Pandora unchained 2 a cu.., p.6
Pandora Unchained 2: A Cultivation Progression Fantasy, page 6
Satisfied with his gains so far, Sorin turned his attention to the two remaining wish-fire orbs that were just starting to materialize as a physical object. It was a small object, barely bigger than a head, and it was made of a golden metal etched with thousands of tiny runes. “Nice,” said Sorin, inspecting the item. “A cauldron.”
Information poured into his mind, informing him that the cauldron was called a Purelight Cauldron. It didn’t provide any assistance in the nurturing or fusion parts of the crafting process, but it did allow the user to filter their mana and remove unwanted contaminants.
The metal was extremely resistant to poisons, corruption, and alchemical contamination. It also had a self-repair function that could be activated by feeding the cauldron mana crystals and demon cores. Overall, Sorin was very pleased with the item he’d been awarded and was excited to see what came next.
His companions obtained interesting rewards as well. Gareth obtained a strange-looking bow that could take on many different shapes, while Stephan gained a hammer. Daphne obtained what appeared to be a calligraphy brush with crimson hairs and a white and gold handle.
As for Lawrence, he gained the most questionable item—some kind of black orb that could disrupt wards and shields without outright destroying them. Great. Hope is enabling the troublemaker, just like we’d feared. He shuddered to think of the damage control that would be required now that Lawrence was a Bone-Forging cultivator.
The third reward has to be the best one, thought Sorin as he looked at the final orb expectantly. It was the orb that had absorbed the most wish-fire, so its contents would naturally exceed the precious cauldron he’d obtained in value.
I already have a dagger and a cauldron, and my armor underwent some sort of evolution when it drank in my two-star blood. Our Hero Medal provides a small storage space, so I don’t need a storage item. Do I need boots? A cloak? A ring?
Finally, it was time for the third item. Sorin’s wish-fire orb flattened out, then started to solidify. A book! The best kind of reward! Most books were skill books, but there was a chance that they could be valuable spell books.
Unfortunately, Sorin’s joy was short-lived. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, taking in the title and author of the book.
“What’s this?” said Lawrence, eyeing the book. “Oh, is that a cultivation manual? Those are rare. Though it’s pretty strange that I can’t read the title. Also, don’t you already have a pretty good cultivation technique?”
“What did you guys get?” asked Sorin, trying his best to ignore his own reward.
“I got a crossbow with replenishing bolts,” said Lawrence happily. “There’s even an insert for a vial that will automatically apply poisons! I’m going to need some of your blood, by the way. On a daily basis.”
“Me too,” said Gareth. “Apparently, this quiver does variable elemental arrows, but it has the option of applying poison from a vial. Actually, I think that if I feed it enough blood, it can make arrows composed entirely of poison.”
“What a coincidence,” said Stephan, taking out a pair of gauntlets. “I can’t usually use gauntlets in my shifted form. And they even have this insert for poison vials that I can apply to my attacks! Ingenious.”
“Um…” said Daphne, looking awkwardly at Sorin.
“Let me guess,” said Sorin with a sigh. “That stuff has a receptacle that can somehow apply poison through your spells?”
“As weird as that sounds, yes, it does!” said Daphne. “So, make sure to bleed yourself adequately every day. I have lots of experiments to perform, and I think the Mages Guild might be willing to purchase a research paper exploring the poison delivery enchantments on these items. For science, of course.”
Sorin sighed as he finally set his sights on the book before him. He should have known that with the fox being nice to him on the first two wishes, there would be a twist with the third.
The book was nice. It looked very expensive. It was bound with rare magical leather and wrapped in many layers of golden chains, each one containing thousands of tiny runes painted with white ink.
It looked impressive, making it a shame that his companions couldn’t see its true appearance. The only downsides to the item were the title and the author…
Embracing and Cultivating Evil—a Practical Guide to Unleashing the Ultimate You by Your Friendly Neighborhood Fox Deity—Life Coach, Cataclysmic Entity, and Corruption Enthusiast.
