NOVEL FROG 43. Sophisticated Robbery
A weightless step crunched a thin layer of ice behind me. On instinct, I summoned a wall of ice which. The light spear aimed for the back of my neck crashed into my shield with a thud. Without turning around, I solidified water mana that I'd been dispersing as a light haze over the ground. I heard more cussing behind me before I even turned to see my assailant. For good measure, I added more mana to the ground, further solidifying the foot trap for the creeper.
Though I couldn't sense the light lancer, I could feel exactly where she was now that she was stuck in my ice. My aura still washed over her, making me less confident in my ability. It also raised the question of what kind of build the creeper had.
"It's no use hiding anymore. I know where you are, and you can't escape my trap."
I fend off several ice spears and at least a dozen bolts made of glass. The tiny quarrels were nearly impossible to track. Luckily, I had my guard up. I walked a few steps closer, completely protected. "This is your last chance to talk."
"Do you have any idea who you are dealing with?" The light lancer asked.
"Nope. But I'd appreciate it if you enlightened me."
The lancer dropped her veil and appeared before me. Her disheveled bob cut matched the death scowl plastered on her face quite well. She stood a few inches taller than me, and her layered metal pauldrons accentuated her stocky build. Nothing about her looks like an assassin or rogue, yet her fighting and combat prowess resembled those classes.
"The night grows dark, and blood runs rich." Zealous fervor laced the creeper's words; her passion almost ran as thick as her hatred of me, which radiated from her glare.
Selene's sweet abyss. This was no guild I was dealing with.
"The lord awakens at the high turn."
"You can stop."
"His thirst must be quenched." The creeper bit her lips. Blood trickled down, and she eyed me more seductively than the bloomer had, which ranked the light lancer's seduction technique to at least a level ten—and she was only using her eyes and…blood.
I pulled my sword from her heart before she could entangle me deeper in her blood magic.
Blood cults could be the absolute worst. I inspected the squire closer looking for anything valuable on her corpse. She had on her a set of ritual daggers, a note written in a script I couldn't understand, and a pouch full of cores. The creeper was rich. So why was the bloomer so famished? That didn't add up.
I turned to my prisoner to make sense of the encounter. It was no use. She'd slit her own throat.
What in the bloody abyss did I stumble into? Curiosity nipped at the back of my mind, begging me to dig deeper and find what was happening. When it came to cults, they were never not shady. It was what made them so fun, to begin with. Shared religious fervor for a common cause guaranteed a good time.
On the other side of the coin, crazed cults spelled disaster. There was no messing with them without getting a little bit bloody. Blood cults took that idea to the extreme and added sex, murder, and drugs. Though not all blood cults functioned like a vampire masquerade, they had ties to more prominent cults that did.
The 'parties' of the blood cults were so unruly that any type of cult associated with blood had been driven from the entire Agoria continent. If there was one thing the two warring empires could agree on, it was that blood cults were bad for business. Hell, a quarter of our missions in the military were investigating cult activity. The other half was fighting off the horde.
So what was a blood cult doing here? How had it gotten so prominent they were willing to strike on an open road only a few miles outside of town. Surely, they would know that their blatant attack would be noticed. Did they want to be discovered? Most likely, I was part of some elaborate scheme of an extended roleplay. I shivered at the thought.
As much as the mystery itched at my curiosity, this wasn't a blood loop.
I made camp several miles away from the dead. Walking into town at night's end wouldn't be a good idea, and I wanted to avoid further complications.
My research into mind resistance proved to be fruitless, a conclusion I reached after visiting several libraries in three different cities. Cyanne barely had a building and enough books to qualify as a library, so I didn't spend more than a day there.
Landfall, the port city east of Cyanne, had an expansive selection of marine life, sailing, neighboring islands, and an in-depth history of horde invasions. The librarians boasted they had a first-hand account of the hordes' first raid.
One interesting detail about the raid a thousand years ago was that it only consisted of goblins. Kobolds didn't join until two hundred years later, and bugbears have only been raiding for the last century. The furry brutes have more than made up for their loss in time and were often referred to as the bane of coasts. My homeland of Kukoa had more than enough encounters with the raiders.
I thought marine life might have valuable knowledge, but I just found some random facts about cephalopods that I didn't think applied to Squids.
Alder, the capital city of Alderi, had several libraries throughout its providence. Most were public, but a few private ones served only wealthy guilds or cults. Alder had the most extensive catalog of books in various categories. The most prominent shelved books were on cultivation and agriculture. I scoured the cultivation texts for information on mind mana, essence, and parasites.
My research nearly emptied my heavy pockets due to traveling fees and discretion dues. I didn't even care about the latter, but both head librarians I talked to in Alder demanded the dues be paid so they could ensure their own safety. I learned more from scammy librarians than from the books… because there were no books on mind lancers.
As far as libraries and books were concerned, mind lancers weren't even a thing. Nor were flayens or other people with tentacle faces. I even checked the children's books to see if there were depictions in their fantasies of the monsters. There was nothing except concerned librarians. So either I was being scammed, mind magic was censored, the information was limited, or it didn't exist—at least not in this empire.
Despite my shortcomings, my research was worthwhile. I did some side study on class builds. My ranger class was becoming an equal mix of physical and mental levels. Which was fine for the first rank of the class. Obtaining my next rank and upgrading the class further required choosing between body or mind leveling exclusively. I could be a strong or smart ranger—a warden or arcane ranger.
None of the class guides recommended mixing up mind and body levels after the first round of reforging.
Reforging happened at every nine levels in a specific essence. My mind was ready for the reforging process. The only thing stopping me from taking the step was my lack of knowledge, which I was gaining, and my distrust of Squids. Something prevented him from hijacking my mind previously, and the way he'd pushed me to invest solely in my mind essence made me wonder if it had something to do with my rank. He did mention my inferiority a couple times at least. Maybe he wasn't mocking me but more lamenting that he couldn't obtain what he desired.
Trusting squids less was never a bad policy, and I didn't need a library's wealth of information to confirm my suspicions, although it would've been nice.
That meant my mind reforging was on hold for the foreseeable future. That left me with three levels of body essence that I needed to gain and all of my spirit essences. The spirit essences would shift my class from a ranger to that of classless. If I told anyone my plans, they would throw a fit about how I was destroying my soul by becoming classless, and if I were on the same path as them, I would agree. I was on a different path. I had an opportunity like no one else.
Classes were more identity and established paths than benefits to the cultivator. They did offer advantages, but the perks were minor. Becoming a ranger didn't give me bow skills or make me good at tracking. I became a ranger because I had bow skills and was good at tracking. I cultivated physical and mental levels that bolstered those two skills. Frankly, I thought it would be wasteful not to cultivate all of my essences. I had the time and endless chances to do so.
I finished the loop a couple days later while reading a book I borrowed from the library.
The headmaster was adamant I couldn't bring food into his sacred archive. No matter how many excuses and justifications I threw at him, he wouldn't budge. So I brought the book with me and enjoyed an exquisite brunch. I spared no expense, ordering the entire menu. I would die full, happy, and satisfied. Hopefully, I could bury research failures and annoyances in gluttony.
My plan moving forward was to put off mind reforgement until I was more confident in my anti-possession skills. Until then, I'd dangle my unprotected mind before Tenty, hoping to lure out some clues.