The World Devouring System

After going through the list of prisoners, Caelum noticed something peculiar – there was nobody among them who was above the Foundation Establishment realm. This discovery caused Caelum to frown, and he instantly posed a question to the warden.

"Why are there no prisoners above the Foundation Establishment Realm here?"

This time, the warden looked a little strangely at Caelum. He felt like he had been asked a very basic question. Still, he answered sincerely.

"Young Master, fights between two cultivators rarely end in one of them being captured alive by the other; they usually end when one party dies or escapes. There generally isn't a strong enough reason to imprison your enemies instead of killing them and avoiding any future troubles. Moreover, how can it be easy to keep higher level cultivators from escaping confinement? Costlier equipment would be required to keep them contained – the kind of equipment which this facility does not have."

"From my understanding, the only time when high level cultivators are captured alive is when they have value as a bargaining chip. For example, if two noble families went to war, defeated nobles are usually captured and ransomed back to their families once the war is done. Even if the Goldheart family currently has such important captives, they would be in house arrest somewhere and not be locked up in a shabby place like this."

Caelum was not pleased to hear this. Killing and devouring imprisoned criminals was how he planned to quickly increase his cultivation. Caelum wanted to create some breathing room for himself by completing the first few milestones as soon as he could. Once he bought himself some time, he would then use it to research ways of permanently freeing himself from the prospect of ever facing the System's punishment.

'Not good. Seems like things aren't going to go as smoothly as I hoped they would. Sigh.'

Caelum stood in silence for a little bit.

'No matter. I'll start with what I can, let's put the issue of devouring higher level cultivators aside for now. I will start with devouring someone in the Body Tempering Realm.'

The Body Tempering realm was the so called zeroth realm of cultivation. True cultivation started at the Qi Gathering realm since that is when it became possible to sense and use Qi. Tempering one's body was more of a prerequisite before getting started with the real thing.

The reason Caelum chose to start with someone in the Body Tempering realm was that he wasn't really confident he would be able to harm an actual cultivator's body with physical attacks even if they were restrained. Plus, for now, he just wanted to use [Devour] once to see exactly what it did.

With this mindset, Caelum inspected the entries in the register once more. One of the entries quickly caught his eye. A sword instructor in Wintram – 32 years of age – cultivation at the Muscle Refinement stage of the Body Tempering realm – the crime column just said 'molester'.

'Let's start with this one.'

Caelum borrowed a sword from the warden and headed towards the cell that housed the sword instructor with the warden in tow. On his way, he noticed that most of the cells were empty. The warden on the other hand had started suspecting that Caelum's words about him leaving the estate to experience the wider world might've been a lie. Caelum not bringing his own weapon as well as his previous question about higher level captives gave birth to such suspicion.

'Never mind. The young master's reasons are none of my concern.' The warden quickly put an end to that line of thought however, since he felt that digging deeper in places which he shouldn't, would lead to bad things happening to him.

As he made his way towards his destination, Caelum could not help but admire the person who was responsible for the dungeon's construction. The walls of the dungeon were dark and damp, the entire place devoid of any ventilation or sunlight. The only source of light in the dungeon's corridors came from sparsely placed torches that stuck to the walls. The torches only made the situation worse, however, as they burned with an eerie blue glow. Caelum wasn't sure if it was just his own imagination, but the blue flames seemed to be making the air colder rather than warmer. The cells were claustrophobic, and the prisoners seemed to be malnourished and depressed.

'Wow, I've only been here for a short while and already want to get out of this place as quickly as possible… And I'm not even one of the prisoners!'

After a minute that felt like a lot longer than a minute, Caelum and the warden reached the cell which contained the sword instructor.

Caelum immediately began inspecting the man to see if he would pose any threat to him. The Muscle Refinement stage was the very first stage of the Body Tempering realm. Those at this stage would not be much stronger than ordinary mortals. In addition, the man himself looked haggard – his body was thin and looked frail. Clearly, he wasn't getting enough nutrients. Most importantly, he was chained to a wall and was obviously unarmed.

Caelum signaled the warden to open the cell. He had been closely observing the expressions on the sword instructor's face; specifically, he noticed how it went from a glimmer of hope when he first noticed their arrival, to despair once he spotted the sword that Caelum was holding in a firm grip.

The warden unlocked the cell and stepped aside, making way for Caelum to enter. Caelum did not hesitate – he did not intend to drag this out.

"No, no, no! Let me go, I already understand my mistake, plea- "

The sounds of pleading stopped very soon as a head was cleanly severed from its body. In that moment, in the eyes of the warden, Caelum certainly did not seem like someone who needed to 'get used to' the act of killing. No, he seemed more like an executioner who had already done this many, many times.

Strangely enough, Caelum himself was not bothered by what he had done. He felt no pleasure from killing but he did not feel any pain either. In fact, currently, all of his focus was on the World Devouring System. Before the sword instructor's body slumped to the ground, Caelum discreetly touched it with his free hand and activated [Devour].

Caelum was staring at the system interface which was flashing with the following message:

[Failed to trigger [Devour] on the target. Host's combat contribution was determined to be too low.]