Chrysos splashed himself with a scent masking potion and a moss growth potion. He took a coat from his bag and coated it with the same potions as well. He gave this coat to Meiros so that he could have some kind of camouflage.
Meiros sent a string of psychic energy towards Chrysos which he unhesitatingly accepted.
And as if their thoughts were suddenly linked, Chrysos could communicate to Meiros without speaking.
"Meiros, I have something for you." Chrysos took out a glass jar filled with a preservation mixture.
Meiros grabbed the jar and saw that there was an eyeball inside.
Because he has been with Chrysos for so long, he had already seen so many animal organs, blood, and other strange ingredients to the point that he doesn't even flinch at the sight of blood.
"Master, are you going to brew something with this?" Meiros thought that the eyeball is an alchemy ingredient because of how Chrysos presented it to him.
"What? No." Chrysos opened the jar and took out the eyeball.
Chrysos pointed to the eyeball's veins and said, "Meiros, you see this circular piece of flesh?"
Meiros nodded.
"Put it here in the side of your head." Chrysos pointed to his right temple.
Meiros did as instructed and attached the eyeball to the side of his forehead. After that, he felt a strange sensation as if there was a weak electrical current trying to connect to his mind.
And not too long after, Meiros saw a different scene with blue, green, yellow, and red colors. He looked at Chrysos and saw that he still looked normal, but the different scene was still pointing somewhere else.
It took him a few seconds to understand what was happening.
He showed a surprised expression and exclaimed into the telepathic connection. "Master Chrysos, I can use this eyeball as if it's my own!"
With a laugh, Chrysos spoke with a proud tone, "Not only that, this eyeball is capable of seeing heat. The blue ones are cold, the green ones are a bit warm, the yellow color is definitely warm and red is a sign of a heat source."
Meiros turned the eyeball in his hand and looked at different places at once. He played with it for a bit and even tested if he could use it to look behind him without turning around, which of course. It can.
Seeing this, Chrysos spoke through the telepathic connection, "Alright, stop playing around. This device is what you're going to use to track the jaguar down. Here's what I want you to do." Chrysos pointed up towards the trees. "Climb up there and keep the telepathic connection stable. You're still an Iretoir psychic, so your telepathic abilities only allow you to send thoughts but not images. I know that this is difficult, but I need you to keep me updated on the jaguar's location."
Meiros held his fist into his chest and with a tone of assurance, he said, "Don't worry master, I won't let you down."
Chrysos nodded and walked away. And as he walked away, Meiros was already climbing up the trees.
..
Chrysos felt the leaves gently brush through his clothes as he walked through the forest. The almost inaudible rustling of the leaves made the atmosphere quite unsettling.
Adding in the fact that he was in dangerous territory, Chrysos couldn't help but feel his heart tighten.
Fear was a feeling that Chrysos hasn't felt for a long time. Gerald knew that when Meiros pointed out how strange he acts sometimes, he was clear that his reincarnation into Chrysos' body had hidden consequences.
It warped his personality, perception, habits, emotions, and his morals. There would be times where he would fearlessly charge in danger, but the feeling that Gerald was getting right now was cautiousness.
But then again, Chrysos was glad that his other self didn't act out at this moment. If he charged recklessly like that time on the greenflesh beast village, he would've been assassinated by the jaguar a long time ago.
"Dissociative Personality Disorder.." Chrysos smiled bitterly as he knew that he didn't have any methods to deal with his current problem.
He pushed those useless thoughts away and focused on his current quest.
Chrysos spoke through the telepathic connection and asked, "Meiros, are there any signs of the jaguar anywhere?"
Meiros responded almost immediately. "Negative, I've been using the eyeball for quite a while now and I still haven't seen anything. I'll say something if I see the jaguar."
"Got it." Chrysos continued forward. "You can use the Farsight spell with the eyeball if necessary."
Meiros responded with a low hum.
Meiros' drawing of the magic circle was a bit crude so it can't compare with Chrysos' Farsight magic circle, but it could still provide a scope of two kilometers.
He scanned the area around Chrysos and saw something quickly approaching behind Chrysos.
"Master! Exactly at seven o'clock, the jaguar is about to launch an attack!" Meiros immediately reported through telepathy.
