Chương 67: Chapter 66: Unexpected Encounter

Thalion walked through the streets. The base had grown a lot after the system shop. Kael must have invested a lot of credits. He got a message from Kael that they would be meeting this evening and maybe discussing some things and then going to hunt some beasts. Thalion would probably skip hunting in groups since it was already known that you get more experience from hunting alone, and he was more than fine alone.

Of course, if someone asked him to help out, he would do so, but he mostly would work on his skills rather than killing the beasts. If there was danger, his reflexes were so fast that it shouldn't be a problem. He, of course, would help more if the others wouldn't manage, but he wanted to grow as much as possible from the fight. He arrived at one of the alchemist shops. It was the same as with the smiths. In one of the shops, an entire street opened up with additional shops inside.

Just marvelous how space worked with the buildings from the system. There weren't even runes, at least none he could spot. Thalion entered the first shop. It looked small from the outside, but on the inside, it was the size of a supermarket. Plants were growing everywhere. It was pure chaos. On the other end, a middle-aged woman sat in front of two cauldrons. The green steam that exited both smelled like bad and almost hurt his nose.

"Who are you? I have a lot to do," the woman said in a sharp tone after noticing him.

"Hi, I am Thalion. Who are you?" Thalion answered while walking up to the woman.

"I am Zyra, and you are not the guy who was one of the most important fighters against the orcs. Your aura is too weak," Zyra sneered.

"Leave my shop. I don't want to get scammed."

"This was unexpected," Thalion thought. Should he leave? He didn't want to show off in front of the woman. She could tell others about his fighting power if she had mastered aura reading to such a degree. But he decided against it. He still got some crystals from Kael that should be enough to prove his point.

"I am not going to show off my powers, and I have access to a lot of resources you could be interested in," Thalion said calmly.

"Hm, okay, good enough for now. So what do you want?" Zyra asked with suspicion.

"I got a lot of plants that, on consumption, give you a higher affinity for darkness. Can you make the effect stronger, and how are you doing that?" Thalion asked, interested.

"Sure, I can do that. On to how—it's mostly magic circles and a process where I remove the imperfections," Zyra said.

"How much do you have, and what are you paying?"

"So you infuse it with mana through the magic circles?" Thalion wondered.

"On the payment, what do you want? I thought it was impossible to transfer credits."

"If you really were Thalion, you wouldn't need to pay me. Since you are not, you need to bring additional plants and attuned crystals. You can find a list on the wall over there," Zyra said while pointing to the side.

"Hey, I am Thalion!" Thalion exclaimed.

"Why would I get it for free?"

"Well, because you are close to Kael, and we have to support the top powerhouses of the city because they are actually protecting us," Zyra said, her chin held high.

"I heard Thalion can transform into an eagle, so why don't you just prove it now?" she added with a smile on her face.

"How widespread is that information?" Thalion asked. Well, it was not really a secret; he had transformed into eagly in front of a lot of fighters—not all of them—but it was still interesting how many knew.

"I guess everyone. Thalion is a very mysterious figure since he is almost never seen and hunts alone. To my knowledge, a lot of rumors are spreading, so why don't you transform now or pay me?" Zyra said, still smiling with confidence that she had won. Thalion decided to end her amusement and transformed into eagly, which made the alchemist fall off her chair with a surprised yelp.

"Enough proof," Thalion said after transforming back into his human form.

"Yes, that's enough. It's an honor to meet you. Please just bring me the ingredients and tell me exactly what you want from me," Zyra said after a quick bow.

"Come down; no need to be this formal," Thalion laughed, watching the woman staring at him, as if she wanted to gather every secret he was carrying around.

"Ah, really?" Zyra said, clearly unsure of what to think of him.

"Yeah, relax. Why do you even have so much respect? I don't really have an important position in the fortress. I just help friends," Thalion shrugged.

"You are joking, right?" Zyra said in disbelief.

"No, I am not," Thalion answered. Was he really an important figure in the base?

"You really think you don't have an important position?" Zyra exclaimed.

"You know that a lot of people saw you killing the orcs like they were insects. The one orc who came by the last day said you were a demon and even stronger than their chieftain."

