The glowing orb of miasma within Nick's palm was Daren's soul that he had harvested using Battle Armor. Nick wasn't surprised by this result.
(Battle Armor is a rank 2 advanced grade soul path method, after all. I even designed it to capture souls like this. I've never actually captured a human's soul before since it is illegal on Grand Earth but within Forgotten Peril, it's of no consequence.)
Jasper made a guess as to what the glowing object was and couldn't help pitying Daren who landed himself in hot water, bound to suffer even after death. Horace was about to make a plea for Daren's soul but when he saw Nick store it within his space band, he gave up on doing that.
Nick cancelled Battle Armor and cast his other methods:
(Absolute Push.)
(Absolute Pull.)
Nick was rapidly raised into the air and soon carried off in the western direction. The eight below watched his departure and breathed a sigh of relief. Someone suggested:
"We should bury Daren's corpse."
Horace looked at the person and replied:
"What would be the point of that? Do you think that Daren will actually rest in peace while his soul is in Nick's hands?"
The person went silent and the whole group listlessly left the area. Nick moved at high speed and did not stop until midday arrived and he spotted large land formation that jutted out from among the trees below. It seemed like some kind of plateau.
Nick landed on its flat top surface and summoned a large object from his space band. The object looked like an amalgamation of steel containers that were completely painted pitch black. The item seemed to be some kind of building. Nick stood still for some time in order to appreciate the expensive piece of equipment before him.
(This is a portable, all-metal, magically reinforced laboratory. It's about the size of the house that I lived in with my sisters and Irene but it only has one large, almost empty space on the inside. I can use this place for my cultivation.)
Nick did not just intend to explore. He also intended to use his time within Forgotten Peril to cultivate and learn as well. What about the mission?
(Fuck the mission. If I manage to kill the mutant shifter, fine, but gaining experiences and cultivating is why I am really here.)
Most people would call Nick crazy for going to such a dangerous place in order to cultivate but those people simply did not have big dreams like Nick did.
"Diamonds don't form in comfort. They form under the influence of heat and pressure. I am the same."
Nick entered his portable lab and after observing the large room, which only had a large metal table bolted to the floor at the table's four corners and three metal folding chairs, Nick summoned the ores that he mined onto the table and slowly examined them.
There were obvious traces of gold within these ores but also other elements but Nick only new a little about metals and metallurgy so he could not tell what kind of materials made up these ores. Nick summoned about half a dozen thick books from his space band that consisted of information on hard magic materials and metals onto the work table. He then put one of his chairs in place, sat on it, flipped open a book and summoned a large piece of wheat butter bread from his space band.
The latter was one of his favorite pastries that he could buy on campus so he bought many of them, almost emptying the bakery of them before he left. Nick ate happily while reading through information on magic metals and other hard materials.
(It's time like these when I really love my life.)
Nick kept reading the books over the next week, only taking time to stop in order to meditate, shower or relieve himself. At the end of that period, Nick was more sure of what he was dealing with and how to extract the materials from the ore.
"My circumstances aren't perfect for the task but I'll make due."
Nick immediately summoned multiple kinds of magical equipment from his space band, including: an industrial stove, several thick metal pans, thermometers and canvas papers.
Nick took stock of what he had, then got to work. He placed some ore into one of the metal pans and then placed it onto the industrial stove, following which he turned it on to the highest temperature possible which was over 4000 degrees Celsius. Nick did this in an attempt to melt the materials that the pieces of ore consisted of.
While the pieces of the ore were slowly melting, Nick took the time to design a space path magic formation that could help him separate the materials by chemical weight once they were molten. The advantage of formation path is that Nick could basically use magic formations to do many kind of things as long as he understood practically how those things should be done. The formation just facilitated the magical, mechanical, chemical and other efforts required to bring Nick's imaginings into reality so long as its laws were correct.
Formation path attainment helped to construct the means by which a process could be performed and Nick's other attainments would be used to design the process itself. This was how formation path worked; formation path attainment was usually not enough to create a formation of any path and knowledge of a relevant other path was required, otherwise building a formation would take significantly longer and be more error prone.
