Forbidden Potion

Day two of the test, 5th hour of the morning.

While the sun was just preparing to rise, the young apprentices were already up to search for the remaining moonsprings.

There were also some apprentices who were pursuing their ''prey'' and others who where hiding from the ''hunters''. Among them was a young girl in yellow robes.

She was running madly while looking back from time to time. It seemed as though she was afraid of something or someone.

It appeared that the girl had a tough battle with someone judging by the numerous cut marks on her body. The robe she was wearing was also tattered and shredded, giving a glimpse of the delicate private parts of her body, which would have surely provoked countless unspeakable thoughts in the minds of every young men, if seen by them.

Yet, the girl didn't care about her appearance and the wounds on her body and continued running.

After half an hour, when she finally didn't see nor hear any signs of that mad girl coming for her, she stopped.

"Ha...ha... that freak! I finally lost her." Beista complained as she stopped near some bushes.

After getting chased around since yesterday morning and even at night, she was now tired to the bones. Natalie, that mad girl seemed to have become obsessed with her the moment she saw her.

Due to her, Beista didn't get to collect any moonstones other than the first moonstone she got, which Natalie wanted.

Thud!

She sat down and placed her back against a tree trunk, panting and gasping for air as she did so, due to which her two plump mounds of flesh also moved rhythmically up and down.

Taking some foods which she had prepared beforehand from her bag, she started munching on them quickly.

Yet, as she had finished eating halfway, sounds of someone moving came from her left. It was not coming from near her but from some distance away so she had time to finish eating.

Finishing her food, she warily stood up and went towards where the sounds were coming from. It may be Natalie again and if that was so, she had to get away from here real quick.

She walked for twenty to thirty steps and stopped. Due to the bushes, she couldn't see anything but could sense that if she got further closer, then whoever it was would know she was here. Climbing up a tree, she carefully hid with the help of leaves on the branches and looked down below.

Seeing the person a distance away, she suddenly drew in a breath of cold air.

It was Stephen!

Someone from a major family having blue ring aptitude.

'What is he doing here?' she thought as she looked at the young man threading through the shrubby plants.

It seemed that he was searching for someone with how was looking here and there.

Beista, without moving even an inch, nervously waited there for him to go. Yet, instead of him going, someone else also appeared on her view, which she clearly remembered.

Well, this person was also someone that was mostly remembered or at least her name was heard by all other apprentices in the academy.

Kim Hoover, the one with a ''genius'' title on her head.

When Stephen saw Kim, he stopped searching and took out his spellbook as he said in a tone that indicated his suspicions.

"So you are the one that has been following me."

"Yes, here I can kill you without anyone knowing." Kim calmly replied as she too, took out her spellbook.

"The arrogance, Do you think you can take me out just because you can learn things better?" he scoffed.

Without giving her any chance to answer, which he hadn't even expected to get anyway, the boy flung his robes and started casting a spell without any delay.

Kim also started casting a spell but the strange thing was that, she didn't cast any offensive spell but a defensive one.

This decision, however, was not done without thinking. The reason behind why Kim did this was because she knew Stephen was a diviner.

Among five spells of a divination apprentice, three were useless in direct combat. The other two which were somewhat useful were ''probability change'' and ''Unpredictable cards'' and even among them, probability change was only useful to counter the spell coming at them or disrupt the casting of spells.

But there was no guarantee that ''Probability change'' would surely disrupt a spell. Even with the help of this spell, there was no 100% in the probability of anything, it could only make slight changes as an apprentice level spell.

So the only spell that was left was ''Unpredictable cards'', which she was sure was the one that Stephen was casting right now. If the boy's luck was good and the card summoned was an offensive spell directed at her, then the defensive spell she was casting now would block it and if Stephen's luck was bad then she wouldn't have to do anything.

"Unpredictable Cards!" Stephen's voice was heard at this moment.

As Kim had expected, the spell was the same. When Kim also finished casting her spell, a yellow coloured card had already materialised on the ground in front of her.

"Wind Barrier!"

Just before the card turned into something else, Kim calmly finished the last incantation and casted the spell.

As the card turned into a spike made up of earth elements and hurled forward at Kim, it was stopped by a barrier formed of wind elements around the girl.

