The Curator
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Chapter 23: Information Gathering
🕑 Added 2024-10-10 16:06:04 +0000 UTC
Chapter 23: Information Gathering
Thalion was on the move, trying to find the marked point on the map. As he ran, he remained fascinated by the bioluminescent plants glowing around him. After traveling for some time, he heard voices and climbed a tree to avoid being spotted. Somehow, most survivors never looked up. His paws made no sound as he walked over the moss-covered branches. Then, he saw two women standing in the middle of a clearing filled with flowers. He focused on identifying the flowers without drawing attention to himself and was surprised.
Midnight Sunrose Level 16
The level wasn't bad, and he wondered what those plants might do. First, he sneaked even closer to the two women, his belly touching the branch as he slowly pressed his body against the dense bioluminescent leaves of the tree. He wondered what benefits those flowers might bring, perhaps wisdom.
One woman was cutting the flowers with her blade, while the other used an ice shard that hovered just above the ground. She was training her spell; it seemed she had a bit more practice than he did in that department, especially considering his own struggles with moving the mana barrier.
"Why not try a different approach this time," he thought, transforming back into his human form and equipping the blue robe of one of his former victims. The self-cleaning enchantment on the robe came in handy, as all the blood was gone, and the parts that had been ripped during the fight had also repaired themselves.
With that, he jumped down from the tree. The branch he had been standing on was over 10 meters in the air, but for him, that was not a problem. He did a quick roll and stood up, noticing how his higher dexterity stats made a difference.
The two women turned around in shock, and he quickly identified them.
Human Level 20
Human Level 18
"Hello, nice to meet you," Thalion introduced himself, trying to break the ice.
"Hello," the woman with the sword replied warily. "Who are you, and how did you get those clothes?"
"Ah, shit, they know," Thalion thought. He had hoped for a pleasant conversation, but you can't always get what you want.
Then the other woman asked, obviously confused, "And why are you wearing women's clothing?"
"Wait, what? These are clothes for women?" he exclaimed. This was awkward.
"So, how did you get those clothes?" the other woman interjected, clearly pressing the matter.
"I found them on corpses on the way to the city, and since your people try to enslave mine and use them for fish bait, I thought I'd keep them," Thalion answered. It was mostly a lie, but hopefully convincing enough.
"How did you know I'm not from your planet?" he asked, very interested in that part. If he could fix his mistake, maybe sneaking into the city was still possible.
"You didn't enchant the emblem of the royal house with mana," the woman with the ice shard answered, now floating beside her along with a few others.
Thalion tried to push mana into the emblem, but it didn't work.
"You need to have a high water affinity," she said, clearly noticing what he was doing.
"How did your people gain water affinity from the start, and what does it do?" he asked, surprised.
"Our planet was mostly covered with water. Most of us grew up in environments rich with the mana of the water affinity. It helps us with water-related skills and makes them more powerful," the ice shard woman answered.
"Interesting. Before we go further, what are your names? I'm Thalion," he introduced himself.
"I'm Charlotte, and this is Olivia," the woman with the sword replied, pointing at the other woman.
"Nice to meet you both. How are you so calm? Normally, in this new world, people are killing each other without mercy," he asked, intrigued. Maybe they had called for help and were stalling for time.
"Why should we? You might be level 25, but you're alone. Do you really think you stand a chance? You don't even have the water affinity," Olivia responded, clearly unbothered.
Thalion decided not to push the point, though he suspected it wouldn’t be much of a struggle to kill them both.
Instead, he asked, "So, what are you doing out here? Can you tell me more about your city? How did you even build such a large one?"
"Well, we're collecting flowers to sell to our alchemists, and the walls, towers, and palace were bought using the credits the slaves had," Charlotte answered in an annoyed tone.
"Wait, so you killed them all?" Thalion exclaimed. That was dark, even by the new standards.
"No, our crafters designed a shackle that not only gives us the exact position of the slaves we own but also allows us to transfer all their credits to our score," Charlotte proudly explained.
"Okay, this isn't going to end well," Thalion thought. If they had such means, they were probably able to send distress signals. He was most likely on a timer. In any case, he didn't like the look they gave him while speaking of shackles.
It was time to make his move. "You have good control over those ice shards," he commented respectfully, while at the same time, he blurred into action, shooting a thorn at the surprised mage.
She was fast and managed to dodge to the side, but she still screamed in pain as the thorn ripped through her shoulder, spinning her around.
Thalion summoned the mana blade and attacked Charlotte, who had already charged at him, her sword glowing with a blue hue. He blocked her sword slice, then dodged to the side with a telekinetic dash while using the active effect of the mana blade, releasing a razor-sharp arc of mana that sliced through the air.
