Chapter 47

After a nasty quarrel between the village chief and the shaman, it was decided that the dismayed Dafur would be 'free', but only after giving a promise, ensued by a special soul-binding ritual that he would help the village. He understood his position and knew he did not have another choice.

The chief told him that it was him who pulled him out of the frying pan as he could not watch to see another poor soul fall into the shaman's filthy hands.

The shaman 'graciously' offered Dafur that he could become his assistant. When the chief sought to stop it, he was reminded that in certain things he had no rights; if the shaman wanted an 'assistant', he could conscript anyone he wanted every three months. And his quota for the year was not filled yet. The chief angrily walked away, leaving Dafur on his own accords.

The shaman looked at the dwarf with a devilish smile and ordered him to go to the temple. They had some things to 'discuss'.

Ten hours later, after brutal torture, where the shaman asked him many things without much success, Dafur woke up exhausted and in pain on a straw mattress in the house belonging to Eriv and Dori. They already left for the hunt, leaving a simple note.

"Fuck! What now? Shoulda I find Stone?" Dafur asked himself while trying to stretch, but deep wounds did not let him as they began bleeding again. He found a gauze and some kind of ointment. He treated himself, while silently cursing, "Fucker! One day… I'll hang him by his balls and use him as a bait to hunt Shul-Gahat!"

Then, fully bandaged, walked into a mess hall. Several empty gazes followed him. He took a gruel from a shelf and sat down at the nearest empty table.

When he had finished about half of his meal, several buffed druegars walked to him and surrounded him. "So, a dwarf wishes to eat our food," one of them smirked. Another one knocked Dafur's bowl out of his hand.

"Dornus ass! Mae food! Hey! Fuckers! What do ye think what ye doin'?" He fearlessly screamed at them while jumping up on his feet.

"What does it look like?!" Another one answered and hit him squarely in the liver.

Dafur's eyes bulged, but he didn't make a sound.

"Oooh, tough one, boys! Get him!"

A barrage of fists and kicks landed on Dafur's body and his wounds started bleeding again. He fell down, attempted to cast a rune, but the pain and the kicks made it almost impossible.

"What're ya doin'!?" A guard cane inside to check the ruckus. As a mess hall was one of the 'safe' zones, where everybody should be free to come and eat in peace by their chief's decision, he grabbed his hatchet and effortlessly pacified the four druegars.

They did not have a chance against the trained and levelled guard and soon lay next to a grinning Dafur. The guard bound all five of them and brought them to the chief, explaining what he saw.

The chief said nothing. He glanced at the five and sent the four 'crime' aggregators to home. They did their job right.

"Now, treat Dafur, while I'll talk," he commanded another guard, who immediately pulled out gauzes and ointments. "I wanna ya to report me anythin' shaman does," he stated, not leaving Dafur any space to protest. "Don't ya worry, next time I'll send someone to ya to either pick ya up or to tell ya, where we'll meet. Nod if ya understand."

Dafur nodded, unable to say anything as his jaw was broken by the 'invite'.

"Now, this guard'll accompany ya home. Shaman won't torture ya anymore. I'll have a talk with him. Go sleep, tomorrow ya have work awaiting ya," with this, he turned to his private room.

"Get up. Ya heard the man," the guard pulled him up.

Back home, Dafur slumped back onto the straw mattress, while pondering on who and exactly what had brought him into such deep shit…

☁☁☁☁☁☁

Thanks to Stone's nature, the [Meditation] technique soared at unprecedented speed. It was as if this technique was made directly for him.

Stone was fully absorbed in his training, not thinking at all. He conjured one spell after another, creating [Mana Shields] around himself and breaking them again with missiles. His immense mana regeneration easily kept up and the refined mana was reserved only for Lucifer.

Lucifer joined him with his flux-variant spells; [Flux Missile], [Flux Expulsion], and [Weak Fluxkinesis]. The elemental spells in the wizard book were completely unusable for them, which greatly irritated Lucifer. Air element was the easiest way to fly around. Luckily, they had the [Kinesis]...

During their intense training, Lucifer was constantly observing changes in Stone's body. The golden mana veins were more condensed. They were so tiny that even he, as a parasite that lives within Stone, was not able to properly read them nor recognize the words or characters.

Still, he could distinguish the expertises that Stone learned. They were balls of blue lights, connected to his primary circuit by tentacles of refined mana with the golden celestian sentences enveloping them. Between the skills were flashing pulses of mana as they communicated with each other and to Stone.

Lucifer was also able to discern Stone's [Lifeforce] due to his own raised [SuperFlux] and intelligence. It was thin, but spread all over his body, penetrating every single molecule of the mineral. They needed to find a way how to heal the stupid pebble. What happened at the marble gate was Stone's natural weakness; [Lifeforce Drain].

The whole examination was incredibly bizarre. Hundreds of years of hosts; ranging from Humans, Dwarfs, Elves, Sirans to even Golems and once, even Undead… Lucifer had never experienced something so… peculiar.

Hours went by and Stone suddenly stopped. He levitated the children's storybook to himself and opened it.

"What are you doing?! Train!"

The training had proceeded very well until now and he did not like the idea of stopping.

"I want to read it again," however, Stone was of a different opinion.

"What about Dafur? Didn't you want to save him? Or feel good when you feel the progress?" Lucifer wanted to motivate him.

"…"

"Well?"

"I am thinking," Stone pondered about it, but did not come to a conclusion. He would like to save the dwarf for a reason he could not explain nor fully understand, but he also would like to do something he likes.

It became so big of a conundrum for him, he became utterly still.

After five minutes of silence, Lucifer's patience wore off, "go back practising the spells!".

Stone pouted like a little kid but listened. The book was put away and he conjured a missile, hitting Lucifer's purplish targets.