Yin & Yang Pleasures of Cultivation

"Wh-whatever….I wasn't really upset or anything, h-hmph." Masami desperately tried to cover up her embarrassment. 

But, even without looking at Darcel and Aniela, she could just feel the smiles morph into annoyingly teasing ones.

In an attempt to get back on track, she loudly cleared her throat, saying, "Ahem~! So-so, what's our agenda for the morning? We shouldn't waste time on you two being annoying!"

Darcel and Aniela smiled at how cute Masam's voice always will be whenever she gets embarrassed. 

Aniela began to ask then, "I'm assuming you're going to call one of the servants, right Darcy? By the way, are you having them practice masking their presence for those super sneaky tasks?"

Masami also perked up at this since neither she nor Aniela took the time to ask yesterday. 

Admittedly for both Aniela and Masami, they wanted to leave their Darkness Servants as fast as possible to hog Darcel all for themselves.

Vaguely aware of thoughts, Darcel just kept his wry smile but had nodded towards Aniela. "Indeed. The better every servant can hide from others, the farther our reach can grasp. Now then, let's see their results."

Darcel pulled out a purple contact ring from his pocket.  This ring had the small initial 'Z' on it, and he knew this belonged to Zara. 

Darcel only needed to pour a tiny bit of his Darkness Essence into the ring, and it quickly flashed up in a light purple glow.

For a second, Darcel, Aniela and Masami waited as they thought it would take a bit of time before Zara responded since she might be in the middle of something. 

But their thinking was quickly proven wrong.

Before any one of them could talk, Zara's contact ring brightened a darker shade of purple glow, and the trio heard then, 

"What shall I do, Master?" Zara's voice echoed out of the contact ring.

Aniela and Masami remained impassive, but Darcel had just slightly quirked his eyebrows. 

Zara's tone was her usual calm, stoic one, but Darcel could just sense a slight bit of eagerness hidden within the depths of her voice.

In all honesty, if it wasn't for his Darkness Soul link connection to her, Darcel would've never been able to sense that very slight shift in her tone. 

The main thing that this told Darcel that his Darkness Servants will become increasingly eager to serve him. Or it was just Zara's base personality of being keen to serve her most respected. 

Smiling a bit at this thought, Darcel had then told Zara, "First off, Zara, what is your progress with masking your presence. And do you know the others' progress?"

"Master, as soon as I came back here, I spent all my time cultivating with your gracious gift. And I can safely say there's nobody on my level of prowess that can sense me when I mask my presence. As for the others…."

Zara's line is dead for a second. She appeared to be seemingly contemplating her answer, and the very next second, she answered with, 

"I don't know at all what are the other progress Master. We all retreated towards our room, and at least, I haven't interacted with them since last night. I only went out of my room for several experimental test runs."

Darcel calmly took in the news. He wasn't surprised at all that Zara could achieve such magnificent results in a short amount of time. 

The process of masking one's presence is actually a far more complicated and intricate task than what Darcel makes it seem like.

Most cultivators don't even bother with this skill as it requires far too much time to cultivate individually. 

Moreover, it was tremendously hard for other cultivators to see any significant results even if they took extensive amounts of time training.

Vice Principal Zelle may have taught Darcel and Aniela how to mask their presence, but she was nowhere near a master at it. 

In fact, Darcel was sure it never been reported of a cultivator being able to perfectly mask their presence so that they could hide from other Spirit Senses. 

But, with his Darkness Essence, none of these rules or restrictions applied to Darcel or his Darkness Servants. 

Darcel simply already had tremendous talent and the ability to perfect masking his presence.

And as for Zara, her Darkness Soul link continually pulsated as she cultivated, tremendously boosting her progress to an unimaginable degree. 

Darcel had then told Zara next, "Alright, Zara, I want you to now find Bella, Lauren, Abby, and Melea's progress. Once you do that, I will ping for only you to come to a disclosed spot. As a Captain, I'm sure nobody would question you going out for a, let's say, 'morning patrol.' And remember to keep masking your presence as you go through the city."

"On it, Master. And no, nobody would question me if I were to leave by myself. I'll be ready whenever you decide to call Master." 

Zara swiftly stated, and her contact ring immediately died down in its glow.

Aniela and Masami curiously gazed at Darcel. Though they get the gist of what they need to do, they speculated Darcel has something planned explicitly for the servants.

Masami took it upon herself to ask, "Just what exactly are you going to have them do? Even if that annoyingly proud one did have some result last night, what if the rest do even poorer than her?"

Darcel closed his eyes for a second, gathering all of his thoughts. 

He snapped them back open a moment later and told the girls, "With my Darkness Essence, each of their results will be undoubtedly good like Zara. And what we will have them do is be our spies agent. For starters, depending on who got the furthest last night, I'll send them to spy far more deeply in the White Demon group to know about that treasure Melea mentioned. Since they are all far more familiar with how that group operates, they'll have an easy time spying closely on them. Once we got the info we need, we'll follow those demons to the treasure, steal it and make sure there are no witnesses after."

"Oh! And then I know what we'll do next!" Aniela had excitedly bounced up while on Darcel's lap, gaining both his and Masami's attention. 

She smirked as their attentions poured onto her, telling them, "Once that treasure is in our grasp, we'll use it to break through again and finish our whole rule over the Snow Angels."

Darcel smiled and began caressing Aniela's soft hair, making her scrunch up her face in absolute delight. 

