Stygian Mage

Soren changed his disguise in the jungle and took off his mask before moving towards the town. He had already gathered quite a bit of Mana Crystals now and was more than ready to buy what he wanted at the auction. He had some reservations about going back to the town because of the issue with the Abbate Family but, in the end, he made the decision to go. He couldn’t miss the auction at any cost as that would be detrimental to his plan.

He had to take this risk if he wanted to free himself of the Blood Contract.

According to the information he had, there was still 3 more days to go for the auction. He didn’t have much to do till then so, he decided to just lay low in his room for 3 days; staying in the jungle had become quite dangerous right now. He also had some stuff that he had to do during this time. The new cultivation technique that he received—he had to study that; he also had to study more about his new spell—‘Dark Gravity’.

..……….

Soren put down his stuff and changed his clothes after reaching his room. It had been a while since he was gone, so, the first thing he decided to do was to rest in his soft bed. Changing into casual clothes, he climbed onto the bed and spread his legs and arms, getting comfortable. Although he was already used to surviving in the jungle, nothing could change the fact that sleeping in a soft bed was still the best.

BAM!! BAM!! BAM!!

Suddenly, someone loudly banged on his door.

The heavy knocking had interrupted his comfort time so his mood became irritating as he begrudgingly got up and went to open the door. His mood worsened, even more, when he saw that there was no one outside after opening the door. But as he was turning back to go to his room, he saw a silhouette running down the corridor. Although he didn’t see the person clearly, he could tell it was the young man who worked in this hotel. He had met him a few times before when he was coming in. He also worked at the reception desk but had a different shift than Leah.

Soren didn’t know the guy and had no idea why he would bang on his door like that and then run away. He got a little suspicious, but after thinking about it, he decided to just forget about it. If he had any business with Soren, he would just come back. Soren didn’t have to beat himself over trying to find what that guy wanted, so he just went back and again lay down on the bed.

………..

A heavy panting voice sounded in the lobby of the hotel as the young man from before supported his upper body on his knees while trying to calm down his breathing and heart rate. He was sweating heavily and his eyes seemed a little red. His wet brown hair was slightly messy because of running and was now sticking to his forehead.

“Cole, what are you doing?”

A sweet voice of a girl came from behind which startled him, resulting in him turning around abruptly.

“What happened? Why are you sweating so much?” The girl asked again with a concerned voice. Her worried eyes clearly reflected the state that the young man was in.

“It’s nothing; I am just feeling not well right now.” The young man controlled his breathing and replied while standing straight.

The girl became even more worried after hearing him. She quickly came close to check his temperature and to see if he was having any other problem.

“Don’t worry, it’s not much. I will be fine once I rest for a while.” Cole answered back with a warm voice after seeing the girl worry about him so much. He had been in love with this girl for years now and he knew that his feelings were reciprocated by her. He knew she also loved him but…..

“Leah?” Just at that moment, Soren’s voice came from behind them.

The girl who was checking up on Cole was startled and quickly created some distance between them. This girl was Leah.

“S-Soren, when did you come back?” Leah stuttered a little while looking slightly nervous.

Soren looked at her and then glanced at the young man beside her who was now looking down at the floor while clenching his fist really hard. He had actually gone back to his bed and tried to forget about the loud knocks, but finally couldn’t remove the thought from his mind and came down to satisfy his curiosity.

After coming down though, the first sight he saw was Leah tending to that young man in a very concerned manner. It didn’t matter to him if she got close to anyone else or that she already had a lover. They were not in love, and the last time was just he trying to release some pent up steam. Sure, he liked her but he never wanted to get involved with her romantically. So, the sight he saw before him should not have mattered much to him; that is until he saw their reactions after seeing him.

The gears worked in his mind as he started connecting the dots. What made him suspect their actions was that although they were behaving similar to someone who was caught cheating on their partner, the concerned party was the opposite. It was like he had caught Leah cheating on him with that young man, which was not possible because they were never in any relationship. And seeing their actions before, it was obvious that they had already been in love for quite long.

So, the only conclusion he could come to after seeing Leah’s nervous actions and the way that young man was restraining himself was—Leah was ordered or paid to get his genes. The same thing he had talked about with Claude before. He had thought before that they would only make the girls who were working for them go after him, but it seemed like people could really go to lengths for some currency.

After getting to that conclusion though, Soren heaved a sigh of relief. Fortunately, he had been cautious in these matters and had taken proper action after doing the deed with Leah. But with all said and done, the fact did make his mood quite somber; he had thought of Leah as his friend, so getting betrayed by someone like that was still hard on him.

“How much did you get paid?” Soren asked with a heavy voice.

“W-W-What are you talking about? I ne-never received any payment.” Leah answered nervously with a stuttering voice. Her answer cemented Soren’s conclusions even further. Normally, if someone was asked this question, they would take this question as something related to their job and would answer about how much they were paid weekly, monthly, or yearly; some would also get completely confused by this question. But her answer made it evident that she was not thinking about her regular job at all.