Charlotte jumped over it as he aimed low for her legs, but what she didn’t know was that directly behind her, Olivia had just managed to get back on her feet as a razor-sharp arc of mana sliced through her knees, cutting them clean off.
With an even more pained scream, she dropped back to the ground.
Thalion kept activating his movement skill to create some distance between him and the sword-wielding woman.
With a wide slice of her blade, Charlotte sent a mana wave at him, much like the one he had thrown at her before, but it was weaker and partly made of water. He dodged to the side and cut down, activating mana blade again, sending a vertical slash at her midsection, which she perfectly dodged with a spin of her body.
This was very unlucky for Olivia, who was sitting behind her on the ground, still writhing in pain, as the blade cut off her still-healthy arm along with part of her shoulder. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she slumped over.
She wouldn’t be able to contribute much to the fight anyway without legs and arms—well, she had one, but it just hung limp from the shoulder that had been destroyed by Blood Thorn.
Charlotte pressed the attack, using her water wave in rapid succession, forcing him to dodge in different directions as she closed in, a smile on her face.
That smile disappeared fast as she smashed headfirst into his mana barrier, which he had summoned in front of her when it looked like she would use her movement spell.
With a pained yelp, she stumbled back, holding her clearly broken nose. Thalion used the opportunity well, instantly shooting a blood thorn at her midsection while dispelling the mana barrier.
He was surprised when the thorn didn’t manage to penetrate her body but got stuck halfway. It was even better for him, though. She probably wore some kind of armor under her robe.
Either way, it seemed the thorn had pierced her backbone as she appeared to lose all control over her legs, slumping to the ground.
Time for another round of questioning, he thought, as he summoned his vines, completely immobilizing her. Shortly after, her sword dropped from her hand.
He went over and picked up the spatial rings of both women, but he didn’t find a slave shackle in them. Instead, there were a lot of high-rarity flowers. "Man, this is just perfect," he thought.
"How many slaves do you possess?" he asked the woman, a tone of disdain creeping into his voice.
"Why do you think I would answer any of your questions? When my family hears of this, there will be no place where you will be safe," Charlotte scowled at him.
Thalion responded by shooting a blood thorn into her shin, nailing her to the ground. She inturn responded with a lot of screaming.
This wasn’t good. The screams could alert someone nearby, so he decided to end it by activating blood harvest, killing both women. Their high affinity for water must somehow be connected to their blood because his buddy, the sanguine thorn, enjoyed it a lot.
"Let’s try out the other marked places on the map. Maybe I’ll find even more people to feed to my buddy, and next time, I’ll ask what effect those flowers have." He could, of course, eat them with verdant consumption and find out by doing so, but he wanted to use the last hours of daylight to meet some new people. With that, he stored everything in his spatial ring, transformed back into a shadowstalker, and ran in a straight line toward the next spot.
While moving through the forest, Thalion spotted two bull beetles fighting. They were the size of small cows, so he decided to change his objective to beetle hunting—he needed more training in his human form anyway.
He transformed into his human form and approached the beetles from behind.
Bull Beetle Level 24
Bull Beetle Level 24
Nice, they were even high-level. Thalion hid behind a small tree, using a blue bioluminescent leaf hanging down from its side as cover. He watched the beetles for a while, analyzing their movements and abilities. When the two beetles clashed again, he decided to make his move. He hurled a fireball right at the point where their antlers met. The resulting explosion engulfed both beetles in flames, flinging them to the side.
One of the beetles struggled to get up, one of its legs unable to support its weight. With one already injured, Thalion targeted the other beetle, summoning his mana blade as he charged toward it. The beetle responded by charging at him, but just before they collided, Thalion activated his movement spell, causing the beetle to miss. Seizing the opportunity, Thalion unleashed a moon-curved slash with his mana blade, cutting deep into the beetle’s side.
Thalion halted, summoning another fireball, channeling more power into it as the beetle continued moving in its original direction, unable to turn quickly due to its heavy weight. As it finally managed to stop and turn around, a massive fireball appeared right in front of it, slamming into its head. The explosion was powerful enough to lift the beetle off its feet, sending it crashing heavily onto its back, where it lay unmoving.
Thalion then dispatched the other beetle, still struggling to stand, with another fireball.
You have killed Bull Beetle Level 24
You have killed Bull Beetle Level 24
He had gotten better at infusing his spells with extra mana. Perhaps it was time for another round of training. The sun was setting much faster than he had anticipated, and he realized he wouldn’t reach the next marked point on the map today. Better to wait until tomorrow.
Before starting his training, he devoured the beetles in his shadowstalker form, but they didn’t grant him any extra stats. In that case, he leapt up to a branch and began his training by rapidly infusing his mana barrier with mana. He also attempted to move the skill around, making only minor improvements in speed.
