Chapter 4: The Monster (Part 3)

{Magic Corp Laboratories}

"That thing...caused all this....by itself?" asked Moreou, still baffled as he witnessed the desolation of the loading bay, courtesy of the enhanced Morphed.

"Yup" Kaso answered simply as he had his right hand rubbing against his forehead. The man in charge was also feeling really unwell and guilty as he felt that it was a part of his fault that this mess happened at the first place.

"When you said it was bad, I never thought it was actually this bad" Moreou stated as he glanced over the broken rubbles and burn marks littered across the entire area.

"Well, cut me some slack will you? Even I wasn't prepared for any of this" Kaso said, chuckling nervously.

"Nor did the rest of us" an unknown voice speaks from behind the duo.

Moreou and Kaso turned around and met the owner of the voice, the leader of the attack squad that attacked the Morphed before.

"Cassandra. It's nice seeing you just fine, especially after that one hell of a fiasco" greeted Kaso to the female soldier.

"Tch. We almost had that fucker. Lucky bastard escaped by a hair strand" cursed Cassandra in annoyance as she flipped her hair to the left.

"It was an enhanced Morphed, Cassandra. I would say that getting out alive is good enough, no?" asked a confused Kaso.

"Not if you were trained for years to kill these creatures. Not much I can do now though" retorted Cassandra.

"Don't sell yourself short soldier. What you and your men did was commendable. But.....I gotta ask, how is John's family taking the news?" asked Moreou, a hint of concern could be heard from his tone.

"Not too well. Can't blame them though, it's never easy losing someone to these monsters. It's up to us to fix this problem" explained Cassandra.

"Yeah, you're right. It never is. The least we could do is get avenge his death. That is why while Kaso here works on finding our of lost man, I need you to help me track down this creature" said Moreou.

"My team's ready anytime, Sir" said Cassandra as she saluted the old man.

"Good, gather all your crew. In about an hour, we'll have a brief meeting at the briefing room. I need to find out everything I can about this creature., Is that clear, soldier?" asked Moreou.

"Sir, yes Sir!" Cassandra answered as she saluted the old man and left the loading bay.

"Kaso, I trust that you can handle your part as well?" asked Moreou as he looked over to Kaso.

"Yeah....yeah. The sooner this is over with, the better" muttered Kaso.

"Great. I'm gonna go down to the loading bay, I need to inspect the scene. There's something we're missing here" said Moreou.

"Okay, see you later then Moreou" the scientist tapped him on the shoulder once before he too left the area. Not wasting anymore time, Moreou immediately vaulted over the metal railings, as he descended from the observation platform to the loading bay. With grace, he managed to land softly with ease.

Some of the soldiers that were guarding the area was a bit startled by his sudden stunt but quickly composed themselves. Moreou dusted his vest and took a quick look around. The old man slowly walks around the entire area, his eyes rapidly scanning the scene for any clues he could find.

"There must be something here" muttered Moreou. The old man was at a blank. There were zero traces of the creature's magic. The only traces of magical aura that he could still feel at the area was the attack squad's aura.

"How can it mask it's magical signature? That's not possible. Unless if it does not has any magical powers to begin with? But, that's not possible too since it clearly has a greater strength than the soldiers. Not to mention that it can vanish quickly and conjure a crystal decoy" Moroeu tried to brainstorm and find the answers to these questions.

Moreou immediately walked to the center of the loading bay towards the leftover of the crystal decoy. As he knelt down on the ground, he slowly picks up a crystal shard and tried to scan it for any traces of magic power but to no avail.

"Damn it. No traces here as well. This doesn't make any sense" cursed Moroeu under his breath, still holding on to the crystal shard. As he sat there racking his brain, his hand couldn't stop fiddling with the shard as he eyed it's shiny surface.

"This creature is smart, I'll give it that" muttered Moroeu. And it was true. For it to have such a coordinated escape plan is mind-blowingly scary. A Morphed that has the ability to instantaneously create a crystal replication of itself to absorb any damages and it was intelligent enough to implement it for it's escape.

"Wait...."something suddenly clicked inside Moroeu'd head as he was touching the crystal remain.

"That is it! That's the answer!" a wide grin grew on his face as he may possibly have finally found the answer he needed to solve this mystery. In a blink of an eye, the old man immediately stood up and rushed towards the briefing room to report about his findings.

[Meanwhile]

{Max's House}

Max was silent on his bed as he diligently and carefully studied the contents of the book in front of him. It had been about two hours since he started reading the book but he found it difficult to stop as he was too intrigued with all the information it contains.

The boy was constantly scanning through each page, reading over every word. Sure, the boy actually didn't understand most of what he read but the one's that he does made him curious. As he continued flipping the pages, he finally stopped once he saw something interesting.

"Soul linking?" Max wondered as he muttered the page's title out loud.

(SOUL LINKING: The most fundamental skill needed by a tamer. It is the ability to link the life force of the tamer with another being, usually animals. Soul linking will allow the linked being to harness the power of mana with the tamer acting as it's direct power source)

"What is this? It sounds cool!" Max said in excitement.

(WARNING: Soul linking will cause the linked being to undergo physical and mental changes, including but not limited to size growth or reduction, abnormal body formation, growth of new body parts, capabilities for understanding and talking in human language and/or increased intelligence).

The more Max read the page, the more excited he became.

