After a couple of days, aid arrived from Basindale, and the food crisis in Duskville was averted. People stopped panicking and things returned to normal.

However, the higher ups were not going to let this go. They were using all of their resources to investigate the dark mages responsible for the destruction.

For the next month, investigations were ongoing in full vigour.

During this time, Drake and his party completed a lot more missions and started getting along much better.

Drake took one week to learn freeze palm and another for crescent slash.

After mastering his rank two martial techniques, Drake moved on to the next thing that could increase his battle strength.

Artifacts.

A big reason why both Blaze and Sylvia were as powerful as they were, was due to the artifacts they used. Hence, Drake wanted to improve his artifacts too.

Luckily, unlike spirits which needed to be summoned complete with runes, when it came to artifacts, runes could be engraved into them after they were summoned, or even into already existing objects.

One just needed a special, but readily available artifact called the spirit quill.

The spirit quill was a rank one artifact that transformed the mana poured into it into a special type of earth mana that had strong, penetrating properties. One could then pass that earth mana into an object and control it to alter the internal structure of the object as desired, allowing them to engrave the runes and create the necessary mana pathways for the runes, from within.

As always, all you needed was to know how the rune should be altered to suit the body of the artifact, and how the internal structure of the artifact should be altered to create the necessary mana pathways for the rune, something which was much easier for Drake than most people.

There were several spirits that Drake knew the summoning spell for, but never got a chance to properly learn. Myra had given him the spell for summoning a rank one lightning bat, whilst Ray had given him the rank two healing butterfly spirit summon. He had also learnt the rank two water goldfish spirit summoning from the ancestor’s ruins.

Although he couldn’t summon those spirits, he could practise engraving their runes into different objects. After learning and mastering them, not only would he be able to create artifacts with those runes, but he would also be able to summon those spirits much more easily once he healed his mana core.

Thinking so, he decided to practise engraving the new runes. He spent the next two weeks practising the lightning bat’s lightning bolt rune. Although he was close, he hadn’t yet fully mastered it.

Of course, he had also been practising alchemy like a madman during this time. He had practised many different pills, including the mana recovery pill, stamina recovery pill, zenith pill, and a couple of different healing pills.

It took Drake a while to master the basics such as identifying impurities and purifying them, as well as how to handle and combine different materials, but once he became better at these techniques, the other pill recipes basically just used the same techniques in different ways to produce various pills. Hence, Drake was able to start learning other pills more quickly.

However, he still only had about a 60% success rate with these pills, so he still wasn’t a rank one alchemist yet; but he was close.

But due to attempting hundreds of pill refinements every day, Drake soon built up a large stock of various pills, much more than he could use. He often shared the pills with the others during their missions and even gave Helen a batch of zenith pills to help with her cultivation. After that, he started selling the surplus to the merchants guild and started building a good relationship with them, while also making more money.

Every time Drake visited the merchants guild, Freya was there, ready to welcome him, as if she had been waiting for him the whole time.

Drake had no idea if she had nothing else to do, or if her only job was to cater to Drake’s party. He even suspected that the merchants guild might be spying on him to make sure Freya was always available when he visited, but he soon lost interest and stopped thinking about it.

At this moment, it was morning in Basindale. The sun was rising into the sky, casting its warm rays onto the town.

Drake was returning from a trip to the merchants guild when he noticed a local church and decided to quickly drop-in.

It was a simple church similar to the ones on Earth, with around ten rows which were occupied by a modest crowd. Drake was sitting at the very back and saw that everyone was focusing on a man dressed in white, standing at the altar in the front.

“Today, I’m going to tell a special story specifically for all the children present. The story of how the great goddess Iva created our world.” The priest spoke with a soft, but loud and clear voice while looking at the surprisingly large number of children present in the crowd.

Drake often visited this church from time to time just to relax and was also surprised to spot so many children, which was quite unusual. ‘Maybe today’s just like a ‘bring the kids’ day or something,’ he thought to himself but decided to listen.

“When our world originally formed from the chaos, the land was barren and the seas were dry. There existed no life, nothing, but stillness…” he dragged out the last word for emphasis.

“It was then that the goddess Iva, in her infinite grace, took pity on the world and blew mana into the air. The mana transformed the land, forming the vast expanses of desert to the east, the great forests to the west, the giant mountains of the north, and oceans around the continent.”

Drake couldn’t help but think about Earth. As a physicist, he had a clear understanding of how the universe was created from the Big Bang and life through evolution. However, for most of humanity's time, they too had a religious explanation for everything. Given the existence of magic in this world, Drake thought that maybe this world was created in a different way, and wondered how much of this story was true.

