Parting Way

Noticing how deep was the hole that she had dug by herself, Laena took a huge breath and steeled herself as she felt the adrenaline leaving her body. Focusing on her explanations as her mind came back to its clear state, she said in the most dignified tone possible :

"I only managed to cut its arm thanks to the wound Fyorn had already done on the beast. Furthermore, isn't it a little rude to ask me to explain what my trump card is? Or maybe you want to talk about this weird magic you've used too?"

Frowning, Alikio dropped the matter and sighed :

"Fine, I won't pry in your things. At least, this monster is dead."

"What will we do of its carcass?" Jack asked as he saw a pile of valuable material awaiting to be collected.

"Hmmm... Maybe we will split the valuable parts evenly between our two parties?" Fyorn intervened as he saw the potential uses of this wyvern's body.

"We should do 70/30 for us. After all, it's miss Brathadh who gave you the opening you needed." The immortal grunted while staring at the dwarf.

"You fool ! She just put herself in danger, it's our Leon who defeated the beast. 50/50 is already a nice offer !" The small warrior roared in indignation.

"M-Maybe we should just take what we can...?" Feeling everybody's attention on her, Evelyn made herself a bit bigger and continued her explanation: "I mean, its a huge beast and we are six. There is no way we can drag all of it, even if we only take the interesting parts... or at least I think?"

"You got a point Evelyn, and anyway we beat it together. Let's share together evenly and in a good mood shall we! After all, we've killed a legendary monster!" Leon laughed while creating an atmosphere of gentleness and teamwork's merit which gave Jack an urge to puke.

'It's wrong on so many points... This is no legendary monster, it was just a pup wyvern playing with fire. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that we have members in both teams who could have killed this thing easily...' He thought while eyeing the high priestess next to him and the dwarf who was a little further.

The small warrior gave him an impression of power and danger way stronger than what he should feel next to such an easy prey while the priestess had shown an impressive instant cast earlier alongside her instinct which made her wary of the immortal. Sighing, he looked at them and said :

"Well, let's try to cut this thing apart first."

And together they did their best to remove the hard scales from the flesh alongside some claws and fangs. Smiling like a child, Jack was happy to be able to get such fresh components.

'If only I was alone I could have made many things out of this wyvern's carcass... Well, let's take whatever I can right now and work with it later.' He thought while extracting a long bone bigger than him.

"What are going to do with this?" Alikio asked after having filled her bag with things she thought important.

"It might make a good fighting staff you know." Jack lied through his teethes while showing some "moves".

Raising an eyebrow, the priestess shrugged and went toward her companions as they had finished their gory excavation. Fyorn looked especially greedy as he was still trying to fill his backpack which looked like it was about to explode.

Smiling, Leon looked at Laena and asked her :

"Since we still have a bit of time on the same road, let's walk together no?"

Hearing her teacher sigh behind her while Evelyn was struggling with her bag's weight, the elf simply nodded as she knew she had no choice.

"Are we going to leave this whole... Monster's body in the middle of the path like this?" Jack asked while feeling the headache coming as he would have to spend more time with this joyful paladin and his two weird companions.

"Well it's not like we could do something no? Let's just leave it here." Leon said while sighing too. He knew that such a huge mound of meat would rot, attract predators and block the road for the others but he was no magician. Making such a thing disappear was simply impossible to him.

"Alright." The immortal nodded. They could have collected some wood and made the body burn into cinders but this would have taken them the few hours they had left before nightfall.

Walking by the broken wagon, Leon muttered a small prayer for the poor farmer. The girls followed him, praying together while Jack and Fyorn stood on the side rolling their eyes at such a performance for a single death.

The party walked quite quickly after that, the paladin making the discussion along the way with Laena and Evelyn while the silent ones simply followed them. More than a few times the young man's tongue slipped and gave Jack interesting information before he got scolded by his priestess companion.

'So they have to eliminate a dark cult uh... I wonder if I could reach out those guys, it's a dangerous bet but it could be useful if I cover my tracks.' The immortal thought while smiling inwardly. After two hours of walking which were painful in different way for the group's members as some struggled with their bags' weight while the other got a headache thanks to the talkative paladin they finally reached the crossroad where they would have to split.

Leon looked quite sad to have to part way with such interesting adventurers, promising them to see them again in the guild while Alikio simply seemed to finally relax as she knew she would leave Jack' side. His presence made her tense even if he was looking quite funny with his over-sized bony walking stick.

Biding farewell to their first interesting human encounter in while, the two students waved at them in the dimming sunlight. Laena had a heavier heart than Evelyn at that moment because she knew that those people's presence was the only thing protecting her from her teacher's scolding. After a few minutes of silence as they progressed on their road through the woods, Jack finally spoke :

"Well, I don't sense them anymore and I don't think that they would go as far as using a high level scrying magic just for us."

