The Grandmaster warrior in the air smiled. They hit the elling jackpot, he was experienced enough to tell that the only possible reason their target would have such a diabolical amount of excess mana was that he was one that Classed with the strongest Fortification possible. Even better was that it was specifically for mana regeneration. He just didn't understand how the target had relatively thick Vitality too.
With his Perception, he could definitely sense that their target wasn't conscious. It made things simpler for them. The moment he finished his words, their unconscious target even managed to deem him as a threat and leapt up with a stab. He was happy that their reports deemed it necessary to call him. Well, he took the job away from the younger fools since he was bored so he wasn't exactly called for this.
But he wasn't needed. Not yet at least.
There were 10 other highly skilled Masters surrounding the target and two of them jumped to defend him.
He was surprised to see their target burst into blue flames in mid-air and kick off a conjured piece of ice in the direction of one of the Masters who moved to intercept him. Moving past the Master Warrior and into the distance. Everyone from the organisation reacted fast and chased.
The Grandmaster on the other hand landed on the ground, their competitors didn't dare move in his presence.
'That blue flame, it's not fire mana. It was cold, probably some kind of ice magic. Also, I doubt he was planning to attack me but is an unconscious body really able to come up with the plan of feigning an attack and then escaping through the holes opened in our formation?'
Six of his colleagues already caught up to their target and were about to engage. The other four weren't fast enough.
'He's slippery' He caught up without effort. They were trying to capture and not kill which made things much harder when their target was able to just so slightly dodge every single attack. The sleeping smoke bombs they brought was useless now that he was already asleep.
He was also just fast and strong enough that his colleagues were unable to catch and put the cuffs on but not fast enough to throw them off. They surrounded their target again.
"You could come with us nicely, you can tell we aren't trying to kill you right?" He somehow thought it was possible to talk sense into the unconscious boy.
He didn't expect the light glowing in their target's body to die down but it was just his men doing a good job. One of them managed to stop his feet with earth magic while two others used that chance to dive in and put on a single cuff on both his wrist, they then attached both cuffs together. Their target collapsed onto the ground, truly asleep now.
"We have to thank our competitors for draining most of his mana don't we?" He joked. His colleagues laughed with him. None of them was worried they would fail. They didn't even need their strongest card to take actions.
Although things may have played out differently were their target to have a full pool of mana. Now that they cuffed him up, all his mana would be forcefully drained away. It was the stuff prisons used, unlike the myriad bracelet which passively drains excess mana, these cuffs forcefully drain it and store it into the attached mana ores.
One of them went to take off the target's myriad bracelet which may get in the way of the mana drain.
"This…his callstone is connected." Their colleague stated.
"I can see that. Shouldn't have saved on the barrier to lock callstones down. Take him away, a feisty one is on the way." The Grandmaster fire warrior took a deep breath, as if he could feel the fire mana coming their way.
Two of the Masters stayed behind. They were the precaution against the Xeng, one wielded two blades, a sharp dagger and a short sword. Only the Grandmaster himself did not bother hiding his Class, the rest wore obfuscation crystals of Uncommon quality.
If any of them had Appraise or a tier 2 Identify of sorts, they would have more information to work with but it was a pretty rare skill to learn. He only knew about 2 people who had them and those were other Grandmasters at the same or higher standing than himself.
His other subordinate was unarmed.
"I'll be taking this awesome beauty for now." He tore the greatsword off the target's hands, the grip was all too easy for him to peel; he just tore a little of the target's skin since it was frozen on.
'Heavy…I knew it was Rare quality, a shame it's ice elemental. Wooden? He uses a stick to spar with a fire swordsman?' The grip of Icicle was freezing cold to touch but he looked at the glowing lines. He wasn't an expert but it was easy to tell its runic nature.
He gave it a good swing and felt that the balance of it was off, it was designed specifically to fit the target. Finally, he turned his attention to the Xeng that already arrived and was in combat with his subordinates
She was getting pushed back but she was only staring at him, not even giving both her opponents a moment's glance. The heat rising in the surroundings was accounted for, with fire mages being one of the most common mages, heat-resistant armour and clothing were easily obtainable.
