Chapter 30

Eva Lemuria-One month later

It has been about a month since I arrived in Yanlin and my time has been relatively peaceful with only a few minor annoyances. I would take some minor missions of the 4th rank and only one 3rd rank mission from the adventures guild. When I finish I would walk around town shopping or go sit at the little cafe by the park. Its become one of my favorite spots and they even save me a seat because I have become a regular after only one month. Apparently, because I am such a peaceful customer who doesn't bother any one or make ridiculous demands I am popular there. All the money I have spent there probably also has something to do with it. I would also sometimes go and take a nap in the park as well. All my outfits have also been collected from the tailor and she's now trying to advertise the design to others but doesn't seem to have had much luck yet.

The annoyances are the thugs that I fried before had ended up living and reported it to the gambling den. Apparently, they didn't like it, but they cant ban me from the gambling den or else what they did will become public. I go in almost every night and gamble some money. I have had nights where I have completely lost, but overall I have won a lot of money from the gambling den. They have tried to send thugs to me multiple times, but the land outside the city dried up after a while so I couldn't just keep electrocuting the thugs that follow me. Sometimes I would actually have to beat them up with my fist which is very annoying now. The one time they tried cheating me at the table I destroyed the table and crippled the dealer so no one else had tried to cheat me since then. I am sure they still believe they can win all the money back from me, but I will probably be leaving soon. I think I should receive a letter from my parents soon because that shadow guard probably sent the report out that very night so a month is more than enough time to receive something back.

The other annoyance is that the city lord Lucas Sylvari has constantly been approaching me. He has tried flirting with me multiple time, but overtime I sense an ulterior motive from him as I turn him down. He had started off with appearing wherever I go, but he's slowly been trying to become more aggressive lately. He walks closer to me and had even appeared at my inn asking to speak to me. He tried to put his hand on my shoulder before but I caught his wrist and broke it. To be honest that was just instincts at the time but I probably would have done it anyway. It got really annoying when I went to the adventures guild and they started saying they cant assign me any missions. They kept making excuses until I started to pressure them. They finally gave in when people outside the adventures guild started passing out with there eyes rolled back. I knew that it was the city Lord that told them to do it, but this is just going to cause the adventures guild to make a move now.

Today I plan on going to exterminate another 3rd tier mana beast. Before I fought the beast as a test of strength, but now I am going back to hunting so I will try to kill the beast as quickly as possible. Yesterday I had meditated all day to raise my mana capabilities and today I feel my mana has definitely become even stronger. I have rarely meditated lately but the benefits are definitely there. It’s the second best way to raise my strength after real life and death fighting.

I am currently making my way towards the adventure guild now. The past month I have made a reputation there which is “Don't mess with her!” It really is amusing to see the few adventures here completely avoid me like a plague. I head directly to the mission boards and look over the 3rd tier missions. I find one that sparks my interest. It's a mission to hunt down a 3rd tier ice reaper viper. This viper is the considered to be incredibly dangerous because it doesn't use its intelligence to fight but to hunt. It’s basically a deadly assassin of mana beast. If I can hunt this hunter it would definitely prove my skills are good enough to move on to the next tier and I will start to seriously try to rank up. I take the request and give it to the usual receptionist. She looks it over and seems she wants to say something, but she shuts up with a simple glare from me. She processes the mission and I begin to make my way out of the city. Today's outfit is white like my original except it has black birds on it. The birds seem to be on fire and the tailor said they are apparently called phoenixes.

I reach the forest and begin running through the forest in the direction that the ice reaper viper was reported to be seen. To be honest it’s going to be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I wish I could just start burning parts of the forest down, but I am pretty sure the elves won't just give me a warning like when I caused the forest to be flooded. I decide the fastest way to find the viper will be to shift and look for a snake signature. As I fly through the forest I see many different beast silhouettes but no long snake like ones. Some notice me but I am already gone before they can react.

