“The kid finally left. Are you alright big sis?” asks Jasper as sweat slowly drips down his forehead.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Are you really going to take on the kid’s request?”
“Yes. You don’t need to worry. I won’t involve myself directly. I still have some connection with the Freedom Fighters. I’ll call them for this job.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Jasper, find me a potion appraiser. We need to have these potions appraised.”
“Yes, big sister.”
Sigh, I guess I should contact Irene and have her find the location of the duke of the Wixx house.
***
In the deepest part of Waham.
A man enters an abandoned warehouse. He manoeuvres around the warehouse passing crates as he walks towards a wall. On the wall, there is a worn-out painting of a demon with giant horns and fangs sticking out of its mouth.
The man presses his thumps on the fangs as they sink like buttons. The wall vibrates as a secret door appears on the ground next to the wall. The man pulls the latch open and goes down the stairs.
He finally reaches the room downstairs and opens it. Shadows loom over the room as the man walks past them to the end of the room where a man is sitting on a throne like chair.
The man bows down with both of his knees and speaks.
“Boss. There’s been an incident.”
“What is it?” Says the man sitting on the throne as he latches onto his giant axe.
“The warehouse that belonged to that bastard Raizer was turned to flames.”
“Oh,” he smiles as he touches the half of his face. “And Raizer. What happened to him?”
“It seems that he was killed in that fire.”
The man sitting on the throne couldn’t help but burst into a laugh.
“Hahahaha, so that bastard finally died. What about Naomi?”
“She’s still alive.”
“That’s good. At least, I still have someone to get my revenge on.”
The light of the torches that are blazing in the room finally reveals the face of the person who is sitting on the throne. It is Mike, the previous leader of the East Alley gang. The gang that was blown up by Naomi. Half of his face is covered in old burns. The burns extend down underneath his clothes. Even his legs are covered with them.
“Let’s go get my revenge.” Says Mike.
The men in the room roar ever so loud, but a solemn menacing voice that comes from behind the throne like chair settles down everyone’s joy.
“Not yet.”
As that voice rings into everyone’s ears, sweat starts to slowly drip down their faces.
“Master, you’re back.” Says Mike as he takes a huge gulp.
“Your bodies haven’t fully adjusted to the ‘demonic energy’ yet. Unless you want to loss yourselves from the corruption of it, then go ahead.”
“If master says that then we will wait. If it’s not a problem with you master, can you please tell me how long we’ll have to wait?”
A pair of yellow eyes appear behind Mike. Hands with giant claws creep from behind as they caress Mike’s frozen face.
“Would you look at that. It seems that my dear Miky has grown a pair between his legs. Should I rip them out?”
“I-I apologize, master.”
“Good. Now be good little dogs and do what I say, okay?”
“I understand.”
The demon from behind slowly retracts its hands and disappears from behind leaving everyone petrified.
***
Outside the room.
The demon is walking as he ponders.
This is quite troublesome. I’ve managed to stay in the shadows ever since I arrived here a few months ago, preparing lord Shadows plans. But now, someone managed to kill Raizer.
Raizer was a problem enough considering his strength and also his connection to this ‘Dread’ person who is said to be strong enough to fight S-rank adventurers. In Demon terms, that means he has the power to fight a Demon General.
I didn’t want to get myself discovered but now, someone who is strong enough to kill Raizer, who has the power comparable to myself, a Greater Demon, just shows up out of nowhere.
This incident will probably bring Dread himself here and what I have heard about him is scary for a human. I better leave this city for a while until everything dies down. I have to also make sure those idiots don’t go about ruining my plans.
***
A few kilometres away from Waham.
I am now flying to my destination.
Sigh, I used quite a lot of money in my first city. I do have an enormous pile of money in my storage space but still, spending 600 gold coins within two days. That’s too much even for me.
If you’re that scared about spending money, why don’t you just use your transformation magic to turn pebbles into gold coins or something?
I sometimes forget that you’re a demon, so your understanding of magic is lacking. The answer is simple. Anything created by magic must constantly be supplemented with magical energy to maintain its form unless that said thing is supported by the laws. Meaning that the moment those gold coins I would have created leave my hands, they would eventually revert to their original form.
Since I used transformation magic in making the pillars of gold and various minerals in my castle, I had to create a magic circle that its main purpose was to absorb magic and mana from the environment. Because of that magic circle, the entire castle was able to operate with magical means.
