The singing persisted for about a minute while Nick stood in his spot.
(Should I leave?)
Nick shook his head at that question.
(If I'm planning to stay here, I need to know as much about this lake as possible, I was planning to study some of its magic beasts anyway.)
Soon, Nick started to feel himself becoming calmer despite his suspicions towards the persistent singing, he even started to feel a little pleased. Not long after, a figure walked out of the lake and stood at its edge. Under the light of the moon as well as Nick's own flashlight, he saw an extremely beautiful woman. She had long, lustrous black hair, white, pale skin, dark eyes and a voluptuous body with the right curves but that was not all.
(Why is she naked? Well...she did just come out of the lake, maybe she was taking a bath.)
Something felt wrong about that line of thinking to Nick but he was feeling so soothed at this time that he ignored his doubts almost completely. He quickly asked:
"Who are you, miss?"
The woman did not speak but instead carefully walked up to Nick. Despite how calm he was feeling, Nick did not forget the nature of this exam and shouted:
"Don't come any closer or things will get unpleasant!"
The naked woman stopped walking in response to Nick's declaration and then the singing that Nick heard became louder. The naked woman took her right hand and squeezed her own right breast, then took her left hand and gently stroked her vagina once for Nick to see. Nick was not sure what the woman's intentions were but he started to care less and less until soon, he did not care at all and his stance became visibly relaxed.
Once Nick's stance and expression became less hostile, the woman continued walking towards him, soon reaching directly in front of him.
(Why the hell am I so calm?)
Nick was having a hard time mustering any serious emotions and simply looked at the woman squarely in her big, charming eyes for a few moments. Suddenly, the woman stood on the tip of her toes as she gave Nick a kiss on the cheek. Nick became excited as he stared at the woman and as if on instinct, he reached out his right hand and grabbed her left butt cheek. Nick caressed her bottom for a few moments as his mind became increasingly overtaken by a soothing sensation; the woman said nothing in response. Soon, the crotch of his pants bulged and without any rational thought going through his mind, Nick used both of his arms to turn the woman around and lower her unto the ground.
Nick quickly threw his flashlight aside, unbuttoned his pants, taking it off and throwing it onto the ground and held his engorged penis in his right hand. As he stooped onto the ground to get on top of the woman who was silently lying on her belly, Nick positioned his penis, preparing to penetrate the woman from behind as he used his left hand to separate her butt cheeks. Before his penis could touch her flesh, however, Slade's voice sounded within Nick's mind like a deafening horn.
[Get a hold of yourself, fool, that is not a human!]
Nick frowned at being interrupted but his mind sobered by a large degree. He jumped up from his stooping position and stepped back, heeding Slade's warning without knowing exactly what was going on. The woman picked herself up from the ground in response to Nick's actions and looked at him in rage, sounding a shrill hiss.
Nick watched in horror as the woman transformed into a thin, bipedal, blue scaled creature with a heavily wrinkled face and needle like teeth.
(What kind of magic beast is this?)
The magic beast in front of Nick was covered in blue scales from its feet to the back of its bald head. Nick quickly summoned his morning wyvern bone sword from his space band and held it in front of himself. The scene looked a little comical since he was only wearing his t-shirt and underpants with a visible bulge still present on his lower half.
(Sigh, I've literally been caught with my pants down. I never thought that I would experience something like this.)
The magic beast stood about two meters away from Nick and turned slightly in order to make hissing noises towards the lake. The singing that had been persistent up to that point suddenly stopped and the water became turbulent as a magic beast came out of the lake. The magic beast was over one meter tall and covered in long, shaggy hair, only its scarlet colored eyes being visible. The magic beast walked towards its obvious companion while staring at the flashlight that Nick had thrown to the ground which was still shining brightly.
Nick saw that and cursed inwardly.
(So these damn things came out of the lake because of the light from my flashlight. Shit!)
The hairy magic beast soon turned its attention towards Nick as it stood beside its companion and an almost childish, human voice sounded:
"Please be our food!"
Nick replied with clear embarrassment on his face:
"Fuck you!"
(Sever.)
Nick cast his spell while swinging his sword in a wide arc.