Five figures made their way from behind the masked little girl. Looking at them go after the Xeng, they must be the scout team sent here.
He knew there was little to no problem. Everyone in this line of work knew that they needed a good earth mage, their target together with his men already gone underground. With the myriad bracelet taken out and, if his subordinates weren't dumb removing any sort of tracking, the job could already be considered done.
The loud thumping and the very air reverberating in the surroundings were making him intrigued. Very intrigued.
❅❅❅
Scarlet Rhael Ning Xin was going from restaurant to restaurant looking to see if any of them was willing to sell her some ingredients since the market or stalls were already closed. She hadn't even reached the second restaurant when her gut instinct warned her that something felt wrong.
She stopped and looked around. Everything seemed in place, there didn't seem to be any danger either. She gave up on looking for fresher ingredients, heading to the inn instead. She hurried for some reason.
When she got there, her gut feeling was heightened, something was missing. She couldn't sense Ebony's body temperature or smell him. Still, she asked around and confirmed that no one as described arrived.
Dashing out and backtracking to Ordina until she finally found his remnant scent. The scent stopped not far from Ordina's portal.
'How did his tracks stop? Where did he go?' Ning Xin didn't stop there and let her legs take her to wherever felt right, the place with lower temperatures. She called Ebony's callstone, it connected but she only heard unfamiliar voices before a long silence.
A loud sound echoed together with a light vibration from the ground. In less than a second she burst out without care of the damage her explosive speed did to the surroundings.
3 figures leapt out in front of her the moment she left the settlement that was not unlike a tiny town.
"Hey there miss, can I link up with you?" A boy that she had a weak impression of and couldn't really remember where she had seen before said while lifting his bracelet up.
She didn't even slow down her run and went past them.
A net shot and devoured her from the side.
'A trap. So they are involved.' She was calmer than she thought as her Core Skill started kicking up. The net bounded her tightly, it was shot by someone hidden behind a large rock. She must not have noticed his heat signature due to her hurry and inattentiveness.
Her blood boiled and the net quickly steamed from contact. Her captors looked surprised but she was only wondering why it got silent over Ebony's end.
She already had her hands on Ignite and Flare but the binding only let her move them a little. Just enough for the blood within their sheath to escape and cut her binding apart. She didn't care about these people who just caught her, using the little bit of enhancement she got so far to sprint away while they were surprised that she managed to free herself with ease.
With her Core skill of roughly 10% in, Blood Boil, Pulsating Lightning Enhancement, Streamline Wind Enhancement at maximum output. Together with her tier 2 movement skill at level 203 and generic Running at 74, she was a little annoyed that they started to chase her and were not much slower. The 'flash step' that Ebony called already bought her distance.
Kidnappers were exceedingly common.
That was what her grandma once told her. They were way more popular than professional killers. Criminals were almost always wanted alive. The noble in charge of the area of capture would then have the authority to let their children or family members at max level execute them. Public or private didn't really matter.
As long as it really wasn't necessary, few would choose to assassinate and request for a kidnap instead. There is value in kidnapping.
'Especially a meditator.'
Just like Ebony, she originally wasn't aware of mana slaves since there wasn't such a thing in Xienor and neither did her grandma bother telling her about them. It did make complete sense that they were money making. The number of professional kidnappers were supposedly pretty high.
These guys seemed well off as well, the net she was bound by absorbed half of her stamina and a quarter of her mana in the short time she was trapped. The basics of any prison were to keep its inhabitants weak. To make someone powerless, simply take away all their energy and they won't be able to fight back.
Ebony might have a lot of mana and regeneration but he was hardly beyond what could be dealt with. Although she was unaware of what kind of technology or how far technology has reached in these aspects she was aware that some prisons could drain a Grand mage in meditation dry in minutes.
She heard another unfamiliar voice find out that their call was connected but she could already see a man looking at her with a bit of mirth. Sublime Instincts told her she wouldn't stand a chance but, like her body and mind, it agreed that running wasn't even worth considering.