Lucky for Nick, his master path attainment in space path allowed him to intuit how many seemingly unrelated actions could be performed using space path, sometimes even mimicking the effects of other paths. What Nick was trying to do was clearly mimicking the effects of metal path and earth path, either of which would be more suitable for refining minerals.
Nick finished the formation in just four hours and by that time, the ores being melted on the stove were fully molten. Nick activated the formation drawn on the canvas, causing it to glow dull-silver and then left it on the work table.
Nick turned off the stove and cast Space, using his special space to carry the hot pan over to his magic formation. Nick poured to molten liquid onto the glowing formation and the formation worked by forming multiple 'space bubbles' that separated each kind of material by its molecular weight.
When Nick finished pouring the molten liquid, four different space bubbles were created, each filled with molten liquid. Nick then manipulated the formation with his trigger phrase, 'cool', and the space bubbles rotated rapidly in order to drain the molten liquids of their heat.
After that was done completely, the space bubbles became still, and four spheres of different solid materials were revealed, all of different sizes. The smallest sphere contained pure gold, about five hundred grams in weight. Nick could not however, identify the metals within the other space bubbles.
"Looks like I've got work to do."
Nick spent the next two weeks melting down all the ore and studying the properties of the resulting materials. Nick ended up with four different kinds of materials in total, three of which were metals and one which was some kind of non-metal. One of the materials was the gold and Nick had mined about one hundred and forty nine kilograms of it in total while all the mined materials had a total weight of nearly two and a half tonnes.
After reading additional books on metallurgy, Nick had an idea and immediately got to work on it by using what he had.
Two days later...
Nick looked into the pan on the stove and realized that the two metals that he had mixed together were bonding just fine; he was referring to the two metals that he mined besides the gold. Nick had studied the properties of the two metals and experimented by trying to create an alloy consisting of them based on information that he obtained from metallurgy books.
After two days of testing and ruining hundreds of kilograms of the metals, Nick finally worked out a formula that seemed to work that involved him mixing in several kinds of blade path materials and working his way to a viable mixture through trial and error. After all this time, he finally succeed.
"Eyes of the Fated were a big help because it allowed me to mix in blade path materials that had laws that were likely to aid the mixing process."
Nick spread out his special space which had remained just a few inches beyond his body. It picked up the pan while also forming the shape of a dagger, consisting of a blade and hilt. Nick manipulated the special space in order to pour the molten metal into the shape and after that was done, Nick rotated the molten liquid in place so as to get rid of the heat rapidly.
Three minutes later, the result of Nick's efforts floated in midair in front of him and was an all metal tool that looked like a dagger with a dull blade. Nick further manipulated the special space to sharpen the blade at both edges.
He then wielded that dagger and waved it around. After doing that for a while, Nick summoned a large sausage from his space band onto his work table as well as several loaves of french bread. Nick spent twenty minutes cutting up the sausage with his new dagger and placing the pieces into three loves of french bread. Nick turned off his industrial stored and then sat at his work table to have lunch.
As Nick ate the sausage sandwiches, he never felt more satisfied than he was now.
"The results of your own hard work really do feel the best."
After Nick finished eating, he decided to go outside in order to really test his dagger out. When Nick left the laboratory and closed the door behind him, the sun burned his eyes a bit but after a while, they felt fine again.
Nick went to the edge of the plateau and used his special space to uproot a tree from below and bring it up onto the plateau. Nick did that effortlessly and when the thick, short tree with copper colored bark reached in front of him, Nick directly stabbed into it with the dagger. The dagger immediately moved into the tree until its hilt stopped its further movement. Nick was pleased by the quality of the blade.
"No resistance felt whatsoever. I can't tell how the blade compares to others right now but I do know that it is sharp, however..."
Nick retracted the dagger from the tree and slammed its blade against the tree's trunk. The blade bit into the tree a few centimeters before it cracked, then broke into two pieces. Nick now held the hilt and a small section of the blade of the dagger in his hand while most of the blade was lodged into the tree's trunk.
"The metal clearly needs more tempering before it can be made into a viable weapon. Hmmm...I need more metals."
Nick threw away the tree and looked at the expanse of forest in front of him and declared:
"I'll have to mine this entire area in order to find more."
