A howling sound followed by animals scattering meant they entered the range of a creature's territory. Vega stopped on his track and put his hands around his ears, hoping he could hear any sound of a creature approaching. Mea put her hands on the bark of the closest tree closing her eyes. At first, Vega almost complained but swallowed back his thought.
"A scarling," Mea whispered, pointing in a direction. "Near a cave."
Vinra signaled everyone, and they all moved. Wyatt on the back, Mia and Vega led the party. Vinra would stay in the middle to prepare for her spell. Putting his hand on the handle of the sword, Vega prayed hard to any Gods or Goddesses who could hear him that he could kill the scarling and claimed the contribution points to himself. He missed the cold sensation when holding the glimmering magic stones once more.
After tiptoed for a while, they finally saw the creature. The red shell on its back contrasted with the green background from the plants around it. The scarling was acting weird. It only moved left and right in front of a cave behind it. Vega felt that the creature trying to protect something inside the cave.
He stole a glance toward the other apprentices and felt sets of hostile eyes looking back at him. I have to be careful and watch my back. Vega stretched his senses to the fullest and hoped to feel any sort of bloodlust before an attack comes to him. He knew they had to work together first before the temporary alliance broke, killing the creature blocking the entrance.
Mia acted fast, throwing seeds toward the scarling.
"Scree!" The scarling raised his claws and sprayed dust from its mouth.
Vega touched upon his mana, activated his spell, and the scarling looked back, hearing a slashing sound. Vega knew the decoy was successful. Stepping forward quickly, he raised his sword expecting the scarling to notice him, and blocked the claws from scratching him.
A ding sound like metal clashed together was also the time for Mia to activate her spell. From under the scarling, vines grabbed the creature's legs and stopped it on its track.
"Faster, I can't hold it anymore."
Hearing the order, Vega pulled back his sword, knowing that the scarling was trapped and wouldn't have any room to move around. He swung, slashed, and stabbed at the scarling, but the shell was too hard for him to crack. Activating another one of his spell, making the scarling to look left and stabbed fast three times on the same spot. He hoped that impact to the same spot would at least crack the shell of the scarling. It didn't work, so Vega stepped back.
"Vinra, attack that," pointing at the spot he hit that started to change color.
Vinra glanced at Vega, "Damn!" She loses control of her spell. She looked at Mia, noticed that her friend couldn't hold the spell anymore, and chose to activate her lesser spells.
These activated instantly. Shards of ice and rock blasted the scarling. Shrieking, the scarling closed its eyes. Vega swore because Vinra missed the spot.
He brandished his sword again, now twisting his torso to give it more power.
The cracking sound meant that his attack was successful. He then stepped back fast then heard the yelp from Mia.
"No! Mia!" Wyatt acted, reaching inside his pouch and throwing a flask toward the creature. Boom! A cloud of smoke covered everyone's sights.
Running away, Vega hid behind a tree, knowing that the scarling was too difficult to kill. He didn't want to be labeled as a coward, but he chose his live over dying without gaining anything.
A couple of screams inside the smoke. Vega recognized them as Mia's and Vinra's. Vinra defended the attack by activating another spell. The sound and the light from her spell revealed where she stood.
Vega reached his pouch and took the tube he had prepared beforehand, hoping the poison would kill Mia, Vinra, and the scarling together. He positioned the tube in his mouth and blew. Three shots hit the place he aimed. A slight yelp and scree from inside the smoke meant Vega's attack was successful. Now, he just needed to wait until the smoke dissipated.
In case the scarling was still alive, Vega grimaced looking at his spotless sword. Without any choice, he smeared the rest of the poison on the blade. He squatted down, waiting for the perfect opportunity to deliver his last blow. Unknown to him, someone else used the opportunity to aim for his life.
Wyatt stood alone, pretending to care, but a slight glint in his eyes destroyed the facade. Unknown to the girls, he hid other ingredients inside his smoke bomb to kill them and the scarling. He knew he would be successful because he mixed the most potent potion an apprentice could create. Not wasting his opportunity, he eyed Vega, activated another spell, and shimmered, fading into the background.
Finally, the smoke slowly dissipated, and Vega saw a silhouette of two girls lying on the ground. Mia's arms and legs were nowhere to be seen. Frowning, he looked at the purple patches on Vinra's skin. That's not mine. Realizing his mistakes, he used the extra benefits of his spell. With the help from the air around him, he located the perpetrator and pointed the sword to his left.
"You hide well enough," Vega looked at the shimmering figure and pointed the blade with poison.
Wyatt dissolved his disguise, "You found me then. How?" He raised his hand, looking at the poison on the blade pointing at his neck.
"Why should I explain it to you?" Vega slashed his sword toward the figure, but the other boy shimmered and dodged the sword.