Pulsating Lightning Enhancement pulsed once more and pushed her to charge at the man who got distracted by Ebony's greatsword. She caught a glimpse of Ebony sinking into the ground.
She thought she was calm.
Something snapped.
Her charge was stopped by a short sword and a backhanded swing from a dagger made her lean back even amidst her forward momentum. She didn't even break her gaze from the man with Ebony's greatsword.
Incensed Meditation at level 48 let her think a little compared to before.
This dual-wielding man was perfect to let her build up her Mastery and Cascading Laceration, she wanted to aim at non-vitals but the constant combat against Kobolds or humanoids had her body accustomed to processing humans as well.
The unarmed man was actually wearing a pair of black casting gloves, he was probably a wind or air mage. Her attempts to cast fire magic was forcefully interrupted and it would cost too much mana to conjure an equal or greater amount of fire mana to challenge the mage. She could feel his attempts to latch onto her but her Streamline Wind Enhancement was shielding her together with her rising body heat.
Trying to suffocate her would be pointless when her mask had a Rare air mana ore.
She sent her disk of blood to keep him busy.
"Where are you looking!" The opponent she was facing started to get angered that she wasn't even looking at him but staring at the larger threat.
Although she was getting overpowered and sent skidding back or dodging backwards she hasn't gotten hit once.
Body enhancement magic was the basics of close combat past Journeyman. Most locals don't have this 'basic' down but these people clearly had some degree of skill. He was already shocked enough that a Journeyman had so much speed and strength that he couldn't completely suppress with a level 220 tier one mana enhancement and his far higher base stats.
It was too bad for him that he only had a single enhancement.
"Shut up four-limbed spider." Although she found it hard to think with her Core Skill continuing to build up and her rage slowly taking over, she definitely improved and had some control over her thoughts now.
The vials under her mantle opened as she manipulated Ebony's blood to escape and slip under her mask. He had sewn on these holders so that she didn't have to hold onto a vial to drink. After treating the vials with her mana numerous times, they wouldn't interfere with her ability to manipulate blood through it as much.
She breathed out loudly after drinking two vials in a go.
A shiver went down her opponents back. The sound of her breath silenced the noisy heartbeat for a moment.
They prepared for fire magic but not lightning magic. The next clash of his melting blade sent a strong numbing shock through his arms and body. The only thing he saw in that split second of numbness was the bright sun going down on his arms.
It wasn't the sun, just her swords heated up to the extremes.
"Ugh, low quality meat, it burned to ashes before I could butcher it."
Only when the words entered his ears did he notice that he didn't sense pain when his arm got cut off, it must have been the numbing. But he only realised that his arm wasn't the only thing lost in that split second. Both his arms and legs had been sliced off, his chest opened. No, there wasn't much left of his body.
"It stinks." Anyone who knew Scarlet would be unfamiliar with the current her.
"What a gruesome little girl you are." The Grandmaster with Ebony's greatsword scrunched up his face. He had seen his fair share of burnt corpses as a user of fire magic and a warrior himself but seeing a human get…separated into different cuts of meat in less than a second was definitely new. The cuts were even equally sized, with organs placed aside and the cuts arranged out. The blood didn't spray around and the meat was stopped from being burnt with wind magic.
The Grandmaster noticed the dark red eyes flicker back to a crimson red.
"GET YOUR ROTTEN HANDS OFF THAT SWORD!"
The scream seemed like it came from the depths of hell. The crimson red in her eyes darkened again.
He stabbed the greatsword into the ground and flicked his middle finger at the longsword that aimed to slice his wrist off, having time to blow his finger before flicking after the other longsword with the same hand.
How could he be scared of a little heat, even without his heat resistant gloves he would do the same. He slapped aside the next couple hundred of strikes in a similar fashion, not caring whether it was a slash or a stab.
Being passive had been the wrong move.
The heartbeat he had been hearing kept getting louder, faster, fiercer.
