"The alchemist, Selda is here for an immediate request for an audience with the prince of Reilaea, Prince Edle and her majesty, Queen Elena."
"Let her through." Commanded by Edle, the two soldiers opened the double door they were guarding, and the girl waiting outside the throne room enters and lowers her head to the queen and the prince.
Wearing her long light brown hair in a long ponytail tied in the back together with her bangs falling casually to the left that covers her left eye, she also wears her casual dark brown shirt that she usually use when she's at work, together with her oversized brown leather pants, Selda apologizes for coming in without any preparation with her apparel.
"I apologize for coming unprepared with my appearance, my prince, my queen."
"It is fine, we're here because of what you have found."
"Then let us get to the point, what did you find out about the crystals? Have you identified what they are?"
The queen replied to Selda as Edle followed suit with a direct question, the origin of the crystals. The crystals that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, the crystal that is somehow found connected to the monsters, the crystal that can empowers monsters to an extent.
"I have concluded my studies regarding these crystals that were found connected to the creatures that we know." Selda pulls one of the crystals that seems to be glowing with fleeting purple light. "There's only two things I have concluded with my research."
"Speak."
Receiving the permission to talk, Selda clears her throat and began explaining one of the two things she find in her studies.
"Well, at first glance, you can see the crystal glowing with a flickering light. It may seem normal as some crystals also give light, especially in the dark. But the light this crystal gives off is not just any normal light. It tells us that this crystal is alive."
"Alive?"
"Say what?"
Edle, Kaien and even the Queen was baffled as they heard Selda very clearly, that the crystal is indeed alive.
"How did you know that the light is an indication that its alive? And if its alive, does that mean it feeds on something?"
"Perhaps it was the monsters they were attached into. But how do the crystals attach itself to the monsters?"
It is a questionable matter without a credible proof how it was determined to be a living thing and how it was able to attach itself to the monsters Edle and Kaien encountered. But that proof is what Selda give to Edle and Kaien.
"Well, let me tell you all how I was able to determine that it was alive. The first was the light itself, it flickers like a heart beating inside a living organism. I know that doesn't give enough proof as it gives light just like others, but then I remembered they were found attached into some creatures that changes their appearance and then disappears once they were killed. And so I decided to get a piece of the crystal..."
Selda puts her hand inside her bag once again, seemingly trying to get something out with caution. The three watch as she pulls a small cage containing of what it seemed to be a small rat. But that's not any normal rat people find in their houses or in fields, there was a piece of a purple crystal sticking out on its back, and its skin that is supposed to be covered in fur is replaced with the purple crystal-like skin in its entire body.
"This thing is..."
"There's that crystal sticking out behind it."
"Yes. That's the piece I took from this one."
Selda gestured on Kaien and Edle, telling them to come closer to look at the purple rat that has its legs pinned on the floor of the small cage with small snails.
"This crystal acts like a heart and its alive. But it can't feed on anything unless its attached to a body of any creatures. And I used this rat as its host and its own food." Selda looks at them with a serious look on her face as she continues to talk.
"This rat was dead when I found it. But after I opened a wound on its back and placed the crystal on it, the next day my laboratory turned into ruins and this rat that came back to life did it all."
Selda began reminiscing the day her laboratory was in a mess and the cause was the dead rat that seemed like it returned from the dead. After closing any opening to get outside of the laboratory, Selda was able to catch it by throwing a certain potion to turn it into a stone for a period of time. Although it took her the entire day to get the creature.
"It was so fast for me that I couldn't even see it running around, but I was able to catch it. And after the effects of the potion wear off, this skin surprises me. But not just the skin, even the inside was covered in purple." Selda saids so, implying that she took a glance at the inside of the rat.
And as the words escaped Selda's lips, Edle remembered the first time he encountered one of them, that one time that took the body of a wolf. The creature that was sliced in half, revealing the inside and its organs that was also covered in purple.
Right after that moment, Selda talks once more that made Edle go back in the middle of their conversation.
"And so, that proves that this crystal is indeed alive, and it can feed on creatures they were attached and replacing everything into a purple crystal-like skin and organs, or just taking over its host's whole body and feast on it."