‘Could there be actual gods in this world?’ Drake thought. For a brief second, the figure of the middle-aged man in an infinite, white room, flashed through Drake’s mind.

Orion immortal…

However, the priest continued.

“When the mana condensed, the nature spirits began to form. They were simple, ethereal creatures with little will and intelligence of their own. They mindlessly wandered the planet as creation was taking shape.

Then, the mana began mixing with the land. The trees transformed into dryads, the water into nymphs, the earth into gnomes, and the desert into golems. They were the faeries, the first true living beings.”

Sylvia’s image flashed through Drake’s mind.

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“Inspired by this change, the goddess decided to create more life. Guided by Iva, the mana condensed further and began forming the first few lifeforms of simple insects. They gave colour to the world, bringing with them a tinge of life.

But the goddess wasn’t satisfied. She wanted to create intelligent life. Hence, the races of humans, dragons, merfolk, elves, giants, snakemen, and the seraphim were born.

The dragons and faeries formed tribes and scattered across the world whilst the merfolk dived into the ocean. The rest of the land was split up by the remaining races. The snakemen migrated to the eastern desert whilst the giants ventured north into the treacherous mountains. All the elves decided to occupy the woods to the west, forming the great kingdom of Eldanor, while the seraphim formed the Southern Empire. Only we humans formed the Holy kingdom in worship of the mother goddess.”

An image of a large world teaming with all sorts of life formed in Drake’s mind.

“All races lived in peace and harmony – until the Great Calamity!”

The rest was the same as the story he often heard. After the Great Calamity, a huge chunk of the world’s population was destroyed, and ten new races, the oni races, appeared. They carried a natural, inborn hatred towards the native races, and wherever they went, their dark aura corrupted the unintelligent animals, turning them into demons.

Drake quickly zoned out. He observed the priest often describe the scenes with an exaggerated tone of voice and make funny or scary faces and gestures. In response, the kids often let out gasps of surprise and fear.

After a few minutes, Drake decided to leave. He had agreed to meet the rest of his party so he needed to get going.

Soon, Drake arrived at the hunters guild to spot his party at the mission board. He had told them to go ahead and that he would catch up after.

Drake walked up to his party to spot them discussing a particular mission. A pseudo-commander class arachne had appeared inside one of the town’s mines, making the miners too scared to go inside and work.

Arachnes were another oni race. It was a half-human and half-spider hybrid, and its special ability was creating and spitting out thick webs to trap enemies.

It had appeared inside a mana stone mine. Mana stone mines contained a lot of mana rocks, which were used to make mana stones. Hence, it was an important resource point for the town, making it an urgent mission with a hefty reward.

They had already defeated a pseudo-commander class demon monkey together, and although onis were more powerful and they hadn’t fought an arachne before, they thought that they should be able to handle it.

After asking the receptionist to allocate the mission to them, they rented a carriage and started making their way to the mines.

The party had completed numerous missions over the past month and had built up a good team spirit, becoming a lot closer to each other. Sylvia and Helen especially, spent a lot of time together and became good friends.

They weren’t worried about the mission at all and were happily chatting with each other, laughing about random jokes. Even Syliva, who normally had a more reserved personality and didn’t express her emotions very well, warmed up to the group and started making some small jokes and giggling along.

Drake and the rest soon arrived at their destination in a cheerful mood and casually started walking towards the mines. Since they knew that the arachne was deep within the mines, they didn’t pay much attention to the surroundings.

Hence, they didn’t notice several shadowy figures trailing behind them.

A man in his fifties, the one who ran the mines, spotted Drake’s party and hurried towards them.

“You must be the hunters, thank you for coming so soon,” he said bowing gratefully.

“No problem,” Blaze replied.

“Where’s the arachne?” Sylvia asked, getting straight to the point.

The man turned towards her and replied, “It’s usually nesting at the very bottom of the mines, but it often comes up to the higher floors too, so I’d be careful going in.”

Sylvia nodded. “Okay then lead the way. But once the fighting starts, you might want to hide.”

“Of course,” the man replied delightedly, happy to get the problem resolved as soon as possible.

He led the party into the mines and, once again, none of them noticed the shadowy figures following behind.

Sunlight couldn’t easily enter the mines. It was mostly lit up by torches that were placed at regular intervals along the walls. Drake also poured a bit of mana into the light rune in his sword, causing it to glow gently and provide some light.

Sylvia summoned her pixie spirits, as usual, to scout ahead and around each floor.

The mines were only a couple floors deep, so the group soon reached the bottom.

Unlike all the previous floors, this one was different. Gooey spider webs covered the walls and the ceiling along the small corridor that had been dug out.