Chrysos calmly spoke through the telepathic connection and said, "Tell me when it's about to land on me. Time it correctly and don't worry about my reaction time since I'm confident that I can hit it because it wouldn't expect that I already knew it was behind me. It's the element of surprise."
Meiros was quite hesitant when he heard Chrysos' plan. "That's a bit dangerous but…" He swallowed his words after thinking about it and said, "Master, It's about to hit you in five seconds."
Chrysos' eyes shone with a golden light. The jaguar was able to approach him without making any sound..
It was even more dangerous than what he expected. This made Chrysos tense up as he listened to Meiros' countdown.
"Four seconds."
"Three."
"Two."
"One!" The moment Meiros' voice came through the telepathic connection, the jaguar leapt and brandished the ferocious claws on both paws that had a length of 9 inches.
Worthy of the title Shadow Tremorclaw Jaguar.
Chrysos activated "Steel Rage" and swung Angelfeather behind with his left hand as hard as he could.
Shwiiing-!
Angelfeather trembled in Chrysos' hand against the powerful claws of the jaguar.
The jaguar was slightly surprised that his target managed to react quickly to his sneak attack. This has never happened to the jaguar before.
The jaguar leapt back and stared at Chrysos with a look of violent intent.
Chrysos felt the threatening gaze of the jaguar so he held his sword slanted forward to defend against any possible attack.
The jaguar saw that Chrysos was extremely wary of it so the jaguar immediately ran back into the shadows.
Chrysos couldn't see it anymore.
"Meiros, where is it?" Chrysos spoke as he turned around. Defending from the
jaguar's attack.
"Master, the jaguar is circling you with the intention of striking your back." Meiros zoomed in using the Farsight magic circle and said, "Master, it has severe injuries in its leg which made it resort to sneak attacks."
"Understood. Keep me updated on its location." Chrysos used Windslash Aricos and started filling the area with Hemoglomorxyn. And as an odorless and colorless gas, it is almost undetectable unless one used unique methods to see it.
Chrysos spoke through the connection and said, "I'm filling the area with toxic gas. Make sure not to go to the ground or else you're going to risk yourself bleeding to death."
"Got it. Don't worry about me master Chrysos." Meiros climbed up higher after having said that. "Also, the jaguar is still waiting for an opportunity."
..
Chrysos waited for a while, but he couldn't hear a single thing.
But as the clock ticked, he knew that it was only a matter of time until the jaguar attacked him when he's defenseless.
"Maybe I should show my back to it?" Chrysos stopped turning around and faced a certain direction.
After he did this, he heard something from Meiros. "Master, when you stopped moving, the jaguar is now about to attack."
"How many seconds until that thing attacks?" Chrysos didn't bother turning around even though he knew that it was right behind him.
Meiros calculated the speed the jaguar was going and was shocked. "Master! Three seconds!"
Chrysos' heart started beating quickly. He focused with all of his might and asked Meiros using the telepathic connection. "Is it going to leap up?"
"Yes master, it's going for your head and it's about to reach you in 1.8 seconds." Meiros said after some careful calculation.
Chrysos ducked down and maneuvered his legs to force himself to turn around. He then saw the jaguar about to slash his face off coming towards him. He gripped Angelfeather as tightly as he could and stabbed the jaguar's abdomen.
The jaguar roared in pain. It quickly used its hind legs to kick Chrysos away from it, but Chrysos blocked the kick and used "Force Pulse" to repel the kick.
Boom!
Because of the powerful pulse of force that struck the jaguar's body, it was sent flying back towards a tree.
The jaguar tried standing up, but because it had inhaled too much Hemoglomorxyn, the injuries on the jaguar's body began to bleed out extremely quickly.
Kah!
The jaguar spat out a mouthful of blood as it struggled to get up.
Chrysos saw this and revealed a smile.
The reason why this is an advanced quest is because of the jaguar's ability to sneakily attack unsuspecting adventurers. There are many Divinium tracking abilities made useless because of the jaguar's unique ability.
An invisible Provectis ranked enemy. It's no wonder that this is an advanced quest.
But in Chrysos' point of view, he already had a plan.
The heat vision eyeball wasn't part of it before, but when he discovered that it was actually very useful, he modified his plans.
