Chapter 156 (1/2)

Shal opened his mouth to say something, but his student’s frown simply deepened. Chuckling, Shal shook his head but remained silent. He supposed that everyone deserved the chance to fail. Especially foolish students.

Once more his disciple created one of those strange root creatures, which skittered up the bars of the prison. But as Shal watched, his disciple created another. And then another. And then another. Soon, a dozen of those things were clinging to the wall.

His disciple breathed in, and then breathed out. And then roots exploded, almost a hundred of them, rushing forward towards the key. Instantly this time, the small defensive disk flew down, quickly splitting into 5 pieces to rip through the roots more effectively. His disciple’s eyes narrowed, but he did not lose his nerve, and the roots split and spread, branching and crisscrossing before Shal’s eyes, moving in a strange, mesmerizing pattern.

Something clicked in Shal’s mind, watching his disciple manipulate the roots. He knew that his disciple had put points in his spell focused areas, in order to increase his destructive power. In a way Shal was disappointed, but he knew that it was a shortcut to power. Shal would eventually beat those bad habits out of him, and he settle on the spear, but it was just a disappointing fact of life for now.

But as he watched those bewildering and smooth movements of the roots…. Shal realized how much his disciple had truly put into his mental stats, specifically Control. Shal had already noticed that he appeared to possess a knack for spotting incoming threats and responding delicately towards them, but he hadn’t really pushed that issue in training. But now his mind was racing. With this much control…

Of his father’s 6 moves, Shal had mastered 4 of them, and that was mostly because that was how many he had mastered before it had all happened, and he had lost himself in the wake of that tragedy. Now, if he dedicated himself to it while they remained in this prison, Shal had no doubt that he could master the rest.

And once he did… the 5th move, the Spear Phantom’s Embrace, would likely be the other move that he taught his foolish disciple who focused too much on mental stats. It would not possess the bloodthirsty aura of his father’s move, but Shal was mildly curious what the boy would do with his own strange images.

Of course, that wouldn’t help Shal deal with his own problems when he left this place. Perhaps the boy could help, but… it would be rough going, especially to recover in time to meet Lucrecia…

But Shal’s eyes refocused as, even though the small disks were furiously ripping through the roots, more and more were branching outwards, just clogging up the air. Unlike previously, his student didn’t just let the severed and withering roots go away, he pushed them forward, from behind the rot, shooting them forward. It severely reduced the speed of the root growth, but it still made the air thick with them.

Through the densely packed roots, Shal could still make out those glowing emerald eyes, narrowed in concentration.

But those disks were merciless. They cut and cut and cut, pushing the roots slowly back, until the air was empty, and all of the Root spiders were rotted away. Except one.

And from that one, a thin root emerged, running around the window and up to the ceiling, rushing to the corner, then sliding along the wall over the key, now slowly dropping down.

As soon as the other roots were destroyed, the disks noticed this small root, but by then it was too late. The root flicked lightly, and the key spun through the air, flashing as it caught the light of the small illumination stones in the wall. Shal opened his hand and caught it.

An alarm began to sound. Shal’s fingers twisted, and he expertly flipped the key up, and positioned his arm so the key slid into the lock, clicking into place. Then he saw the small, smug smile forming on his disciple's face, but Shal just sat there, unmoving.

“You must turn the key for me, obviously. I cannot reach,” Shal finally said, savoring the way the smug expression was very quickly wiped off his disciple’s face. Ah yes, this was how it must be done. Let their confidence grew a small bit, and then crush it, so it could be rebuilt later, stronger and more durable than ever, based in truth, rather than youthful hotheadedness.

“Also, hurry.” Shal said, almost bored. “The guards will arrive shortly.”

****

Randidly gritted his teeth. He would swear that Shal seemed pleased at his newfound helplessness, as the alarms blared, and undoubtedly people were rushing over to this location. That amount of roots were close to his mental limits, and already he had a headache beating behind his eyes. But perhaps, now that he no longer needed to remain sneaky…

First things first: his mana. Randidly removed several mana potions and quickly downed them. Within around 10 seconds, his mana was almost back to full, but Randidly just pointed to the sky and created the Weeping Cloud, and continued to drink the potions.

Slowly, mist formed and condensed above him, swirling together as he restored his mana, then quickly spreading and creating a light and refreshing rain. Around 14 seconds had gone past since the alarms began to ring, and Randidly could detect the barely discernable clomp of heavy footsteps approaching.

With the rain hitting his back, his headache melting away, Randidly cracked his fingers and got to work. He continued to drink mana potions as he made a stream of root spiders and sent them towards the approaching guards to hide and strike. Hopefully that would buy him some time. Then he placed more on the wall of the prison.