The mission board was eradicated with no hopes of ever returning back into existence.
She returned to her own innerworld, and followed the next connection her contract made.
The next mission board was in an air elemental's head, and was made of sea water, salt crystals and hellfire. The sea water was electrocuted, salt crystals exploded under high pressure heating, and the hellfire fed into itself, snuffing itself out.
The next one was a fire elemental, where the mission board was made of magical and curse runes. With a wave of her hand, it dissolved into non-existence.
As she traipsed through the connections, her inner self's appearance changed, turning her feet in to three clawed talons, her hair in to snakes, her eyes elongated, two fangs grew on either side of her mouth, her entire body has taken an dangerous purple black sheen, with scintillating stars, her nose became more aquiline, her lips, more bow shaped. Her arse and boobs increased in size, and wings grew on her back, with claws at wing tips and wing ends.
As she rampaged through the mission boards, she transformed into a powerful and bewitching devil.
The only planets on her body which had not grown in size synchronized with her heart beat. With each heartbeat, their size increased.
When she returned an hour later, she had no idea the sort of change she brought to the world.
She blasted off more than a thousand mission boards before her contract stopped making any more connections. She scoffed at the now well behaving contract. She waved the long fingers of her hand, next minute, a ball of magical fire formed, taking a bit of all her elements.
She brought the fire to the contract, setting it on fire.
The contract screamed like a real person writhing in the flames as it vanished into nothing.
It is only then she calmed down, shedding her demonic appearance.
She returned to her sweet neighborhood big sister look, and opened her eyes with a gentle smile.
Claire was a bit surprised to see Brie and Caspian at different corners of the room, the former hugging her knees making herself look small, the latter crouched and his entire body taut like a drawn bow, ready for action any time.
" hmmm ??? Why are you crouched in the corner ?! " she asked genially, making Brie burst into tears, as she threw herself into Claire's hands.
Caspian shivered once more, straightening up once again, wincing as his locked muscles tingled.
" Did something happen ? " Claire asked with surprise.
" Sister ! … You were possessed. I didn't know how to exorcize ghosts ! I was so worried ! " Brie cried, as she clung to Claire.
Caspian just breathed a sigh of relief.
Unlike Brie, he knew that mad appearance belonged to Claire to herself. He promised to himself to never ever cross her, not even with a knife on his neck.
He had no idea what she just did, but he knew instinctively it would deal a great blow to the organization.
" I am fine now. Calm now, it's alright. " Claire consoled Brie, her voice gentle as she patted her back.
Slowly the ambience returned to what it was.
" You were saying … " Caspian reminded her there is business to be done at hand.
" It does not matter. Your brother's contract is broken all the way. I can not kill the abyssal parasite in his mana. We need a powerful summoned spirit beast, preferably with fire attributes. Lacking that, lightning will do, I think. You can kill it with water as well, however that takes a water core almost thousand orders stronger than your brother's. It's almost impossible for such a water core to exist within a conscious beast. " Claire explained.
Caspian thought for a moment.
" Can I grow my mana core to that size ? " Caspian asked, hopeful.
Claire shook her head.
" All beings grow. While you are growing, so is your brother. More importantly, given he is younger, his mana core is growing at a faster pace than yours. You are better off searching for a spirit beast owner. " she informed him.
" Can he fight ? " This was his next question.
" I advise against it. His core is split. The abyssal beast had gone into hibernation. Here's the deal. The split happened, because at that time, the two forces were equal. The moment they become unequal, the abyssal beast will devour the spirit core. For now, Your brother's daily life will have no problems. He must focus on cultivation of his spirit core to keep it up with the abyssal parasite till you could find a way to kill it. You can manage the rest on your own. Don't forget your promise to me. " she warned him, as she walked out.
Caspian nodded his head, returning to his brother.
Brie and Claire returned to the dungeon. Claire stopped on the last step.
Unlike Caspian, she had been in a guild. She knew a loss such as today's will be investigated, and damage control is a must.
" Caspian, I will depend on you not to get caught. I am sure Wulin will inquire into both the absence of the orphans, as well as the death soldier they sent to the abyss. " she told him.
◇◆◇
After the nap, they returned to the beach once more. This time around, Zayne chose a place very far away from the sea for them to work at.
" From now on, we are going to carve the mountain. First, Cred and Pru will scan the rocks to see which ones hold more weight. When they point at the rocks, you draw a line with red chalk. Understand ? " Zayne asked them.
The children nodded eagerly.
" yes, brother " " yes, uncle " Robin and Dolce nodded eagerly, while Credence and Prudence puffed up their chests proudly.
They went through three cliff faces, drawing with the red chalk on the load bearing columns.
He walked to the widest cliff face.
" I and the children will work on carving this boulder. Credence and Prudence will concentrate on making this circle cut, using your mana. You all know how to enter the inner world, right ? Now, just focus that fire and earth energy on the rock center here. Alright ? " he asked.
Credence and Prudence both looked apprehensive, but they nodded all the same.
He chose the widest and longest rectangle shape he could form avoiding the load bearing columns, then concentrated his fire energy into an inch long blade. He cut into the stone. Where the fire blade touched, the stone evaporated. After making sure the dust will not spew out dangerously, Zayne went all out.
An one and half meter long indent was made in rectangle shape. The evaporated rock matter spewed out as smoke emitting fine dust where they were. However, all of this superheated material was sensed and redirected by Robin. Then, Zayne concentrated to make a flat curved cut behind the rock with a laser, and Robin concentrated along with Zayne to push the heated air out.
Soon, they have a solid rock in the shape of a tub in front of them. This tub is ten feet long, six feet wide and four feet tall solid rock. Zayne left an inch and half gap, cut the rock with a laser once more, this time, only an inch long blade flying around the set pattern. As soon as the laser blade cuts, the cement floats out, leaving a clean cut behind.
When Zayne finally finished, Robin worked extra hard, levitating the rock and setting it aside. It has emptied all his mana core.
Zayne sat on the recently retrieved boulder with Dolce and Robin, Dolce still very much energetic as he jumped around them. The twins are going through 'perceive and extract ' training. There are no specific exercises for any element, but she has noted down all their elements.
The twins were fire, earth, lava, etc. basically, their fire talent is inferior to Zayne. Fire is too dangerous to train with, so they could only do it under supervision. Given they exhausted fire to day, they are to train with earth, of which their biggest affinity is with stony type.
Thus, put their mana to their hands, tyring to change shape of the stones. Instead, little pebbles and gravel fell down from where they lay their hands. Some of them them are as small as pellet bullets, yet others, they looked like marbles and the biggest ones are the size of a fist.
As they continued removing these gravel, slowly, the boulder took on shape of a cave.
" You stay here and meditate. " Zayne told Robin and he put Dolce down besides him.
He collected all the gravel dropping by the twins. Zayne made it a pile, then started focusing his strongest fire in the center of the pile, using one of the magic circles.
This magic circle was called lava pool,
He wanted to see if the spells he acquiered from the awakening stone really worked as well as they promised.
He has choosen a relatively flat rock to arrange this pile on, and he arranged it deliberately around an oval depression. The large stones lined the depression, smaller stones falling in the middle. As the lava melted and went to the sides, it flowed through creaks of the bigger rocks, but the outside cooled, making it a rough stone wall, holding lava inside.
It indeed formed a lava pool, even if it's only as tall as a feet.
' hmm… I need to go through my spells and organize them well. ' Zayne thought as he looked at the lava pool.