After Nick decided on a plan of action, there was no turning back. Every day from then on, Nick spent time clearing the area below the plateau of trees and setting up the same mining magic formations that he had used the first time that he mined for metals. After that was done he used the formations to try and obtain metals but he mostly came up empty at each attempt.
At the end of three weeks of mining, Nick had laid down four formations in the surrounding forests, each about eighty to one hundred meters in radius, that successfully unearthed mineral ores. Nick had actually laid down thirty six formations in total and dug up and displaced many trees. He had to kill hundreds of magic beasts that were either rank 1 or rank 2 but that work was more monotonous than difficult.
Nick often had no choice but to use Malevolent Shrine to cut up the trees that he displaced so that they could become fertilizer for a next batch of trees and make it easier to mine further. The forest around the plateau was now mostly gone for about one kilometer all around it. Nick had been busy to say the least and his efforts had brought him rewards.
"Eleven tonnes of ore. That's what I unearthed. That's probably a low amount, unworthy of the work I did but life is often like that. The important work often results in much effort and little reward at the outset but I am not done yet."
Nick immediately went to work on refining the ores and obtaining their contents. After another three weeks of tireless work, Nick obtained seven different kinds of materials this time which included: gold, the two unnamed metals that Nick obtained the first time, and four non-metals that Nick could not identify, one of which was the same as the non-metal that he mined the first time. Nick took such a long time melting down the ores because he was trying to become more familiar with the process.
Nick then spent an additional month using the over four tonnes of the two unnamed metals to create over one hundred 0.7 meter long, four inch wide and half an inch thick, two edged blades. Nick wasted a few hundred kilograms of the metals trying to figure out how to temper them properly using hammers, additional stoves and faster cooling in order to make them stronger and more resistant to fracture.
The blades were dull grey in color and did not look all that spectacular but Nick loved each one like it was his child. Nick observed them while they were lined up in a corner of his lab and after he finished admiring them, he stored them all within his space band.
He then exited his portable lab and stored it within his space band as well, saying:
"I've been here for too long."
Nick said that with a smile since he not only learned new skills, he might have also increased his combat power.
"Incremental improvement is how long term goals are achieved. No doubt my understanding of blade path has increased by doing all that I did. Now, I'm lacking in blade path materials, however."
Nick shrugged his shoulders and cast Absolute Push and Absolute Pull to raise himself into the air and fly off, thinking:
(You can't make a few omelettes without braking eggs. Expending expensive materials is just a part of becoming stronger. Now that I think about it, how do normal Magicians cope with the cost of improvement? I am only able to burn money so much because I made some decent business deals.)
Nick soon decided to stop asking himself useless questions and move ahead but when he traveled about five hundred meters away from the plateau, an impressed male voice sounded from above him:
"Did you really do all of this?"
Nick frowned and immediately looked up; Spacial Awareness had not warned him of someone near him and he did not sense the person either. In fact, if the person did not speak, Nick would not have known that they were there.
A muscular old man with a head full of white hair and dressed in fitting khaki pants and a tucked in, white, long sleeved shirt with the first button remaining loose appeared above him within arms reach as if he was a gust of wind or a silent fart. The old man spoke sternly the next moment, however, and said:
"This old man will be taking all that you have now."
The old mans left eye twinkled as he punched out with his right fist, aiming for Nick's face.
(Battle Armor.)
Nick's right arm almost instantly became metallic-silver in color from his shoulder joint to his finger tips. Nick only had time to block the old man's punch with his right forearm before he was sent flying onto the ground below him like a mortar shell.
BOOM!
Nick barely had time to cover his entire body with Battle Armor before he crash landed onto the cleared ground, creating a two meter deep trench from the impact. Nick slowly stood up while his entire body that was now covered in a metallic-silver hue pained him. The old man above looked down at Nick expressionlessly while standing in midair and spoke aloud, his voice traveling the dozens of meters between them:
"You're tough but I wasn't joking. I assume that you cleared this area because you were looking for something. I don't care what it is, just hand all your valuable possessions over."
Nick cursed the old man from his position:
"Have you no shame? Why would you want to rob someone less than half your age?"
The old man repeated a word that Nick said before laughing heartily:
"Shame?"
The old man laughed for a few seconds before replying with a cold expression:
"When cultivating magic, nothing we do can be considered shameful."
