48 Expedition 3

The sun was shining brightly, and they had reached a forbidden region called Blackened Hill, a place that all travellers avoided on purpose, be it merchants, mercenaries or even armies. The environment was unbearable due to the high temperature, and there were many insects that were lethal to normal human beings.

Fortunately, beastmen had unique constitution and tough skin that greatly reduced the harm they could get from these insects. However, these weren't your average insects. They were called Batchus, some sort of mosquitoes that had mutated due to the high concentration of mana. A single sting was enough to fall severely ill.

If you had less than three points of constitution or suffered from special conditions, your odds of survival upon stepping in the Blackened Hills were close to zero. Three rank 1 acolytes died in their sleep, stung by one of these Batchus insects that were classified as rank 1 magical beast despite their small size.

For some reasons, these insects tended to avoid strong acolytes. It was as if they were afraid of the truly powerful ones. Drake's lies might deceive Marianne and the other acolytes, but it couldn't deceive the instincts of these insects. They avoided him like the plague, preferring to feast on the harmless acolytes that were helpless and panicked at their sight.

One's weakness is another's strength. The more damage Marianne's expedition team received, the better it was from Drake's point of view. It meant that even if the expedition was successful, the less likely she would become a magus. If she became a magus before him, she would be able to break the contract and only suffer a minor backlash. If that happened, it would be the end of his journey, even if he flew to the outskirts of Barnolia.

"How many?", Marianne said in an overbearing voice.

The Beastman captain, who had Half-grand knight cultivation, said in a frightened voice: "Thirty-two, my lady. I am afraid that only 32 beastmen, including me, will be able to participate in the laboratory raid. But if we proceed and enter the laboratory, I am afraid that those who are ill will not survive with the magical beasts wandering around-"

"Who am I?", Marianne simply replied

"You are…the leader of this expedition, my lady"

"Indeed, I am. If I say to leave them to die, you leave them to die. Focus on leading your useless subordinates, and let us hurry and finish this. We have lost too many already. If we delay this expedition, the losses will only grow", she said.

This decisiveness, this cold bloodedness.

It was pity to have turned her into his enemy, but it would only make the victory more satisfying. A fitting opponent indeed.

"Jane, have figured out how to open this freaking door yet?", Marianne asked in a gentle voice this time. Although she was frustrated, she would never treat a fellow disciple of her grandfather like the beastman she just humiliated publicly.

Drake's subordinates were watching from the side lines, in horror. They had grown a bit confident after following Drake, but they had never seen someone as strong as the Beastman Captain being subdued and mistreated like that so openly.

'She is on a whole new level…'

Marianne Deville indeed lived up to her infamous nickname: the Devil.

"Yes…I already did break this puzzle once…I just need to focus a bit more and I will remember the combination!", she replied in a nonchalant voice.

Drake squinted.

Over the past three months of talking and interacting with the disciples of Magus Jackal, Drake gathered a list of suspicious behaviours and slip-ups from them. Despite being a rank 2 acolyte, a young one furthermore, her attributes were very high.

Drake mistook her for a grade 4 talent at first, because she had extensive knowledge and incredible mastery over her spells. However, he later on learnt that she was just a grade 2 talent, and didn't even encounter some 'extraordinary' opportunities, like consuming a heavenly grass or drinking a divine elixir that raised spirit.

She somehow…suddenly became someone much more knowledgeable and stronger. It was as if she became a new person, one day. Drake then found out that despite meditating on a daily basis, she didn't make progress and instead relied on a very strange method that consisted in her doing a witch ritual every time there was a full moon. After every ritual, she would experience tremendous pain even though she never screamed, and her spirit would be enhanced.

Next, her sudden interest in his background, childhood and stuff���It was as if she was more interested at his existence rather than his talent or knowledge. And now, she was talking about remembering something…

This was enough to confirm Drake's suspicions: She had reincarnated. Because no one realized it before and because she fit in Helios so well, to the point of being taken in by Magus Jackal, Drake thought that she had reincarnated into her own past self. He ignored what level she had achieved in the other timeline, but it seemed like she only inherited part of her memories and future personality.