Also, even if the pebbles might maintain their transformed form for a while because of the power my magic has, mages could probably sense the magic in the gold coins, unmasking the lie. Even though I might not be caught if I do that, that will probably mess up the financial world. And I do have my morals too.
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Master. You’ve arrived at your destination.
I see. Thank you, Ariel.
I land on the ground. I am surrounded by nothing but flatland. There isn’t anything visible for kilometres. Not even a tree is found in this barren place.
“Okay. I don’t see anything here.”
These are the exact coordinates that we’ve calculated master.
I see.
I activate my magic sense which envelopes the entire space. I focus it on the ground as to detect if there is any underground passageway, but my magic sense is bounced back.
“Got it.”
It seems that the entrance of the ruins is protected by a magic spell that has the ability to block magic sense. But thanks to that, I was able to detect where the entrance is.
I walk towards the entrance and squat down, placing my hand on the ground.
“I wasn’t mistaken. Gravity control: quake.”
My hand glitches as a vibration is transferred from it to the ground. The ground shakes vigorously as the shock waves hit it covering the entire area with a thick cloud of dust.
A crack appears on the ground as the entrance bursts open. A cute little sneeze on my shoulder tickles my ear. It is Lime.
How cute.
A staircase descends as it disappears into the darkness.
I probably wouldn’t go down if it was me in my previous life.
I go down the stairs and use earth magic to seal the entrance.
Don’t want any unwanted visitors now do we?
I open up my hand and a bright light appears. The ball of light rises up from my hand into the air as it illuminates the dark. I then descend the stairs.
It took me 20 minutes to reach the end of the staircase. A narrow space greets me as I march right through it. In this narrow space, there are curvings on it written in the Draconic language.
Casandra the Medicine God. The one who heals all.
That is the text that first catches my eyes. After that, there are beautiful paintings on the wall that still maintain their colour. The paintings show a woman who isn’t human.
The reason why I’m saying she isn’t human is because in the painting, she is illustrated to have a bigger stature than that of a human. The paintings are almost Egyptian like with the woman holding a herb in her right hand and a book in her left hand. The book probably signifies knowledge.
People have their heads bowed down as they praised her.
Was she of the Draconic race? From the Draconic book, simple drawings of how the Draconic race looked were drawn. The men were big in stature and muscular. They had horns petruding out of their foreheads. It seems the horns signified their strength and rank. The drawing that was on the Draconic book was that of the ‘Draconic King’.
He had a total of six horns across his forehead. The ones at each end were much bigger. The second ones were smaller than the first ones, but the smallest ones were the ones in the middle of the forehead.
The way those horns were signified a crown.
Then there was another drawing of another type of man who had four horns and another who had two horns.
There was also a drawing of how the female looked. The drawing was that of the ‘Princess’ of the Draconic race, sister to the draconic king. She had two horns in total. The one on the left was much bigger than the one on the right.
Looking at this painting, this woman looks like she has only one horn but it’s really small compared to the drawing in the Draconic book. Not only that, but she also looks frail.
The writing continues.
Our God who destroyed all diseases. Our God who increased our strength. We can never thank you enough. We shall praise you until the end of time.
It seems whoever wrote this was devoted to this ‘Casandra’. I guess the Draconic race were considered as gods back then.
I continue to walk, meeting all kinds of prophetic drawings until I exit the narrow space. The moment I exit the narrow space, two magic circles from both walls appear as they shine fiery red. A torrent of fire shoots out of them towards me at both directions engulfing me.
Of course, this isn’t a problem as a barrier erects around me, shielding me from the flames.
Huh, I was wondering when the traps would show up.
I continue walking until I am attacked by another trap. This times, a magic circle appears under my feet as lightning crackles from it. A huge thunderbolt shoots upwards, but it couldn’t break through my barrier.
I continue in deep as a dozen more traps attack me. The traps were varied from poison to flooding and even a cave-in. Of course, I walked out of them unscathed.
I finally arrive at a giant door where a golem is standing guard. The moment I enter its range, its eyes glimmer as it roars at me.
The golem is made up of earth and there isn’t much to it. It’s a few meters bigger than an orc.
It swings it enormous hand but since I’m kinda in a hurry (not really) I destroy it with a fireball, blowing its upper half. The golem slowly crumbles down.
“That was easy.”