9
DEPARTURE
Sorin did not read the book he obtained at the Wish-Fire Festival. At the same time, he couldn’t quite get himself to throw it away. Unsure of what to do with it and worried that others might discover its secrets, Sorin decided to tuck it away in his Hero Emblem. In case he had trouble sleeping or something. Yes, that was the reason.
There was much to prepare for their trip to Delphi and a lot to adjust, given the rewards from the Wish-Fire Festival. Their group decided on two weeks of preparation before setting out.
A quick evaluation of his current needs and abilities revealed that Sorin lacked spells to use on the road. He therefore opted to study with Daphne at the Mages Guild and even took out a loan to purchase another gag spell, Spear in a Haystack. It was basically the two-star version of Threading the Spear and included enhancements to handle two-star mana, an increase in the maximum number of needles, and naturally, an increase in the maximum size of any given spear. Because biggest spear was best spear.
While Percival and Clarice packed up his belongings, Sorin ran about tying up loose ends. First up were his debts, which totaled 15,000 gold after accounting for his Mages Guild loan and the poisons he’d purchased to craft his original ten-poison.
He managed to pay off 5,000 gold by selling his share of materials recovered from two-star demons during the demon tide, bringing the debt down to 10,000 gold. Though he did his best to work off his debt at the Alchemists Guild, there was a fixed demand for poisons in peaceful times. He was only able to pay off 3,000 gold by the end of the two-week period.
In the end, he decided to have the debt transferred to the Adventurers Guild for later repayment and was about to complete the paperwork when a large stack of gold cards landed on his table, directly atop the incomplete paperwork.
“What’s all this?” asked Sorin, looking up at his teammates.
“Money, obviously,” said Stephan. “You should have told us it was expensive for you to break through. It’s a good thing Lawrence found out about your situation before we decided to buy anything after selling off our old equipment.”
“My debt, my problem,” said Sorin, pulling the incomplete forms out from under the stack.
“Don’t be dense,” said Daphne. “According to my calculations, we’re still several tens of thousands of gold indebted to you.”
“And where exactly did you incur all this debt?” asked Sorin.
“If you use your brain a little, you’ll doubtless discover that you’ve been performing an atrociously expensive meridian opening service on us, free of charge,” said Gareth. “From what Stephan’s told me, these services don’t come cheap.”
“I know for a fact that they don’t come cheap,” said Daphne. “I had my agent in Delphi look into it.”
“That’s only if you can get someone to do it,” said Stephan. “It’s very difficult these days. So, as you can see, Sorin, your debts are our debts. Also, here’s a gift.” He handed a package over to Sorin.
“Boots?” said Sorin, opening the bundle.
“Courtesy of Mr. Sanderson and Mr. Watchmaker, the cobbler,” said Gareth.
“These are too expensive,” said Sorin, pushing them back.
“Quite the contrary, they’re not expensive enough,” said Stephan. “Gareth, give him the rundown.”
“I explained to Mr. Sanderson and Mr. Watchmaker that your movement skill, while flexible, is a little too straightforward,” said Gareth. “You have trouble breaking through ranks and getting to where you’re most needed, which is a huge problem since you’re one of our primary damage dealers and, in all honesty, a secondary tank.
“You don’t strike me as the stealthy type, so I approached the Adventurers Guild to purchase Wraith Hare leather, which is very suitable for spatial enchantments. Mr. Sanderson and Mr. Watchmaker shaped the boots and treated the leather, while the Vice-Guild Master of the Mages Guild personally enchanted them.”
“Spatial enchantments?” asked Sorin. “You mean teleportation? Isn’t that extremely rare? Rare enough that it qualifies as Haley’s Heroic Ability?”
“Her ability is much better than the one stored in these boots,” said Stephan. “For one, hers costs practically costs nothing to activate. It can also break through mana interference and teleport her away when she’s entangled. The Spatial Hopping Enchantment on these boots has nothing on it.”
“Like Haley’s ability, you can use these boots to teleport to a location within thirty feet every minute,” continued Gareth. “But it comes at a steep mana cost that rises exponentially with distance. Furthermore, you’ll be hit with a physical recoil every time you teleport. That also scales exponentially with distance.”