Nick heard those words and noticed something about this man.
(Those words...that expression. Shit, this guy is a magic fanatic like me.)
The old man flexed his right arm and the punched it down towards Nick.
(Tyrant Gale)
A heavy current of pale-yellow wind instantly formed and crashed down on Nick like a waterfall, at a speed faster than a bullet. Nick stood his ground and the wind consumed him and broke up and displaced the ground beneath him, soon forming an eighteen meter deep pit as a cloud of dust rose out of it.
When the dust cleared, the old man who remained in midair looked into the pit and saw only dirt. Confused, he asked:
"Where is that whelp?"
Suddenly, the man sensed a presence appear behind him and he was only able to turn his head slightly before Nick acted. Nick, who was still covered entirely in Battle Armor, raised a minuscule sphere of red light to his mouth using his right index finger tip and blew on it lightly. The sphere of red light rapidly few towards the old man and crashed into his lower back, bursting out with red light in all directions.
(Blink.)
Nick cast his movement spell and instantly appeared on the ground where he watched the enlarged sphere of light collapse into itself, leaving nothing behind. After immediately receiving a warning image at that moment via Spacial Awareness, Nick pointed his right index finger to a position thirty meters away from where the old man had been hit by Mars.
(Absolute Pull.)
At that moment, a gust of pale-yellow wind appeared at that spot, taking the form of the old man but before the old man could properly consider the situation, his entire being quivered and he was dragged at an intense speed toward Nick like he was cannon fire.
Nick then quickly unsheathed Failed Tool with his right hand and swung it horizontally, from left to right, towards the old man with his right arm's muscles bulged,
(Direct Dominion.)
SPLAT
Blood immediately flew in different towards the ground as the old man's lower abdomen was cut through as he flew forward, resulting in his intestines falling out but just as he reached within three meters of Nick, he smiled and cast a spell:
(Repulsing Wind)
A jade-green wind immediately formed around Nick and blew him backwards by ten meters as if he was paper. Absolute Pull lost its effect since Nick lost focus on his target and the old man instantly stopped moving and remained floating in midair while casting another spell:
(Healing Wind)
A gust of jade-green wind enveloped him and forced his intestines and blood back into his abdomen, following which it was sealed shut, which left a thin red scar on the old man's abdomen.
Nick did not let up and poured his magic energy into Failed Tool, forcing it to shine with grey light. When the old man caught sight of the light radiating from Nick's sword, his two shoulder blades were sliced through within an instant, without the man even having the time to mount a proper defense.
Surprisingly though, the old man only laughed and his body was instantly enveloped in pale-yellow wind. Nick didn't even blink but the moment after the old man was enveloped in wind, he appeared less than one meter away from Nick without so much as a sound of his movement. The old man's shoulder wounds had clearly been partially healed by that time.
The old man bowed his right arm and planted his right foot forward, in front of his left foot. He then swung his right hip forward as his right fist punched out towards Nick with pale-yellow wind rotating around it at rapid speed. The Old man's right fist reached the tip of Nick's nose within milliseconds.
(Tyrant Gust)
During the old man's spell casting, he realized that Nick's second sword at his right side had been drawn by his left hand but he could not see what became of it. Just before Tyrant Gale resolved and his fist came into contact with Nick's face, the old man sensed the second sword's blade cutting into his throat with stifling pressure.
(Mystic Blade.)
The old man's fist immediately crashed into Nick's face and a violent, rotating gust of pale-yellow wind manifested in an instant, blowing along Nick's head all the way down to his toes. Nick was shot backward like a rocket and didn't stop moving until he crashed into three trees one after the other over five hundred meters away.
(Courage In Sacrifice.)
(Involuntary Sacrifice.)
Nick's magic reserves that had been consumed by almost one half already was instantly restored by 450 magical units via Courage in Sacrifice. The old man's attack had caused Nick's nose and cheek bones to fracture despite Battle Armor's protection but Involuntary Sacrifice's effect rapidly used the old man's residual magic power and laws that were etched into Nick's injures to heal Nick's damaged tissues but his face felt persistently numb and both his eyes watered.