Finally, after a while, I find the beast I am looking for hiding in some trees while looking at two other mana beast fight. I unshift far away from all three mana beast and look towards where I saw the snakes silhouette but I don't see anything at all except some bushes. I cant even sense anything there so I shift again to check for the viper. I see it and guess that it plans on taking out the winner of the two mana beast that is fighting. It’s definitely a smart beast for attacking the weakened winner. The two mana beasts are a 3rd rank black bone wolf and a 3rd tier abyss terra lizard. The black bone wolf is a giant wolf with black bones forming plated armor on its body and it has almost unbreakable spike all over its body. The spikes are all retractable and it can use wind magic to propel the spikes forward like arrows. The abyss terra lizard looks like a very plain beast but its very agile and is known to easily go underground and pop up to attack. It has a sleek appearance to help it move quickly as if swimming through the ground.

Their fight is already reaching its climax as they both are covered in wounds and the area is a complete wrecked. There are bone spikes and holes everywhere including in the trees. I hope I won't be blamed for this as well. The beasts look exhausted and I prepare myself by taking out my right arm and unbinding my halberd. I have had my presence erased this whole time and I am trying my best to keep from being discovered from the three beasts. I am sure that as soon as the winning beast lets down its guard the viper will strike and I will strike it at the same time.

Finally, the lizard dives into the ground and before the wolf can put up a defense and search for it the lizard immediately dives up and bites the wolf’s neck. Before the lizard would stay underground and wait for a bit before attacking so that's probably why the wolf was caught off guard. The lizard grips tightly onto the wolf as it tries to break through the bone armor. The lizard drags the wolf underground and I can only hear the wolf’s screams before the lizard drags its body back to the surface. The wolf looks like it was crushed from all sides and even has cracked bone armor and snapped spikes. The lizard takes a second to take a breath before it begins to pry off the bone armor on the wolf so it can eat.

That's when the viper strikes. First there is nothing but a blur shooting towards the lizard, but afterward, I get a clear view of the Viper for the first time. It is big enough it could probably eat me in one bite and makes me wonder how it could hide so well. It is a dark purple color and has dark blue ice covering random spots on its body. Its head has multiple purple ice spikes sticking out of its head like horns. It’s currently coiled around the abyss terra lizard while biting down on the back of its neck. I notice that anywhere it touches the lizard is slowly freezing over. The lizard's neck is freezing faster than the rest from the bite.

The Viper seems fully concentrated on killing the lizard so I take this chance and shift straight at the viper. I appear behind the vipers head and swing a flame edge right for the neck of the viper. Right before my flame edge can touch the viper I sense danger from behind and shift away. When I unshift I see that the vipers tail is where I was and that it's basically shaped like a purple frozen sword. The Viper lets go of the half frozen lizard and it gets in a defensive position while watching me. I notice that the lizard is still alive, but is seems to be completely unable to move. It also seems to be bleeding from its eyes and mouth. I guess any of the viper's purple ice must actually be frozen poison. The Viper only has purple ice on its tail and head so I just have to avoid strikes from those. I don't know if the technique Shadow taught me can handle the viper's poison.

The viper swings its tail at a tree behind it and then uses its tail it throws the tree at me. I cut the tree with ease only for the viper to appear in my vision so I put up a flame shield between us and the viper changes directions mid attack and goes to my left. I hold up my left hand towards it and use a blast of destruction before it can reach me. I then jump backward and form an intense flame armor. I would usually keep the flames concentrated so I don't burn down my surrounding, but now I let it go full force to ward off any ice around me. I charge towards the viper with a flame edge and it only nimbly doges my strike by moving a part of its body before counter attacking. We keep going back and forth with neither landing a hit on the other. Until I notice that my surroundings are starting to freeze up. It seems like the viper was building walls of ice around us while attacking. We are now both trapped in a cage of ice. I could just shift up and over the ice, but I am here for the viper so I won't run away.