The two magic beasts seemed surprised by Nick's power but the blue scaled magic beast's scales shone and it crossed its arms in front of its face, trying to protect its head from possible attack; Sever's power only chipped away a few dozen of the magic beast's scales located on its upper abdomen, leaving a shallow cut in its skin. The hairy magic beast was not so lucky, however, as it seemed to have no real defense; Sever's power cut it in half horizontally at its midsection but before its body completely fell to the ground, it sounded a shrill scream that Nick felt attack his soul:
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK"
Despite Nick's relatively strong soul, he coughed out two mouthfuls of blood and bled from his eyes in response to hearing the scream. The hairy magic beast's two halves then fell onto the ground, lifeless, and bleeding greenish blood. The blue scaled magic beast hissed at Nick and opened its mouth to show its needle like teeth; it then ran towards him on its two legs as its teeth and fingernails extended. Nick didn't hesitate in his response, he swung his sword again.
(Sever.)
The magic beast slashed its fingernails at Nick's attack and stepped back by about five steps as Sever's power clashed with it and then dissipated. Nick used this chance to cast his other spell:
(Blink.)
Nick disappeared and reappeared behind the magic beast and cast another spell:
(Soul Pressure.)
The magic beast's movement visibly slowed a bit and Nick cast his next two spells while at the same time swinging his sword towards the magic beast's left side:
(Reinforce With Soul.)
(Cleave.)
A thin miasma covered the blade of Nick's sword as a sharp, penetrating aura emanated from it, cutting into the magic beast's side as Nick's sword crashed into it. Nick's sword cut through the magic beast like a knife going through butter, cutting the magic beast in half, horizontally at the midsection.
Nick watched as it fell to the ground in two halves, appearing to gasp for breath. Nick looked at it disdainfully and flicked his left index finger.
(Sever.)
The magic beast's head was quickly removed from its neck and it died with a grudgeful expression. Nick quickly ran to his flashlight that was on the ground and turned it off. He then moved to store the two magic beasts' carcasses in his space band and retreated to his safe-house.
Nick slumped onto the floor after locking the door and breathed in deeply.
"That was...crazy. I almost had sex with a magic beast."
Slade's laughter reverberated in Nick's mind.
[Kid, you really need to be more careful out there. Your map detailed that mostly soul path and water path magic beasts inhabit the lake but did not go into detail about the other kinds of magic beasts that could possibly appear. It did not even mention that they could be provoked by artificial light.]
Nick nodded his head. The blue scaled magic beast was clearly of the transformation path and the hairy magic beast was related to both soul and sound path based on its methods that it used on Nick but he knew that those details weren't the most important.
"Those two magic beasts worked together in order to deal with me. They were fairly intelligent."
Slade remarked:
[That's not typical for rank two magic beasts but it is not so strange either. You should should know by now, when magic is involved, anything can happen.]
Nick sighed and picked himself up.
"I'm going to start doing what I came here for."
Near to the middle of the safe-house, there was a silver, metal table bolted onto the ground and Nick walked up to it and quickly summoned the severed carcasses of the two dead magic beasts that he had killed from his space band. He also summoned a surgical knife and started cutting into the carcasses
(I hope than I can learn something.)
**********************************
The next morning, Nick dropped his bloody surgical knife onto the metal table and looked at the dismembered carcasses of two magic beasts. He sighed heavily, saying:
"I learned nothing."
Nick went to the bathroom and washed his hands and face, then sat down at his desk to have a meal. After he was done, he contemplated:
"It was my hope that by dissecting carcasses, I could learn more about magic beasts, at least more about ways that I could effectively kill them but I guess two magic beasts are not enough."
Nick chuckled to himself, knowing that should have been obvious. Nick spoke to Slade eagerly:
"Uncle Slade, I'm ready to learn that mystical language that you mentioned before. What kind of mystical language is it, anyway?"
Slade answered listlessly:
[It's just a language that I picked up on one of my visits to a weak high class realm, much like Grand Earth. It's very general like Valteese and does not have a strong connection to any one type of magic, unlike your Nickel for rule magic. I'm going to place the words that I know into your thoughts as well as their translated, Valteese counterparts. It will be up to you to learn and use them though.]
Nick responded:
"Okay, what's the name of the mystical language?"
Slade replied:
[Its name is Krepke.]
Nick nodded and said:
"I'm ready to learn."
Slade acted and filled Nick's mind with information regarding Krepke which included words and its grammatical rules. Nick thought:
(Hmmm...these words do look similar to the ones in my formation path inheritance but with some noticeable differences. Learning a language isn't typically easy even if you know the words involved so I have to work hard.)