"Well, that's probably a bit exaggerated. What other rumors are spreading about me at the moment?" Thalion asked. He really didn't want to stay in the spotlight. Thalion still wasn't sure if telling Kael and the others that he was a shapeshifter was the right decision after all.

"Not many. Some are saying that you are blessed by some extremely powerful god. Ah, and there are the shapeshifters who are claiming that they would defeat you in a real fight," Zyra said with excitement.

"Interesting. What were those shapeshifters doing since the fight? I heard nothing good about them," Thalion asked.

"Yes, they are annoying. They were even demanding from another alchemist that he should only work for them since their contribution in the fight was so great," Zyra said with annoyance.

"By the way, how does the shapeshift class work?" Zyra asked.

"They are claiming that it is by far the strongest class, and since you are one too, something about it must be true, right?"

"Depends on what class they have. Basically, you can take the form of a beast after you kill it," Thalion explained.

"The good thing is that you can get a fast power-up when you take the form of a strong beast, but you need to be comfortable in your forms, which can be difficult." The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"I see. Do you think you can beat them? They will come after you at some point if they don't stop telling people that they are stronger than you," Zyra said with worry.

"I saw them, and I think I will be fine, especially if a skilled alchemist is helping me out," Thalion said with a smile.

"Great! So what do you need, and how many materials do you have? You are lucky; I have a lot of free time at the moment, and I would rather make stuff for you than for those shapeshifters," Zyra stated.

"Everything is here in these crystals. Though, if you have stuff that can boost lightning and wind affinity, I would take that too," Thalion said while giving Zyra the crystal filled with the stuff Michael and his followers had gathered. Zyra opened her eyes wide in surprise when she saw the mountains of plants stacked in the crystals.

"That's a lot, but I should be able to finish all of it tomorrow," Zyra said, still with a wide look.

"How did you get that many?"

"That is not so important. Can you share the magic circle you are using? That could help me a lot," Thalion asked. If he could use it to recover his mana faster, his cultivation would speed up a lot.

"Maybe some other time. With this, I have a lot to do for today. I should be finished with this around tomorrow midday," Zyra said, deep in thought. After a bit more talking about preparing plants and affinities, he left the shop. Zyra was probably right; those shapeshifters would definitely become a problem in the future. Next, he wanted to check on the smith. He didn't have much time until the meeting, and going hunting would probably not be worth it.

When Thalion was approaching his shop, he could already smell the smoke from the fire, and the sound of a hammer hitting metal was heard even outside. The smith, who went by the name Lucan, was hammering on a breastplate. Thalion understood that it was not only to form and strengthen the material; the smith was also pushing a lot of mana into the plate. The armor was so powerful it almost had its own aura.

A fter a bit of hammering, Lucan noticed Thalion, and after a bit of talking, Thalion also started hammering on one of the great swords he had taken from the orcs. He wanted to make the big, clumsy great sword into a two-handed sword like the crusader had used, combining speed and power in one weapon. Lucan was giving pointers here and there on how to swing the hammer to get more force into the blow.

In the end, it was just practice for Thalion until he would get his hands on better material or until he made one himself. He already knew from his further purchases in the system shop how to extract essence from the material, and fuse it with the new material to strengthen its properties. After an hour of work, he got the sword down to a length of one and a half meters, plus the handle, and tested it by cooling it down. He did the first and second forms he learned in swordsmanship, and it didn't feel good at all.

His mana blade was lighter and more powerful by far than his crafted weapon. It was also purely balanced, which made it very difficult to control the swing. So he tried to alter the form of the blade, making it a bit slimmer and the handle a bit longer, and he immediately felt the difference when he swung the weapon; it was already way better. Lucan had watched him and came over after finishing with his piece, even gifting him some materials to integrate into the blade that would make it harder and lighter.

He also taught him a few runes that would store mana in the blade, strengthening the material by absorbing the mana from the air itself. It took them over four hours to carve the runes all over his weapon. After that time was up, he needed to get going if he didn't want to be late to Kael's meeting. He left the sword at Lucan's smithy to slowly absorb mana until he had time to work on it again. He left when the sky already began to darken.

