207 In the Valley

Crack!

Bearing with the pain, Valentine snapped his broken leg back into position. Although it was agonizing, it was incomparable to the pain he felt during the rituals, so he did it with relative ease. However, even after realigning his broken leg, he still couldn't walk normally; he needed time for it to recover. The same was also true for his broken nose.

"G, do you think our injury will be gone once we return to our original appearance?"

Valentine was pushing his bent nose to realign the bone while blood kept coming out of it. Rood's nose was definitely longer than his, now that he had a chance to take a closer look at it. Even though he pushed really hard, in the end, it was still slightly bent, and there was nothing he could do. He wiped the blood using the bottom of his shirt once he was finished.

"We know that if we suffer injuries and we transform into someone, the injury will be gone. But does it work the other way around?"

With the help of his cane, Valentine got up and looked around. He was currently in a narrow valley, with walls of rocks all around him. There was no way he could climb back up in that condition. On top of that, the woman must still be up there, enjoying the leaves around her.

"Anyway, who is that woman... You're still unconscious, eh, G? She must be a Thief, but much stronger than Luuk if she could steal body parts like that,"

Valentine began walking in one direction which he had chosen randomly. Unlike Graham, he didn't have the whole layout of the city memorized, so he didn't know where he was going. He just went whichever way he liked. Besides, he currently couldn't switch with Graham because his other half was still under the influence of the cane and fell unconscious for the remaining six hours.

"You left me with nothing I can use inside Purloin, G. How does this cane work, anyway? You lost interest in consciousness and then you fall asleep? Does that mean your mind and body just magically decided not to remain conscious anymore? Then, this cane is really dangerous. But at least you could fight it off for a while,"

The rock walls around him were getting taller and the path that Valentine was walking on became wider. He still couldn't see what was on top of the cliff, and ahead of him, he could only see walls of rock. He had no other choice but to keep walking.

The tall man limping with a cane was walking down the gorge that was widening into a valley. Slowly, Valentine could start to see something other than rocks ahead of him. There was a small river decorated with boulders, some kind of forest that went all the way up, and more rock walls surrounding him.

"At least if we were trapped here, we wouldn't die of hunger or thirst, heheh," he amused himself.

Valentine walked closer to the tallest boulder and tried to climb it. His left leg made it difficult for him, but with the help of the cane, he finally made it. From the top of the boulder, he began looking around.

The river flew from the direction where he came from and went downstream ahead. If he followed it, he would probably be able to reach the city, although he didn't remember seeing any river so far.

The forest looked endless and it went steep uphill. It didn't seem to be the right way to go if he wanted to return to the city. However, something in the forest caught his attention. Although his eyes were not as good as Graham's they were still enhanced, and from there, he could see something like a cave hidden behind overgrown vines. If he hadn't encountered something similar back then when he was exploring with Luuk, he wouldn't have noticed that it was a cave.

"That's our destination, G," he said decisively without even worrying about his condition.

Valentine slid down the boulder and landed safely on the ground. Before continuing his journey, he did a quick wash in the river, as well as drank some of the water to quench his thirst. The water tasted very fresh and cold, just what he needed.

Without wasting any more time, Valentine started heading for the forest. At that moment, he suddenly felt his skin grew all itchy. The two-hour duration of Graham's transformation was up, so he was returning to his original appearance. Also, it reminded him that he still had four hours to go until the negative effect of the cane affecting him wore off.

He became three centimeters shorter and the large scar on his face disappeared. His body also became less muscular, although it was still pretty toned. He also noticed that his nose had completely returned to normal, not bent anymore. However, the pain was still there. As for his left leg, it was still as injured as before.

"So our appearance returns to normal, but injuries persist," he concluded.

Crunch...

The satisfying sound of dry leaves being crushed by his shoes filled the silent forest. Ants and other small crawlies began scurrying away to safety in the presence of the giant creature invading their territory.

Crunch! Crunch!

Valentine deliberately stepped on the leaves because he liked the sounds they were making.

After walking for almost fifteen minutes, he finally reached the destination; overgrown vines blocking the entrance to a cave. He pushed the vines away with his cane and entered the cave confidently without even being careful in the slightest despite it being an unknown territory.

If it was cold outside, it was even colder inside the cave. It was also damp and smelled like moss. He felt like a layer of a cold sheet was covering his whole body as he walked deeper into the cave. Luckily, the cave floor was not slippery, so he could walk easily with the help of his cane.

Using his night vision, he could see well in the cave that appeared to have not been touched by the sunlight in ages. Valentine perked up his ears to try to hear any sounds coming from deeper inside the cave, but there were only the sounds of water dripping, and nothing else.

"What do you think we'll find here, G?" his voice echoed in the cave.

