Zero and Gurner eventually arrive at the town in question.
Zero orders Gurner to find an inn to stay at.
Zero himself doesn't need a room, since he won't be resting.
He searches the soul of a random passerby.
But finds something quite shocking.
The person has no soul.
Yet they are alive.
No, alive is the wrong word for it.
They were being controlled to act as if they were normal.
But their eyes were empty.
He decided to check out others...
But they all were missing their souls.
So he creates a spell using his library.
[ECHO]: {Name: "Soul Tracker", Level: 1, Type: Target, Element: Mana, Cost: 100, Desc: "Trace back targets soul."}
He then uses it on somebody.
He sees a white thread pointing him in a direction.
It leads him to a manor.
He sneaks in through the window and follows the white thread.
It eventually leads him to a bookshelf.
He starts to pull books off the shelf.
Until a mechanism is triggered and the shelf slides to the side.
A staircase is leading down.
He walks along the staircase.
It is too dark to see.
So he uses the spell glow on himself.
He eventually finds himself in a lab.
There is a giant glass cylinder in the center.
It is filled with thousands of souls.
He moves towards it.
But is hit by a whip.
"Just what do you think you are doing!"
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Zero turns around and sees the rank 2 magi.
"So you're the one doing forbidden research?"
"They sent a pup to kill me. A rank 1 trash. You have come here just to die!"
I ignore him and point my finger at him.
"Memorize"
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Gunther's POV:
I'm so close!
If I'm able to control these souls... I'll be able to have the power of thousands of level 2 wizards!
I'll be able to fight rank 3, maybe even rank 4 magi on an even playing field.
What?
My security alarm has gone off.
I head to my laboratory and see a man walking towards my souls container.
I hit him with my whip, but he reacts as if he has felt nothing.
He's at least rank 1.
But if that is all he has, he is going to die!
He says:
"So you're the one doing forbidden research?"
When did they find out I was researching the taboo?
It doesn't matter... I'll be too strong for them to do anything to me soon.
I just need to deal with this person.
"They sent a pup to kill me. A rank 1 trash. You have come here just to die!"
The person in question points his finger at me.
"Memorize"
"Wh-"
I immeidately see myself floating in an infinite void.
"Where am I?"
I see a black sphere and a clear sphere around it.
I see strings condense into the spheres.
I see the fabric of time and space!
No!
I'm being sucked into the black sphere.
My consciousness will shatter.
I cast my spell...
"Awaken!"
This spell can break illusion spells.
I find myself back in my lab.
The man is staring at me.
"Interesting."
"Erase"
I am surrounded by a blackness.
It is consuming me.
This is the end...
I failed to finish my research.
How unfortunate.
----------------------------------------
Zero wondered what he should do with all these souls.
He couldn't waste them.
What if he took them and assigned each one to a nanite.
Nah... he should just set them free.
He walked towards the nonexistent remains of the rank 2 magi.
Picked up his I.D for proof that he had completed the mission.
He then smashed a hole in the soul container.
The souls flew out and returned to their bodies.
He left the manor and headed to the inn where Gurner was at.
Once he got there, he met with him.
"Alright, we are heading back."
"We still need to investigate this town though?"
"I already completed the mission."
"WHAT!"
"How did you beat a rank 2 magus?"
"I'm a good fighter."
"..."
I change the parameters on my wrist and open a portal back to my room.
I step through and Gurner hesitates.
"We'll be leaving the carriage behind as well as my luggage..."
"You can travel back to the academy that way then. I'll see you in a few days."
"Wai-"
I close the portal.
I'm now alone in my room.
I walk to the task master and turn in the proof.
The I.D's are imprinted with the persons soul. So it is quite hard to fake one.
The 10,000 contribution points are mine!
I scroll through the list of spells.
I find one that quite suits me.
Light Teleportation!
Apparently this is based on a proof I had solved in the past.
But it requires the person to be a rank 3.
Still... I buy it.
Gimme!
[ECHO]: {Name: "Light Teleportation", Level: 3, Type: Target, Element: Light, Cost: 1000, Desc: "turns the target into light and travels to a location."}
This should be quite useful
Especially for quickly traveling through the chaos realm.
I'm a bit far away from rank 3 though.
I'm not even rank 2 yet.
I'm now broke once again.
I go to the board and check to see if there is another big task.
All I find are task that reward a few hundred points.
Can't more people do forbidden experiments?
I take the task of taking care of plants for potioneering masters.
It rewards 50 task points a year.
My plan is to abuse this.
Normally, someone wouldn't want to waste their lifespan on such a small amount of points.
But if I spend 100 years doing this.
That's 5000 points!
It's not like it will take all my time.
People assume that I require sleep.
So I can work on etching more runes on my chain.
My goal is to quietly stay in the background and etch 720 runes on my chain.
I already have my level 2 spell ready.
All I'm missing is a heavy enough chain to reach the 5th layer of my soul.