Nick stood up in pain almost as soon as he crashed into the third tree that did not break apart like the first two. Those trees noisily fell onto the ground but Nick ignored them and cast Dominate The Space in order to appear instantly over fifty meters from where he had been hit by Tyrant Gust. It had only been about six seconds since Nick was blown away and what he returned to see shocked him.
The old man who had his throat clearly cut open with blood spurting out of it like a fountain and his head falling backwards suddenly had his wound enveloped by jade-green wind that also constantly swirled around his neck.
(Healing Wind)
The deep wound that involved the old man's wind pipe and esophagus having been cut through cleanly, quickly mended under the influence of the jade-green wind as the blood that had not yet touched the ground was caught and cycled back into the wound by said wind. Within less than three seconds, the man's injury which should have been fatal was completely healed.
Nick stood at his position feeling a little impressed by the old man. The old man soon brought his head forward and observed Nick with some appreciation, rubbing his chin with his right hand, then saying:
"Hey you, you're one of the strongest little bastards that I've met out here in a while. Why don't you come and have some lunch with this old man."
Nick kept Failed Tool and Pressure Piece pointing forward at his sides and sneered at the old man, replying:
"You don't just attack someone out of nowhere, try to kill them and then invite them to lunch. Are you drunk?"
The old man used his right index finger to pick at his right ear and replied:
"No, I'm not drunk yet. That's why I asked you to join me for lunch, genius. As for the whole trying to kill you thing, if I really tried to kill you, you would already be dead. I only wanted to find out how strong you were since you removed so much of this part of the forest. Don't be soft, come and eat with this old man, I'll even introduce you to my beautiful daughter. Doesn't that sound nice?"
The old man then turned his head slightly to his left flank and shouted:
"Veera, you can come out now, the fight was a draw."
A young girl, no older than fifteen years old suddenly appeared out of nowhere ten meters away from the old man's left flank and ran to his side slowly. The old man put on a doting expression and said to the girl:
"C'mon, you got to run faster than that in the field if you want to be the strongest Magician someday."
The young girl, who clearly had little stamina, soon reached the old man's left side while breathing heavily. She spoke while trying to get her breathing under control:
"I'm doing my best, pops. You know, that last wound had me scared that you were really going to die."
The old man laughed heartily in response to the girl's statement. Nick looked at the scene awkwardly. The young, white girl wore a pair of black sweat pants, a yellow, cotton, long sleeved blouse and a pair of yellow running shoes. She had her long, black hair tied up in a pony tail.
Nick felt annoyed and announced:
"Old man, the fight was not a draw. I could have killed you if I had pressed my advantage."
The old man's eyes immediately sharpened in response to Nick's words and he turned to face him. Within the next moment, the old man was standing in front of Nick with his right index and middle fingers touching Nick's forehead. The old man scoffed:
"You are still too tender."
Nick raised his right brow and his indifferent expression became smug as he replied:
"And you are too impulsive."
The old man creased his brows and turned his head slightly to look behind him as he felt the tips of six double-edged, grey blades poke at his back, one of them resting right behind his heart. He chuckled deeply before saying:
"Well...it looks like you do have some skills. Alright, how about that lunch."
The old man retracted his fingers from Nick's forehead and disappeared, reappearing next to his excited daughter the next moment. Nick sighed and sheathed both Failed Tool and Pressure Piece. He cancelled Battle Armor, reverting his all silver skin and clothes to their natural colors. He also cancelled Space, which he had cast the moment that the young girl appeared, while also storing his six blades back into his space band.
Nick cast Blink a few times in order to get near to the old man and girl and when he reached within three meters of them, he summoned a picnic table from his space band as well as a large boxed lunch of fried chicken with rice and peas, sweet potatoes and a one liter bottle of ginger beer.
Nick eyed the two as he ate, waiting for them to join him. The old man took the hint and led his daughter along to sit at Nick's table. The old man then summoned two portions of roast meat on platters from his space band in front of himself and his daughter. Everyone ate quietly for twenty minutes.
After that, Nick began friendly communications with a question:
"Why sneak attack a stranger?"
The old man felt wrongly accused and said so:
"Do not frame me with false goods. I clearly spoke before I punched you so it was not a sneak attack. If you had died at that point, you could only blame yourself for being too weak."
