Zectas Volume III: Malediction of Veneficatl Valley Read online

  Smoke tried to use his Earth Manipulation ability to flatten out the spikes and elevate himself and Adder back to the ledge where they fell from.

  - Cannot control this Earth with your current Earth Manipulation ability.

  - Cannot control this Earth at your current level of Earth Affinity.

  His eyebrows crossed. He never saw that notification message before. He tried using his ability again and got the same notification.

  "Inspect ability, Earth Manipulation."

  Ability: Earth Manipulation

  Active

  Level: Intermediate Level 8

  Experience: (287,698/1,000,000)

  The intermediate form of Earth Manipulation.

  Earth forms may retain the shape if the user continues to supply his mana into it.

  Strength and Durability depends on the user's Earth affinity,

  knowledge of the created object, and the current level of this ability.

  Can only manipulate Earth upto the Archean era.

  Earth Affinity: 60%

  Mana Consumption: 200 mp/sec

  'Man, this place is old. I wonder if it reaches up to the Phanerozoic era?'

  Smoke sat in front of Adder and kept on observing the growing limb. It had finally grown to same size as the Condortlian's normal hand. With nothing else to do, he took out two books and began acquiring their knowledge.

  However, the green color was slowly changing. The virile arm had now taken on the color of brown and began to crust all over. It had taken on the form a brown scaly cast.

  Another fifteen minutes passed and Adder came to.

  "Ugh... Smoke? What happened? I felt like a wild rhinomouse rammed into my chest."

  "Hey, how are you feeling? Does anything feel new?"

  "Huh? New? Oh... I haven't seen anything like this before."

  Smoke couldn't help but smile and nod his head slowly.

  "I know! I was surprised myself when I saw it, but I think this could be the best thing that could happen to you."

  Adder looked puzzled, he thought that Smoke was talking about the glowing green boulder. He himself had never seen such a big vitalis stone, but he wondered why it could be the best thing that could happen to him.

  "Sure, such a big Vitalis stone is a rare find, but this thing is only valuable to the Lizard people."

  "No, I'm not talking about the green boulder. I am talking about your left arm."

  Smoke pointed towards Adder's scaly brown crusted arm.

  Adder's eyes grew wide when he saw his new arm. A million thoughts raced through his mind, but nothing came out of his mouth. Then he heard Smoke speak.

  "Do you think this Matera Vitalis stone is a special stone that can cure people?"

  "This is a Matera Vitalis stone? I've heard about it, but I thought it was just a myth."

  The Condortlian was surprised, and he thought about Smoke's question. It was logical and there was a high chance that this was indeed a special effect of the Matera Vitalis.

  Smoke then told Adder what he had observed.

  "Really? All I know is that it started growing from a green scaly arm, and later transformed into this brown crusted form."

  "My arms were green? Did they start out like a small stump and then grew to be like this?"

  "Yes, It did. How did you know that?"

  Adder took a deep breath and suddenly began scratching out his brown crusted arm.

  "Hey, hey, what are you doing. Stop that."

  Smoke grabbed Adder's right hand and held on to it firmly.

  "I'm taking this thing off of me."

  "Why would you do that? Do you like living with just one arm?"

  "It's better than living with one that belongs to a virile. I don't want a monster's arm."

  "Wait a minute. Let's calm down a bit. Are you sure this is exactly the same process that the Lizard people went through?"

  Adder stopped resisting and relaxed himself.

  "Well, when their arms grew back they didn't turn into this brown scaly crust."

  "There you go. See, I'm sure this isn't a monster's arm at all."

  Despite what Smoke said, both of them didn't believe a word of it. The scaly green arm that grew, clearly belonged to a virile monster.

  Smoke thought to change the subject.

  "For now, why don't we focus on getting out of here. I already tried using Earth Manipulation but it didn't work. I'm thinking that we could climb up these walls. Do you think you could stand?"

  Adder tried to stand up, but he felt dizzy and slumped back down. For the first time, Adder felt the brown crusted arm draining all of his energy. He thought about telling Smoke but decided not to because he didn't want to worry his leader.

  "Sorry, I can't." replied Adder meekly.

  "Don't worry about it. I'll just strap you on to my back." said Smoke. He then took out his wall climbing harness and strapped it on Adder's body. As he tried to lift his injured friend up, he noticed that he was heavier than he looked.

  "You've gotten really heavy. Have you always weighed this much?" asked Smoke.

  A confused Adder looked at Smoke, "I don't know what you mean? I feel normal, it's just that I don't have any energy to move."

  Smoke had a hard time standing up because of Adder's added weight, but with the aid of his rare gloves he managed to get a firm grip on the wall.

