Researches And Foolishness

Observing the wyvern while it was flapping it's wings to lift itself from the ground, Jack noticed that its scales looked rough and had lost their gleam. Furthermore, a few scars ran across its massive body bit they were mainly on its belly and head.

'That's an older one... Well, this fight will be a bit entertaining.'

Since their teacher had told them that he had the situation in control the two girls simply stepped back and went toward the trees to hide themselves. There, they found many planks and other parts of what had probably been carriages. Frowning, Laena noticed that there were also some body parts of the unfortunates villagers and she promptly turned her head toward the fight while telling Evelyn to do the same.

The loud noise of the wind caused by the wyvern's wing filled the surroundings at the two students saw their teacher looking with a wry smile at the massive creature which was currently getting higher in the sky. A black flame was dancing atop of his scepter and he explained to the girls with a loud voice :

"See how this wyvern acts compared to the other one? It has understood how to use its best weapons, its talons. In the nature, it's supposed to act more like an immense bird of prey than a ground monster."

"Do you really have the time to explain that?" Laena replied as she saw that the monster was gaining some speed and was about to dive on Jack.

"Don't worry." He laughed. "As you know, mages' spells don't have a huge range at fist. Thus, flying monsters like this one are particularly dangerous for us. The way to defeat it is simple : You wait for it to come closer and..."

The black fire flickered while the wyvern was coming down, the wind howling as it came across its widely opened wings. When the two massive legs were around twenty meters from him and filling his filling his field of view, he finished his sentence and cast his spell.

"...You bring it down !" He said as two black spikes emerged from the monster's shadow before piercing each of its wings and grabbing it toward the ground.

Surprised by the sudden tilting of its wings and its abrupt loss of speed thanks to the two Shadow Binds which held its arms back before breaking, the wyvern didn't manage to correct its flying pattern and fell head first on the dirt disgracefully. The impact was powerful enough to make the ground rumble and produce a thundering sound.

The poor creature rolled a little on the road before stopping and simply Jack walked toward it like he was a noble and it was his servant. There was a cloud of dust around the beast but it quickly settled and revealed the whimpering monster struggling to get up. Its left wing was seeming broken and both its shoulders were hurting as the ligaments were probably torn previously.

Standing before the wyvern's head as it was coughing a lot of blood, Jack was currently gazing at it with a ferocious smile standing on his lips. Observing him a little more, the creature felt the same disgusting feeling that it had gotten when it had first seen him. Focusing to its best, it analyzed him and noticed that this scepter was made with its own family's flesh.

Seeing that the puny human was mocking it while waving around its brethren's bone, the monster used all its remaining energy and pushed as hard as it could on its legs while opening its maws. If it was going down because of its internal injuries, it was going to bring him with itself and avenge its brother.

"Teacher !" The girls screamed together as they saw the creature make a serpentine movement before jumping head first on Jack.

"That's the spirit." The immortal scoffed before quickly rolling on the ground to avoid the attack. Biting the air, the wyvern fell heavily again and wheezed because its lungs were probably wounded.

Standing up and dusting himself, the dark mage turned around and looked at his students while the monster was staring at him with anger burning in its amber eyes.

"You can come out you know, it's badly wounded right now." He explained before snapping his fingers. Shadow spikes came out of the wyvern's shadow again and pierced its belly, making it puke more blood and clench its maws in order to stay conscious.

"Y-you did it this easily..." Laena said, dumbfounded as she remembered herself of the harshness of her previous fight.

"It wasn't that easy unfortunately." Jack replied while letting out a dry laugh. He was showing his back to the creature in order to see if it still had strength but it seemed like it was on its last leg as it simply watched him and its brethren's body in the background. "The main winning factors against a lower monster like this one at our level are timing and control. Timing because if I had cast my spell a second later it would have fallen on me and control of both myself, my mana and the battlefield."

Nodding, the girls understood what he meant. If you or your teammates panicked it would probably cause the whole team's death. Then, they saw their teacher circle around the wounded wyvern and write things in the dust with his scepter. He had finished in less than a two minutes and every time the poor monster tried to move he stabbed it in its wounds in order to maximize the pain it felt.

Since he was focused, they didn't want to ask him what the hell was he doing but curiosity could still be seen on their faces. When he started to infuse mana in the runes he had drawn, a purple flame came down from his scepter and flowed like water toward the circle on the ground.

Evelyn and the wyvern both got the same feeling when last rune glowed like the violet fire which had covered it. An urge to run away from it invaded them and while the young girl simply stepped back in fright the monster had nowhere to go.