Nick rolled his eyes at the old man and his daughter laughed softly. Nick asked another question:
"Who are you people?"
The old man smiled and replied:
"I am the settlement administrator of Sidon, Keller Oxar, and this is my daughter, Veera."
Nick immediately recognized the name 'Sidon'. It was one of the three settlements nearest to his current location. Seeing Nick become quite, the old man asked him a question:
"What is your name, young man?"
Nick snapped out of his deep thinking and answered:
"My name is Nick Capitol and I am a student of Richter Order Academy."
"Oh, that's an academy in London, I think. With your kind of power, I thought that you might attend one of the academies supported by the royal family."
Nick asked curiously:
"Is there a difference between those academies and mine."
"Hmmm...the academies supported by the royal family are strictly supported only by them and other prominent families with histories as old as England. Those academies cater to a small number of 'special' students and are not simply accessible by outsiders. The students there tend to be extremely powerful, like yourself."
Nick then look over at Veera and commented:
"Isn't she a little young to be a Magician?"
The old man snorted and asked:
"Says who? The Ministry of Magic? Just a bunch of hypocrites. Most of the children of the executives went to magic academies supported by the royal family and became Magicians at ten or younger. They just advise the public to do otherwise in order to maintain their superiority. My Veera is going to be the strongest Magician someday."
Nick shook his head, saying:
"That's impossible."
Veera who was all smiles up to that point frowned and asked Nick:
"Why do you say that?"
Nick pointed at himself with his right index finger and replied:
"It's impossible because I'm going to be the strongest Magician someday."
****************************************************
Some where within Forgotten Peril...
A large team of rank 2 Magicians were currently fighting off a large pack of poison breath wolves and were having a hard time. The wolf pack had an alpha male that was very strong and thick skinned despite its size which was only about the same as a horse which was small compared to alphas in packs of other species.
The alpha male sat at the rear of the wolf pack that numbered at about two thousand while the Magicians numbered at about one hundred and twenty. Poison breath wolves were poison path magic beasts that had an incredibly toxic bite as well as strong bones and skin; they could not be harmed by basic grade weapons easily.
A poison breath wolf at the forefront of the army ran in a zig-zag pattern until in reached within biting distance of a woman wearing all black leather combat armor. The poison breath wolf jumped up to the woman's face and seemed about to bite her head off when a small, twinkling white light appeared in front of its already opened maw and with a slight 'pop' sound, the twinkling light dissipated and the the wolf's head transformed into blood mist which quickly blew away.
The wolf's corpse listlessly fell to the ground and the woman turned her head to her right in order to momentarily focus on the person that saved her; she shouted:
"These wolves are just too much, John. We should retreat."
John, who was fighting tooth and nail with a poison breath wolf in front of him, kicked it away and then flicked a twinkling speck of light at he wolf's left flank with his right index finger and thumb. When the speck of light collided with the wolf's body, it seemingly popped and a gaping hole appeared at the wolf's midsection that could be seen through entirely.
John wore leather combat attire similar to Siri except that it was brown in color; he had pale skin, seemed to be of Chinese descent and had short, shiny black hair. John replied to his associate while killing several other wolves with the same spell:
"Alright Siri, gather everyone up and I will use a method to distract the wolves so that we can all escape."
Siri had faith in John since he had a great reputation within their company but she knew that escaping this wolf tide would be difficult. She used her shadow magic to quickly move around the battlefield by jumping in and out of shadows all over the place. Everywhere she went, she screamed:
"Everyone, gather up near John. He is going to use a method to distract the wolves so that we can escape."
None of the Magicians in this battlefield were newbies and they all felt that gathering up near John would allow the wolves to encircle them but John was one of the most popular rising Magicians in the company and this skewed their judgement. He was always the center of attention and he was basically everyone's friend. Subtly, group psychology took over and everyone slowly inched their way to John as the wolves gained ground.
Soon, John realized that his over one hundred colleagues had gathered near him and he decided that the time was right.
(These damn fools...)
John pointed his index finger to the sky and a speck of twinkling light shot up to thirty meters above ground like a flare and shone down an intense halo of light on the entire pack of surrounding wolves. The wolves suddenly went into chaos as they were all blinded and that even included the leading alpha male at he rear.