As he walked, he began to notice that the wall on his left had become flatter and deeper inside, some murals were drawn on it. He touched it and felt the rough texture of the wall that felt almost like concrete.

Valentine stopped in front of what seemed to be the center of the murals. It depicted a bubbly gray skull, something that looked like a war machine but pale pink in color, a white bird that looked strange, a traffic cone, and a dark-skinned woman in white with a heart as her skirt. The art style was all bubbly with only limited sharp edges, and it was all colorful, although the color had mostly faded.

The skull, the woman, the bird, and the war machine were the images that were the most prominent in the mural. Besides them, there were a lot of tiny skulls on the bottom right that looked like they were the dead being sucked into the afterlife. Valentine also noticed that under the war machine, there was an upside-down smiling rabbit that looked very out of place. If he hadn't paid attention, he would have missed it since it was practically the same color as the background now.

"I don't understand this. This wall feels like a building instead of a cave, and this painting looks more like a wall art that youngsters often do. But why is it here?"

Feeling curious, Valentine concentrated on the mural in front of him.

"I ask that you reveal your secrets to me!"

Bzzz...

Instead of illusory text, Valentine heard the sound of static that usually came from the Television at midnight when there was no more broadcast. It rang in his ears, so he covered them. However, the ringing seemed to be coming from inside him so even after covering his ears, he still heard the loud noise.

After a while, the noise disappeared and everything returned to normal. His ability had failed.

"I can't use reveal on this wall. There must be a hidden meaning then..."

Valentine tapped around his jacket and was relieved to find what he was looking for. Thankfully, Graham was always prepared. The small notebook and the pen had been stuffed inside the inner pocket of his leather jacket.

"Thanks, G," he said as he began copying the mural down to his notebook. Not long after, there was a beautiful drawing that was pretty similar to the mural on the wall, minus the colors. In its place, he had written some notes about the actual colors.

Once he was done, Valentine stuffed the tiny notebook back inside his pocket and continued to walk deeper into the cave. So far, there had been no creature residing inside except for bats that were still sleeping and insects crawling on the walls, that had returned to the texture of normal cave walls. There was also no longer any mural painted on them.

The path of the cave was very straightforward without any forks or intersections, which made exploring it easy. It then reminded him of the cave back in the north of Sloten, which had branches that he hadn't explored yet. He was sure to come back once he got stronger since the paths were leaking danger.

Valentine had walked for about twenty minutes before he reached a dead end.

"What are those?"

There were two small round objects lying on the ground in the corner of the cave where the wall blocked his path. One of them was brown in color and looked very solid, while the other one was black and looked like it was melting a little. Valentine didn't feel any spiritual energy coming from the objects, but they were completely out of place. Besides that, he also felt that Purloin was nudging him for some reason.

Looking at the brown round object first, Valentine began speaking.

"I ask you to reveal your secrets to me!"

Illusory letters began appearing into existence above the object on the cave floor. The letters then form a text that was readable after a while.

'Brown fragment of a Thief. Can be used to upgrade Purloin with the help of a Transmuter. If used, it will increase the number of times copied abilities can be used by two, and it increases the success rate of copying an ability. It will also slightly increase the effectiveness of a copied ability to match that of the real one. If this is taken, the black fragment of a Thief will be broken.'

Valentine was pleasantly surprised by what he found, but then he looked at the other object, which should be the black fragment mentioned by the text. It seemed that he could only choose one of the two, so he wanted to check the effect of that one first before making his decision.

After using Reveal on the black melting object, a text appeared above it.

'Black fragment of a Thief. Can be used to upgrade Purloin with the help of a Transmuter. If used, it will increase the slot of copied abilities to a total of four, and it will slightly reduce the cost of using copied abilities, as well as the original ability if possessed. If this is taken, the brown fragment of a Thief will be broken.'

Valentine sat on the ground with his left leg straight to avoid the pain while his arms were crossed. He was thinking hard about which fragment he had to choose since both offered a different kind of upgrade.

"G, which one do you think I should take? Do we need more uses and a higher success rate of copying or more abilities at a reduced cost? This is a very difficult choice."

He then lied down on the cave floor. The cold, hard floor touched his back and sent a chill down his body.

"Right now, we can only use copied abilities twice. If it is increased, doesn't it mean once it's reset, we can use Intensify four times? And also, the higher success rate will make it much easier for us to copy and ability, won't it? On top of that, it increases the effectiveness of the ability, which can be very useful. As of now, the Intensify that we can use is only half as powerful as the original one."

Valentine's voice echoed in the dark corridor with two objects the size of a small ball lying on the floor.

"But, if we can copy a total of four abilities, we will have more diversity. Also, the cost of my Mass Illusion is too much, so if the belt reduced its cost, we can use it longer. We can also use it to reduce the cost of your Thought Implant if we copy it to the belt. Why can't we just take both of them...?"