Luz jolted and closed the diary loudly in shock as he heard Liv's words. By now, sweat formed on his brow while Liv repeated her question again.

Slowly, very slowly, Luz turned towards the bed, stammering: "I–I grew so nervous waiting for you to wake up. So I just grabbed the next best thing to read to ease my tension."

In front of Luz, Liv sat upright on her bed while reaching her hand out towards him, with an expression on her face that clearly said, give me that goddamn book back.

Seeing her serious expression, Luz reached the diary to her, which the latter immediately grabbed. But Luz didn't let go of it.

"Why aren't you giving it to me? I don't remember allowing you to touch my stuff," stated Liv while still staring into Luz's eyes.

Shivering, Luz replied: "I-I want to know more of what happened to you and the details of their experiments."

With a sigh, Liv answered: "Luz, I planned on giving it to you as a gift before we move on from here. So could you please let go of it?"

In the end, Luz gave in, and an awkward silence filled the room for a few minutes, till Luz broke the silence by asking the following question: "Liv, could you please tell me what happened to you? Why did you fall unconscious?"

Hearing his words, Liv responded: "I think I owe you an answer. But in short, one of your masters came and marked me. Wait, it's better if I were to show you the mark," before taking down her dirty blouse.

"Wait, wait?" Luz commented in a panic, who wasn't really mentally prepared to see her body.

But unfortunally for him, Liv merely showed her back to him, which shocked him a bit because faded scars were everywhere on her back. But that wasn't the only thing on it.

The scariest thing was the glowing rune on her left shoulder blade that was etched into her skin with a corrosive substant. In the etchings, a crimson liquid moved like a stream.

"Yeah, you got unlucky and lucky at the same time," sighed Jodoc, who immediately recognized by whom the mark was, before jumping from Luz's shoulder to his hands.

"I'm surprised that Master Brian let you off so easy, instead of outright killing you in anger or forcing you into a slavery contract," commented Jodoc.

"Nah, master Brian would never do that," Luz retorted back.

The parrot, however, ignored his words. He was busy focussing on the mark, which he had been staring at for a few minutes. The complexity making up the mark, especially since it was etched by hand, amazed Jodoc and Luz alike, even if Luz didn't even understand what the runes meant.

On the other hand, Liv felt uneasy since two boys had been staring at her back for a few minutes without even uttering a word.

'Yeah, Simon could only dream of doing such a thing. No wonder that we haven't seen him since his last meeting with Master Brian' thought Jodoc.

Breaking the silence, she asked: "How long do you guys plan on starring it?"

"Not so long. I've been trying to analyze by which rules the runes are governed. But to be honest, the runes are way above my league," Jodoc admitted before giving up and jumping back on Luz's shoulder.

"I thought so," sighed Liv, as her hopes of maybe the parrot helping her got crushed, before asking the question: "What do you think should I be doing from now on?"

"Well, the answer is quite easy. You merely have to follow the demands of the mark for the demanded time span, and you'll be fine. There are two ways one could get around the marking. But both scenarios are pretty unlikely," stated Jodoc.

"Tell me, I want to know the answers because the demands aren't so easy to be met," pleaded Liv to the two, giving Luz the urge to ask if Jodoc could maybe change his mind.

But seeing Luz gaze, Jodoc shook his head with a laugh before stating bluntly: "Sorry, but I can't really help you with it. Only the owner or someone who has a better grasp on runes than the creator can remove them. Master Brian will probably not remove it. Also, finding someone better than him will be quite expensive. Yeah, good luck paying that amount of money."

"I see…" answered Liv in disappointment before telling the two the demands the contract had.

'Yeah, I totally expected a demand such as: helping the innocent. But the demand of not stepping into any city or bigger settlement is quite a challenge. But the most likely reason for that is probably to protect them.'

Before the parrot student duo left Liv alone, Luz stated his opinion regarding the demands and that the harsh demands are there to protect her from getting caught rather than from punishing her.

After leaving the room, he played with Sarah, questioning her about basic stuff regarding her abilities. That's how he found out that Sarah got a parasite that focussed on Mana. On the other hand, Jasper had a parasite that focused on the physical plane, pushing his physical abilities to the limit.

But what shocked him was when Sarah told him what Liv's abilities were.

"I'm not sure if I'm even allowed to say it, but Liv is someone special since her parasites are focussing all on the mind path. She has the ability to infect others with her parasites, making them her slaves, whom she can control. Also, these infected beings can infect others," Sarah told him while leaning against his shoulder.

Seeing how fearful Luz got, she laughed before assuring Luz:

"Don't worry, even if Sarah wanted to infect you, she couldn't do it since your parasites would eradicate her. Also, the stronger someone's immune system is, the longer it will take to infest someone. If it's even possible at all. So don't worry, brother."

Luz thanked Sarah before leaving back to his cell.

"Yeah, no wonder why the whole mage institute is looking for her everywhere. Someone such as her can easily be a nightmare," whispered Jodoc to him. Luz replied with a smile: "Thank god she doesn't see us as her enemy, or else we would probably be infected."

Sitting there for a few minutes, Luz jolted before hastily telling Jodoc:

"Shit. We gotta warn Master Brian and master Simon. They could be infected by her," but the parrot merely laughed.

After finishing laughing, Jodoc told the latter: "It's a bit sweet that you worry about these two bigshots but don't worry. These two always have a mana membrane-active around them, making it impossible for anything such as a parasite from an intermediate mage to penetrate, so don't worry. And even if a parasite were to get into their bodies, they would die."