CHAPTER 57

AREN'T YOU MY FRIEND

  Unaware of happenings in the Concordia, Hans was fighting another predatory plant called Parasitic creepers in the ManEating forest. Hans had searched for this for three days and finally manage to find it. He wanted to incorporate the skill called absorption on its orca vines.

  If this become successful, his orca vine would be able to suck energy from the opponent and supply it back to him, but he was facing an issue in merely capturing one. This was a cheat-level ability but god had made everything fair and did not give any other strong ability to these plants. He thought his days of running out of stamina would be over after this so he eagerly searched for this cursed plant. The creeper was unusually weak but was tough to fend off because there was no end to it.

  Hans kept killing it but he was still far from reaching the parasitic creeper's main body. Crying seed did not identify plants as enemies so his most powerful weapon was nothing but a liability here and he got to know that the hard way. Yesterday his VeganCarnage aimed itself at Hans, ignoring the plants in the vicinity. It was all because the damned thing was not a cannibal, It died on its own after some time while giving Hans a run for his money.

  After three whole days of absence adding on his skipping classes, Hans finally got close to the core of the Parasitic creepers, he just needed a touch to subdue it, but the core started sucking his energy. Fortunately, with some struggles, Hans managed to win the energy tug of war.  

  As his understanding of Parasitic Creepers increased, he managed in recreating some of his own parasitic Vines. Hans looked at the creeper which gave him a hard time and enjoyed destroying it in a fit of revenge. Hans already had spent four days here and it was time for him to go back.

  The first month of the year was already over and the second was on the verge of finishing itself, Hans’s most important day of the year was just around the corner, and it was the sole reason for his hurrying back. But before he could go back there was one more important thing he had to address, that is, incorporating the parasitic nature in Orca Vines.

  After the rigorous hit and trials that should have ended hours before, already consumed his half day, Hans faced failure right after another in not being able to merge the parasitic nature with Orca vines since his already perfected vines were opposite to the absorbing nature. The VeganBind attack discharge property was clashing with the absorption.

  Hans finally got his hands on this and now it was not at par with his expectation, the Parasitic creepers were incompatible with everything he tried so the disappointment increased further, but the good news was somewhat balancing his mood.

  When he tried this Parasitic creeper on a class one beast, the vines broke easily but as long as it was intact they regularly supplied the energy it sucked from the beast to Hans, replenishing his stamina. It was similar to mana transfer but instead of mana, the stamina was being transferred.

  Mages were always considered to have poor stamina and this ability was denying that stereotype. Since Hans had the same feeling as eating sugar on receiving the energy from the Parasitic vines, he named it SugarDrain.

  There was nothing much to do here for now. He failed to find some plants but it was not like this place was running somewhere else so he decided to take a break from it. When he was in the Ghost Isles, he found a peculiarity about the book Limitless, if Hans wrote anything on it, that gets recorded and becomes invisible to everyone but him like the words written by the original author.

  So he started writing his own discoveries in the book, the lie he told Chris and Delimira about writing records in the book tied to his waist was not total nonsense. After quickly writing his findings he left the Agrilands.

  Hans ran to his room to take a refreshing hot bath, the cold was worse in the FloatLands except for the place he was for four days. Agrilands was under the spell for managing the ideal temperature for plant growth and this place was freezing compared to that.

  After almost half an hour in hot Water Hans covered himself up with warm clothes and went to the Griffin’s Nest Cafe. Delimira had already instructed the staff to treat her guest to whatever they asked for, so he was choosing the perfect time that aligned with their lectures to visit the establishment but today was not his lucky day. He was welcomed by staff and then greeted by Chris and Delimira from behind.

  Already three days have passed since Martha called Hans for an audience but the boy was not even in the Midlands for these days and they only crossed paths because a lecture was suddenly cancelled. This spoiled Hans’s plan to not run into them. Chris slammed his back with enough force that made him took a few steps forward and Hans shouted at him while rubbing his pained back,

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Hey, what's the deal?

You are asking me, where were you? If you had not come today, I would have asked your sister.

I was in Agrilands, I told you I would be late when I left, didn't you hear me?

Buddy being late means, arriving late on the same day, not missing for three. If I didn't run into professor Walter, you would have been reported.

Hans was still rubbing his back and replied,

Fine, fine, but why are you here?

Delimra replied,

Another crack appeared in the Grand Barrier, but it was small so some of the assistant professors had to go there.

  Hans never liked any word that came out of her mouth and she was keeping that preconception alive, except for the time she told him to visit this place whenever he felt like it. Delimira didn't like the way Hans was looking at her so she added,

Professor Martha was missing you too, shorty.

Now, what does she want from me,

Hans remembered his rough time in the botanical garden facility and added,

I already suffered enough because of her.

Delimira replied,

She asked for your majestic presence in the next lecture because you were skipping classes for a long time.

Hans replied to her with a lax attitude,

Since I am going to get yelled at anyway, I should stall as long as I can.

Then What excuse are you going to give her?

You are a smart person, Ms Winters, make some excuse for me, after all, Aren't you my FRIEND, friends have each other's back.

  Seeing his smug face asking arrogantly, almost bulged a vein in her forehead. She didn't want to estrange this so-called friendship with him so she kept the anger to herself and Hans sipped his hot cocoa and stretched his legs, relaxing in the expensive room was giving him more joy than the fact he shut Delimira up for once.

  The next day, After eating his fill at breakfast, Hans left early for the Agrilands. Since the ManEating forest was quite far from the SpaceDoor of Agrilands, he has to waste his precious two hours just to reach there on foot.

  Today’s target was OpenMaw which he failed to find yesterday. He had already cleared most of the suspicious places in previous days, so he was quite positive to find it today. The masking ability of this OpenMaw was so stealthy that even Hans had a hard time finding out but as god took pity on his struggle to find his target he, fortunately, found one which was in the process to digest its prey.

  The plant itself was as huge as a giant's hand, clasping the struggling beast in between those huge hand-like leaves. The structure was made of two hinged lobes and on the inner surfaces of the lobes are thorn-like projections that cause the lobes to snap shut when prey comes in contact with them.

  Hans cautiously made his way to the plant without disturbing it and touched the plant stopping its munching. The plant stopped for a while but feeling Hans’s intent of not harming it, the plant started eating his prey again. Sadly it was also not compatible with his existing spells but having an additional trap attack was far better than not having one. He got what he wanted so he made his exit swiftly

AT LECTURE HALL

Martha’s eyes were still searching for Hans but not finding him led them to Delimira who was trying her best to avoid the professor. But as an experienced teacher, she found her and asked,

Didn't you tell Mr Hans that I was calling him?

Delimara looked at Chris and he whispered to her,

Don't look at me, You are the smart one.

Delimira looked back at the Professor and said,

Yes, professor,

Martha made an annoyed expression and asked her again,

So why don't I see him here?

He has hemorrhoids

***