Turning toward the elf, she knew what was coming and her ears lowered at the same time as her head. She knew that she had failed his expectations but was conflicted as she knew that according to her, she had done nothing wrong. Yet, she felt shameful of making such a blunder.

"Laena, you know what you did wrong right?" Her teacher asked in a heavy voice. Fearing to raise her eyes, she replied in a small voice :

"Yes... I'm terribly sorry..."

"Cut that out you idiot." Jack continued in a menacing tone before seeing Evelyn looking at him, silently pleading for Laena's cause. Grunting, he changed his opinion and continued in a more joyful voice while his wolfish grin rose up.

"Since your small companion seems to be on your side, you will get your punishment together. Let's stop here for today, I'm going to "exercise" with you until sunset."

Gulping, the elf rose her head and saw that he was determined. However, she wasn't alright with Evelyn getting involved and voiced her opinion :

"I'm fine with this but why Ev-"

"No but. Furthermore, you are alright with this aren't you small one?"

"If this can reduce Laena's punishment I'm willing to take it with her !" The young girl said with determination. She had been useless during the fight and hadn't stopped her friend from showing off her power. Taking a part of the punishment was the least she could do in her eyes.

Planting their tents while despair filled them as they heard Jack's dark laugh, they got in position in between the trees as their campfire's light danced on their face. Soon, pained cries filled the forest as he gave them a display of his magic's finesse : He covered them in bruises but broke no bones.

He also let them attack him with all their might, trying to hit him while he was dodging with his empowered body. If their assault slowed he would simply wake them up with a splash of ice cold water and repeated the process for a while. Stopping because they could barely stand on their feet while his mana circuits hurt like hell and his muscles were torn, he sent them to sleep while he took the first guard turn.

Crouching on his wyvern's bone, he smiled of genuine happiness as he knew that he would be able to make many things of it. Settling for a thin sword like Laena's one and a scepter, he started to write magic inscriptions on it. Surprisingly, the bone seemed to react to his glyph and changed of form after every sign he made.

Breathing heavily as such magic after his exercise was way harder than he expected, he still looked at his now two pieces of bone. One looked vaguely like a sword while the other like a stick as they had both been thinned out. Since he wanted to solidify this to an acceptable level, Jack had removed the marrow and compressed the whole bone thanks to a mix of death and blood magic.

The method he had used to modify his component was called Alteration in the magician's community. It was an alternative way to forge items which allowed the creator to fully control every details and keep the materials whole as he didn't need to cut off anything. The downside was that the mage doing this process needed to use the same mana as the one in his materials in order to control them from inside, limiting the range of things they could create. Furthermore, it needed an absolute concentration and a fine control over one's energy as you wanted to change the item's form, not its mana composition.

You could if you wanted to produce a magical item but it was extremely difficult to change both the form and inside at the same time. However, the best moment to enchant an item was during his creation while he was still permeable. Some master smiths pounded their metals with mana in every strike, imbuing their creation of the wished energy.

Jack did the same and augmented all the properties of the bone, filling it to the brim with many types of mana. This way, he would have a weapon and a casting wand tailored for him. Unfortunately, the power of an artifact was intimately linked to its components as they would hold different amount of mana, accelerate or slow the flow inside them and many other properties. A fresh wyvern's bone wasn't the best one Jack had seen but at this era with such low level monsters it was certainly a boon to him.

Struggling to get on his feet as his left arm felt like it was burning continuously, he woke up Laena so she could guard the camp and went to sleep. Way too soon, the morning came and the immortal got out of his blissful dreams where he didn't feel his wrath, pain and sadness consume him as always.

Groggily going out, he found a breakfast prepared for him as both his students seemed to have learnt their lessons. They still tensed up when they saw him but he smiled at them, grunting :

"You've got what you deserved last night, this story is over and in the past. However, don't forget your mistakes and do your best to use them to improve yourself."

"Yes teacher !" The two girls nodded together.

After painfully packing their stuff since all their muscles were sore, Evelyn noticed the now cut bone and asked what it was supposed to become. With a small smile, Jack simply put a finger on his lips and said :

"You will see but it should be impressive."

And so they went on their way once again, their bag weighting them while their body protested. Two days later, they were feeling considerably better and were surprised since they hadn't seen many humans passing by. They had tried to hop on a merchant's caravan but they were refused since there was no more room for them.

Thus, the party had walked in considerable silence while working out. The girls had made a lot of progress in their exercises while Jack had focused on healing himself, getting his arm's mobility back again while making small changes on his bony creation.