They hadn’t spotted the arachne anywhere else so far, so they were sure it must be on this floor.

“Everyone wait!” Drake whispered. The group froze in their tracks and turned to look at him.

“I have an idea,” he said before walking towards the wall.

He placed his hand right next to a thread of spider web and poured mana into his glove.

Fireball!

A fireball shot out from his glove. The temperature rose and the thread caught on fire.

Satisfied, Drake raised both his palms and started shooting fireballs everywhere along the walls and the ceiling, soon lighting the whole thing on fire.

Since the walls were mostly made of mana rocks which were quite strong and durable, Drake wasn’t worried that his fire would weaken the walls and cause a cave-in.

“Let’s go back up! We’ll have more room to fight there and it’ll come to us!” Drake said.

“Well, that’s one way to find it,” Blaze said, surprised at Drake’s overt tactics, but he listened and started climbing back up. Everyone else quickly followed.

Screeeech!!

A voice echoed across the floor and rapidly approached closer just as the last person was climbing through.

“Stay here,” Sylvia said to the mine owner after they all climbed up, pointing towards a large boulder which would provide him with an effective hiding spot.

“Oh... okay,” the man obeyed instantly, not wanting to get in the middle of the fight.

The group stood about twenty metres away from the floor entrance, waiting for the arachne to come through.

Sylvia prepared a mana arrow and readied her bow. Helen stepped in front of her, whilst Drake and Blaze stood before them, ready to fight.

This was their usual formation.

A large figure swiftly approached them.

It had the lower body of a spider, with extremely long and sharp legs, spanning several feet in diameter. The lower body probably reached three feet in height and the upper body, which had the figure of a humanoid female, was another four feet. The upper body’s forearms were spiked claws that rapidly sprung open and shut. Its head was the scariest feature, containing eight, blood red eyes and two huge fangs, along with really thick, long, black hair.

“Rain!”

Sylvia shot dozens of mana arrows towards the arachne. However, it stopped moving and used its claws to easily deflect all the attacks.

Sylvia was hesitant to use decimate. If the arachne dodged the attack and the arrow hit the walls instead, she wasn’t sure if they could withstand it, even though the wall were made of strong mana rocks.

Hence, when the arachne deflected her attacks, there wasn’t much she could do.

The arachne appeared in front of them and hissed.

Blaze moved.

Dragon step!

Blaze transformed into a fiery mist and appeared above the arachne.

“Fire blade!” he yelled, slashing his sword, and shooting out a blade of fire.

The arachne saw the blade rapidly approaching it. When the blade was inches from its face, the arachne disappeared.

‘No!’ Drake thought.

It didn’t disappear - it just moved incredibly fast, much faster than any of them had anticipated.

“Watch out!” Drake yelled to Blaze, who was still stunned at seeing the huge beast disappear.

The arachne was standing upside down on the ceiling right behind Blaze. It opened its right claw and swung it towards Blaze, ready to snap him in half.

“Seek!”

Sylvia shot out an arrow aimed directly at the claw. Although the arrow wouldn’t be able to penetrate the claw’s thick shell, the force of the impact could deflect it.

Just as the claw was about to strike Blaze, the arrow hit the claw and slightly shifted it, making it miss Blaze by an inch.

Blaze finally realised what was going on and used dragon step. He left behind a fiery mist and appeared back next to the group.

It hadn’t even taken a second for the arachne to appear behind Blaze and counterattack. Blaze wasn’t expecting it to be so fast and was momentarily stunned. If not for Sylvia’s quick reflexes, he would have been seriously injured.

The group watched the arachne carefully.

This was going to be a much more difficult fight than they thought.

Hiss!

The arachne hissed and spat out a large web towards Blaze.

Blaze dodged but it used that opportunity to sprint towards them. It moved so fast that they were barely able to keep up.

“Dragon fist!”

“Hammer fist!”

Both Blaze and Drake activated their martial techniques and punched the arachne. The arachne used its claws to block the attacks but was pushed back by the momentum.

“Let’s keep hitting the same spot, we gotta break its defences!” Drake cried.

“Yes!” Blaze agreed.

The two sprang into action and used their martial techniques to rapidly throw all manner of punches, kicks, and slashes at the beast. Although its upper body was more vulnerable, its claws were made of a thick shell and due to its speed, it could use them to block all of their attacks. Drake wanted to use his finger thrust but couldn’t find a good opening.

“Seek!” Sylvia repeatedly aimed and shot her arrows at any opportunity that showed itself, which were also blocked by the claws.

They fought relentlessly for several minutes before a Drake finally saw an opportunity.