Wizard Danger Ranks, Planning

Upon returning to the hotel, Amelia brought the weakened Joe into the room before heading back down to the lobby. She then spoke to the receptionist at the desk.

"Hello, could I use your communication device to contact the Nine Towers?"

The receptionist nodded before handing over the device. She pressed a button on the shell shaped device and passed it to her.

"Hello. Josh, receptionist, here. What do you need?"

Amelia recognized the person. The guy had worked at the reception desk at the Tower they were living there.

"Hello. This is the person dispatched for the investigation at Sancran Village. The target has proved harder to apprehend than expected."

There was a short silence at the other end of the call, before Josh spoke up again. He read through the lines, and believed she must have wanted reinforcements.

"Well, you see, we can't get any reinforcements for you. All the Wizards have other things to do at the moment, and we can't have a Great Mage go out for something so small. You're going to have to deal with this on your own. Sorry."

Amelia fell silent for a moment, taking in the information before deciding to describe the situation to Josh.

"Well, I'll tell you about what we know then. Just in case we don't make it back."

Amelia knew that information was very important, so if they didn't make it out, they could take down the murderer in their stead.

"So, the murderer was a very handsome man, with a slim yet sturdy build. He had a crisp voice and..."

After she finished explaining, Josh seemed to be writing something down, as she heard faint scribbling noises.

"I see. So he was a handsome man who charmed you to try to incapacitate you. What was his ranking on the scale?"

"Scale? What scale?"

Josh paused for a moment, as though realizing that Amelia didn't know what the scale was.

"So, you see, it's a type of ranking for seduction Wizards use. We need to keep ourselves pure, so we made a scale for this kind of thing. You should tell Joe about it too, so I'll talk about both scales. I'll be right back."

Amelia then heard a calming music playing in the device. She assumed that it had gone on hold. Several minutes later, Josh returned.

"So, we should first talk about the Female Killer scale. A man ranked one on the scale would look like a regular guy. Rank three would look like a handsome man. Five would be extraordinarily handsome. Seven would have more defining aspects than before, like a melodious voice. Nine would be crafted by the gods, and ten would be the perfect man. Got it?"

Amelia expressed her understanding of the system, although she didn't quite understand what ten would look like.

"The tens are basically unimaginable. Don't think about it. If you see one, you'd understand. Anyways, moving onto the Men's Goddess scale. Again, one is the average woman. Three is a beautiful woman. Five would be extraordinarily beautiful. Seven would have more defining aspects, like special skills or a calming voice. Nine would be the personification of a goddess, while ten is the legendary Jade-Skinned Beauty. Only heard of in hearsay."

Amelia thought that the Jade-Skinned Beauty was quite the stereotype, but it made sense. While Amelia was still thinking, Josh spoke again.

"Anyways, you ought to tell your partner about the scales so he can give accurate information. I presume that your enemy was a rank seven on the Female Killer scale. Eights and above can even charm those of the same gender, so all we need is a strong man to beat him."

Amelia replied affirmatively, although disheartened at the fact reinforcements weren't coming. The call suddenly hung up. There was no more sound coming through. It seemed Josh had cut the call.

Amelia thanked the receptionist before going back to the room. She opened the door to a sleeping Joe, who had fallen asleep after sitting down a while. She left him alone before sorting out things in her head.

…

Joe woke up to the sight of Amelia sitting on the bed, seemingly deep in thought. She suddenly looked at him and spoke.

"Oh, you're finally awake. I got some food from room service while you were asleep."

Amelia walked over behind Joe, and took out some food seemingly out of nowhere. It was a plate of egg-fried rice. Joe quickly gobbled it down before remembering the pain in his back.

"Are you alright? I'm not quite sure how we should fix that." She signaled at his back.

Joe nodded to show he was alright, before he shifted the topic to something else.

"Well, anyways, what we need to do now is find the murderer. We have his targets and what he looks like. It's unlikely such a handsome man can go unnoticed in this... village..."

Joe still felt awkward calling this big city a village, but he felt he would have to get used to it soon. The scale of the continent was much larger than Earth, so this probably did seem like a small village to the people in the big cities.

Amelia nodded while replying. "All we have to do now is protect the targets, and the murderer should show up naturally."

After a short pause, she suddenly spoke again. "Unless, the murderer is actually after some form of documents, in which case we don't need to protect anyone. We just need to get the documents first, or take down the murderer."

Joe deliberated for a second before speaking. "I think we should try to locate the next possible target. That way, when the murderer shows up, we can try to take him down."

Amelia rejected the statement, before following up with another. "Maybe we could, but that's too luck dependent. We may not find the right target and he may not even show up."

Joe sighed before thinking in his head.

'It's like searching for a needle in a haystack. How will we find a single person in such a big village? Even if he's quite noticeable, there's still so many people here.'

Joe suddenly felt rather helpless. He had no connections, no information channels, and he couldn't do anything to find the murderer actively.

"Well, maybe we should just go on the streets to ask people if they saw an extremely handsome man around."

It was not much of a solution, but it was the best Joe could think of considering their current situation. Amelia seemed to notice his helplessness before nodding in agreement.

Amelia walked out on her own while Joe stayed in the room by himself. His back pain disallowed him from moving for the time being.

'Maybe I can try to heal myself somehow... Although it may be dangerous, I need to get up soon.'

Joe used his mental power to probe his spine injury. It seemed he hurt his thoracic vertebrae, in the upper back.

'How can I make this healing process go faster?'

Joe summoned some water elements on the vertebrae and soaked it thoroughly. Nothing happened.

'I guess water doesn't have magical healing properties like in fantasy...'

Pondering for a while, he began to think of ways to heal.

'Maybe I can substitute my vertebrae using earth? But that would be too static. What about plants? Actually, shouldn't wood be a basic element? Guess I'll try calling some.'

Joe attempted to probe the air for wood elements, but he couldn't find any.

'Perhaps they're further down...'

Joe probed downwards with his mental power and found a speck of green.

'Is this... Wood element?'

Joe tried to pull up the wood element, but it was hard, as though unrooting something from the earth. He nearly exhausted all his mental power from pulling alone.

'Is this why people don't use the wood element? It's too hard to summon? But if it were strong then it should be worth the trouble. Unless it's not worth the effort...'

Joe began to have negative thoughts.

'Is the wood element not a good deal to summon? Will it work? Can it heal me?'

He was woken from his stupor when the wood elements were fully unrooted from the earth. It was a long strip of green in front of his eyes. He had barely seen them before, as there weren't many plants in the Nine Towers, there wasn't much plant matter around as well.

He tried to form the elements into something solid. It formed a slightly stretchy yet solid green object. It seemed like it could substitute a part of his vertebra.

He then carefully summoned the remaining wood element inside and surrounding his damaged vertebra. It formed a stretchy piece of plant matter. He slowly bent his back, feeling that the piece of plant matter was bending just as his spine was.

It had worked, although he still felt a slight pain in his back when he moved. He tried to stand. He could, albeit with a slight stinging pain in his upper back. He could not yet fight, but he had mostly recovered.