(Star Flare)
John's method produced a light that not only blinded the wolves, but also confused their sense of direction. The effect would only last a few minutes but that was all the time that John needed. He killed a few confused wolves near him and then turned his attention to his team, shouting:
"Everyone, we are surrounded by wolves and hope seems slim. I have a method that will force the wolves to make a path for us to escape through and keep them occupied at the same time but it requires large amounts of precious minerals in order to be effective. In order to save everyone, I need you all to contribute your gold as fuel for my spell."
John's teammates were momentarily stunned by the requirements of his method but in their currently hopeless situation, even a suspicious sounding solution like that seemed okay. Looking around at how John had disoriented the wolves, they all started to eagerly believe that John was telling the truth.
Siri believed as well but something did not seem all that right with her. It took her a few moments before she figured it out.
(If John had a method that could disorient the wolves so effectively, why didn't he use it earlier before people started dying?)
Siri was confused about this but seeing all her teammates hurriedly dump their gold pieces at John's feet, she decided that she must be overthinking things and that John must have had his reasons for not acting earlier.
(Since everyone seems to trust him, he must be an upright and trustworthy person.)
Siri had a few coins of gold issued to her by their company that has major mining operations within this realm. She used her shadow magic to quickly get near to John and added her gold coins to the pile that now stood in front of him.
While everyone else was struggling to kill the blind wolves that came too close for comfort, Siri was urging John:
"John, we're surrounded on all sides now. Please use your method."
John nodded his head in response and then cancelled his Star Flare spell. The wolves immediately regained their sight and sense of direction. Siri then watched as John stored the pile of gold into his space band all at once. Her eyes opened wide in shock and she asked:
"What are you doing, John?"
John didn't answer and just flicked his right index finger and thumb at Siri, following which a twinkling light speck crashed into Siri's left breast area with the speed of a bullet and after an audible 'pop', a gaping hole appeared where her left breast and heart were supposed to be; the hole revealed the scene behind her as well.
Siri's eyes instantly became lifeless and she fell onto the ground like a puppet after its strings were cut. The sad thing was that amidst the current chaos of the now healthy wolves biting at the group from all sides, no one even noticed Siri's death because it had been so sudden and quiet and since magic spells were flying all over the place, no one thought it strange when they sensed John's star path magic being used. Literally every person within the group was trying their hardest to buy time so that John could cast his magic to save them.
John spit on Siri's corpse, thinking:
(Noisy bitch.)
He then cast one of his rank 2 advanced grade movement spells:
(Star Turn)
John was suddenly enveloped in starlight and rose ten meters into the air, then flew straight for three hundred meters at the speed of cannon fire and he soon left the area of influence of the poison breath wolves; once he landed at a safe place, he used the same method to move even further away and he did not stop doing this until the wolves were no longer in sight. John's method left a trail of bright starlight where he passed so his movements were quickly noticed by his still living colleagues.
They immediately realized that John had taken their gold with the intention of abandoning them. They were all rank 2 Magicians employed by a mining company and it is fair to say that they owe their training and development to said mining company but their methods were mostly suited for obtaining ores, scouting and excavating and they had little combat experience.
They only ended up in this situation because John told them that there was a rich mine near here but they all realized now, after John's betrayal that John's story was probably a ploy to lure them into this situation. Most felt enraged, some fell into despair and the rest just cried while continuing to fight. It was too late for regrets. Within ten minutes, the poison breath wolves overcame them and they all ended up in at least one wolf's mouth.
The alpha male wolf howled loudly in victory and soon, the entire pack followed its example. The wolves howled while the blood under their feet became cold.
John listened to the distant howls while resting on the thick branch of a tall, evergreen tree and a smile developed on his face.
"They must all be dead. Sorry guys but I am sick of working for our company. Having to kiss someone's ass everyday, ignoring the abuse that I see and miring myself in all the bullshit politics is slowly killing me. With the gold that you all contributed, I can live a good life for a while without a company's support. That's right...contributed, I did not steal it, all the gold was given to me."
After reassuring himself, John climbed down from the tree by stepping onto twinkling specks of light that appeared in front of him like stairs and then traveled by foot to his next destination.
"Sidon should be a good place to rest my head and think of next steps."