The original plan was to fill the area with toxic gas and stall for time until the jaguar eventually dies. But since the jaguar's injuries aren't that severe, it would take a very long time. It was also dangerous for Chrysos to attack it to increase the effectiveness of the gas, so the heat vision eyeball helped a ton.
Chrysos knew that the other adventurers were strong, but they didn't have special methods to deal with certain scenarios. Right now, he was quite grateful to reincarnate as an alchemist.
He approached the jaguar that was still bleeding on the ground. The jaguar stared at him with burning eyes of hatred. It even tried to struggle, but its body lost too much blood to provide it with the strength to do so.
Chrysos took one last good look at the jaguar before cutting the largest veins in its neck. He held the jaguar upside down and hung it up on a tree.
He put his backpack on the ground and took out a few glass bottles and began collecting the blood.
And just as Chrysos thought that the trouble was over, Meiros suddenly spoke through the telepathic connection.
"Master, there's eight people walking towards your direction! And they're…" Meiros zoomed in and gulped in fear. "They're all corrupted ones!"
Chrysos heard this and activated the Divinium Clouding Cloak attached to his right shin.
His Divinium began to change from Heroic to a violent Corrupted energy.
"Meiros, keep the connection stable and stay hidden. If anything goes wrong, you're going to play a very important role. Understand?" Chrysos stood up and looked at the direction of the eight corrupted ones.
"Master, I would've done that even if you didn't say anything. I got your back." Meiros then controlled the connection and made the stream of Divinium weaker so that it wouldn't be easily detected.
…
Chrysos heard the crisp sound of their footsteps slowly get louder.
He looked over and saw eight people walking towards him. He used his Divinium and started scanning their levels.
Chrysos saw that there are seven Iretoir ranked corrupted ones and one Provectis ranked corrupted one.
"A Provectis ranked corrupted one? This is going to be tricky." Chrysos narrowed his eyes as he thought to himself.
The Provectis corrupted one laughed and said, "This brother, you're a corrupted one and you're this wary towards us?"
Chrysos knew that the person felt his Divinium scanning them, so he showed a vigilant attitude and took on a battle stance. "If I wasn't this careful, I would've been dead a long time ago."
The Provectis corrupted one clapped his hands as he laughed. "Good! That's good! I like that mindset." He then pointed to the jaguar behind Chrysos. "But this brother right here has something that we need. Hand it over if you know what's best for you." His smile immediately turned cold as he looked at Chrysos.
Chrysos was hesitant if he should give it to them.
Seeing his hesitation, one of the corrupted ones sneered and said, "Afuara, don't waste your time on this trash. There's eight of us and he's alone. What makes you think he can do anything?"
Another corrupted one agreed, "Yes, yes, why are we even wasting words? If possible, I would also want to be able to fight from time to time. I feel like my bones are getting too rusty after being locked up for so long."
Afuara, the Provectis ranked corrupted one shook his head. "Haven't you heard what the Lord told us? Every corrupted one is something that could strengthen our legion. If we bring back more members, we'll be rewarded greatly."
The other corrupted ones couldn't refute what Afuara said.
"But still, give us the jaguar and we'll let you off." Afuara stretched out his hand and gestured for Chrysos to give it to him.
With a sigh, Chrysos carried the jaguar and tossed it in their direction.
The corrupted ones aren't weak, so they easily caught it without trouble. They examined the corpse and saw that it was still fresh.
Afuara noticed this and asked, "Hey, what's your class?"
"Alchemist." Chrysos didn't say much since he was still disappointed that he didn't get what he wanted in the end.
"You're an alchemist??" Afuara looked very surprised. His gaze changed as he looked at Chrysos as if he was a treasure chest filled with gold.
The other corrupted ones were also excited.
"Hahaha! If we manage to recruit a corrupted one, we can get 20 Legionary points, but that depends on the class, right?" One of the corrupted ones rubbed their hands together.
Another one responded to his question by nodding and said, "A corrupted alchemist is worth 1,000 Legion points! You can see how much our Lord values alchemists so much!"
They all looked at Chrysos and decided that they would take him with them.
"Alright, change of plans. You're coming with us." Afuara laughed heartily.
"And what if I refuse?" Chrysos frowned.
The corrupted ones pulled out their weapons.
Chrysos saw this and shrugged. "Fair enough."