blueteamnovel Chapter 34 – Unexpected boon
Chapter 34 – Unexpected boon
The crow glided soundlessly just a meter above the grass as it approached its prey. Micky’s black feathers turned him nigh invisible against the dark blanket of the night. Soon, a man enlarged in their shared vision. He was looking the other way, performing his business without a care in the world. They could already hear the soft stream pitter-pattering against the stone.
Percy held his breath. If the ambush failed, his life would be forfeit!
With one powerful flap of his wings, Micky shot through the last 15 or so feet, landing on the man’s head. The poor bandit barely managed to turn around, before a talon clamped his mouth shut, as the other clawed his throat out.
The young man exhaled the turbid air in his lungs as subtly as he could manage, trying not to alert the others.
‘So far, so good.’
Then, Percy inhaled deeply again, directing the pure mana towards his abdomen, before pumping it through his channels. As for the soul mana, he gathered it in his sternum, fighting against his soul’s pull.
He walked towards the leader – Rick, if his memory served him. Assassinating the Yellow core was just as important as the previous ambush, if not doubly so.
Accumulating soul mana was difficult at first, but a new stream gushed through the ethereal cord, helping him amass it more easily.
‘This is a lot more than expected...’
The largest things Micky had eaten in the past were the wood goblins. Being semi-sentient creatures, their souls were a lot more developed than the rats and snakes they had hunted before. Still, they couldn’t possibly compare with a human at Orange. Percy didn’t keep the mana in his core for very long though, swiftly drawing it into his fist instead. There, he willed it to condense under the cover of the bandage.
“What’s wrong?” Rick asked.
Percy stopped a few meters away.he criminal’s air affinity was a bad match for the bird, preventing it from reaching him.
Still, the tables swiftly turned once Percy joined the fight, the duo eliminating the final opponent not long after.
The young man plopped down on the bloodied dirt, breathing heavily. This had been his toughest fight yet. The first real one too. But he’d done it! He’d defeated a Yellow core by himself and even took his henchmen out with him!
‘And all of that without dying in the process...’
KRA! KRA!
Percy winced as his familiar pecked his shoulder in protest.
“Ok, ok. We did it together.” he smiled. “Now go eat Rick’s soul and core before they dissipate.”
CAW!
Micky wasn’t entirely placated, but heeded the instruction, clearly thrilled at the prospect of such a gourmet meal. The young man rested on his back, a flood of mana soon filling his body. Shocked as the pressure intensified, he activated Mana Sense, only to be blinded by the bright Yellow colour filling his frame. Unable to discern anything, he switched to Soul Vision, but the intense silver glow wasn’t much easier to peer through.
‘I guess this must be how Micky felt before learning to get rid of the excess mana.’
It was a lot to absorb at once, but Percy didn’t ask his friend to stop eating. He knew such an opportunity was hard to come by. Rick’s digested soul was by far the richest, most abundant source of soul mana they would come across anytime soon. It was a potent tonic, greatly accelerating his soul’s recovery.
Squinting, he just about managed to see his gruesome injuries closing in real time. The sight almost reminded him of the time his grandpa healed his physical wounds in mere moments.
Micky stopped producing soul mana about ten minutes later, but fully processing it took them a couple hours longer. By then, only the crater in Percy’s chest remained, and even that had shrunk to the size of an apple.
‘Wow, maybe I should thank Rick for targeting me.’
Percy estimated he’d only need one more fight like this to fully recover. Of course, he had no intention of chasing more bandits or provoking other Yellow cores, but even the Orange beasts they would be hunting at their destination should do the trick in a few more weeks. In fact, he figured he could probably refill his core without Micky’s help right now.
CAW!
‘You’re right. Better keep moving.’
The young man was spent, so resting for a few hours before resuming his journey didn’t sound too bad. Sadly, the longer he remained here, the greater his odds of running into more trouble were. Getting to the Guild as soon as possible was probably the wisest choice.
Luckily, the bandits had travelled in the same direction, so he hadn’t lost much time. Calculating the distance, Percy estimated he should be within a day of his destination. Standing up, he quickly scanned the corpses for anything valuable.
‘Nothing...’
The poor bastards were broke. Retrieving his elixirs, he climbed onto his horse. Only one dose was missing from the pouch. Naturally, it would have been too wasteful for them to use the elixirs in their concentrated state. Percy’s entire stash would have barely lasted them a week. Their next promotion had probably been decades away, so the elixirs wouldn’t have made a dent like that. Instead, they had planned to dilute them all, making each dose last the group for nearly a month, the entire stash well over a year.
‘And just for that one tiny bottle, they paid with their lives...’
He sighed. This was the true Remior, away from his House’s walls. A jungle, where the lowborns like him had to place their lives on the line every single day for a small chance to survive.
‘But I will... No matter what.’