An instant later, a tortured scream came from the wyvern's throat and froze the girls' blood. It had grunted before but they had never heard such pain in the beast's voice. It was almost palpable and they understood that for it to howl like that it was suffering like it never had before.

Fortunately, it stopped after a few seconds which seemed to be minutes to the two students. Wiping their cold sweat, they noticed that the runes' glow had died out and that the wyvern was bleeding from every orifices it had. Jack was currently using his scepter as a cane as he was wheezing and looked quite pale.

"Are you alright teacher...?" Laena asked as she slowly walked toward him.

"I should... be alright... in a jiffy..." The immortal painfully said before sitting on the ground to rest a little.

Remembering herself of her resolution, Evelyn remained serious and focused. Instead of checking how Jack was she gingerly verified if the wyvern was dead and confirmed it. Only then she allowed herself to worry about her teacher and she saw that his face had already recovered some colors.

"What was this... Thing you did?" The young girl asked. She knew it was a spell yet she couldn't bring herself to say it because she felt that it was way too different from the magic she knew. Yet, her curiosity as a magician made her wonder what was this weird art he used and thus brought this question to her lips.

"Nothing that you two should delve in for now." Jack replied after a few seconds while rising up. Hearing his sentence in his head, he noticed that he had been a little harsh and corrected himself:

"It's forbidden magic, and a spell that I've developed myself in my former cage on top of that. Trying it with so little power has been foolish of me but this experiment still showed some result..."

Since he murmured the last part of his explanation, only Laena heard it but she didn't want to go any further into this discussion because her teacher's grin was terrifying her quite a bit. Since she was staring at him, he got another idea and his smile nearly reached his ears. Feeling shivers run along her spine, the elf heard him ask her :

"Laena, I've got an idea of an excellent exercise for you. Roast those wyverns' bodies hotly enough for them to go into cinders please. After all, leaving such materials on the road will do more bad than good."

Evelyn simply watched the scene from the side and giggled quite a lot when she saw her friend give up and walk toward the oldest carcass with her ears dropping surprising low. Yet, she still did her best and poured out her fire as much as she could. Sadly, the only thing she had managed to do was to fill the atmosphere with a smell of roasted meat and later burnt one.

Giving up, she sat loudly on the ground and sighed as she felt that she had emptied her mana reserves. A gourd filled her field of vision and she saw Evelyn above her gently giving her some water. Smiling, she drank and heard a weird crunching noise behind her. Turning her head, she nearly spitted the liquid she had in her mouth when she saw Jack looking like Moise as he was currently opening the ground in two under the wyvern's body.

Some dirt flowed out of the hole as it closed itself after the corpse fell inside of it with a loud thud. Turning around as he wiped his sweat, the teacher started toward the other carcass when he saw the stunned look of his students.

"I told you that I had made many theories during my stay in my cave. Turn out that this one worked just fine." He explained while shrugging.

"Just how much more theories do you have to try...?And isn't that a bit dangerous?" Laena asked as Jack sat in front of her and drank in his bottle. A few men on horses passed by but they didn't say anything as they were quite impressed by the wyvern's half roasted carcass.

"I've got enough theories to occupy myself for at least a few millennia. After all, you find ten more problems awaiting you when you finally get an answer. And it's dangerous when you don't know what you're doing ; I always take precautions. Well, I should have enough mana now." He said while dusting himself before raising his scepter toward the monster's body.

Understanding that he was about to do something, the girls got out of the way and he murmured :

"Dark Maw."

A pitch black spot appeared above the scepter and two gigantic maws grew from Jack' shadow, materializing themselves and grabbing the wyvern between themselves. Pressing it inside, the immortal focused himself and strengthened the maws as the monster's body made many cracking and disgusting noises. A few seconds of struggle later it had completely disappeared between the two walls of darkness and was nowhere to been seen when they got back into Jack's shadow again.

"Well, let's get back to town. We've got work to do." The immortal announced before stretching his sore body a little. Slowly, his mana circuits were getting used to Shadow magic again and the pain that was constantly torturing his body receded. It wasn't much but an improvement was always good to notice.

Happy, he led the team and the girls felt shivers running down their spines as they thought that he was happy about the job he was going to give them. They were still thinking about their previous blunder and they both thought at the same time :

'That will be a punishment, not a job.'

Still, Laena dared to rise her voice and asked what kind of task would it be. Surprisingly Jack replied cheerily :

"We're going to read books kids !"

"Uh?" The two students muttered while looking at each other with surprise written on their faces.