(Steps to Initiate Soul Linking: Firstly, focus mana towards intended beings. Chant the words "Soul Link" with the intention to bind your life forces together. Continue pouring in mana until process is complete)

After he read the instructions, Max felt like he also needed to do it. But the question was how? Max stared into the book in silence as he pondered on how he was going to pull this of. His mother probably wouldn't approve him of doing this, he knows that. Alas, the temptation proved to be stronger than his obedience to his mother.

He knew it was a bad idea, worse when he remembered that he had the "Mana Immortality" curse. If he pours in too much mana, he could die. He didn't even know what his mana cap was. But he knew he has to do it as it was a too great of an opportunity to pass out on.

"No more second thoughts! I can do this.....probably" he said to himself.

"So I need something to link my soul with. There's only one answer here" Max said as he looked at the one other living being present in his room. His best friend/pet, Cy the scaly-foot snail.

Slowly, the young boy walked towards the glass cage containing the cute creature and lowered his hand into it, grabbing the snail by the shell gently, pulling it away from the platform. Now, the snail was silently sitting on the young boy's palm, not realising the scenarios that will play out in the next few minutes.

"Let's do this Cy! You and me!" said Max, his voice filled with determination.

Just as the instructions said, Max firstly calmed himself down to try and channel his mana towards Cy. However, he never tried to use his mana in anyway before, obviously. So the young man didn't know how to actually start the flow of his mana.

"Eh, it's probably done like those Asian magic movies mom used to always watch. I just need to calm myself to do it" deducted Max.

Max wasted no time and took a really deep breath to clear his conscious. He tried to remove all his fears, anxieties and doubts as best as he possibly could.

"Soul-link" Max chanted.

To his dismay, nothing happened. Cy still remained there, looking the same. Even Max felt zero change.

"Second time is always the charm" Max pep-talked himself as he gave it another go.

"Soul-link" he said the words again but still with no apparent results.

"What am I doing wrong here?" Max pondered to himself as he picked up the book again and reread the spell description.

"Focus my mana towards Cy? Maybe I have to imagine my mana flowing to Cy like how water does?" Max decided he should try it.

The young boy closed his eyes and used his high kid's imaginative power to picture his mana like a rapid flow river. In his mind, he tried diverting the flow towards Cy and to his surprise, he suddenly felt something. A warm feeling.

As he opened his eyes back, he was shocked to see his hand glowing blue.

"I-is this mana?!" Max asked himself.

As his eyes trailed along his hand, he could also also see Cy's figure, glowing brightly with a blue hue.

"This is it! Soul-link!" Max chanted once again but this time, he could feel the change happening. Right after he said the magic words, the glow illuminating from Cy grew brighter and larger, completely engulfing Max and his entire room in a matter of seconds.

Max felt the mana from his body slowly moving out from his systems and knew the spell was working as intended. But he couldn't also shake the feeling that this might actually take a little bit too much mana from him and he prayed that it wouldn't be the case.

After a while, the light died down and Max was thrilled to identify the result. Once his eyes adjusted back to his surroundings, he promptly looked at his hand to see Cy and the changes the spell made to it.

But Cy wasn't on his palm anymore.

Shortly, a wave of dread filled over Max.

"C-cy?" he called out the snail's name.

"W-where are y-you? Cy?" Max's tone was filled with worry of his best friend.

"Don't worry master, I'm here" a voice suddenly spoke out from thin air.

"Who said that?!" Max screamed out, his voice immediately adjusted to a more scared resonance.

"It's me Master, Cy!" the voice said again.

"Cy?!"

"Max! What is going on in there?! Is everything okay?!" Lucina's voice was heard from outside of Max's room.

"Yeah, I'm fine mom!" Max immediately replied, not wanting his mom to gain any suspicions. Although, there was probably a high chance that she did, since she was a psychic magician.

"Are you sure?! I heard you screaming out for Cy earlier? Is Cy okay?" asked Lucina.

"Cy? Oh don't worry, Cy's still here! We were just playing with each other, that's all!" Max said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. All is okay mom!" Max said, internally praying that his mom would take the bait and leave.

"O-okay then. Lunch is ready, by the way" Lucina said.

"Okay mom, I'll be down in a minute! Love you!" exclaimed Max in relief.

Lucina felt that something was off but she decided not to pry it from her son.

"It's probably just my feelings" Lucina muttered to herself as she made her way back downstairs.

Max waited there in his room as he heard his mom's footsteps getting more quite by the minute, signalling that she was already far away from his room.

"Cy! Cy! Are you still there?" Max called out to his snail again, trying to see if he would get a response like before.

"Yes master, I am always here" said Cy.

"Where are you exactly, Cy?" asked Max.

"I'm inside you"

"Inside me! How?!" asked Max in shock.

"Do not fret Master. I am merely existing in your mana flow. You have not consumed me" explained Cu causing the young man to sweatdrop.

"I mean...I knew that I didn't eat you but.....I guess it doesn't matter anyways" Max gave up trying to clarify his question.

"I can come out Master if you summon me Master. Do you wish to summon me out?" asked Cy.

"No no no no! Don't come out yet!" Max hurriedly said no, not wanting Cy to come out yet.

"Why so Master?" Cy questioned the young man.

Max didn't want to risk his mom yet as he was so close to being caught by his mom earlier. He need somewhere he can do it without his mom seeing.

"I know! We can go to the park! But, mom said earlier that grandpa said not go out. I'll guess we'll just have to sneak out then" Max said as he grinned maliciously, his brain slowly concocting a full-proof escape plan to the community park.

Little that he knows, something else, a true sinister being was also heading towards the same place, with it's sight on one thing. To seek the Cursed One.