This shadowy figure looked as if it was a wandering dark spirit that constantly let out darkness from its body. Though it resembled a human, it was unclear what race this figure was from, or if it was even alive!

"Those guards sure were annoying. Almost brings tears to my eyes knowing how poor they were." thought Tommy as he stopped right before entering the forest.

Part of him knew that he could still kill a normal animal in the forest if one popped up out of nowhere and attacked him. Though his cultivation was almost completely nonexistent, his swordsmans.h.i.+p was not bad by any stretch.

Even those who did not pursue the cultivation path within the city were subjected to learning how to at the very least wield basic weapons. For Tommy, he learned some more advanced sword techniques from his clan's library which held a countless number of scrolls.

The reason that every citizen within a city like Maroon City, would be forced to at least learn to wield weapons, was because there was no telling when other races would try to rise up and take control of individual cities to drain an empire of its resources.

This was how many of the other races were able to destroy smaller human empires who were still trying to build their armies. By targeting the cities first, an empire would slowly lose its resources as it was gathering its military to repel the enemy forces.

Every empire at least needed to have five established cities within its area to be considered an empire. This meant that if an enemy race destroyed one of the cities with its first wave, then the overall power of the empire would be cut by an entire twenty percent.

Such a hit would surely be a deciding factor when it came to the war for survival. Therefore, even if it took millions of years before a human empire was attacked, citizens worked very diligently to increase their strength.

A reason like this was why Tommy's uncle was put in an awkward position as the Patriarch of a clan that was clearly the strongest and wealthiest in the city. This was because if it was made clear that he was draining his entire clan in a way that would negatively impact the entire empire and how it operated, then the empire would have to personally step in.

Cases like that would not happen very regularly since most of the cities in an empire did not have a single clan who would be considered the strongest. Rather, there would be multiple powers within a city who were equal in strength and the strongest.

Since the Sacred Flame clan was a force within the city who could go toe to toe with even three of the other five great clans against them, it would be unwise for the Patriarch to not find a way to avoid the empire stepping in and stripping him of his position.

In the history of the world, many cases of this happening, lead to the decline of such powerful clans or other ent.i.ties until they were completely wiped out. This was a terrifying thought for the Patriarch and the rest of the clan.