The scout team was a little cowardly, they didn't continue engaging her after they saw the other men get dissected. The air mage was at least helpful at first, trying to snuff out her fire. Now that the one she was attacking was him, they didn't bother stepping in anymore.
"Ooo. Numb. They should really get some kind of Appraisal item to check out the sub-class of our targets and the associated risks." He casually said as his subordinate was having a hard time keeping track of the Xeng's attacks.
The blood disk tried to cut him from a different angle but it wasn't able to scratch his mana-enhanced skin. There was hardly any power in her blood magic in comparison. The number of types of magic she was using was a little surprising but he knew who he was dealing with.
"Relax little lass. It's not like attacking me will get him back, he's not even anywhere nearby anymore. Give up, he's ours now." He frowned when her attacks kept getting faster and stronger.
He had to take it more seriously, drawing his halberd before he lost the chance too. He had no shame drawing a weapon against a Journeyman. He smiled, "the legends weren't bollocks". He parried the next strike and took a step for his first attack.
A casual, single-handed swing at her belly.
She didn't manage to dodge or see it coming, she wasn't even looking out for the attack and was only staring and aiming at his wrist yet her body reacted and had one of her longswords block the blow in time. Sent tearing through the air and digging deep gorges into the ground as she tumbled.
"...Insane, you've really lost it here haven't you." The grandmaster looked at the tiny cut on his wrist and pointed at his head as he spoke. She had taken the blow with a single sword while the other reached out to attack. As for melting or burning him, he didn't believe anyone could do so and the hot blades were lukewarm to him at best. He had pretty special circumstances when he evolved and he dreamt of pushing his heat resistance into his Class. While others only had it as a generic skill, his was levelling on drugs when he was under 'special circumstances'. At tier 3, level 366 he was 1830% more resistant to heat not to mention he had Class Fortification for heat resistance and his high base Constitution.
As if to reply to him, she stopped moving after getting up. The fierce heartbeat was brought to a complete stop all of a sudden.
'She didn't just die did she?' The fire grandmaster was sent to deal with her, not to kill her. He made sure to hold back plenty, so much that he let himself get cut.
The next moment, an earth-shaking noise shook his ears as he felt the weight on him increase. It was something he felt less and less as he got stronger. Overflowing Vitality.
"Uh. What on Elva did you just do?" The ground beneath her crumbled when the single loud 'clap' reached his ears. Most importantly, he was pretty sure her chest caved in and that it was the sound of a single heartbeat.
His experience on the battlefield against the Trolls got him to kick up his body enhancement all the way up. He got into a full body swing with his halberd, quickly restraining the power that he reflexively brought up. Parrying one of the fiercest stabs to his neck that he parried in many years. He shattered her beautiful longsword, and just as her body shifted from the impact she twisted her body awkwardly to bring her other longsword for a slash which he blocked with the shaft of his halberd. All of that within the split second that she was getting blown away.
"ELL! You really lost it!"
'Damn! My halberd! But what the hell was that!? How can she be so fast? Her chest caved in and her heart hasn't been beating since that single pulse. Enhancement, tier 3? A journeyman with tier 3 enhancement? Wait, I don't sense any mana but her vitality is off the charts. Vitality based enhancement?! Is she a Troll? Crap, they really are mad, she's basically burning her life every time she enhances herself this way.'
"I think you are the one who lost it. Who the hell do you think you just hit?"
The Grandmaster was shocked at the voice right by his ear, only just noticing that his subordinates weren't anywhere in sight.
'How did someone get behind me!? Where did they go?' He wanted to jump away and create distance but he was rooted to the ground with a single palm on his shoulder. The aura behind him was more vast than whatever he felt from his fellow Grandmasters, the Vitality pushing him down like that of a Troll he fought in the past. Even greater than a Troll's.
The slender but strong hands moved off his shoulder and the owner of those hands walked to his front. He didn't dare move at this point.
He was greeted with a pure white mask with a single black horizontal line halved in the centre with a small black circle.
'Crap.'
"Now now. Let's talk this out, you can see that I didn't try to harm her. She was the one attacking me and I pushed her back a little." The Grandmaster didn't care that he Identified 'Craftswoman.' He first tried situational logic, she should know that if he was really trying to kill the little Xeng, he would be able to do it easily.
