Half an hour later.
Within an empty house in that street.
I sat on the floor across the horse. Dhana was standing at the door to make sure that no one disturbed me. I bit my finger to make it bleed and drew a runic circle on the forehead of the horse. I injected my mana into the runic circle.
The runic circle turned into a magic circle and the contract was initiated. The horse was not exactly a powerful beast. It was at most a first circle magical beast, so the taming was easy. After the contract was formed. I started chanting another spell.
A spell used to search through the memories of the beasts.
To work, a person has to be contracted with the beast first and that's what I did. One of the reasons that I focused on beast taming was precisely that ability. For combat, I believe the spirits were much better than a beast. At least that was my personal preference.
As soon as the spell was cast. I started seeing various images. The horse was locked up in the stable for quite some time. It was basically a CCTV pointed at the front door of the restaurant.
I saw the man in black, walking towards the place along with the Horse and the Dog. The two beasts looked so normal from the memories of the horse that I could have been fooled.
The restaurant was a big one. The most expensive and luxurious one in this two and it was basically the second biggest building besides the mansion of the village chief.
The man had a cigar in his mouth as he walked in, while the two beasts stayed on either side of the entrance. The front part of the counter was clearly visible for everyone to see. There was a big fat man sitting beside it as he scribbled something away.
The man in black stood in front of him.
They talked something for a short while before the fat man pointed his finger at the man in black and yelled something. Too bad the voice wasn't registered in the horse's memories.
The man in black who just finished a cigar, just dropped the stub of it and took out a different one. The tip of his index finger was set with black flames as he lit his cigar up. He spoke something to the fat man and the next moment, the fat man tried to slap the man in black while calling for his security personnel.
The slap obviously missed. I would have killed myself if the slap actually landed.
But it did tip off the cigar and fell off in the street.
The next moment…
The man in black jabbed forward with his fingers and they went straight into the eye sockets of the fat man. He seemed to have hooked his fingers from inside because he pulled the man by those sockets off the counter and threw him onto the floor before kicking his head.
The head was torn off the neck and was caught with black flames as it flew deeper into the restaurant.
*BOOM*
With an explosive sound, the black flames spread all over the restaurant and all chaos ensued.
The image shook and blurred. The horse seemed to have been frightened. It started jumping around. But in that large blurry and shaky image, I looked at one thing and one thing alone. The cigar on the street.
The cigar was a bit different from anything that I had seen before.
And I looked it up close during the Anta event, so I was sure. The stub inside the restaurant couldn't have been saved. But this one, there was a chance.
If only I could find it.
But the problem was that the horse missed it and the cigar was missing.
In that brief moment, there were over a dozen people that ran out of the restaurant and there were even a couple of carts and carriages, moved in the same direction. It might have been lost in the chaos.
The horse then seemed to have lost consciousness for a while.
I canceled the connection.
I was sweating like crazy. This has always been such an endeavor. Connecting my mind with another beast, it takes a toll on the person and the beast both.
I looked at Dhana who was eagerly waiting.
"We need to look for something. A black-colored cigar. It should have been lost in the chaos. I think that could be a clue."
"Can you create a projection of the object?"
Dhana asked.
I nodded and mana came out of my palm. I closed my eyes and concentrated as the mana changed into the image of the cigar. It was like a hologram more or less.
Dhana examined it closely and nodded before walking out. She stood in the middle of the road and started channeling our Mana.
I looked at her eagerly. She was an eighth-ranked mage after all and she could have used a lot of spells without any chanting or magic circles. But for the spell that she cast at that time, it had to use a proper magic circle and a spell.
It was a spell of that caliber. It consumes a significant amount of energy even for her, but the results were just as good.
"From mind to circle, my will shall be spun,
Mana's reach, seeking what's to be won,
The glow of discovery, reveal what's sought, begun."
Dhana muttered and the large bun of silver hair was undone and fluttered in the wind. A large magic circle was formed under her feet with her as the center and it turned into a huge web of mana that spread in all directions.
Her eyes started glowing.
The lines of mana spread over my body too and then went into the house. In the house opposite, to the stable, to the restaurant. For a certain radius, it covered every living and non-living creature.
The Investigators who were within the range noticed this and they walked closer to Dhana. Using this spell means Dhana was searching for a certain object that could be a valid clue.
Two minutes after the magic web spread, a few meters away from our spot, a glow shouted out into the air like a beacon. My eyes lit up and so did the Investigators. All of us ran and of course, the Knights among the Investigators managed to beat me to it.
