While ‘playing’ with elder Jan’s apprentices Nick managed to harmlessly ‘prank’ and paralyze several of them as well as knock out few with a sleeping powder. As a payback, girls gave him milk with few monkey eyes in it. Another time they offered fruits which turned out to be testicles of some animal. Such pranking went on for a number of days since Nick wanted to do his experiments and girls were just having fun.

Apart from the general knowledge in alchemy and runes, Nick learned many things that made alterations to his original plans from time to time. For example, he learned that most of the Qi masters are almost immune to simple poisons and if there was a basic paralytic poison that could have affect – it would be of a very short duration. Also a Qi master like elder Jan was extremely resistant to most toxins, including poisons. Although other elders did not have such resistance, the girls warned Nick to not prank them as it wouldn’t end well.

Finally, when the third month of alchemy lectures was coming to an end, while playing with the girls Nick, using a rank two beast core, finally managed to ‘accidentally’ blow up a small rune he crated.

Another event that had to take place before the three months of lectures were up – was the quarterly replenishment of the grand elder.

“You should soon have your retreat, right?” Nick asked one day when they were refining a brownish paste at the workshop table.

“Yes, Lord Baal, you have a good memory.” Grand elder tried to suck up a little.

Nick waved him off, “When you bring in the girls, let me see them first. Our contract is not complete yet and I want to see what the situation of their yin is. You have stabilized a lot during the past months, but I don’t want to risk the genitalia of this little human body’s in case I missed out on something and forgot to tell you previously. Even though this is only a mortal body, that is a question of a principle!”

When few days later girls were brought in the library, Nick went over to their kneeling bodies with a serious expression. His heart was bleeding seeing the panic of these poor village lasses, but he could not help, at least not this batch. He would give his best to save the next one though.

Nick walked around them, then poked their foreheads a little. Then put his little hand on their heads. He already planned to execute this performance in case he needed to repeat something similar in the future and then it wouldn’t raise any suspicion.

He walked over to the grand elder and seriously looked at him, “You are safe. Don’t forget to use the hallucinogens as soon as possible.

“Thank you, Lord Baal.” Looking at the demon’s expression grand elder was worried for a moment.

“No big deal. Don’t forget to monitor the process more attentively this time. If you have any questions or if there are any problems – ask. As I said, the penalty of this contract is a serious one and I don’t like surprises.”

Nick left this disgusting room and the disgusting old freak. He felt sick here and wanted to get out as soon as possible.

‘There should be normal people in this world too, right?’ He sat on the balcony ledge and with tears in his eyes looked at the distant mountains. The memory of the three girls inside the library was still fresh. He felt pained, but those poor things had it much worse.

Days later, after the grand elder with rosy cheeks came out of his bedroom, he reported some findings to Nick, the latter, suppressing the deep disgust, threw back few ideas and the matter ended. Everything continued as usual.

There was seemingly irrelevant event that took place during a regular lesson. Apprentice reported the return of elder Dinnar and the grand elder seemed so excited that almost ruined the mixture they were making.

Then he ordered, “Tell him he has three days to relax and recover. We will wrap up here in the meantime.”

Nick knew they had only three more lessons left and for some reason his heart skipped few beats.

‘Something is wrong!’ As much as he tried, he couldn’t think of any mistakes he had made and didn’t have any ways to find out what exactly was wrong as well.

He got his chance after the last alchemy lesson.

“Lord Baal, looks like we have fulfilled our obligations.” Grand elder said with a crooked smile.

Nick immediately got the same feeling he had three days ago.

He managed to keep straight face and answer, “Indeed, you did well. This was fun.”

“Please feel free to use this table if you need it, I will leave the ingredients and equipment here as well. Thank you again, Lord Baal.” Grand elder slightly bowed and then called an apprentice over. Lowering voice he ordered, “Tell all elders, we will have the elder council tonight.”

Nick was on his way to balcony, but still managed to hear it.

‘There is definitely something wrong! Too much of a coincidence for me to finish contract that they are so afraid of and immediately they have a meeting. Then there is the returning elder. I have to think of something!’

Nick spent the afternoon seemingly doing same exercises as usual while wrecking his brains at the same time trying to understand the current events.

After the dinner, he went to bed and listened to Elsa’s complaining about some male apprentice, but after few sentences she passed out. Some days ago Nick already tested on her this odorless paste that could knock out even a cow, in this case – Elsa. He also oiled up his room’s door and now it could be opened almost without any sound.

Nick quickly got out of the bed, grabbed an empty glass form the table and noiselessly slipped into the dimly lit grand hall. Then, as silently as he could, he approached the library. He could hear voices behind the door, but could not understand what anyone said.

He sat himself on the floor and carefully placed the rim of the glass at the door. May be the elders inside were too busy or he was indeed careful enough, but no one noticed anything wrong happening behind the door. He placed his little ear on the bottom of the glass and started his first spying mission.

“… so after receiving the advice from him, I don’t really have anything to ask. It is elder Silvio who wants to marry him.”