“That sounds like a lot of downsides,” said Sorin.
“Yes, what terrible downsides,” muttered Daphne. “You know what? I think we should return them and pay a 100,000 gold to somehow find a two-star item enchanted with a stored three-star Blink spell.”
“To be clear, Daphne’s body wouldn’t be able to handle these boots,” said Stephan. “And neither would Lawrence’s.” By extension, Haley wouldn’t be able to use the boots either.
Given how much effort they’d put into all of this, Sorin could only accept the boots. “Thanks. I’ll put them to good use.”
“I told you he’d eventually give in to peer pressure,” said Lawrence, giving Sorin a thumbs-up. “And now, we can take off without worrying about loose ends.”
“Speaking of loose ends, did you have any luck with Haster and Barbara?” Gareth asked Stephan. “Both of them fix our need for another melee fighter.”
Stephan sighed and shook his head. “Unfortunately, both of them are unavailable, despite having successfully broken through to the Bone-Forging Realm. Barbara because she lost nine team members and wants to go kill monsters on her own for a while, and Haster because he decided his calling isn’t adventuring but brewing. He’s apparently putting a lot of effort into it and is even collaborating with the Alchemists Guild and Mr. Primrose for his first batches.”
With these last few details taken care of, only a few preparations remained. While Haley finalized the details of the missions they would accept between Bloodwood Outpost and the next city, they caught up on each other’s activities over the past two weeks.
Daphne had naturally learned her new spell, Concussive Fire Blast. The spell was only useful within twenty feet, but it had a very short cast time and could target enemies in a fan-shaped area. Any enemies struck by the spell would be sent flying backward and stunned for three seconds.
Gareth’s skill turned out to be an upgrade to Power Shot called Crushing Storm Arrow. It was a wind-based skill that matched his attribute, and it could be charged for greater damage and further empowered to drill through an enemy’s mana defenses. Overall, it nicely shored up his lacking single-damage offense.
Stephan’s new ability was impressive. “So basically, it’s a wide area taunt, except it also makes my opponents go berserk, increasing their physical damage and magic power but reducing their physical and magical defenses.”
“Isn’t that risky?” asked Sorin.
“It would be, if not for this new armor I crafted from a two-star plated armadillo’s scales and my new transformation, Silver Spine Grizzly Bear.”
“Wait, you made that?” said Lawrence, inspecting the hybrid plate and scale armor Stephan was wearing. “Very nice. And it’ll adjust to your size when you shift?”
“Of course,” said Stephan. “It’ll also take on the properties of my transformation, which is why it’s so expensive to make and repair. Unfortunately, the trade-off is that it can’t be enchanted. I need to rely purely on the materials and my own craftsmanship.”
“That explains the hammer,” said Sorin. “Sorry, but I never took you for a smith, Stephan.”
“I’m a terrible smith,” said Stephan. “Another reason why my repair costs are so high despite doing it all myself.”
“Why don’t you just outsource it?” asked Lawrence. Gareth tossed a pebble at him using a toned-down version of Crushing Storm Arrow. “What was that for? I thought we were done with all this physical harassment.”
“I just got annoyed by your lack of knowledge,” said Gareth. “You do realize a beastshift warrior is a subset of the druid class, don’t you? Typically, they wouldn’t even be able to use metal. Stephan’s using a workaround, am I right?”
“That’s right,” Stephan confirmed. “The workaround is that I needed to invest in a skill, one that takes up quite a bit of space. I also need to make anything I wear.”
“Then why not just use leather armor and save some time?” asked Lawrence.
“That’s a very stupid question, Lawrence,” said Stephan. “Armored bear is best bear.”
This time, Lawrence doubled down on the argument, and it ended up turning into a brawl. They took the fight outside, with the spectating cultivators keeping ordinary mortals at bay.
At first, Stephan was unable to catch Lawrence due to the slow and lumbering nature of his Silver Spine Grizzly Bear form, but that changed when Stephan switched to his Pigmy Shadow Bear form, a diminutive bear little larger than Stephan himself with stealth capabilities and high speed, all obtained at the cost of reduced offense and defense.