Thalion had promised to look out for nice materials for Lucan when he was out hunting, and he gave the smith all the weapons and armor he had picked up from the orcs as thanks for all the help. The smith had promised him anyway to help him craft his weapon, so why not give something back? Lucan at first didn't want it, as he had already got experience for helping him and felt like he owed him after his big contribution in the fight against the orcs.

Crafters could level up by simply doing their craft, and to build good stuff for the people that ensured their safety was just natural these days, since they couldn't really sell it; there was no money they could trade with. Some solved the problem by demanding additional materials for their work, like Zyra, but for people who were often working in the guard or fighting for their lives, they didn't really care. Kael normally had a lot of people out to gather materials for the crafters so they could level fast.

Thalion took a deep breath of fresh air while looking into the clear sky; still no clouds or any sign that it would rain soon. He wondered what the others had done in the last few days. <-- Sylas was running through the jungle. Thalion was absolutely right with what he said: the only thing that mattered was strength, and he would become the strongest mage there was. His patron was almost delighted when he told him about his conversation with Thalion and fully agreed with his friend.

Sylas had the credits to buy two new skills from the system shop and a new robe that would amplify his powers even more and was just perfect for mages. But what else to expect? They were made by a mage god. It was just natural that they were extraordinary. He spent the whole day hunting; the only thing that stopped him was his mana, even when his equipment was recovering his mana pool very fast.

He wondered how Thalion could keep his cultivation speed up; the guy had no help from gods but was still stronger than Sylas himself. And that was just his human form; he wondered how powerful his other forms were. For now, he only knew about the Umbral Predator and the eagle, but he most likely had more. Sylas had heard about the shapeshifters in the city who were bragging about how many forms they had, so Thalion must have more than them; he was stronger after all.

Sylas ended his line of thought when he saw beasts in the distance; it was time for more hunting and leveling. He was already close to level forty, and most beasts couldn't really put up a fight. This sounded great, but his leveling speed was slow since they barely rewarded any experience. He wouldn't go out hunting for a while and would focus on his soul tempering or fighting style in the meantime. The beasts he was currently dashing to were spiders with long legs that ended in sharp spikes.

They had captured some deer-like beasts and were starting to devour them fast. It almost looked like the half-dissolved bodies of the beasts were sucked up to the small hairy mouths under their two giant fangs, which were dripping with blood. The spiders were not weak, and he needed to watch out; both were around level 38, which was already one level under him, and they both had strong auras. His patron had told him that it was more important to use his aura sense to find out the real strength of beasts.

Some beasts that were low level but were strong variants were much stronger than beasts of higher level that had a lower rarity race. Those spiders were strong, to say the least. When he came closer, they dropped their prey and spun around to face him. Did one of their eyes spot him, or was it the vibration in the air? Did he touch a part of their net? The last one was highly unlikely since they didn't have a net. At least he didn't see anything, and they also didn't use it to ensnare the beasts they had killed.

Sylas didn't waste any time and shot a windblade at the spider nearest to him. The spider, in turn, used two of its front legs, which were glowing with an almost red light, and stabbed at the wind blade, destroying it. The other four spiders were charging at him with incredible speed; this was probably not the best idea to fight all of them at once without a sneak attack against them. He used the wind to fly up while throwing lightning at the spiders, but one just shrugged it off while another dodged to the side.

Their auras continued to rise; this was getting worse by the second, he thought, while fueling his movement skill with more mana to increase his flying speed. He needed to escape; they were almost too organized for beasts approaching him fast from different directions. Sylas used his wind blades to cut off thicker branches the spiders were jumping on. This at least slowed them down enough for him to fly above the treetops and escape those beasts.

Maybe he could come back here with Thalion or one of the others to kill them. When beasts got too strong, they could be a serious threat to the survivors, especially to the non-fighting classes who were just out to find materials. Sylas threw multiple fireballs at the trees until they began burning. It wouldn't burn for long. Those trees would extinguish the fire soon, but the smoke would lead them the way when he came back with reinforcements.

Sylas wondered how much they had progressed since the last time he saw them.