And now, she was struggling on a typical grade 2 magical lock.

Drake approached Marianne: "If you gave me some sort of magical artefact, as I said two days ago…I could always open this door to you!"

Two days had passed since they arrived at the location, and every day, there would be a few deaths, mostly from beastmen, but acolytes were starting to succumb to the insect swarms now. It couldn't go on.

Magical artefact cost at least 150 magic crystals, but in reality, even if you had twice this amount, you wouldn't necessarily get your hands on one. Magical artefacts were fundamentally different from enchanted items. It was something crafted with magical materials, by a magical craftsman, either a high-rank acolyte or a magus who devoted decades of studies in their respective fields.

Magical artefact could be used by acolytes solely. For example, Marianne had four artefacts on her: A spatial pouch that allowed her to store enormous number of items. It was some kind of a warehouse-sized plane that allowed her to put whatever she wanted in it. The second artefact she had was a medallion that could release a defensive forcefield that would dispel most of rank 1 spells, and partly absorb rank 2 spells. Of course, it wasn't invincible, so the medallion probably had a mana limit so it wasn't like it allowed rank 1 acolytes possessing it to be invincible in their rank.

The third artefact was a ring that decreased the time of her casting. And the forth artefact was a dagger that Drake knew nothing about. He only recognized the other items because they were recorded in the [Artefact Encycloepedia] in the first floor of the library, which listed about 40 000 artefacts along with their effects. But the dagger seemed to have been purchased through black markets, since it wasn't recorded anywhere.

It wasn't like people didn't know how to craft magical artefacts anymore. But in Helios, there were not even ten people who knew how to craft magical artefacts. There were more than a hundred alchemists, and about three dozen individuals who knew how to engrave runes to create enchanted items, including Drake. But there were not even ten men and women capable of crafting a magical artefact. It told a lot about the rarity of these items.

Furthermore, these items usually used rare materials, so they couldn't be mass produced either, except for a few famous items like the spatial pouch, a must-have item for Magi.

"You…I thought we signed a contract!", Marianne said in a very aggressive voice, releasing her mana waves to scare Drake off.

Feeling the tension, Drake's fourteen subordinates stood up and rushed to his side, their hands on their swords, ready to cut down any enemy standing in front of their boss, even if it meant fighting those terrifying beastmen or this incredibly frightening woman.

"Now, now! Everyone, calm down! Marianne, I apologize if you feel that way, but I only spoke about…our 'deal', remember? If I help you here, you will save many acolytes' lives. I don't know what kind of experiments your grandfather did to these poor beastmen, but I can tell that they are far stronger and more intelligent than regular ones. This must have cost a lot of resources. If you let them die…I am afraid they will-"

Marianne took off her ring, and threw it at Drake.

"This is called an [Arcane Ring], one of the few 'common' magical artefacts. This is usually a treasure passed down to those who make enough contributions to the Arcane Faction and are promoted to elders. Rank 3 acolytes, heroes who completed Red-grade missions for the purpose of retrieving grade 4 materials to the faction, alchemists who earn the [One-star] certificate from Magus Kayle's Tower…Only these people get to wear this ring. Open this door in the next hour. If you don't, I will have to cut your finger-", she was about to said, but remembered the contract and screamed in anger, "Just do it already"

Drake was ecstatic. An arcane ring! It was his first magical artefact, and a very good one!

[Arcane Ring – Grade 3 Magical Artefact

Reduce the casting time by 8%]

8% in casting time didn't look like a lot, but it could determine the tides of a battle. If he caught his enemy by surprise and managed to cast the [Wind Blades] spell before his victims could cast a barrier, it would grant him instant victory. Unlike him, most acolytes had weak bodies. One mistake, and they would die.

