The week was pretty productive. I made enough soul seeds for everyone and I finally received the fruits of my second project. After 2 hours of assembly and some slight modification, I can proclaim myself as the proud owner of it. I also prepared enough bolts and poison to coat it with.

Now I am standing in my laboratory in Luke’s. For the sake of making it easier, I shall name this lab#01. Right now, I am experimenting with the berserker potion. My two main goals are to recreate the effect, then isolate the components and experiment a bit with different supplements to make the potion as efficient as possible, while costing less.

My two new friends in front of me are called Subject#003 and Subject#004. I abducted them while they were having a fistfight with each other. The first comes from the white gang and the latter comes from dark gang. Funny how fate, or me, brought them together. Bound side by side on the floor.

Now my two new friends are the replacement for Subject#002, who deceased of natural causes. If you call being experimented on and then dying of cancer because of it. It was rather spectacular for scientist, but outwardly, he didn’t change that much.

Now where was I? yeah, He helped me recreating the effect. As it turns out. The third potion with the weak blood type mana residues from the experiment didn’t do nothing as I imagined. Instead, they waited. When I introduced the last injection, somehow the blood energy bound it to their blood. And this blood had been rapidly infused into their muscles. That was the reason, why he became strong enough to rip open the rope and overwhelm me with his speed.

A lesson I learned was to take some precaution in case something similar happens.

Thus, I changed the place where I put him under the tests. I bound him to the side of a metal cage. He was inside this man-sized cage of course. When I successfully recreated the furry effect, he broke free again, but in the cage, he couldn’t break out of it in the short run. Before he could do anything to it, I activated the switch on the side. That switch was connected to a very simple artefact I created. It simply releases electricity.

With this, I also qualified to make simple artefacts. The thing is done until now were one-time-use inscription. The soul shredder I made was so crude that it could barely be counted as an artefact. After a lot of reading and experimenting, I qualified myself as a beginner artificer. Of course, no one now’s about this and I would like to keep it that way.

Back to my concoctions. I Mix again different ratios and combinations to find out the best and cheapest mixture of it. While doing so, I am still thinking about the gang fight happening all over the city. With my involvement, it escalated pretty quick.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Night, in an unknown warehouse at the outskirt of the western district.

A group of people are meeting. And planning something.

The man, who seems to be the leader of the group said. „did all of you understood what I said?“

A goon asked „Boss, is it really necessary? We had been neutral al this while, do we need to involve ourselves?“

The man answered „Most of you might not now, but the boss said that it doesn’t matter anymore. Boss and Lavender have become followers of a powerful mage. Today’s operation is Lorenz. One of the confidence of the dark man. We have a powerful artefact to make him loyal to us. We have to get him and convert him.“

„But how?, he has more people then we do?“ another goon asked sceptically.

„With these babies, “ the leader said and pointed towards some round object, the size of an adults fist.

„With these, we can knock them out“ he pointed to the left one. „ This explodes and the others“ he points to the rest „can incapacitate the enemy henchman, so get your ass rolling“

Then the leader grabbed the balls and left the warehouse. Followed by the still somewhat sceptical followers.

The group was walking in the dead of the night towards one of the strongholds of white gang. They got the information that that Confident, they were looking for was there for today. The security is less serious then it would be usual, because of the war with the other gang.

After 4 minutes the group arrived close to the hangout. It was a two-story building. Nothing is standing out about it. But if one were to look closer they could hear voices of men from the inside. A lot more men than there should be in a family house. Also candles still illuminated the place in the dead of the night.

Creeping their way towards the house, the group made sure not to make any noise.

In front of a window, one of the sneaks a peek inside.

He whispered. „there are 7 people, playing cars. One of them is guarding the door of the stairwell“

„Alright people, we begin, after I throw in the ball, duck when you hear an explosion rush inside and overwhelm whoever isn’t dead or heavily injured.“ The leader said and took out one of the balls.

This ball was of the explosive kind. Arming it, he smashed the window and threw it inside.

The gangsters inside were very surprised but also confused. A tall and muscular man reaches out his hand to pick it up. Thinking that someone wanted to vandalize the house.

Then it blew up.

The group rushed in and beat the man in front of the staircase. Then the leader rushed up and threw a flashbang into every room. Before anyone can get up and chase something.

After the explosion, they checked the room. Surprisingly, not only did they find the confidant, but also a ringleader.

„Alright take a look.“ Then he took out a soul shredder and wounded boot men. Both of them winced in pain. Then he took out two soul seeds and pressed them on their foreheads. When that was finished, they left

„Why aren’t we looting anything?“ one asked dissatisfied.

„Do you want the boss to hear it? So that they don’t suspect anything“ someone else answered.

Both of them then left the building, before anyone came and had a look at the commotion and made their way back to their HQ.