The Viper takes some distance from me and opens its mouth to bombard me with shards of ice. I counter it with a flame thrower until the attack stops and I cant see the Viper anymore. I look around me till I spot a hole close to where the viper was. It must be using the tunnels the abyss terra lizard made earlier and I cant even sense the viper at all from here. I form a ball of flames and throw it into the closes tunnel and flames burst out of several holes close by but I still don't see the viper. All of a sudden from bellow me the purple snake tail burst under the ground and I can only use my halberd blade as a shield as I am thrown straight up. Midair I look and see my halberd is covered in a purple frost so I burn it away just in time to see the viper has jumped at me. I stab a lightning spear at it, but the viper just twists its body midair and its head goes past me while the tail wraps around me. We both fall to the ground as I am entangled in the viper. I am not touching any purple ice, but I can feel the cold even through my flame armor. My armor is protecting me from piercing and slashing, but I can still feel my bones being crushed as the Viper tries to squeeze me to death. I feel a sudden stabbing pain in my right arm and see the vipers tail has passed through between its own body. The tail could barely make a scratch on my arm, but its still enough to know that the poison has entered my body. I can feel my arm starting to numb me so I try Shadows technique of circulating my mana through my body to try and push out the poison, but Its hard to do while maintaining my flame armor. All of a sudden I feel the pressure increase on me and I feel my ribs breaking and I cough up some blood from some internal injuries. I start concentrating all my mana on my armor as I push it outwards. Slowly I can push the viper away from me as even its ice couldn't keep up with my flames for long. I quickly switch my mana to fight the poison as I drop my armor.

I am now injured and defenseless but the viper seems to be covered in burns now and it looks pissed. Even its tail seems to have melted so it must have been artificially made by the viper for a weapon. I charge at the viper and swing with a simple mana edge because I know I cant use too much mana or the poison will not get better. The viper dodges all my attacks, but I keep pushing it back until it crashes into its own ice wall. I take this chance and turn my halberd over and form a quick lighting scythe before I swing it for one-second before concentrating back on the poison. My attack worked and the viper had its lower body completely cut off. It screams in pain as both ends of the tail swing around spraying blood everywhere. I jump back and the viper bites the end of the cut and freezes over its own wound, but it can't reattach the lower half of its body. The viper looks at me enraged and I can tell that its beast instincts are taking over so I can hopefully avoid having to deal with its clever attacks now.

The viper creates ice spikes all over whats left of its body before charging straight at me. I easily dodge the enraged viper and then I cut it with my mana edge. It cuts it, but I don't cut off anything like before. This keep repeating for a while as I add cuts to the viper while trying to ignore the pain from my injuries and my slowly numbing body. Finally the viper uses another blast of ice shards and instead of going underground it attacks from within the wave of its own attack. I spotted it mouth wide open charging right on my right side so I manage to lift up my halberd and form a destruction spear and stab it into the vipers open mouth. My halberd goes deep into the mouth of the beast until reaches all the way to my arm and then bites down. I scream from the pain of the direct poison entering my body. The viper died after its suicide attack, but if I don't move quickly Ill follow it. I pry open the vipers mouth and rip its fang out of my arm. I leave my halberd where it is for now and use my dagger to start cutting open the viper. I am making a mess of it, but I can barely move my body at this point. I finally find what I was looking for. I didn't go after the mana heart, but instead I found the beast poison gallbladder. I am so glad my halberd didn't pierce it when it passed through. I swallow the gallbladder without a second thought and manage to keep it down as I swallow it. I immediately sit down and begin trying to get the poison out of my body. My body is completely numb and I can't move, but I managed to stop the poison from reaching anything important. I begin to meditate while getting rid of the poison.

After what was probably a couple of hours I can finally move again so I get up and rip out the vipers' mana heart before I move to the other two beasts. I cut open the black bone wolf and take its mana heart and tail before I move toward the abyss terra lizard. When I reach the lizard I notice that it is actually still alive. It is still frozen and has unfocused eyes so I use my dagger to quickly finish it before cutting it open to remove its mana heart and tail. I now have three 3rd tier mana hearts that I can turn in. I am sure other would probably go crazy from the luck I had today. I pry my halberd out of the viper before I begin to start walking out of the forest.