Chapter 16: Magical Materials
Carly woke up in the middle of the night. She noticed that she was inside a makeshift campsite encircled by eight statues. Beside her were 3 bodies that seemed to be fast asleep. One of them was the person that she fought in the illusion, and the other two were the twins that a squad member mentioned before leaving on his "vacation." It was hard to find dedicated squad members at the corporation that she works for.
The only reason she was hired and sent on this mission was because of her innate talent, Unpresence. It was a passive ability that allows her to hide her presence from any form of detection except vision and touch; it was great for stealth and retrieval missions.
She looked beyond the stone statues and saw that it was dimly with jungle foilage scattered around the area. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and tried to extend her perception; the moment it reached the stone boundary, she was jolted out of her state of focus as foreign images seemed to invade her mind and a strong sense of urgency filled her entire being.
Something bad was about to happen and only she can stop it. A path created by what looked like willow-o-wisps lit up in the darkness. Her mind screamed it was a trap, but by then she was already moving. She barely had some control over her body so she quickly looked around her and grabbed a shield and a sharp spear which was lying nearby. She poised the shield and spear in front of her and using the last of her willpower dashed at full speed at whatever was trying to lure her over.
After running for about a minute along the path at full speed, the spear stabbed deeply into something hard and fleshy. Then, as shield came in contact with it, something was knocked back as it let out a roar of pain. She then heard footsteps behind her, and a burst of light lit up the darkness illuminating a spider with what looked like partially digested faces jutting out from its back. She was terrified by the faces for a moment and barely dodge bite from the creature before instinct took over.
"Nice!" A male voice said, "We found our first material. Should we help?"
"No, let see what he is capable of," Vivi said.
"There is nothing to see, she is using the best equipment I created. With her speed and innate talent, she can dance circles around the creature all day" Xylos said, "The Facorror Spider mainly relies on its hypnosis and illusion to capture the prey. It is horrible in melee combat; its iron-like carapace can offer some protection but it is nothing in front of my spear."
"That sounds like a nice spear, how much are you willing to sell it for?" Levin asked casually, as he watched the person gracefully dodged the spider's attack and leaving a hole that bled like a torrent in return. A few minutes later, as the last drop of life spurted out of the spider, it collapsed into a bloody heap on the ground.
Carly looked at the corpse and all the things that happened so far; it was not supposed to be like this. As a probationary employee of the Legard Company, this was one of the first mission she took part in. When she accepted the mission, she was told that the legendary people in her squad would deal with any threats and all she had to do was bring the book to a safe place. One thing after another happened and now she was in the middle of nowhere, and just barely survived an encounter with a magical beast.
As the adrenaline wore off, her legs buckled and almost collapsed onto the pool of dark-green blood. Something hoisted her up before she can fall and pulled her away from the pool.
"I wouldn't sit in that pool if I were you," Vivi said.
Vivi conjured an earth hand to carry the person toward her. Looking at the person's cold stiff expression, Vivi whisked the remnants from the person's body and pulled the person into an embrace.
When Carly felt the warm safety of a person's embrace, the shield clattered onto the ground and tears started coming out of her eye; this wasn't how things were supposed to be.
Vivi patted her back a few times as the person shuddered and cried in her embrace. She encountered too much of the same things in the past.
The world was currently divided into 22 major corporations with their various sub-companies. Only the major corporations would put its employees through an intensive training regime with numerous practical challenges; the sub-companies were a mixed bag, some just taught its members the basics of a magic system and then let its members freely choose the jobs they want to do. Those that are lucky would retire with incurable injuries, at which point the corporation would cover their living expenses until they die; most are not so lucky and they would die during the mission never to be seen again.
Vivi and her brother were trained through the more intensive regimes so they were slightly more prepared to face all the dangers in the world. This boy...no girl here was probably one of those that longed for adventure at a young age from all the stories she heard at the settlement controlled by the corporation. Nonetheless, she was one of the blessed few who had some sort of special talent that kept her alive to this day. She probably had the minimum required combat training before she was tasked to take on a mission.
Levin felt a bit despondent that he didn't help her, but he went through a similar phase in the past, and at a much younger age.
It didn't matter to Xylos; the mature Vivi was handling everything so he quickly collected his shield; he tried to pry the spear from her hands but it was in a tight grip. He tried a few more times, but on the third time, the person gripping the spear glared at him through indignant tear-filled eyes that said "How could you be so inconsiderate. I'm going to keep the spear to make me feel better."
Xylos made one final tug, but then Vivi stared at him with a discontented expression, which finally made him give up; this was what it felt to be slighted. Xylos sighed and walked toward the corpse.
As he got closer to the corpse several black text appeared in the
The blood was acidic with a strong affinity for poison, illusion and mind related spells. If he could collect some of the blood he can use it to create more powerful poison, illusion or mind spell scrolls.
While Xylos was in thought about how he can use each part of the corpse, Levin appeared beside him and the corpse, along with all its liquid, floated into a large air bubble, where it was cleanly dismantled into legs, carapace, head, and blood.
"How did you do that?" Xylos said as the blood was sucked into a liter glass flask.
"It is a spell called Airmantaler. It is something that is taught and practiced since we were old enough to work to train our focus and concentration. I doubt you can learn it." Levin responded
"Can you show me again?" Xylos said as he activated a recording program.
"Okay, I have to dismantle the head anyways." He said as he cast Airmantaler again and separated the head into eyeballs, poison sac, antenna, teeth, and what looked like a small crystal.
Once the process was done Xylos stopped the recording. Then, a dialogue that said, "Disassemble?" appeared.
"Yes!" Xylos cheered inwardly and started analyzing the spell.