72 Expedition (1/2)

Zatiel was in his laboratory working, this past few days, he has spent all of his time making Rank 1 runes, only leaving this place every few days to sleep. Besides him, there was a pyramid made from cubes of food, that from time to time floated to his mouth for him to eat them, but even when he did that, he didn't stop working. The thing that will raise interest in anyone who sees this, is that even as he eats, all of his concentration remains on the runes.

It was like if two people were controlling a body, the first had domain over his eyes and hands, focusing all of his attention in runecrafting and the second control his mouth and digestive system, monitoring the energy inside Zatiel.

This feat was thanks to the glowing rune in the upper section of Zatiel spine, replacing ´Secondary Consciousness´ that was there previously. This was the rune that he only was able to create thanks to the help of the Eye of life and creation, and it was called ´Mind Mirror´.

´Mind Mirror´ is a Middle-Rank 2 rune and it worked enhancing by a factor of two your cognitive abilities and letting you split your mind and focus on two different tasks simultaneously. What Zatiel was doing is using one mind to concentrate completely in runecrafting and the other was manipulating his digestive system, directing the energy that was generated to his hearts.

Neo-Demon use abyss aura as a source of energy and their bodies have great vitality, but the power necessary to use a Rank 2 rune constantly was huge, and Zatiel was not even close to the peak of Rank 1, so he had to focus almost all the energy coming from his Bloodline Heart and great part of the original heart to use it, keeping the rest for inscribing runes, and this was only because his reservoir was greater than any other Rank 1, even those of the Neo-Demon race.

By doing this, Zatiel would not have to decide how much of his time let to inscribing and will be able to enhance his power and improve his skill as a runemaster simultaneously.

When he was about to finish a rune, he receives a message from Heinz though the crystal from the tower. After finishing his work he took the crystal and check the message.

It appears that Heinz had some good news for him, and was calling him to his room. Since he had had nothing urgent to do, Zatiel eats a cube and call the sword cultivator.

.........

In the room with a wall full of swords and another full of lacerations, Heinz was resting. On his body there were some open wounds, although they were shallow, there was a dark glow that was surrounding them and it was stopping the regeneration abilities of the cultivator from healing his body.

This wound was caused by attacks that had the laws of dead on them, and Heinz was using his own energy to purge it from his body. Although purely in offensive terms, the Law of Killing is more powerful than the Law of Death, the last one had a connection with decaying, rot and the withering of life, so it was very persistent once it latched on a living being, but thanks to the power of Heinz, in a couple of hours he will be able to erase it.

When the last of the dark glow was vanishing from his body, Heinz received a message and he stands up to create a portal, from which Zatiel came out.

”Brother, I have some good news. An expedition party will be sent to the inner area of the Endless Forest, his task is to extract a metal from a cave found in that place. Due to the special condition of the mineral, only those at Rank 1 and above can get in contact with it safely, so I was wondering if you would want to form part of it. As a thanks for the help you have provided me with my sword training, you will retain everything you earn in that place, unlike all the others that will only get a percentage,” It was thanks to the help from Zatiel that he was able to dominate his opponent in the battle for the cave so Heinz wanted to repay him with this.

Although Heinz had enough wealth and it will be simple for him to give something to Zatiel, he thought that doing something like that will harm their relationship, so giving him a spot for a task in which he will be able to get his own wealth, will be perfect.

”Thank you, but I need more information about this expedition like the power of the people who would be going and the possible enemies that we will face, before I make a decision, after all the inner area of the Endless Forest, it's a really dangerous place,” Despite Zatiel needing a great amount of wealth to create his Magic Tower, he would not take an expedition to the anywhere lightly, especially to a place were Rank 3 Magic creatures could be found.

Heinz was no surprise that Zatiel asked for more information, all the opposite, if he had said yes immediately, letting greed cloud his judgment, he would have found it weird and stupid, after all, even he would need to be cautious in some places of the Endless Forest, much less a Rank 1.

”I assumed you will ask. As you may know, the Endless Forest works as a natural barrier between the lands under the jurisdiction of the Aetereum Empire and the Eye Dynasty, the individual who found the cave with the mineral vein is an Eye Tyrant from Dynasty, normally those who found a place with great wealth in the Endless Forest could reclaim them for the power they are part, but since he enter our land without informing before, I was able to get that place in dispute. The two powers have decided to send groups of equal power to the place and extract the mineral together, making it a competition, letting the more powerful and faster group to get the most of the mineral.”

Zatiel was no surprised for this type of arrangement to be done, after all, great powers rarely go to war for resources, choosing to engage in this type of competition instead of starting a conflict, after all when a dispute begins is almost impossible to know for sure to what extent it will grow and who the winner will be, especially with those waiting in the darkness to take advantage from the weakened parties.