Drake's spells usually took 2 to 3 seconds to cast, depending on his focus at the time. Although he had a biochip, it was utterly useless in the process. It helped him master the spell, giving him advices whenever he practiced, but it didn't simplify the process of creating a mental image and everything. Be it rank 1 or rank 3 acolytes, it didn't change anything. Once you mastered a spell, it didn't matter whether you were a grade 5 talent or grade 1 talent, a spell that was mastered only took as much time as you required to create the spell matrix in your mind.

8% of casting time meant 0.2 to 0.3 second. It was definitely enough to make a change in a life and death battle.

Drake ignored the enraged rank 3 acolyte in her golden robes dirty from the trip.

He walked up to the gates. It was pretty well hidden, in a tunnel under a hill. Despite the high temperature, the hill was quite full of trees and animals, mostly magical beasts that survived after mana mutations or those who sought high density of mana.

The Gate was 8-meters-long, and runes were carved in the golden-coloured alloy.

It was a mana lock supported by grade 2 runes. Unless you were familiar with runes and the theory between mana locks, breaking into this laboratory was impossible. Even a rank 3 acolyte with terrifying thunder spells like Marianne Deville would be helpless, unless she dried the mana resources of the gate by firing spells for years at the gate until it was destroyed. That was her idea at first, but she soon gave up after realizing that the gate retaliated by sending back inferior versions of the spells it dispelled.

Drake approached and closed his eyes. He was using his [Mana Sense], something that all acolytes innately possessed upon awakening their spirit. It was another sense, just like taste, hearing or touch, yet it only provided information based on mana.

That's how blind individuals rose to success. By supressing your other senses, your mana sense would grow tremendously, allowing some to increase their talent grade. Few were crazy enough to attempt to raise their talent this way, but Magus Aegon, Roxanne's master, had succeeded in doing so. He was a Dark Magus who used to have a grade 2 talent, and desperate enough to cut his eyes to break through. After becoming a magus, he transplanted a medusa's ocular that granted his vision back.

To open the gate, you had to form a certain key with your mana. Unless you knew the key, you could only study the runes and decipher their meanings to discover it. For a normal acolyte, it was an impossible task or one that would take years. For a magus familiar with runes, it would take days. This complexity…was rarely found. Even Helios' City warehouse that was full of high-grade materials didn't have a mana lock half as good as this one.

'I don't know if it's a good thing or not…but this lab is definitely full of treasure!'

However, Drake had the biochip. He didn't have to try keys in a brutish manner. He could decipher the runes with his biochip.

[Beep! 192 runes scanned!]

'Decipher and estimate the 5 most probable keys!'

[Beep! Task initiated! Estimated time: 16 minutes. Progress: 1%]

16 minutes. This was the amount of time that a task that would turn an army of scholars helpless was worth.

Sixteen minutes later, Drake approached the gate again, and used his mana to condense the most probable one. It was pretty tough to do since it was meant for rank 3 acolytes and magi to do, but Drake still managed to condense it.

*CLICK*

The golden gate that was filled with runes suddenly shut down. And the gates opened by themselves. Drake had succeeded.

Marianne opened her mouth, as if her jaw was about to drop. Jane almost fainted from the shock, probably because she knew how terrifyingly difficult it was to open it, and the other acolytes just sighed, relieved that they could finally escape the swarm of bugs attacking them.

"I told you I would open it right?", Drake smirked and returned next to his subordinates.

However, he was not exactly smiling.

With such terrifying mana lock, this place was probably more than an abandoned laboratory. There was obviously important research being kept hidden. A mana lock had two uses: keep intruders from breaking into the laboratory, and keep abominations kept inside from escaping to the surface and wipe out a city or a kingdom.

'What will it be? A golden strove of treasures or an apocalyptic abomination?'

Whatever it was, Drake was excited. Though the risks were pretty high, he was no longer a weakling.