Eventually, their fight was broken up by an annoyed Haley. Her arm was in a sling, and she was still quite pale from her injuries, but even so, she was able to knock them down with relative ease.
“If you battle maniacs are about ready, I’ve finished communicating with other branch guilds,” said Haley. “You have a pile of requests that you can fulfill as convenient. Most of them expire in about two weeks, though, so you’ll need to collect the next list in the outpost or city I include at the end of the list.”
“Also, you should all note that as two-star adventurers, one-star demon bounties can no longer be claimed by your party.”
“What? Seriously?” said Lawrence. “That’s a lame rule.”
“It’s the only way to make sure Bone-Forging cultivators don’t get greedy for one-star mission, unfortunately,” said Haley with a shrug. “Besides, you still get to keep the demon cores of the things you kill. We’re just not incentivizing you to go clear out entire dens of one-star creatures when one-star adventurers could easily accomplish the same thing.”
“Thanks for the trouble, Haley,” said Stephan. “We appreciate the effort.”
“No thanks required,” said Haley. “It’s all part of the job, though it seems I’ll be switching to another one soon.”
“A transfer?” asked Stephan. “Where to?”
“Who knows,” said Haley with a smile that was not a smile. “All I can say is that you shouldn’t get too used to my absence.”
Two hours later, their party exited the city through the west gate. Percival, Clarice, and Mr. Primrose were there to bid Sorin adieu. Lawrence’s father was there and had even brought them all packed lunches for the next three days.
Gareth’s father also made an appearance, but like Gareth, he was a man of few words and came off as unimpressive despite being a Bone-Forging cultivator.
There were a few notable absences, including Haley and Daphne’s parents. Sorin wasn’t sure about Haley, but in Daphne’s parents’ case, she said that her parents were busy and couldn’t make time to see her. There was a story there, Sorin was sure, but he didn’t pry. It would be up to her to bring up the matter when she felt ready to.
Sorin’s memories of the outpost weren’t all fond, but he would miss it nonetheless. He would miss the clinic, which would soon be receiving a two-star physician from the Kepler Clan to replace Marcus, and he miss his old patients, whom he hadn’t seen much of since becoming an adventurer.
Lastly, Sorin would miss the many acquaintances he’d made since becoming an adventurer. There was his tutor at the Mages Guild, Mr. Primrose from the Alchemists Guild, and Mr. Sanderson, the enthusiastic leatherworker. There was Guild Master Roy, Vice Guild Master Thomas, and even Vice Guild Master Victor, who didn’t seem to like Sorin very much but had always protected his interests.
The snow near the Bloodwood Outpost was deep. Given their high cultivation, mounts would be much slower than simply traveling on foot.
Besides, it wasn’t like they’d be sticking to the main roads; there were two-star bounties aplenty to claim along the way. Some missions involved eliminating troublesome demons, but there were a few two-star material collection missions and an investigation to conduct on a small cave that may or may not lead to a pocket dimension.
“I, for one, am super-excited to be leaving the city,” said Lawrence, rubbing his hands. “And now that I know about the trick you used on my fasting potions last time, I’ll actually get to enjoy drinking them.”
“Who said anything about fasting potions?” asked Stephan. “Two-star fasting potions are expensive. I didn’t pack any.”
“Neither did I,” said Gareth. “I assumed we’d just be hunting demons. They’re fine to eat if you purify them.”
“Eating… demons?” said Lawrence, looking a little horrified. “Wait, can I turn back now? Ask my dad for a few more packed lunches? And what about vegetables? What about bread? What about cake? We’ll be eating cake, right?”
Sorin chuckled at the exchange. With friends like these accompanying him, the journey wouldn’t be boring.
10
ABOMINATION
Winter winds blew through the wilderness, blasting snow across the sparse tracks that littered the woods and onto Sorin’s position. The winds were cold, but the snow was colder. But that coldness was a small price to pay for safety from the winds that whispered mad words into Sorin’s stubborn ears.