"So? If she wants to attack you, you should open your arms wide and welcome it."
He tightened his grip around his trusty halberd at the Xeng's unreasonable words, they were really as tyrannical as the olden rumours suggest. Since there were hardly any of them walking around, it was hard to verify rumours, legends.
Fortunately, they always took preparations and precautions to an unnecessary degree because there was another Grandmaster in charge of transporting their target some distance away.
"It smells bad here." The tall woman waved her hand in front of her mask. The scent of burnt flesh actually disappeared.
"So tell me." She continued slowly.
"Why is this without its owner?" The greatsword that he tore off their target was in her hands.
"Huh?" She looked at him for the first time.
The fiery one that he sent flying was on the way back but he saw that she wasn't able to get closer to them despite running at terrifying speeds even for someone twice her level. As if she was running in place.
"That's exactly why she attacked me! I just picked it up and she started attacking me when she saw me with it." The fiery little girl that was throwing fire spears because she didn't seem to be able to close the distance was clearly out of her mind. It wasn't a complete lie.
"Is that so?"
For some reason, he imagined her smiling despite her mask blocking her expression.
"Of course! I even put it down after she told me too!"
"So you think my little brother would just leave his sister's present lying around?"
'Li-little brother? Di…did we just kidnap a Xeng?'
"You must think I'm stupid."
A flurry of kicks and punches came at him. They were hard punches but it wasn't as scary as he thought.
He quickly put his hands in the air with his halberd still in them as he retreated.
"Look! I mean no harm!"
The punches weren't that strong and he could take a beating, the problem was that he already put so much distance between them but her punches came at him from every angle.
She didn't even take a step towards him.
He found himself right in front of her the next second as the beatings continued. He would really be an idiot if he didn't realise what just happened to him. He just got a new skill, space resistance. He had trained his magic body but where would he find a space mage to train his resistance?
His expression fell flat, there was really no escape now.
"I'm a Grandmaster! There was a bunch of shady people dressed in black that was surrounding the boy holding that weapon. I thought I'd do a good deed and asked them to hand him over but there was an earth mage that was faster than me. He was swallowed up underground and I picked up the greatsword he left behind seeing it was of high quality. I speak the truth!"
He reiterated that he had no reason to lie. Internally thinking it was a good thing that there was another group of people who took action before them.
The earth shattering punches stopped momentarily.
"Which ones?"
A large group of people fell on the ground in front of him. They were all unconscious.
'Good! I can weave any story I want.'
"The one with the cut arm, it's frozen and the one with the frozen legs. With how cold that greatsword is, your brother uses ice magic doesn't he?"
Then he realised that his colleague was actually deep under him, he could only sense him due to a special crystal each of them placed in their bracelet.
"What happened? What is that darn presence in front of you?" The voice transmitted into his head.
"What a brother! It's another Xeng, I'll distract her. Get me under when I give the signal."
"Alright, I will only try once. If you fail, I'll be getting out of here myself."
"...Fine." He knew the risk the both of them were under.
"Oh and this guy was the one I asked to unhand your bro-hey, uh, you might want to check her out." The fire warrior pointed to the black-robed guy who seemed to be in charge before picking on the perfect opportunity. The little Xeng was bleeding out of her ears and mask. Whatever red liquid she drank and her chest caving was probably the reason, together with his full body swing that sent her sprawling. The space mage was clearly very concerned when she saw the blood and the sunken chest.
"NOW!" He mentally screamed at his colleague.
He sank extremely quickly as his colleague dragged him diagonally down and away, escaping the scene. This wasn't the first time he worked with this earth mage but they rarely needed to escape and he never knew that his colleague was so skillful. He even brought along all their subordinates so that they wouldn't be able to leak the little information they had.
"Another successful job, let's get a drink. My treat."
"Heh, I drink a lot."
"You can drink a bar down at my expense but can you out drink a warrior?"
"Let's see."
The mage's attitude was likeable too.