Nick began by spending the next few hours writing the Krepke words that he now knew and translating them to Valteese and then to English, hoping to get a better feel for the language. When he was done studying the language, he began to study his various inheritances, focusing on his soul path inheritance since that was the one that he understood the most and planned to spend the next few months thoroughly learning. The inheritance seemed as voluminous as an encyclopedia, so going through it in its entirety would take a lot of time.
Nick studied until nightfall when he decided to go to the lake to try to attract magic beasts that he could kill and then dissect. Nick had already cleaned up the mess from dissecting the last two magic beasts so he grabbed his flashlight and left his safe-house, heading to the lake.
(When I came to this place, I planned to lure out magic beasts from the lake by launching a few attacks at it but based on what happened the other night, it seems that artificial sources of light provoke the magic beasts or at least attract them.)
Nick positioned himself about two meters away from the lake and turned on his flashlight, pointing it into the distance as it shone brightly.
(I wonder if I would be affected by the same kind of magic that soothed me last night if another one of those hairy magic beasts appeared.)
Nick did not have any defenses against sound path and after analyzing the events of last night, Nick realized that the sound path magic beast's method actually used sound path to affect and calm his soul, making him less suspicious of the strange situation.
(Magic beasts are very interesting. I don't think that those magic beasts from last night actually used spells like the shadow goblins that I encountered before. What they did seemed like they were using innate powers that they possessed.)
Nick read that some magic beasts could display innate magical powers even at low levels and others could somehow form mindscapes and cast spells while others could do neither. One thing was for certain though, all rank 3 magic beasts were able to effectively use magic, whether they were innate powers, spells or a combination of both.
Soon the lake water became turbulent as something reached out from under the water and slithered onto the lake bank. Nick turned off his flashlight, stored it in his space band and readied himself, summoning his sword. He did not actually need the flashlight to see as the moonlight shone strongly enough; Nick cast Blink and appeared a few meters away from his original position. A magic beast that looked like a green boa constrictor with two different heads separated from each other starting at its midsection slithered towards Nick slowly as it extended its tongue from its mouth.
(I wonder what kind of magic beast this is.)
Nick flicked his right index finger at the magic beast.
(Sever.)
The magic beast stopped in its tracks as Nick's spell was launched at one of its heads. Without much resistance, the head that received the attack was soon severed from the rest of the body, flying to the side tragically. The remaining head looked at the bleeding wound left behind by the attack as dark green blood oozed out of the wound. The magic beast extended its tongue out of its mouth and the wound began to steam and recover, eventually forming another head. Nick looked on with wide opened eyes as he witnessed this.
(Self-regeneration. God damn, that's cool. Fine, since cutting you up will likely be troublesome...Soul Pressure.)
The magic beast's movements stopped for a moment then it continued slithering towards Nick, slowly.
(This thing has resistance to my soul path spell. Hmmm...)
Nick cast his next spell:
(Blink.)
Nick disappeared and reappeared at the magic beast's right side and swung his sword with his right hand.
(Cleave.)
The magic beast's right head was cut off and as it turned its left head to face its enemy, Nick cast another spell, staring into its all white eyes.
(Ghost Eyes.)
Nick and the magic beast maintained eye contact for quite a while until Nick coughed out a mouthful of blood and cast Blink, appearing over six meters away from the magic beast. Nick thought:
(This is definitely a soul path magic beast. Not only does it have a strong resistance to my soul path methods, the strength of its soul is actually on par with mine, it might even be stronger than mine.)
Nick watched the magic beast warily as it shook its head madly. Soon, it stopped shaking its head and looked at Nick with clear hostility; Nick had clearly upset it by attacking its soul. Nick watched on as the wound that he had created on the magic beast regenerated and a new head grow. Suddenly, the magic beast slithered at an alarming speed and reached Nick's position in a matter of moments; it used its broad tail to slap at Nick and it did so at such a speed that Nick did not see the attack clearly before he was sent flying.
Nick was lifted off the ground by the force of the attack and crashed into the ground four meters away from where he had been standing but he immediately picked himself up and went on the attack.
(Blink.)
Nick appeared behind the magic beast and cast his spells:
(Reinforce With Soul.)
(Cleave.)
Nick swung his sword viciously in a horizontal line as a sharp power emanated from its blade. Sensing the danger, the magic beast quickly turned around and lifted its tail in front of its two heads in an attempt to block the attack but the power of Nick's spell cut through its tail and severed both of its heads from the rest of its body. Nick was about to cast Cleave again, expecting the magic beast to self-regenerate the next moment but that did not happen, the magic beast's body lied on the ground bleeding profusely with no movement besides some slight spasming; it appeared to be completely lifeless.
