On the day before the auction, Thomas called Clarisse.
[Eh? You want to see me? Its fine, I just got off work. Where do you want to meet.]
"It's about that matter so I guess it's best if we go farther away farther away from the city."
[Understood. See you soon.]
Clarisse ended the call. Since what happened in the labyrinth and how the government defended the Kyle group that obviously had some involvement in everything made both of them a lot cautious.
At the meeting point 300km away from the city, a desert area devoid of monsters was the best place since the satellites couldn't reach here due to the anima energy clouds that formed in the atmosphere.
As soon he got there, Thomas was stunned.
Tiptoeing on the orange rocks, Claire, with her long fiery red hair fluttering in the wind was practicing her sword like a beautiful butterfly bathing in wondrous scarlet flames.
This session of training lasted more than twenty minutes before it ended. Suddenly, she turns her head and her gaze focuses toward the youth standing next to the cliff with an intoxicated expression and gave a cold snort then immediately changed places with Clarisse.
Looking at the youth and his bright face. Even though it had only been about one week since they last met in person, she noticed that compare to before, Thomas seemed to have changed once again…
When their eyes meet, she finally realized that if he had regained his self-confidence after becoming an adept, and now even his countenance seemed almost serene. This was something Thomas himself was unaware of.
Once both met each other they found somewhere to sit.
Knowing no one else would be hearing them, Clarisse was the first to initiate. "How has it been your investigation?"
Thomas lowered his head. "I was able to find more clues when working with your uncle. We found some traces of the organization known as Retribution, an organization founded mainly by ex-military. I believe they were all victims that suffered through the experiments in the blue blood project. As for company whose laboratory had been destroyed, its possible they are involved in this as well."
During this period of one week Thomas had been completing several missions for the association and in the meantime would look for any clue about Retribution.
It was his belief that they were also behind the mutant beast that appeared during the association.
"Fine, this is good enough. Just remember to not risk yourself too much." Clarisse had a guilty expression on her face.
"No problem, don't you remember what we talked about that day? I said I would help." Thomas rightfully said.
After saving the students of the institute, she had told him about how she had no memories of being taken to experiments which was different from Gazzel and the others.
In fact she only came to know about the existence of such thing when her own brother told her of its existence.
Another mysterious thing was the change in her personality. When using her fire powers, her hair would turn her and the personality of "Claire" would assume the control of her body. Sometimes she would even go as far as to lose her self sense of self and go on a rampage.
She could only remember how lost she felt at the time before she finally met somebody she could trust.
Alice and Katherine had found her in one of the times she had lost control. Over half of the northern shopping district was blocked for a period of time because of all the damage she caused that day.
The two who found her were experienced Adepts who had knowledge of the dark side of the human alliance and once they found her, they transported her somewhere safe and told her about the experiments done to several people and how they believed she was one of them.
The problem was she had no recollection to why and how this all happened to her, if it happen then she couldn't remember when.
They talked more for an entire thirty minutes before Thomas suddenly recalled something and brought a book out of his bosom, it was the Introduction on Non-elemental Magic book he had bought from the system's store.
Clarisse's eyes were drawn by the object and upon recognizing it, her eyes widened. "A book?!"
It was to be known since wood was a rare as a phoenix feather, books that were made of paper had become almost as hard as climbing mars' greatest mountain.
At most there would be synthetic paper made with processed anima energy fibers.
"Yes, this is my old spell book. Since you can't use the power of fire without changing into Claire, I thought it would be good for you. Most its incantations are simple and easy to learn, but it will prove good on building your foundation on magic."
"Spells... Magic?" At this point Clarisse could not understand a word that left his mouth. Demons? Ok. Werewolf's? Not impossible. So why did hearing Thomas speaking words such as magic and spells sound so crazy?
Thomas who seemed to read her thoughts seemed to find her reaction a little funny. "How could it not be possible, didn't I said I wasn't nearly as normal as you."
When saying that, he rose his hand and threads of anima energy condensed and circled around his hand as he whispered some words.
The second those words left his mouth, it was like a profound entity manifested at the moment as the threads of energy boiled and manifested into an countless fireworks that bloomed into countless roses.
The fell onto the ground before exploding like grenades, immediately, a dozen fire snakes emerged from the smoked and danced in the air before dispersing in the air.
Since he was first interested in the magic manuals found in the system store, he knew its combat power was limited compared to the potential of his skills but it was still enough to produce several little tricks such as this one.
"Wow." Clarisse's face lit up like a little girl when seeing Thomas' demonstration of magic for the very first time.
'hehe.' Laughing internally, Thomas waved the book in front of like a owner enticing his pet with a new toy. "So will you like to learn it or not?"
"Learn, learn. Of course I will learn." Clarisse pounced on the book and held it against her cheek. She never knew magic existed before, but once she knew there was no way she would let go of a chance of learning it.
"Good." Thomas left the book with her since he already learned everything he could from it. For some reason, he couldn't help but fell content seeing the smile on Clarisse's face as she held onto the book.