…

Leah was really scared right now that Soren would find out about everything and then lash out on them, physically. She was scared of him; she had always been scared of him since the moment she started this thing. At first, she had really liked this ‘Traveler’ and even had thoughts about having a little fling with him. But after she was approached by those from the Liston Family about this job, she had become really afraid that he would find about it one day and then, would kill her and Cole.

She had accepted the job because they paid really well and had also promised that they would take care of her and Cole even after she gave them the baby. And to be on the safe side, she had made sure that Soren was the one to come after her; if she was the one who came onto him, he could easily get suspicious of her. But she would never have thought that the reason Soren would find out about all this was that her boyfriend would get jealous of him and then would go to find him in his room to pick a fight.

Soren looked at Leah as she nervously got closer to Cole, who also realized that they were found out now and had no way out of this. So, he took one step forward and protected Leah behind him. After seeing their actions, Soren felt that he had somehow turned into the villain here; even though he should have been the one to get angry at them. In the end, he just shook his head and let out a big sigh.

He decided not to do anything; it was a fact that their whole mission had failed because of the precaution he took that night, so there was no harm done. And mostly, the fact that they had failed and were now found out by him was enough for them to receive punishment from their employer.

So, Soren just turned around walked back to the elevator. As he looked back at them from the elevator, he could see their confused expressions; they had thought they would have to run away as fast as they could, but never did they think that Soren would just walk away after knowing everything.

Soren, too, felt that he had let them off very easily as it was now, so he decided to punish them a little. As the door of the elevator was closing, he smiled at them in an evil manner and then swiped his hand through his neck, indicating the obvious.

What he had not thought that this simple threat of his would make them scared shitless. As the door of the elevator closed shut, Leah ended up peeing in her pants while Cole fell down back on his ass with a loud thump, his whole body trembling with fear.

………….

Isaac, is there any chance of it happening?

Soren asked Isaac while riding the elevator.

“No, Master. All the seeds were killed by your spell at that time.”

You’re sure?

“Yes.”

Good; otherwise, I would have to kill her now….maybe both of them…

Soren’s current action was not about being merciful or being ruthless. As long as they didn’t succeed in what they were trying to do, Soren didn’t care much about them. But if it came down to it and there was even a little chance of it happening, he would kill them without any hesitation.

Actually, what they were trying to do was something that didn’t hurt Soren at all. At most, he would unwillingly have a kid and become a father.

The reason he was willing to kill them if that happened was something even he couldn’t explain. Maybe it was because then the feeling of getting betrayed would amplify, or maybe he just didn’t want to see them succeed. Whatever the reason may be, it was a fact that he would slaughter them if they somehow succeeded.

It was all a matter of risk management. He would kill them if they succeeded but if they didn’t, he didn’t need to take the risk of killing them. He didn’t know how the Liston Family would react to him killing them and deliberately foiling their plan, so he didn’t want to take that risk if he didn’t need to.

………….

Soren spent the next 3 days studying the new cultivation technique and the new Spell Vessel that he had gotten during this trip to the jungle.

From studying the cultivation technique, he found out that Drai had actually exaggerated the effects it had. Soren had tried to practice cultivation using this technique and had Isaac store the collected Mana in his navel area just like before. They then experimented with that collected Mana for quite some time before finally making some conclusions about it. After the experiments, they found out that the quality of the Mana collected from that technique was really low. It was actually comparable to any Low-Grade common cultivation technique that you could find in any common shop. Not only was that, but the speed of cultivation was also lower than that of a Low-Grade cultivation technique.

Soren didn’t have high expectations from this cultivation technique to begin with; as he knew that this was still being researched, but the results still surprised him. Also, the technique did provide the user with a skill called ’Vornea’ but the effect it had was very weak. Although it fixed the problem Soren was having while performing it during the battle, the problem of being unable to perform it without getting any backlash, the overall effect of the skill was still very weak. After trying it out and experimenting with it, he found out that he could barely move any light object that was in the skill’s range. In the end, it did make him able to have some proper control over his spell projectile but he couldn’t move them by much.

All in all, he found out that the cultivation technique was not useful to him as it was now. The skill provided by it was surely helpful but he couldn’t sacrifice everything else just because of that. Finally, he decided to use it just as a reference material. Also, he could create this skill by himself after some more research so he had no reason to start this cultivation technique.

One more thing he found out during this research was something that he hadn’t expected before. It was a fact about Mana purity. He had thought before that the higher the purity of the Mana was, the better it would be. During these experiments though, he found out that it was not so.

The quality of the Mana wasn’t related to its purity in such a simple manner. The purity of the Mana and the quality of the Mana didn’t have such a simple relationship of direct proportionality.

What he found out during this time was that the purer the Mana was, the more volatile it would be. When a spell would use such a high purity Mana, they would actually end up ‘burning’ more Mana than the necessary amount. This was simply because there would be nothing in that pure Mana to stop the reaction from continuing. Due to it being so pure, the action of ‘burning’ a part of it to use some spell or skill would result in burning some more Mana that was connected to the already used part. This not only decreased the quality of the Mana, but it also made it harder to control it since the user would have to constantly pay attention to make sure they would only use the amount that was necessary.

But by continuing his experiments with it, he also found out that sweet ratio at which the quality of the Mana was the highest.

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