In the place where the glow came from, I found what I was looking for a Cigar.
"What the hell? She used the spell for this cigar?"
One of the Investigators spat out loud by mistake.
"I would like to have that, please. I would prefer if you don't touch it too much." I rushed and took the Cigar from the other person. The front end of it was slightly burned and charred and the back end had some dirt stuck to it.
"Are you going to use that for a spell?" Dhana asked.
"Yes. After that, you can have that. By the way, I need some birds. Preferably crows."
Dhana nodded and ordered the team to collect some crows. They had seen a bunch of wild crows across the village and with their skills it should be no problem for them to catch them. At this moment, Dharma who went to investigate some other details came back.
"Found some information on Janis. He has been in this place for over a decade. No one knows where he came from. He had gotten multiple offers for the restaurant before, but he never took it. He was adamant about it.
In fact, three days before he sold the restaurant, he actually rejected an offer from the current dead owner.
However, overnight the transaction was allegedly completed and even the head of the village announced the transfer himself, claiming that he administered the procedure because of a emergency situation of Janis." Dharma explained what he and some other Investigators gathered.
"That means, the village head has conveniently skipped over all of these details. He didn't mention anything about the sudden strange behavior of Janis. I guess we need to pay him a visit.
Dharma, I will handle the village chief. Cooperate with Tej for now. He is about to cast a special spell to track the suspect. After that, you can collect that cigar from him. Ask the headquarters to send out the best team of our Research Staff.
Herbalists, Pharmacists, a blood mage too. As Tej mentioned that guy must really be taking the souls away with that wolf of his. Our necromancers specialized in soul magic appear useless.
For now, we will operate out of Anta."
"Alright," Dharma replied and Dhana left with a small team of her own.
Dharma coordinated with his staff and soon dozens of crows were brought to me in small metal cages all stacked on top of each other. They were all placed inside a large house.
I waited for a couple of more hours and when they room was full with over a hundred crows, I finally cast my very own tracking spell.
I held the cigar in my hand and then closed my eyes. A large magic circle appeared in front of me. Vertically.
"Ravens of shadow, spirits untamed,
Merge with crows, the living, unnamed.
Imprint the essence, the object's glow,
Seek the soul, wherever it may go."
I chanted the spell and the cigar in my hand flowed along with the magic circle.
*CAW* *CAW* *CAW* *CAW*
Several Raven spirits with blacker-than-night feathers and redder-than-blood-colored eyes emerged out of that circle and flew toward the crows in the cages. The spirits crashed into the crows and disappeared. Fusing with them.
The crows had visible changes. The bodies grew bigger. Their feathers are longer with a blackish mana emanating from them every slight. Their eyes turned red.
The next moment, with a wave of my hands, a light beam shot out of the glowing cigar in my hand. It split into several strands. These strands shot into the heads of these now-modified crows. The cages opened and all the crows flew out of the room at the same time.
The whole village was almost scared as almost a hundred crows zoomed out of a single house within the city.
As soon as they left, I fell on my butt as I panted heavily.
"Fuck. I shouldn't underestimate the summoning of first-ranked spirits. Large enough number and I will be fucked."
I muttered out loud.
"A new tracking spell?"
Dharma asked looking at me in askance.
"Yes. I used my spirit summoning to call up lesser spirits of darkness from the spirit world and used the spirit fusion spell to fuse them with the crows. I imprinted the essence I gathered from this cigar into their heads.
Since that person used his magic on it, I am sure the signature can be tracked.
Now these crows will move in all directions in search of the essence and I will know immediately."
"But how will the spirits survive? You are the summoner. A hundred spirits, even if they are first ranked one…."
I knew what he was about to say. It should be an immense toll on my body and mana core. The summoned spirits consume the energy of their summoner to stay in the world. A hundred spirits consuming mana from him should put him on a bed in minutes.
"That is why the spirit fusion. The beasts will act as the natural reservoirs and generators of the mana.
They will gather the mana from the surroundings and let the spirits consume it. They can even use the crows as the anchor points, which lessens the toll on my mind as well."
"That might just be a new discovery. Third-party spirit fusion has only been used on inanimate tools before. Like puppets and golems. On beasts… that was a first, at least to my knowledge."
I couldn't help but smile slightly at the praise.
I just hoped the magic worked as greatly as it appeared to be.