Khaos let out a deep breath as he quickly landed. The dead body of the guard falling right beside him. He had remembered how Kato had beaten him back then, and he had used the exact same method on the guard.
I now know a general outline of my strategies against humans, first obscure their vision, create an opening by using the lightning element, then deal the finishing blow while enemy is incapacitated.' he thought. 'This won't work for long though'
It must be known that very few cultivators, although able to, rarely use the lightning element. This was because lightning was very hard to control. It needed someone with a high control over his Flux or has a lot of experience practicing with lightning.
Lightning also had low damage in the lower stages of Cultivation, as well as a high Flux demand. A poorly executed lightning attack can exhaust all your lightning Flux in that one attack, leaving you open when switching to another element.
That is why many cultivators found lightning to be very impractical and useless.
Khaos took half a minute to catch his breath before flying up to Zara, who was still in combat with the last stage six guard.
Actually calling it combat would be inaccurate since Zara was just flying around in circles and keeping her distance from her enemy in order to use her bow.
The guard noticed Khaos flying towards them from the corner of his eye, and he quickly checked the ground to confirm that all his colleagues really were dead. This momentary distraction made his reaction time slower, and an arrow that was aimed at his head pierced his shoulder after he attempted to evade.
The last thing he saw was Zara snapping her fingers and the arrow head exploding inside his shoulder, taking the better half of his chest as well as decapitating him.
"Zara!" Khaos shouted while pointing in the distance.
A few hundred meters away, a cultivator was flying away frantically in a zigzag manner. Zara nodded and they flew towards the cultivator, who was only in the forth stage so there was no chance he could escape.
"Hey how did you make your arrow explode like that?" Khaos asked.
"Hey what do you want to buy with the reward from this quest?" Zara asked, imitating Khaos' voice.
Khaos nodded, "Okay fine you got me, and i do not sound like that". he rebuked. Zara chuckled as they soon caught up to their target a few seconds later.
"Please don't kill me!, i can pay you. I have a lot of gold in my carriage, i can give you all of it". The man pleaded while kneeling in mid air.
"Oh really?, okay thanks we will check the carriage". Khaos said and decapitated the man with a quick swing of a blade he made from earth.
He then caught the man's head before it fell and put it in a bag. "Let's go check the carriage", he said to Zara, who nodded and flew back to the Dead Gorge.
Opening the carriage, they found a lot of stuff. Almost all of it was useless to Cultivators though, like jewelry and expensive cloth. After searching the entirety of the merchants goods, they found over 400 gold coins and about double that amount in silver.
The money was the only thing worth carrying so they only took that. Zara also took some gold rings and other jewelry but Khaos did not even spare a glance at those things. They even left the silver coins since the gold was heavy enough as it was.
The duo shared the money equally and in the end, Khaos got 230 gold. That was an unbelievable amount of gold but Khaos knew that it's value for him had dropped significantly.
If he was trying to live a normal life, that money would set him up for life, but as a cultivator on his way to power, 230 gold was just an average amount of money to have.
Maybe i will buy Flux stones and try to see if that bracelet will work on them', he though as he and Zara flew back to the Academy.
The Flux absorption Bracelet. Khaos did not know exactly what it did but it's name was self explanatory. It was not a coincidence that just when he needed something to help him Cultivate faster, a voice appeared in his head telling him to ask for that particular artifact.
Even though the voice surprised Khaos, he had a feeling that he could trust it. Ever since joining the Academy, a lot of strange things have been happening to him.
Everytime he slept, he would wake up covered in sweat and gasping for air, but no matter how he tried, he never seemed to remember his nightmares.
Soon enough, the duo arrived at the Academy and flew into the bottom floor. Zara waited by one of the benches while Khaos limped to collect the reward. One should remember that he did not come out of the battle unscathed.
His shoulder had suffered some burns and he had a cut on his thigh, and he could not even remember when and how he got injured there. Khaos then placed the bag containing the head on the table. "Khaos, 4045", he said.
The clerk nodded and took out Khaos quest brief from under his desk. Then he read over the brief and checked the face of the head carefully. After a few seconds, the head suddenly disappeared, causing Khaos to raise an eyebrow in surprise.
"Well done, 20 marks have been deposited to you", the clerk said.
"I would like to buy the Flux Absorption Bracelet and also transfer 5 marks to Zara, 4050". Khaos said.
The clerk closed his eyes for 3 seconds before opening them again.
"Five marks have been transferred to Zara 4050", she said before showing his empty palm. "You have bought the Flux absorption bracelet for ten marks", as she said that, a small woden box appeared on her palm. Khaos took it and put it in his trouser pocket.
"You have five marks remaining", the clerk added.
"If i may ask, how can you make things disappear and appear like that?" Khaos asked.
"It's a Law artifact called a space ring. My hands are covered with them". The clerk showed the multitude of rings on her fingers.
"Can i buy a space ring?" Khaos asked with expectant eyes. An artifact like that could solve a lot of problems. With it, they would not have left anything in the merchants carriage back then.
"Yes, it is available in the shop" the clerk nodded