“Thanks.” She completely ignored his glare before leaning forward and placing a kiss on his forehead.
‘Ugh… Get away from me, woman.’ Silas repulsed with a sense of disgust.
He wasn’t sure if he was being treated like a man or like a child, but either way, he couldn’t stand her touch after what the panic attack he was going to have when Greed came closer to him.
Sure, she didn’t do anything to him, but from her eyes alone he knew that she was bad news. And since Jessica was her underling, what stopped her from being the same as her leader?
Even the indication of her having any interest in children made him feel like puking.
“You’ve been a great help.” Jessica smiled before raising a brow at the sight of slight disgust on Silas’ face.
“What?” She tilted her head.
“Nothing.” Silas replied before turning to one of the men next to him.
“Do you have an extra cloak?” Silas asked.
“Yeah… Here.” The man took it out of the bag and gave it to Silas.
“You don’t mind if I rip it, right? I can buy you a new one.”
“It’s fine. Keep it.” The man waved it off.
It didn’t seem like they had any ill intentions toward him, and from what he could see through his mystic eyes, his heart rate didn’t seem to have changed.
‘Wait… Where did my axes go?’ Silas looked around but couldn’t see them.
He could remember having them in his hands when fighting against the python, but for some reason, he couldn’t remember if he had simply misplaced them or lost them.
‘Oh well.’ He used one of Jessica’s daggers to shorten the cloak before wearing it on top of his current clothes.
After Silas told them that he accidentally destroyed the poison they were supposed to collect, he expected them to complain or scream at him, but they simply accepted the fact it was gone. They didn’t even ask for the mana crystal he got from the python.
After burying Azure, the group chose to do a small ceremony where they prayed over their fallen comrade and eventually left.
‘I’d be burying all of them if they had butted in. Sure, Jessica could have probably survived the battle, but the rest don’t seem like they know how to actually fight against beasts.
The poison was too strong for them to survive even a second against the beast. Silas would have thought that they would have at least prepared something to fight against the python, but apparently not.
Technically, even he didn’t prepare anything, but that was because he was broke.
Plus, he already had a resistance to poison. What else could he have prepared to help him in that fight?
Looking to his right, Silas looked at the man carrying Azure’s staff.
It was a long staff with a dull sapphire crystal that shone with pulses of ocean blue. However, inside it, Silas could see a small orb made out of something light blue in color, indicating that the crystal had an affinity toward the water element.
“That’s an amazing staff… How did she even afford it.” Silas asked.
“It was probably a parting gift from her family, but the staff isn’t as good as it seems.” Jessica pointed out, causing Silas to shift his attention to her.
“These crystals are made by the kingdom and the empire. Those royal assholes take an onyx or garnet core, pump them full of a certain type of mana, and then send them out as if they are normal crystals.” Jessica spat.
“I mean… Sure, they do that but I don’t see the problem.” Silas shrugged.
“Their quality is a lot worse than the normal crystals of that level. The only reason someone would use one is to make tier 3 and 4 spells easier to cast due to the higher grade.
However, since they’re only pumping it with mana, not breaking the impurities away, its mana purity is awful. In some cases, the user of these crystals can even get mana poisoning.” Jessica rolled her eyes, but to Silas, the concept itself didn’t make sense.
Cultivation was the breaking down and expulsion of impurities. Why would the color of the crystal change if the impurities remained the same? It didn’t make sense.
‘Life told me about this as well… The staff my grandmother wields has one of those fake crystals. I always wondered how she could afford an emerald crystal, and I guess now I know…’ Silas thought to himself while making a mental note to do more research on this matter.
If he could understand how the kingdom did it, maybe he could create his own version of the device that created crystals that actually broke down the impurities.
“Why don’t people use human mana cores?” Silas finally asked, causing everyone to look at him weirdly.
“First off… Not only is that taboo in every kingdom, empire and nation on the face of Gilea, it is also considered forbidden magic and could sentence you and your entire family to execution.” Jessica spoke matter-of-factly, while the rest didn’t seem interested in this information at all since it was common knowledge.
“It’s because human mana cores work differently from best ones. Beasts essentially cultivate their body and core at the same time. Their mana core is connected to their body as if it was an organ necessary for survival. Pull it out and they’re dead.
Humans and other humanoid races like the beastkin and elves have mana cores that aren’t connected straight to our bodies, the same way a beast or monster is.
We have mana channels separate from our blood vessels. We don’t send mana to our muscles the same way they do. We have other ways of becoming physically stronger because we are intelligent.” Jessica was speaking with a little too much pride.
“Though, the main difference is that when we die, the mana core in our body becomes unusable and dissipates within a few minutes of death. Unless the core is taken out while a person is alive, or kept stable through a ritual or item after the person’s death, there is no way of retrieving the mana core of a human.” She explained as a morbid idea came into Silas’ mind.
However, before he could even think about the idea further, Silas felt the hairs at the back of his neck stand up.
It was the moment they stepped out of the forest, and even though his mystic eyes hadn’t picked up anything yet, he knew there was something extremely wrong.
“What’s wrong?” Jessica asked with a tilt of her head.
“Something… Something is wrong.” Silas looked around but he still couldn’t see anything.
But that’s when he saw it.
Small disturbances in the flow of mana through the air. It was something he would have never picked up on normally, but the shift was a little sudden.
The mana all around them was shifting and morphing.
It was weird. He couldn’t understand what was happening.
On the trees, on the ground, and even in the air.
Silas increased the mana being sent to his eyes by a large amount, and then he finally saw it.
his blazing emerald eyes saw over 40 individuals, each and every single one of them holding a blade of some kind, surrounding the entire team and getting ready to slaughter them.
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