"So I had to cut off both heads in order to kill it, it's over."
Nick quickly stored the still bleeding carcass into his space band and retreated into his safe house. He took a shower and meditated for a few hours before he fell asleep from exhaustion. When Nick woke up the next morning, he washed his face and immediately began dissecting the carcass of the magic beast that he killed the night before; this took a few hours of his time.
"Magic beasts' skin and flesh seem to lose some of their toughness after the magic beast dies. Although I'm using surgical knives enhanced with magic, the dissection went fairly well despite how relatively difficult it was to kill that magic beast."
Nick thought for a moment, before saying:
"Maybe the carcass loses certain laws after the magic beast dies and loses some of its properties as a result."
Nick felt that that was close to the truth. He cleaned up the table and put away the tools hat he used to dissect the carcass. Nick had assumed that he would be doing all kinds of experimentation when he came to this realm so he bought and stored a variety of tools in his space band before exam day. Nick showered and then spent the rest of the morning learning the language, Krepke, followed by going through his soul path inheritance.
At around midday, there was a disturbance that caused him to stop his studying.
HHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNKKKKKKKKKK!
An alarm went off inside the safe-house so Nick went to the surveillance hub of the safe-house and used the surveillance system's interface to determine what the problem was.
(Hmmm...apparently, the ranged motion sensors attached to the safe-house detected the presence of a large group of living beings approaching the area. Those sensors work for a twenty meter radius so the group should be close.)
"The cameras haven't caught sight of the group just yet so should I wait inside here or do I store the safe-house and hide?"
Nick contemplated for a few moments before making a decision.
"I'd rather not end up surrounded by other Magicians or magic beasts while in here. In that case, if the group turns out to have ill-intentions, to escape I might have to abandon the safe-house and that would be unacceptable."
Nick steeled his resolve and left the safe-house, storing it in his space band.
(Clear Space.)
Nick cast one of his space path spells which made him indiscernible in the space around him, as if he was not there. Nick quickly ran to the nearest tree and climbed it, using one of its low, thick branches as a seat and waited for the group to show itself.
About a minute later, a group of twelve humans walked out of the nearby woods and went closer to the lake. Nick watched them with rapt attention and realized that they were a party of soldiers from the Ministry of Magic as they were uniformed and appeared to be older than Nick. One of the males who had a head of dull gray hair spoke as the group stopped near the lake.
"Alright, we'll camp here for today and continue eastward tomorrow."
Another male from the group responded:
"Why the hell don't we just continue making our way to the gorge and camp at sundown, Samuel?"
The man who looked to be in his early forties with a head full of gray hair replied:
"We left Shelter Town a few days ago and have been working tirelessly since then so I need to ensure that all our equipment is still in working order before we continue to the gorge, if not, someone will have to go back to Shelter Town to requisition more equipment."
A woman that looked to be in her early twenties spoke:
"That should be obvious George, why are you asking stupid questions considering that we have done this so many times? You just want to hurry us so you can go back to Shelter Town and gamble with your friends."
George, who had asked Samuel the earlier question became red faced at having his intentions said out loud and reprimanded:
"Tracy, I'm your senior so you should speak to me with more respect. I'm just making sure that we are not wasting time like what any responsible Magician would do."
Tracy replied with a smirk:
"Oh yeah, sure big guy, whatever you say."
Before George could continue his back and forth with Tracy, Samuel interrupted:
"Tracy, stop teasing George and get ready to inspect the equipment. I know that you're our only mechanic but I need you to do it before nightfall."
Tracy saluted, saying with a smile:
"Yes, sir!"
Samuel nodded his head and said:
"But before all that, I need to make sure that our little friend over there doesn't have any ill-intentions."
Suddenly, Samuel pointed his right index finger at the tree that Nick was resting on and the tree started to move, first its branches moved towards Nick and hugged him firmly, preventing him from moving. Nick found that Clear Space had somehow been cancelled and that he was unable to cast any spells or release his magic power and he panicked internally.
(What the fuck is going on?)
The trees roots were violently ripped out of the ground as they seemed to form two legs that allowed the tree to walk towards the group of soldiers. The tree had a relatively slim trunk and was only eight meters tall; it moved at a quick pace and only took a couple of minutes to arrive in front of the group. Its branches moved to lower the trapped Nick in front of the soldiers at which point Samuel stepped forward and asked with a genial but imposing smile:
"How are you doing, friend?"