He appraisingly nodded to Aniela, saying to her, "Indeed, that will be our next step. By the time we use that treasure to breakthrough, nobody in the Snow Angel group can stop us."

Masami began to smirk as a devious light shined in her eyes. 

Never in her life would she thought she'd be actually taking control of a whole Mercenary group by making them mere servants.

But now, besides some slight dislike about the servants being all women, Masami couldn't help but feel mischievous about making highly proud people submit to them. 

With a widening smirk at this thought, she eagerly told the duo, "Well them, we have all the pieces inset. So let's not keep that annoyingly proud woman waiting and get our takeover started!"

Darcel and Aniela also shared sly smirks, obviously affected by the energy Masami was radiating. 

They both know, starting from today, is when they'll have their names eventually known to the whole continent, and they were entirely prepared for that.

….

Several hours later and Darcel, Aniela and Masami were out of New Branch City. 

They swiftly traveled undetected, going several miles out in the Wild Snow Lands until there was no one around them for miles.

Darcel had decided to give Zara at least a little bit of time to prepare and gather her information before calling her. 

And he knows, by the other members seeing Zara walk around the place would help lessen any slight suspicion of her suddenly leaving.

And now they waited long enough. Darcel had taken out his contact ring for Zara and infused a bit of his aura in it. 

As Darcel stared into the ring while doing so, he had to admit these little things were even more curious than spatial rings.

While it's known that spatial rings can be developed by both Mages and incredibly powerful cultivators. Contact rings are known to be only created by Mages.

During his time around Zakria Academy, Darcel had read that these contact rings have an extraordinary Magic power that binds itself slightly to one's soul and another contact ring.

Essentially, Zara has two of the same contact ring, and Darcel now holds the other contact ring, which allows him to instantly contact her or send a ping of his aura so she can sense it and follow towards his location.

Darcel didn't have to worry about his aura leaking out to others since the contact ring makes it specifically so that only Zara can sense his aura.

Even while doing this process, Darcel couldn't understand at all how this works. 

Though he's a grand genius when it comes to cultivating, pure Magic power always seemed entirely elusive to Darcel.

But, this only fueled Darcel's interest more in wanting to explore the depths of Magic power. Throughout his entire journey so far, he never once heard of someone being a cultivator and a Mage at the same time.

And Darcel wanted to see if it would be possible to break this mold. 

'But first thing first. Taking over these Mercenary groups.' Darcel shook his head, putting his mind back on track.

Zara's contact ring shined a dark purple hue the second after Darcel interjected his aura into it. It indicated that Zara had received his ping and is now coming towards them.

"So now, while we wait, what should we do? We'll have at least several minutes to ourselves before she drags on over here." Masami asked while keeping her arms patiently folded.

Aniela put a hand towards her chin, rubbing her black and mask in thought. 

Although, Aniela didn't take long to think about it when she eagerly said, "I know! Seeing as we'll be dealing with serious business for a while, let's discuss some fun dates ideas we can go on with Darcy, little fox. Though we'll mainly be busy with nonstop action, there will always be a time for romance!"

Masami didn't want her excitement about being taken on a date show on her body. She felt her body lit up in a zealous blaze at the mere thought of spending quality time with Darcel.

However, though Masami kept her body stance neutral, she couldn't stop her foxtails from curling up in genuine excitement. 

Masami had to sigh in her mind as she was at least thankful for the mask, which can cover up any further embarrassment.

Masami pointedly avoided Darcel's gaze, knowing that she'll just get more flustered from it, and tried to calmly tell Aniela,

"Hm-hm. Well….I suppose it wouldn't hurt. And even then, that's just him doing his duty as our boyfriend, right?"

Aniela quickly went and casually slung her arms around Masami's shoulders, bringing them close together. She turned to look at Darcel, telling him in a teasing voice, 

"No snooping in, alright~?"

Darcel jokingly raised his arms as he let the girls talk among themselves. He honestly didn't mind such light-hearted talks now since it was a genuine way to relive any slight tension they may unknowingly have.

And, more importantly for Darcel, this will get girls to bond even more with each other. 

Although Darcel couldn't deny it, the thought of spending quality one-on-one time with both Aniela and Masami exceedingly excited him.

Several minutes went by in a flash. 

Darcel was briefly lost in thought, contemplating several things about the future. He crossed his gaze over to Aniela and Masami, noticing that both girls seemed enamored in their talk.

And right then, Darcel already felt someone enter in the range of his Spirit Sense. 

His gaze snapped over to his left, and as far as his eyes can see, a figure was rapidly approaching them.

'Hoh? That was pretty quick.' As the figure quickly approached, Darcel made it out to be the proudly beautiful Zara.

"Ah?" Aniela had suddenly stopped their talk and peered her head to the left. "Dutiful indeed! She's already here. And just when I was about to go into the juicy details of our date…."

"We don't need to mention that now! Let's just get this meeting over with." 

Masami fully turned around, standing in an imposing manner as Zara came upon them.

In just a few seconds, Zara dropped in from the sky, stopping just several meters away from Darcel's group. 

She quickly bowed her head at Darcel. "Master. Mistresses. I have….good news for you all."

Darcel already felt curious but for a slightly different reason, as Zara's tone just seemed a bit off. 

Only Darcel could sense that slight oddity in her tone, and he could tell it was like Zara was trying to hold off a little envious feeling about this topic.