"This crystal cannot attach itself onto anyone or anything unless you put it yourself or if someone puts it in an open wound where the dark purple roots can go directly inside the body of its host. Or you can just accidentally pick it up and it fell on a flesh which is not highly likely and dumb to ever happen."
Selda shrugged with a silly look on her face, scoffing about how dumbed it would be if someone accidentally gets a piece of the crystal onto their body and turn into a monster in the process.
But as she moves her hands down, and while Kaien and Edle were too absorbed at looking at the purple crystal that continues to give flickering light, the queen who's been listening in silence in her throne decided to finally talk, asking about the crystals being attached to a host by either putting it on oneself or by someone who puts it to the other.
"You're saying that this crystal won't attach or do harm to anything unless they were purposely placed onto a flesh and eat everything in it?" Elena caught Edle and Kaien's attention as they turn their gaze towards her, continuing her sentence. "Does that mean that someone used this mysterious crystals and injected it onto the monsters that they have encountered?"
"That's right, Queen Elena."
"Are you saying that someone made this as if to summon a creature?" Edle followed Selda's answer to the queen with another question. Which then she answered with a resounding no.
"No. I thought that was the case since they were found connected into a creature's body that disappears after being killed, there are so many people who can summon creatures with their magic. But just like using an ability that has a limit with how many times and how much mana one can use, a summoned creature also has its own limit."
Selda looks at the crystal she kept on holding once more, following with Edle and Kaien who did the same.
"A summoned creature, an item or whatever may be powerful or not, it depends on what kind of thing or creature is summoned and how much mana it consumes the summoner. They do not possess "Life" nor "Soul" like us living beings, and they don't have a need to feed on something to keep on living."
"That's right... they are only but a manifestation of what people images inside their heads, the summoner themselves are the souls of what they summoned, and their mana is what they feed on them to keep them from disappearing or dying out. And once they die, there should be no trace of their existence whatsoever."
Kaien replied to Selda which then Edle followed, pointing the crystal about it being alive and feeding flesh it attaches to. "But surprisingly this thing is alive despite its body that goes away after being killed, a living disembodied crystal that act like a heart that feeds on the flesh of whatever living being it gets attached into."
"That alone is enough to say that this crystal was not summoned or conjured by someone. It's more like it was created by someone who's great with alchemy and forming crystals. Or..."
Selda puts the small cage back inside her bag.
"...it came from somewhere or some place we or other countries haven't gone off to explore yet."
"Then, that leaves us to where it came from and how it got here and to other countries that encountered them." Elena replied that which Selda replied back rather quickly.
"That's right, that's where the second thing I have concluded goes. Their origin, and what kind of crystal these are."
As Selda said, she has concluded the origin of the crystals, where they came from and how they were formed. Hearing this, Edle and Kaien's eyes turns wide, eager to know the answer of the mysterious crystals' origin, Edle asks her.
"So you're able to find where they came from and how these crystal were made?"
"I did." The three fervently looks at Selda, waiting for her to speak where it came from. However the answer that Selda gives them is not what they expect. "These things appeared from the nothingness."
Kaien, Edle and Elena were left rather confused, hearing Selda that these crystals came from nowhere right after telling them that she found its origin, Edle spoke with a confused look on his face.
"What do you mean? They just came from nowhere?"
"Yes. I've read every book that I have with information about all kinds of crystals, I even went to the librarian to burrow every book regarding these things but there's not even a single sentence that refers to this living crystal. I even went from nearby towns and asks other alchemists or the elders who possess great knowledge, but their answer were all but the same."
The three cannot find the words to speak as the crystals and the information Selda gave them boggles their minds. It was then Selda tries to get something out of the bag. Shortly after watching her doing so, she pulls out her hand, holding a book that doesn't have any title or words written on its cover. It has an evidently fading brown cover with a light gold trim that goes around in an octagonal shape to where the title is supposed to be written.
"Without any lead about its origin or how it they were formed. I began thinking, thinking and thinking. There's no information inside the books, nor answer from the people who lived a life longer than mine. There's not a single thing about this mysterious crystals... There is nothing... Nothing."
"That's when I remembered... this book that was written about the beginning of everything we see in this world. A book that knows the very beginning of all life."