the value of spirit stone in this realm is on a whole new level, they would be losing a lot.

So, the Queen and the Elder instantly confessed everything and begged Sam while explaining their situation in detail.

After thinking about it, he cut a deal with them.

He would bring his team here to create a space gate. Every year, they would conduct an exchange. Some fire elemental users from Sam's side would come here to train and the Ice elves from this side will go there to train.

Along with that, there would be a secret trade route in which the ice elves can sell their goods at reasonable prices to Sam in exchange for the spirit stones.

Sam could also use this to improve the skills of the research department and decided to give them the task of coming up with a way to mine in these extreme conditions.

So, he gained access to the hunting ground and caught a large ice bear that was being cooked by Nali.

Meanwhile, back at the Emerald Realm.

The space in which the bat was slammed into the ground in the street was not touched by anyone. The bat is still standing on that spot.

And one of the earth element users finally came forward and used his energy to raised the spot as a platform and repaired the surroundings a bit.

The chef looked at the platform which the bat standing on it and smiled.

Sam might not have intended to do this, but he saved their lives. He looked towards the sky and smiled.

In the same way, back at the Ice Elven city. The leader of the four elves that fought with Sam, recovered a bit as he stood in the large destroyed training hall.

Except for the part behind Sam, the rest of the training hall is pretty much destroyed.

He stood there on the spot where Sam stood. The start of the destruction.

He created a large ice block and started sculpting it with his arrow.

The Elder came to him as she saw the sculpture.

It is of Sam surrounded by the flaming serpents.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Reminder. If a fire element user can standing in middle of this ice hell and defeat four ice elves. Then either the user is too strong or the four elves are too weak and there is a high possibility that both of them are true.

If it is, we cannot make the user weak, so we have to make the elves stronger. Since we lost connection to the rest of the world and content with the achievements we have here, we might have become stagnant.

This would serve as reminder.

The one man who destroyed the elven pride that was not even scratched when the rest of the elves banished us. I never felt so ashamed and I never felt so refreshed either."

…

Sam made a trip to the desolate and brought the space gate team back. The team was back to focusing on research as their work reduced. So, they are available.

After arranging them here, he went on his own way as soon as he finished all the delicacies here.

The next restrictions are simple. He has to use a scythe and no other weapons or elements. The next realm he is visiting belongs to some lower-level shadow demons.

The shadow demons are born with shadow elemental energy, but their constitution is weak and impure as they result in so much crossbreeding between the demonic races.

They are good at carrying assassinations, but their cultivation limit is at most Astral Plane Pre-transcendence. None of the Shadow demons managed to cross the Middle-stage of Astral Plane Pre-transcendence and after staying in that level for a while and ruling their world, most of them would go to work under another demon race until they died in exchange for resources.

This is similar to how gods take the strongest bunch of races to their army and give them some resources in exchange.

After reaching that realm, Sam roamed around for two days in the wild to find the food first.

Nali felt like he was in heaven as he felt the sun walking behind Sam.

Sam communicated with different beasts that exchanged information for their lives and finally managed to find his primary target.

A Shadow eagle.

The shadow demons are mostly active at night and there is another species that is also as active.

The shadow eagle which has shadow elemental energy and rules the sky at night is Sam's next target for eating.

But catching it was next to impossible. The first problem is the height.

Sam cannot use the harbinger or the beasts while he is going on these journeys. That is one of the conditions he has to follow unless he faced life and death situations which is almost impossible considering the places he is visiting.

So, he planned something else.

He went to the highest and steepest cliff in the region and waited there.

The Shadow Eagle always stands there looking down at the land that was under its control.

Sam hid there and that night the shadow eagle stood there just like every other day.

He lunged out as he swung the scythe which created a large crescent in the night sky.

But the shadow eagle was vigilant and used its shadow form as it moved into the sky. The crescent slash missed the bird. Sam didn't stop though, as the shadow eagle looked at Sam with glaring eyes while hovering, Sam leaped towards it and slashed the neck with its scythe.

The bird was caught off guard as it didn't think, Sam who cannot fly would be stupid enough to come to jump off the cliff just to kill the bird.

Sam caught hold of the bird and fell down, but in the middle of the descent, he stabbed the lower end of the staff of the scythe into the cliff wall as he tried to slow down the fall.

But normal stabbing didn't do anything, so he has to inject the spiritual energy and put in a lot more force.

This caused the staff to go deep enough to create resistance as it destroyed the cliff wall as they moved downwards.

But the downside is, the eye-catching crescent slashes in the sky and the loud and jarring descent beside the cliff wall, attracted the shadow demons that are active in night times.

All of them ran towards the cliff and by the time they reached there, Sam is standing on the ground with the scythe over his shoulders. Nali started removing the feathers off of the bird to start cooking. But more than that what made the shadow demons stand in a daze is the long clean vertical cleave that appeared on the cliff wall because of Sam's descent using the scythe.

The shadow demons are the guards in charge of patrolling.

They don't know how to proceed as they understood Sam's strength might be beyond them.

Sam who noticed them said.

"Are you the guards?"

They nodded hesitantly.

"Wait for a while, I will come with you after I finish my meal."

And the guards did exactly that while they contacted their supervisor.

Soon the supervisor of the guards came and he also had to wait.

Sam finished the meal and both him and Nali entered the city along with guards.

He was taken to one of the elders of the shadow demons directly and said.

"So, who are you, and why are you here?"

"My name is Sam and I am here to spar with your strongest fighter in the same realm as me. I don't mind someone in the Middle stage of Pre-transcendence too."

The elder was surprised, but not shocked.

"Then what is the commotion at the cliff."

"Oh, I was hunting the shadow eagle. As you know it is hard to catch, so I had to jump off the cliff and the commotion is due to me trying to reduce the force of the fall."

"Why should we spar with you? What is in it for us?"

"What do you want?"

"What can you offer?"

"A wager? A two hundred million spirit stone wager. Is that enough of an attraction for your fighters?"

"It is not a small number. But it is not too large either."

"Five hundred million, then."

"What is your background? Which organization do you belong to?"

"You might not have heard of it, it is called the dusk. Are you in for the wager?"

"Yes."

"Thanks, that saved a lot of trouble for me."

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