Laughter filled the library. All elders seemed to be in a good mood. It sounded like they were eating and drinking as well.

‘It seems they are a bit tipsy. Good for me.’ Nick smiled.

“But other than that,” the voice continued, “he is just playing around with female apprentices, wasting time and resources. I want him out of my laboratories.”

“Thank you, elder Jan. Elder Dinnar, your report is last the one. Go!” That sounded like the grand elder.

“According to your instructions I visited the Nestri empire and met emperor Osman. After reading your letter, he indeed let me in the forbidden part of his library to research the ancient writings. With his help I was able to find it! It will take a bit of work to complete, but I am confident I can create the seal to enslave Belial!” Elder Dinnar seemed to be really excited.

‘That Osman guy should be the one that has the same wristband as the old freak. But why would they want to seal Belial? Didn’t they spend all their resources on me already? Why would they attempt to summon another Primeval demon?’ Nick was confused.

“Do you plan to create the seal using his Truename?” Grand elder inquired.

“No. Although we know for sure he is Belial and not Baal, demons have complicated naming system and the Truename is not that simple. And even if we know it, we would not be able to seal the real Primeval demon. Otherwise our ancestors would have cleansed the Hell long ago. We will just create a seal that is strong enough to capture this partial soul.”

‘What? Now they think I am Belial? Why? And why would that matter?’ As conversation went on Nick got more confused.

“How confident are you?”

“About ninety percent. But we should make a test first. In fact, we have to make a test, because of our promise to emperor Osman. Otherwise we can not be certain we will be able to seal the rank six flame wolf that resides on the Nestri continent.” Elder Dinnar finished his report.

“Alright. Let me sum all of this up and then we can finish our lovely dinner.” Grand elder was probably eager to continue his ‘practice’ with elder Agnes.

“All of us agree there is nothing much we can gain from Belial. Apart from elder Silvio, but even you have to agree that the mission of our sect comes first. We will get more information from him after the enslavement, and, if he turns out to not remember anything, we will summon other higher demons! We now know we have ability.” He seemed to be really excited.

‘F*ck! I was right! They are going to end me! But they want to test something, so may be I still have a little bit of time.’ Nick almost started to panic.

“But let’s go step by step. First, the new sect division will be created. The head of this division will be elder Agnes. During last few months we both have verified the effectiveness of the ancient technique and now we need to raise a new fighting force that will help to solidify our sect’s position on Mainland. We will call it ‘Yin-yang division’!”

Nick almost laughed out loud, ‘They will create warriors who will f*ck each other instead of fighting? Well, may be I did a good job after all. Better if they do this and not perform genocide elsewhere.’ He found it hilarious and it seemed to become even better.

“We already have selected the first ten couples. They are still Qi practitioners, but all are talented individuals and the future Qi masters. Elder Agnes will supervise their techniques and look after those youths. One year later we will have an enrollment competition to select new talents for this department. It is an incredible opportunity and none of any other powers in the world are capable of doing this. And we have to thank Belial for this, hahaha!”

They all laughed for a while, then the grand elder continued.

“Regarding the test of the ancient seal we acquired. Elder Ernest, purchase all rank five beast cores you can. Contact every influential power and family. I know the funds are running low, but we still have enough, don’t look at me like that, I didn’t even joke about your name! Next, elder Sonor. You have trained for past months and got some progress. That will help you to perform the following task: gather necessary manpower and capture the shadow eagle that lives on the southern slopes of mount Corbus. You will enter the territories of the Sun and Sand kingdom’s. Sand kingdom is fine, but don’t forget to remain hidden in the Sun kingdom. We can’t let Maxwell find out our whereabouts, at least not for now.”

“Grand elder!” Voice sounded like elder Sonor, “It is one thing to kill a rank six beast, another to capture. There are only about fifteen known rank six beasts in the whole world! If it was so easy to capture one, they would all have been domesticated long ago! Why can’t we test the seal near it’s nest?”

“A logical question. The problem is – our goal is to capture the Primeval demon. We will only have one chance – if we fail, we will have to immediately kill his body! Therefore we have to test the seal on the most powerful soul in existence – a rank six beast. Not only they have our intelligence and way longer lifespans, their souls are many times stronger than those of humans. If we capture and bring one here – we can test the seal multiple times. After we are successful, we will seal the demon. Also, even if we loose few dozens of people during the capture – they will loose their lives for the very goal of the sect! This is what our ancestors fought for and it is what we will accomplish!”

“But. To reduce the casualties, elder Jan will accompany you. The knowledge of an alchemist will be very useful. Everything that can immobilize the beast can be used, albeit avoid permanent crippling. We can later sell it to the Sand kingdom and recuperate from any losses we suffered so far. May be even earn something, am I right, elder Ernest?”

Long sight could be heard even behind the doors.

If Nick was amused in the beginning, then now he turned increasingly grave. The biggest problem that he had at the moment – his little hands were getting tired and it was too hard to hold the glass!