Although it did managed to pierce through and come before her, it's momentum and most of its earth elements was already lost in the earlier clash with the barrier, due to which Kim easily dodged it with the help of a simple haste spell.

'So it still pierced through. Tsk, my spiritual power is still not enough. I guess I have no choice but to use this.' she thought while taking out a glass potion bottle with a colorless potion inside.

Opening its cap, she immediately gulped down the potion in the bottle. Kim's vision blurred for sometime and was again restored after 5 seconds.

"Spirit outburst!" Stephen had already cast another spell with the help of his magical item at this point. However, his expression turned into shock the next second. He could sense that, just after Kim had taken that potion, her spiritual power had increased by a huge margin and was still increasing.

After a while, it stabilized to just below that of rank 1 mages. As her spiritual power now exceeded his, the spell he'd cast, ''spirit outburst'' had no effect on her whatsoever.

"What!? Was that a...?" seeing the spell he'd cast expending large amounts spiritual power having no effect on her, the boy suddenly had a bad premonition.

"Yes, that was a Spirit enhancement potion."

Getting further confirmation by that reply of Kim, Stephen sucked in a breath of cold air.

He Knew exactly what type of potion this was. This potion, as the name implied, enhanced a caster's spirit temporarily for sometime. But the enhancement would not be low as even Kim's spirit which was so low, now exceeded his.

This type of potion, which could disrupt the balance of power, was not allowed in the test.

However, the thing the he was concerned over was not only this but the potions origins too. As this spirit enhancement potion was such effective, it was not made by using magical herbs but something else, Souls of sentient living beings.

With inhuman torture, the dark alchemists would extract the essence of living souls and use it to make this type of potion so it had another name.

The forbidden Potion!

Other than during the great war, when this potion was made in times of desperation, it was not used much. After the great war, both the Church of Light and the Tower of Sages had deemed this potion as forbidden. Nowadays, Other than some large hidden black markets, this potion wouldn't appear anywhere.

"Now that you know I've used it, there is another reason for me to kill you."

With her spirit at the level of a Pseudo-mage, she rapidly started casting as she said this.

Wind blades! Whirlwind! Wind vortices!

Triple-casting! She could now do Triple-casting! Stephen's expression of shock changed to that of solemnity at the sight of three spells coming at him.

As the spells were casted extremely fast, Stephen didn't get any chance to cast a spell from his spellbook, only managing to activate an automatic defensive spell on his black robe, Shadow shield.

But even so, the combined power of three spells casted by Kim with her increased spirit had now temporarily reached what a normal rank 1 spell could do, due to which the shadow shield couldn't hold out more than 3 seconds before dissipating.

"Ah!" A wind blade cut his right hand cleanly after his defense was gone. Immediately after, blood started bursting out like a fountain from his right arm which had its hand cut.

'I am going to die here? But, why didn't I get any bad foreboding before coming to this test?' Stephen thought in confusion as he placed his palm on the cut area of his arm, to stop more blood from flowing.

Diviners, being weak in actual combat (Aren is an exception) could therefore, get premonition from fate when their life would start to come to an end. It could come in any form like excessive bad luck, sudden severing of connection with the river of destiny or even in dreams, but he didn't get any warning.

Suddenly, Stephen seemed to have remembered something as he looked straight into the eyes of the girl before him and asked.

"Don't tell me... Is it an interference from a greater Divin-"

His voice, along with his head, was cut off at this point by the incoming wind blades.

After taking the potion, Kim could cast a single attack apprentice level spell in a second. When she had casted those three spells, she again casted several wind blades within those 6-7 seconds, killing Stephen for good.

"With this, my mission is considered to be completed. The only thing that I need to do is to run away from the capital before the Edwards family finds me. But before that..."

As she turned back and mumbled to herself, she suddenly cast a whirlwind at the treetop a distance away. Due to the spell, the top shuddered violently, making the girl who was hiding there to fall down.

"You think I didn't know you were there." Kim said as she took quick steps towards the foot of that tree, to find that girl which she had noticed with the help of her temporary increase in spiritual power.

However, even with her enhanced spirit she didn't notice that after Stephen died, his spellbook strangely dissappeared without a trace.