Inside a dark cave, space fluctuated, and a vortex was formed, out of which two figures popped out and fell on the ground. The vortex vanished after a few moments and the fluctuations faded out.
Lucas and Liam were the ones who were thrown out of the vortex. Lucas stood up, dusted off his clothes, and turned to face the unconscious Liam on the floor. He couldn’t see him clearly because it was dark all around him.
Lucas cast a fire spell to light the surroundings. He then looked at Liam and said to himself internally,
‘Display available system subspace.’
A cold mechanical voice rang out in his head and a blue screen with a white string of words started to display in front of him, which the mechanical voice read,
[Collecting data… 1%… 17%…]
[Data collected. Displaying available system subspace…]
[Total system subspace: 1000 m³
Used system subspace: 250 m³
Available system subspace: 750 m³
Subspace level: 1
Upgrade cost: 100 gold coins]
‘Okay, this is enough space to have Liam in. I can finally use him to research the Ability Pilferer potion,’ Lucas thought to himself.
He then bent down to look at the unconscious Liam and asked to the system,
‘Will he regain consciousness if he’s in the subspace?’
[Analyzing host’s question… retrieving data…]
[Answer: Yes. But the host can choose to make the subject become unconscious at will.]
‘Good. Take him to the subspace and put him there.’
[Analyzing the subject… collecting the subject…]
A few commands rang out in Lucas’s head, and after a few seconds, a white beam of light enveloped Liam’s entire body for an instant before he disappeared.
[Ding!]
[D class mission [Capture/Kill Liam] complete!]
[Obtained ×1 Xenrouz longsword grade 2, ×5 body stats points.]
‘Finally.’ Lucas thought to himself and rejoiced.
Finally, Liam was captured and Lucas’ big headache was over. He wouldn’t need to bother himself with finding another person with unique abilities and could research well on Liam to get what he wanted.
He exhaled a sigh of relief when he realized this, and after a while, he asked the system for the reward. Soon, a white beam of light converged in front of him, forming the shape of a longsword. The light faded quickly, and Lucas was left with a black longsword that reflected the red gleam of the flames Lucas had cast around his surroundings to light it up.
He went ahead and picked it up and asked the system for its description, to which the reply was:
– Made from an ore found in the deepest part of an active volcano over a period of smithing for a hundred days.
– Doubles the attack power of any fire spell cast by the wielder.
– Can channel Fire and Lightning elemental energy upto rank 4 for attacking.
– Can be strengthened via fire spells.
– Cannot be upgradable.
– Cannot be adjusted in size.
– Wielder shall experience a state of aggression for a period of time if overused.]
“Not bad for a grade 2 sword.” Lucas muttered as he held the black coloured Xenrouz longsword in his hand.
He swung it a few times, thrusted, slashed and did various other things to test it and found the sword to be okay. It wasn’t a bad sword according to him.
After testing, he stored the longsword into the inventory of the system. It was only now did Lucas start looking around to see where he was and what his surroundings were.
He roamed around and found that he was in a cave which had many shelves present around for some reason that contained various things such as manuals, artifacts, ingredients for potions and pills, and many specimens of various organisms.
Lucas looked around the shelf that had ingredients and just as he walked near it and looked at it, he froze. The very first ingredient that he saw was a virgin seraphim’s tear. Another thing that he saw was a hundred thousand year old earth dragon’s shedded scale.
Lucas was shocked finding these out. These ingredients were nothing but the ones needed to make an Affinity Enhancer potion. He only had two and needed eight more. He was on the lookout for the others and was collecting money to buy them, however; he realized it wasn’t necessary any longer.
He took a walk around the shelf and soon realized that all the eight ingredients were already present here. Lucas, instead of rejoicing, felt a cold sweat trickle down his back. He was half scared and half worried as he looked at these ingredients and thought to himself,
‘Did my identity get exposed? No, no. How can that be? Nobody knows about this except me and those guys. How can a man that looked like a beggar even have a hint of it? It must surely be a coincidence and nothing else.
Maybe, just maybe, some other guy found the formula for this potion too and was trying to concoct them and therefore, had these ingredients present. The universe is vast and there are so many people that one couldn’t even count properly. There’s bound to be someone who found the formula. I was an average person, if I could find it, others could too.’
He kept telling himself that it was just a coincidence, but he couldn’t get the image of the old astrologer out of his head. He had a sneaking suspicion that the astrologer knew his true identity, but he kept trying to deny it, making excuses to lie and reassure himself.
Lucas was a bit scared. However, having years of experience, he calmed down. The old astrologer didn’t hurt him, but in fact, helped him. It meant that he was on his side or had something that he needed from him. Thinking of the latter part, the old astrologer’s words came to Lucas’s mind, and he muttered softly,
“The walker of time suffers betrayal, trying to save everyone and everything. Traveler, when there seems no path to walk, traverse the deepest darkness, choose the wrong, for right isn’t the judgment.”
Lucas broke out in a cold sweat as he finally understood what the first line meant. He started sweating profusely and felt goosebumps all over his body. His body trembled and realization finally dawned upon him.
His identity has been found out!