Novi disappeared between the nearby trees, leaving Lou alone. "These wolves are infected."
"What? Who?", Lou was surprised by the sudden voice, there shouldn't be anyone nearby! When she looked over, she could see a man with blond hair and yellow irises staring down at the wolf's corpse with a grave look. He looked furious and pissed off, he turned around and tried his best to look calm.
"I'm Conrad, I'm glad to finally find someone else. May I ask what your name is?", Lucas extended his hand towards her with his eyes closed. It was a weird sign of trust. Closing his eyes meant he couldn't activate Magic Vision and see if the opponent prepared a spell. Lou knew that Lucas put a lot of trust in her, and she could appreciate such a thing.
Shaking his hand, Lucas opened his eyes once more and distanced himself. "I don't know about you, but I'm looking for the elemental pools, but have no idea where I'm at. Could we work together?"
"Uhm, I'm not alone, I'm not going to decide by myself.", Lou didn't want to make decisions without having Novi's approval.
"I see, that's fine by me.", Lucas went back to inspect the wolf and had a genuine look of anger on his face, but Lou didn't see it.
"Lou! I'm back, I found some… Who are you?", carrying some branches in his hands Novi was startled to find someone else constantly staring at a corpse. Novi dropped the sticks and reached for his sword, just not pulling it out yet.
"He's Conrad, he found me some time ago, he's a good man. He's asking if he can travel with us." , Lou hinted at Lucas's friendliness and Novi picked up on it.
"Travel with us? I don't know if that's a great idea.", even though Lou might be open to traveling with him, Novi didn't like it that there was another mouth for the tokens. Luckily, Lucas knew exactly what would hold them back. He stood up and made his way towards Novi, pulling out his slate.
"You can have all my tokens if that makes you trust me more. I just want to visit the elemental pools and gain a bit of strength. I'm not strong enough to get a prize from this competition in the first place.", Lucas looked a bit downtrodden and hopeless while explaining his position. He wasn't aiming for a high place, he just wanted to survive.
"You can transfer tokens from slates?"
"Of course! Show me yours, I'll let it absorb all of mine and even destroy my slate. I don't need the tokens. I just want to grow a bit stronger from the pools.""
"How can that be, from which school are you?", Novi took his slate out and Lucas transferred all the tokens from his slate to Novi's. Then he broke the slate in two, making him incapable of gathering any tokens in the future.
"I'm from the Blue Fire Academy.", Lucas mumbled it slightly and made sure to look at some random trees.
"Ah, I see, my apologies.", everything suddenly made sense for Novi. "You can travel with us, I don't mind. Lou?", with a nod from Lou they started to make a campfire. Lucas wanted to inspect the wolf a bit more, but held himself back.
"So do you guys have a plan, or have you been wandering around aimlessly like I have?", Lucas was in a hurry, but had to keep his calm at all times to not make them suspicious.
Novi stared at the campfire for a few seconds before responding, he thought that since Lucas was from a poor academy he probably had never seen an artifact before. He lifted his hand to show his ring and pulled out a map.
"This is a map from the island, I gained this piece through a lot of hard work."
"Wow, you actually got a map, and you have that special ring. How does it even work?"
"This ring is a spatial storage room that hold tons of items in a separate space far from here. Not many nobles can get their hands on it, only people like Mino or Simon would have the capabilities to get it. Of course, I can get it as well, but that's just because of my many efforts!
As to how it works. Hah, just pour in some willpower, and you'll get to see what's in the ring. Then you just need to take it out, easy!", Novi was very proud of his items and didn't waste any time before showing the map to Lucas.
"Right now, we should be around this place. We're planning on going to the Wind Pool, but we're taking a break by the Water Pool."
Lucas stared at the map and couldn't help but notice that the elemental pools he needed were on opposite ends of the island. Clockwise, starting from the top, the pools were Dark, Fire, Wind, Light, Water and Earth.
Right now they were close to the pool of water, which was pretty close to the pool of Light, the first place Lucas wanted to visit. He didn't have a lot of time but had some ideas on how to achieve his goals. They talked for a bit before Lucas suggested they kept moving.
"We don't really need sleep, so why don't we get moving?", Lou and Novi looked at each other. They weren't really in a hurry and actually wanted to sleep. While sleep and food weren't necessary, there were barely any noble mages that didn't eat or sleep. But seeing Lucas's eyes shine with energy and ready to head out, they didn't want to be seen as weak, so they got up.
If someone from the Blue Fire Academy was volunteering to keep working, why would they as mages from more prominent schools give in?
Moving forward in the dark really wasn't pleasant since there was barely any light. Using the spell he learned during his time in the Steel Spider Cave, Lucas could somewhat see in the dark, but he rather not waste energy like that. He found that the moon gave off plenty of light to move.
His companions on the other hand couldn't help but summon a ball of light that followed them. Lucas wanted to say something about attracting attention, but stayed quiet. Moving forward with a good pace in their steps they arrived at the base of the volcano.
They met some monsters on the way, but Lucas took care of a few of them to prove his usefulness to the group. Against simple wolves a few fireballs was all it took to kill it. Arriving at the spot the map pointed out as the Water Pool they couldn't actually find the entrance. Looking around, they were clueless.
It was still night and their visibility wasn't as strong as they wanted it to be.
"Perhaps it's in a cave somewhere, should we start digging?", Novi had an idea, but it was quickly shut down.
"We're close to an active volcano, digging down could result in quite a terrible outcome."
"Conrad's right, how about we just move on to the next pool, we made a lot of progress in just a day, we still have plenty of time to go to the Wind Pool and return." Lou agreed that looking around right now was fruitless, but wasting time was a bad idea as well.