Wyatt smiled, "You can't kill me," he showed Vega his hand holding another flask. "If you kill me, I'll activate the smoke bomb.
One spell to improve his agility, the second one for hiding. Three maximum spells for an intermediate apprentice. Vega counted using his knowledge on basic spells and gauged Wyatt's strength.
Two of them looking at each other thinking hard to get away from the situation. "Look," Wyatt started. "I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm here to kill them."
"Aren't you together?" Vega was confused about the whole thing.
The first one to give up, Wyatt pocketed the flask back, "I hate them! They're always making fun of me."
Wyatt then started to explain. Initially, he was glad to be an apprentice with his aptitude. After he started his path to become the low-level apprentice, the girls joked about how he won't last long. At first, he didn't understand. But after he found the note tucked under one of the forbidden sections, he discovered that his mistress would sacrifice his power for the two girls.
Vega frowned. He thought that adepts could only control natural elements. From Wyatt's explanations, he revised his previous knowledge about the nature of adepts. With dark rituals using the knowledge of spirits and souls, adepts were also knowledgeable about something unnatural. They were the people who used any means necessary to improve themselves.
"But then why the academy never mentioned these unnatural methods?"
Wyatt laughed, "Welcome to the dark side of the adepts. In fact, adepts divide themselves into two major groups. One hides their dark nature to gain bigger favor from regular people and kingdoms and brand themselves as more righteous. The other, you know, we do it openly. But honestly, they were basically the same people, one honest, and one only keeps their dark side hidden."
"So, you are part of the dark adept."
"Contextually, yes. My mistress's potion knowledge was based not only on plants but also on body parts. Creatures or even humans."
A howl from afar made them stop their discussions. Vowing not to kill each other, they directly cleaned the area. Skinned the scarling wasn't that difficult. The only tricky thing was dividing the big shells for both of them. Vega took the smaller portion and put it inside his pouch, which was beginning to get bigger again.
The girls only had five magic crystals in total. Vega decided Wyatt to get one extra because his poison had been the one to kill them both. After scanning the area and ensuring they had missed nothing else, they looked at each other and went inside the cave together.
Vega realized that he still had the poison on it. Knowing it was a waste, he still cleaned it before putting it inside the scabbard. Stabbing the sword on the ground was the only way. When Wyatt noticed, he raised his arms, and shouted, "Don't kill me, please!"
Vega looked at the boy and shook his head. He proceeded to get rid of the poison. Looking at the blade that looked new, he was grateful.
Inside the cave, Vega finally learned the third spell Wyatt mastered. A simple light spell made their journey inside the dark cave safer. It seemed a waste to fill their mind space for such a simple spell. No wonder he didn't do anything. To each their own, I guess, he shrugged.
Vega brushed his fingers upon the cave. The stones were cold to the touch, with a slight humidity transferred to his fingers. He frowned never heard of a humid stone before.
"A stalintine?!" Wyatt exclaimed gleefully.
"What is it?"
"You never heard of stalintine?! The hardest stones as hard as steel. With this, we could become rich," Wyatt squatted down, took something from his pouch, and started scraping the cave wall.
Vega followed, not wanting to waste the materials just in case he could trade them for magic crystals, which he badly needed. Unfortunately, the stone was actually harder than his steel sword.
The chipping on the sword meant his sword was useless now and couldn't be used anymore. He looked at the accumulated dust, hoping it would cover the cost for a new sword. He only sighed and scraped the dust fragments together.
"Here, use this." Wyatt finished scrapping and handed Vega a glass flask.
"Thank you," carefully, Vega put the stalintine dust he had collected, afraid that his hand would slip and drop the glass.
After the short break with the stalintine, they went deeper. The floating light from Wyatt's spell slowly dimmed, overcome by the darkness from inside the cave. They walked slower just in case they tripped on something.
Suddenly, Wyatt turned back and threw something. Vega raised his arms to dodge, but whatever he passed it.
"What..." Whatever was in his mind didn't come out. The ground under him shook. He gripped a hard rock next to him to regain his balance.
"Now we have to wait here," Wyatt said after the earthquake finished, pointing at something behind Vega.
Rocks were closing the cave's entrance. "What did you throw earlier?"
Wyatt didn't answer and walked past Vega, hunched, took something from the ground, and showed him, "A talisman."
"What's a talisman?" Vega felt that in his journey, he had a lot of questions and was slightly embarrassed.
Noticing the expression on the boy in front of him, Wyatt answered, "No problem. This was not something that belonged to adepts." Approaching Vega, he showed the talisman closer, "See the weird symbol on the paper? That was traditional writing used by the practitioners, abominations we call them."
Vega squinted his eyes. Under the dim light from Wyatt's spell, he finally saw the complicated lines that seemed to be written from blood.
"When we use our mana, the paper is supposed to do something. But you saw earlier nothing happened."