I pass its crumbled body but thanks to my senses, I notice an attack coming. I veer out of the way as a giant fist leaves a crater on the spot I was standing on.
“What the hell…”
A giant earth arm floats in the air as the rest of its body reassembles together. In a matter of ten seconds, it is already back to its original form.
Did you destroy its core?
I should have. My fireball obliterated its entire top half.
The golem swings another fist at me. I dodge it by leaping out of the way. It kept attacking like that as I dodged its onslaught.
Try destroying its entire body.
Okay.
Following Ray’s plan to destroy its entire body, I catch the incoming punch with my barehand. It throws another punch with its left arm, but I catch it too. It then tries to subdue me with strength but no matter how hard it tried, I couldn’t budge an inch.
“Gravity control: molecular quake.”
I sink my fingers in its earthly body as a subtle, yet strong vibration shoots out of my hands, grinding the golem into nothing but sand. It took approximately a second for that to happen.
“That should do it, right?”
As if I jinxed myself, the sand on the ground spins into a tornado as the golem reappears, again.
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
The golem continues on its onslaught as I dodge its attacks again.
Sorry kid, but I’m out of ideas. Maybe try burning it.
Like that would do anything to it. Actually, I think I figured out something.
What is it?
When I turned this guy into sand, there wasn’t a core in him.
Yeah, so?
A golem needs a core to function. Otherwise, it’s impossible for it to work. At first, I thought it had hidden the core somewhere in its humongous body.
What about Megalot? He doesn’t have a core after all and yet he can function well.
Megalot is a special case. I made him just like how I made the Pillars. Yes, his body is earth like this guy but his core would be his soul which is protected by dozens of barriers. Basically, Megalot is like Adam in a way but much much weaker.
So, what did you find out exactly?
If the core is not within the body of the golem, then it must have been hidden somewhere. Considering that the core has to be close to the golem otherwise the connection would weaken, that can only mean that the core is in this room.
Wait, a core can be removed from the golem?
Yeah. It’s something I figured out after I made a ton of golems to guard around the forest. Instead of building each golem individually including their core, I figured it would be best to connect them to Megalot’s soul. In a way, you could say that those golems are an extension of Megalot since he can see and feel what they see and feel.
I activate magic sense and focus it on detecting a ‘string’ of magical energy that is connected to the golem. I find it almost immediately. The core is hidden on the wall next to the giant door.
“Well, then. I guess I should end this.”
I raise my hand and point it towards the wall. The golem notices that I have discovered its core. A lightning arrow shoots out of my hand towards the wall. The golem tries to block my attack by covering with its hand. The lightning didn’t yield on its path as it destroys the golem’s arm all the way to its target.
It pierces the wall as the core within it shatters into pieces. The golem crumbles thereafter into debris.
“This Casandra sure didn’t want people to reach this place. If it was anybody else, they probably would have long been dead by now. I hope whatever is in here is worth it.”
I push open the stone door but it did not open.
Don’t you need like a key or something?
A vein pops on my forehead as I sink my fingers into the stone door.
“Gravity control: quake.”
The door vibrates and even causes the ceiling to crumble bits and pieces of earth but the door didn’t break. A second vein pops out of my forehead as I sink my fingers even more into the door.
“Gravity control: mega quake.”
The entire underground space vibrates vigorously as signs of a cave-in begin to show.
Isn’t mega quake going overboard?
Finally, the door crumbles to the ground as a thick dust cloud covers the entire space. If it wasn’t for the spell on the door that blocks magic sense, I would have teleported inside, making things easy. (I can teleport anywhere I’ve been or anywhere my magic sense reaches.)
As the dust begins to clear, the entire room lights up as dozens of shelves filled with books come into view. The books still look well preserved. Preservation magic was probably used on them.
Next to the bookshelves is a table that is beautifully crafted. On top of it lies books and a quill dipped in ink. At the far corner of the room, as if another room is created, there is a garden where a variety of herbs sprout from the ground.
Some of the herbs I have never encountered before. If I were to guess, these herbs are at least ten thousand years old.
A smile creeps from my face.
What’s with that creepy smile?
Herbs that are ten thousand years old are unheard of. If I use these to make potions, who knows what kind of potions I can make.
On the walls of the room were other shelves. These shelves have various of already crafted potions, mixtures and materials (both plants and monsters).
“Beautiful.” I say as my cheeks turn bright red.