"No, we can't move on, I need to find the Water Pool! I'm not leaving this place. We should wait until it's daytime and then we can search again."
"I don't have time for this.", Lucas mumbled before walking towards Lou and looking her in the eyes. "Lou, how about we move on, we can come back for him later."
Lou wanted to answer, but Novi cut in. "Why are you in such a hurry? You don't want any tokens anyway."
Lucas stared daggers at Novi, but stayed calm to explain. "If the pool can give someone power, who wouldn't rush towards the pools? We don't know how large the pools are, The Water Pool could just be a name for all we know and contain just a small basin of elemental energy. The later we arrive the less there will be for us. I don't want to waste any time here, because for all we know has this pool already been sucked dry by the Ice Princess."
"What Conrad says holds some truth, how about we rush towards the Wind Pool and then quickly return? If the Water Pool is hard to find, that should hold some of the other students back."
"No. I'm staying here, you can move on all you want, but I'm not leaving."
Lou wanted to leave, but wouldn't ever abandon Novi. She looked at Lucas with big eyes and made an apologetic look.
"That's too bad.", Lucas was standing next to Lou and grabbed her shoulder, he looked in her eyes and showed a defeated look.
"Aaargh!", a dozen bolts of electricity poured right into Lou's shoulder, burning it black, but more importantly, paralyzing her completely. She fell hopelessly to the ground. Lucas took his sword and walked towards Novi who was stunned beyond belief.
"Wha.? Why? How? How dare you?!"
"Easy, she was clearly the smartest between the two of you, and you don't have a strong shield compared to her. It only made sense to prioritize her."
"I don't have a strong shield? How do you know?", Novi quickly summoned his wind shield. The benefits of this shield was the fact that it bounced the attacks back, giving Novi an opportunity to strike back.
"What an idiot.", Lucas placed his hands together and summoned a Giant Blue Fireball, letting it explode on Novi's shield. The screams from Novi said enough about his current state.
"Wind could blow a flame out, but it can also strengthen it. Using wind for a shield is only useful when it has the speed to completely sever the flame, but yours is even see-through. It could probably block a normal fireball, but too bad we'll never know."
Lucas walked over to the burning body of Novi and sliced the head off with his sword. He took the ring and ransacked his pockets for the slate. Then he went to check on Lou, she was slowly starting to get her movement back.
"I poured in a lot of energy, and you're already recovering? You must've known I was about to attack. You're more perceptive than I thought."
"Why?", Lou could barely get the words out of her throat.
"What a strange question.", Lucas opened his bag and let a bunch of slates fall out. They weren't the first, and definitely wouldn't be the last. He grabbed her slate and took the tokens from it. He already had around 200 tokens, but that wouldn't nearly be enough to win.
He placed his hands on her body. "Life Drain.", draining the energy from her core he filled up his own. "Using the Blue Flame is quite costly, no wonder it's seen as a special technique."
He kept draining the energy until she was completely out of magic. "Great. Now, if you'll forgive me, I need to test some things out."
Lucas went into the woods and left Lou alone in the dark. Luckily the bright moon in the sky was giving her some sense of what was around her. Lucas came back with one of the corpses of the mutated wolves. Using his sword he cut the wolf into pieces and grabbed one of the horns. Pulling it out of the corpse made a disgusting sound, but Lucas didn't react in the slightest, as if he was used to it.
"You see, before I started this competition I was given an antidote. But couldn't figure out for what."
Bringing the horn closer to Lou, she could finally see what he was holding. The horn that was on the outside of the wolf's body curved and looked hard. It was strong enough to even deflect a sword, but the other side of the horn, the piece that was inside the body was wriggling around and looked like a pulsing root.
The tiny roots coming from the horn wiggled and struggled around looking from something to clasp on. The horn was brown to black, but the roots were a light pink. The sight horrified her, unable to completely move she tried to struggle and crawl away.
"I thought it was a virus at first, but then it got to me. This is a parasite, by binding to it's host it can give the host powers. But it will also blind the host with pure anger, making it berserk. There are still a few things I don't understand, like how it can spread, but those questions will have to be answered later.
For now, I need to know if humans can also be infected, and what the effects are. A wolf turning berserk, sure, but a human has higher cognitive functions. So would they still be as effected?"
Closing in on Lou with the horn, he softly placed the horn on her arm. He had to take a few extra steps because she managed to crawl further than he expected. He commended her perseverance before focussing on the horn again. The little roots pierced her skin and started to burrow deeper. He could see it spread under her skin.
Lou wanted to scream, but her paralysis made it hard for her to move. She could feel as each and every root made its way deeper into her arm. She could feel every nerve and muscle move and make way for the roots.
Eventually it settled down and stopped moving. Lou's condition didn't worsen anymore, but she definitely looked tired. The effect of paralysis should be over in a few minutes, a mages body was stronger than a normal one to begin with, but without any magic, she should still be pretty weak.
The paralysis lost its effect faster than he anticipated and Lou grabbed her head and couldn't help but try to scream. She was making weird gurgling sounds, and it seemed like she was chocking on her own words.
Lucas backed up and disappeared in the dark woods. After some time she stopped twitching and slowly stood up. Her eyes lost their shine and had a tint of red. The horn was quite large to be on her arm, so she grabbed it and wiggled it around until it came loose. A tinier pointy horn was inside the big curly one. She threw the horn away and started to walk in a random direction.
Lucas had hidden his presence, so Lou wouldn't know where he was even if she had magic. He undid his spell to check something and Lou immediately stopped in place, she turned around and tried to see in the dark.
Lifting her hand she summoned a few lights and send them forward. But to no avail, there was nobody there.