CONTRACT

Max started to feel the atmosphere to change. It became colder.

"I am a great Mage! Master of thousand medicines but how I tried to rescue her, as a human, I cannot defeat death."

The room slowly becomes darker.

"But, I still want to see her…Even if I must walk the path of evil. And so, I finally found it…Hundreds of year wandering in the Dark Continent, I met her!" Sign of madness started to appear in his eyes.

"She taught me necromancy!"

Necromancer.

They are a certain type of dark mage using the spirits of the dead and control the bodies of the dead. The more powerful he is, the more corpses he can control. Countless corpses attacking the living. Then creating even more corpses and it continues in an unending circle.

The view suddenly changed and Max returned to the black room.

The mysterious female looks at him and smiling.

"So, you want to make a contract with me? I will give you supreme power. You worried about how weak you are, right? Uriel plotting for your body and you helpless to stop it. You still too naïve and underestimated the official Mage. Even if you think you free from her control, you're not!"

Max frowned.

'She read my mind! How?'

"Faust never had a good ending, right? I can even see from his wife corpse stranded here and his madness that you show me. Why you did that?"

"A choice. I giving you a chance to choose. Made your decision…"

"I'm not that interested in necromancy though. In case you don't know, I part of Holy Union. The light side. I'm will be hunted as a heretic if I practiced dark magic necromancy." Max sneered.

Even though the temptation of power is great, Max can still think with his head straight.

"Hur Hur…Faust learned necromancy because that was his wish. He yearns to revive his dead wife" The female mysterious laughing. The sound of her laughter sounds like a chime.

"Heh!" Max scorned.

It was obvious what their ending was.

The deal with the devil is a double edge.

It still a mystery the relationship between dark apprentice Eleanor and this female corpse Eliza. Did Faust managed to revived her in form of Eleanor. Or it just a clone.

Cloning is complex process for those who not an expert of bio-engineering but Max was a genius, master of many.

Before the creation of Portable Artificial Intelligence, Max with a group of world renowned scientists had participated in secret human cloning project.

Given a complete equipment and resource, Max can create a clone by himself. The matter of whether the clone can live or not is different issues.

But...

"Fine! Let's make a deal." There was an obvious grin of Max's expression.

...…

In another area of the forest, a lone black-robed dark apprentice was slowly making his way into the center of an area of thorny shrubs.

In the middle of all the shrubs was Magic Grass that was as red as blood!

"Haha! With this much Bloody Solar Grass, my promotion to official Mage is already in the bag! When I return home later as a Mage, I will show them who the bastard son. Mother, I will avenge you soon!"

The dark apprentice held a blood red blade as he hacked his way through the shrubs. For every inch that he came closer to the Magic Grass, the excitement on his face grew by a bit.

He was only a few steps away from getting the Magic Grass when a sudden change occurred!

The thorn branches of the shrubs that seemed like they were dead all flashed with a red hue. Then, it was as if they came to life as they started stabbing at the dark apprentice.

Since the dark apprentice was able to enter the secret realm, he was naturally not someone ordinary. Although he was surprised at this situation, he immediately made a hand sign while murmuring something and a blood-colored light cover shrouded him. At the same time, his blood red blade swept forward and transformed into many afterimages that ferociously cut at the surrounding thorn branches.

The moment these afterimages made contact with the thorn branches that were around the apprentice, a muffled sound came out and the seemingly powerful slashes only cut apart three to four thorn branches.

With this, the dark apprentice felt a heat transmit to his hand and he almost dropped the blade in his hand.

The thorny branches then completely wrapped the dark apprentice. However, all of the thorns were blocked off by the blood red light shroud and none of the thorns reached the black-robed apprentice.

Although the dark apprentice's heart was in his throat because of these changes of the event, when he saw that the light cover held, he slightly relaxed. He made a single-handed technique and sparks began to fly around him; it was as if he was about to cast a powerful fire attribute spell against the thorny branches around him.

However, as soon as these sparks appeared, the thorny branches around the apprentice trembled. Sharp shrill sounds were made from the thorns and the branches pulled back before shooting forward. The powers in these attacks were so strong that they were like arrows shot from a tough bow.

"Ah!"

Seeing this, the dark apprentice instinctively cried out. It was too late for him to add extra defenses.

The blood light cover that was around the apprentice could only defend for a quick moment before it faded into mere light fragments.

With another blood-curdling scream, the dark apprentice became full of holes by the branches.

At the same time, the thorny branches around the apprentice tightened and forcibly tore apart the dark apprentice. Countless pieces of meat and blood came pouring out between the gaps of the branches.

The moment the remains of the dark apprentice hit the ground, countless white silky threads came pushing out of the ground. They all pushed themselves into the remains and started sucking the nutrients out.

In moments, nothing was left and the thorny branches that were tightly wrapped finally relaxed before everything returned to normal.

If it weren't for the blood red blade and a couple of tattered clothes, no one could see anything abnormal with the thorny bushes.

However, even the final remains such as the blade gradually sunk into the ground after the surrounding dirt started to slowly wiggle.

At this time, in a blank space near the tree, a strange man's voice sounded.

"Tsk tsk, what a powerful Demonic Treant. However, since you have already shown your powers, it'll be easy for me to deal with you."

The moment the voice fell, a shadow appeared behind the tree. Then, a green-robed apprentice that had a wooden staff with green orb attached at one end.

Two hundred meters behind the green-robed apprentice, a youth with indigo-robe and a sword attached at his side holding a magic tool looks like a binocular observed from far.

"If there is such thing as karma, Sleeping Forest must have one with me. Again, they giving a selfless gift to me." The youth smile.

"This time I must make the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind's plan succeed!"