It wasn't too difficult to get my teammates excited about my plan, Hilda loved the idea of hunting a magical beast like the storm owls, while the others were very happy with the possibility of getting several high-quality materials from the wind element.
The only thing that made Alice and Zephyrus apprehensive was the fact-finding mission, I tried to assure them that the source of the suspicious deaths must be a magical beast they're still afraid it isn't. This is natural in the times we live in now anything unknown or a mystery people are afraid it is something done by the worshipers of evil gods.
The main reason I think the culprit is a magical beast and that the number of dead didn't reach ten, still returns some bodies for the number of victims to reach number ten. If a cultist was behind the deaths the number would be much higher, probably more than fifty people would have already died at their hands.
Lucky for us this speed of disappearance is more likely to be a magical breast feeding on humans. Obviously, I'm not happy about this as it would be wrong for me to be happy about the death of innocent people, but nothing stops me from getting excited to seek justice and revenge for the dead and get some dough and multiple points with this mission.
"I think it's a good plan, but I'm still concerned the fact-finding mission isn't and that I doubt your Ulric tracking abilities, but I doubt it's an easy mission to do. I'm afraid we'll end up wasting too much time on it."
"I understand your concern Alice, but if the mission really turns out to be too long or the enemy isn't a magical beast but something too complicated and dangerous for us to deal with, I wouldn't hesitate to run away with the team. The penalty for failing a mission can be bad, but it's not and we can't make up for it until the end of the test."
"I'm pretty excited about killing these owls I've heard about them before, but I don't understand why her feathers aren't a matter of mission. As far as I know her feathers are a great material for fabrics and I've seen a pillow made from owl feathers, it had a ridiculous price tag, but the pillow description said that using it will provide a peaceful night and may help the wizard or warrior tune in with the wind element."
"This is new, an elementary pillow. To more examples of products like this? Mattress, sheets, comforters, towels? I knew some nobles bought eccentric products, but I didn't expect them to buy elementary bed linen."
"That's not such a big nonsense Ulric. It can actually be very useful, the more saturated and the food energy in the environment you live in, the more energy your body will be able to absorb and the same with mana."
"Zephyrus is right, I hear that the royal family traps young members who have just shown signs of awakening their core in a room with massive amounts of mana and food energy when the youth element is pretty easy to determine. They say that forming the core in a place with such dense mana the core will be of better quality, it's not a huge difference, but even if it's only a few percent stronger than a regular core already, it's a useful investment."
"There shouldn't be a better way to do this, the current method is basically drowning someone in a lot of resources hoping that their body will strengthen and there will be no negative effects on their body."
"Yes, and pretty basic, but no, it's like it's possible for alchemists and scholars to do human experiments. That kind of attitude is a taboo for the good gods, and anyone involved in these practices is executed, so we better not talk about it we can get unlucky and fuck up our lives talking about a taboo or we can be interpreted as unhappy with the good gods. and then we're screwed the same way as the idiot who violates a taboo."
Leaving that subject behind I noticed Gloria's presence. She looks pretty excited walking towards us, I wonder what kind of plan she has to be so upbeat.
When he sat down opposite me, the excitement she emitted turned to pure determination.
"I have a plan! It has a mission to exterminate a large nest of magical beasts is being born in the northern region of the kingdom, and a very ferocious type of magical beast that feeds on other magical beasts and humans they seem to hunt any living being that has some elemental energy in its cup, but it seems that natural resources and magical animals are not attacked by this magical beast."
"This is a high difficulty mission and is recommended to be done by three teams, and I got one of the spots for us and the other two teams aren't weak at all. The main team has one of the incomparable geniuses as a leader, we'll leave tomorrow so we don't waste time and if everything works out, we'll be back in a little over a week as the journey there takes a while."
"What do you think? As far as I know, not only will the mission give us a massive number of points since we'll keep a quarter of her points, but we'll also be able to spin with a good portion of the mats from the body of the magical beasts we kill and if we're lucky. we might be able to find some rare resources in the forest, as not so many people harvesting the resources there have a good chance of finding good resources in that forest."
"The nest resources belong to the main team of the expedition, but the natural resources of the region belong to the team that catches them first. I think this quest won't be that hard as it looks like the nest of magic beasts is new so my number isn't too big and we have a lot of strong fighters and mages on our side, with the victorious spear lead we'll finish that one newly formed nest and earn a fortune of points and precious materials."
It seems that Gloria is actually very confident in this mission and that her plan is much better than mine and at some point, she's right, but I see a lot of trouble for me in this plan. First of all I really want to know which of the incomparable geniuses is leading this expedition. I have a bad feeling about this as it seems that the invitation to join this expedition fell into Gloria's lap and she didn't even try to figure out why.
If this is the incomparable genius that can be Liam Vastri, then with his leadership my team could be in a lot of trouble, this looks like a pretty straightforward trap it looks like he didn't even try to hide it and he's acting really fast and that could mean the plan he is unstable or poorly planned and could end up in a deadly disaster for all the students involved, I thought it would take longer for him to try to get in trouble with me.
Even though I think he's just going to make things difficult for my team and he doesn't intend to kill me using a bunch of magical beasts, I still think it's a bad idea to be around those types of people.
"Gloria, it sounds like you're very excited about this quest, but I have some doubts about it. Which of the incomparable geniuses is leading this core team and how did you get one of the spots so we can participate in this type of mission so early in this testing phase?"
Gloria's victorious smile gets a little stiff, but she answers my questions pretty straightforwardly. It seems she has complete confidence that her plan is better than mine.
"The expedition leader and Liam Vastri and the way I got the invite and because on his team a member of the Tifare family I know, our families are very close and I've known him for several years. He was the one who offered me a spot on the expedition when I was looking for missions to do."
It's a trap! Not screwing up will I put myself in the position of being led by an idiot who might be wanting to harm me.
"Is this Tifare family friend someone you've known for a long time or is he just someone you're trusting because their families are friends."
"I don't know him very well as he is a member of his family's branch, but there's no reason for him to try to harm me Ulric. You're saying there's something wrong with this mission."
"You're right Gloria to something very wrong with this mission, it's a bad idea and could even cause the death of some team members. This may come as a surprise to you more to many people who don't like me and one of them is Liam Vastri. In an indirect way I harmed a member of his family because he is very close and I was warned by more than one person that it is very likely that he would get into trouble with me during the test."
"Are you kidding us, Ulric? Why would a genius like Liam Vastri get in trouble with you for something small? "
"It's a small thing and the Vastri family wouldn't make a move for me to harm myself because that would be a very shameful attitude on their part that would be a symbol of shame for them to carry around forever, but I was warned that Liam Vastri has a very close relationship. of the person who was harmed by the poor test result and even if it doesn't affect him so much in a negative way, he could get in trouble with me during the test. Now you basically tell me that we are being invited to be led by him on a mission that can be dangerous, it's a clear very dangerous trap to go there it's certain that our team will end up being harmed."
For the next hour I spent explaining the final event of the last phase of the test to my new teammates to convince them I was talking green, Gloria had a hard time believing me to her I was simply sabotaging her plan so that we focused on the missions I had chosen.
She almost tried to physically assault me a few times but in the end, she agreed not to go on this extermination mission and she wasn't one bit happy about it.