  With Adder safely secured, Smoke looked up the steep wall. He started to scale it, with his injured friend on his back. Yet, Adder's weight proved to be beyond the limits of his Claws of Chiropterra.

  He could only reach up to the height of four feet before they got pulled down by gravity. He inspected his gloves to check their status.

  Claws of Chiropterra (Gloves)

  A rare glove that closely resembles the claws of the monstrous winged foxbat Chiropterra.

  Equipment Ability:

  * Foxbat Grip (Passive)

  + You can grip solid surfaces with ease,

  climbing mountains becomes a breeze.

  * Earth affinity + 15%

  Restriction Warning:

  - Can only carry up to 500 pounds in weight.

  Smoke was surprised to see the restriction section in the item because it did not display such an information before. He thought that the item must have only shown it now because his weight went beyond 500 pounds.

  He was shocked to learn that Adder's weight must have been more than 300 pounds, since he was only 190 pounds himself.

  "Alright, that's it. I don't think we could go out that way."

  Adder felt responsible. He knew that it was his increased weight that was literally bringing them down.

  "Sorry about that, Smoke. Why don't we rest for a few minutes? Who knows, maybe I'll recover then?"

  "Sure, let's do that. I'll cook us some grub as well."

  Smoke prepared a medicinal sand cat stew. When the stew was finished he began to spoon feed Adder.

  "You don't have to do this. I'll eat when I can move my arm."

  "Don't be stubborn. I want to get out of this place as soon as possible. Even if it means forcing this stew down your throat."

  Adder obediently ate the medicinal stew, until the whole pot was finished. As they rested, Smoke thought to investigate the pit they were currently in.

  What he really wanted to do was to chase after the enraged Centaurs, but Adder's health and safety was his top priority at the moment.

  He decided to give Laernea a call. Since he didn't know if Adder could recover at all in less than a day.

  "I need your help, we fell down this pit while we were chasing the mutated Centaurs."

  The lioness Lioumerean's voice trembled as she spoke.

  "What?! Are you okay? I'll be there right away."

  "Laernea, wait. Bring a ton of rope, some digging equipment, and Condortl's best Healer. I don't know how deep this place is. Let me send you our coordinates."

  "I'll be there in a few minutes. Rope, digging equipment, but why do you need a Heale
r? Condortl only has Tanda left, and he is only slightly better than our first aid ability."

  "Adder got injured, but he's stable now."

  "Okay, don't you worry, Smoke. I'll be there before you know it."

  After Smoke called Laernea, he decided to resume his original plan and investigate the pit.

  "I'll be back, I'm just gonna look around a bit. Maybe there's another way out or something."

  Before Smoke left, he thought about what he saw from the top view while he attempted to scale the wall.

  "You know, if you look at the glowing Vitalis stone from the top, it kinda looks like an arrow pointing toward that wall. Nah, its probably just my imagination."

  Smoke and Igniz went off to search for an exit. The Vitalis' low luminance was enough to give some visibility to Adder, who sat down beside it.

  Slowly, Smoke walked further away. Igniz hovered above him and lighted his path. He squeezed himself in between the protruding stalagmite formation.

  At the corner of his eye, he found a mysterious ivory colored object. His Cunning of the Dire Fox did not sense any monster, but he thought that it was always better to be alert.

  There were monsters with special abilities that cancelled out his sensory ability. He took out his Dasende's Chain and Sickle and held on to the sickle's handle tightly.

  The compact space limited his weapon's true potential, but it was his only decent melee weapon. He had given most of his weapons to his private army members.

  Silently, he creeped towards the object. When it was within his range he instantly lunged his sickle and scattered the dried up bones of a person.

  "Igniz, over here. I can't see what this is."

  His symbiote flew towards the scattered bones. Smoke found the ragged clothes of a Condortlian. He inspected the remains and found writings on a torn out cloth.

  He reflexively began to acquire the cloth's information. After five seconds, a notification popped up.

  Cloth Journal of Nahulog Ako

  -Everybody told me that I was crazy for even considering about escaping. I know they'll execute all of my family members if I do, but with Mom's death last week, there's really nothing holding me back.

  -I know that the mother of all the vitalis stone is out there somewhere. Maybe I could convince Matron Fecunda to let my people go, once I show her the stone.

  Day: 1

  I've began practicing regurgitating my ration and I've been able to hold a days' worth. There's no problem with water because I know the locations of the subterranean river system inside Mount Aeriloc. I'll escape tonight.

  Day: 2

  Thanks to Gulo's sacrifice, I was able to escape unnoticed. I managed to hide deep inside the middle layer of the mountain.

  Day: 4

  I've narrowed down my search to the lower chambers inside Mount Aeriloc. I'm sure I'll find it any day now.

  Day: 5

  Still no sign of the Matera Vitalis, but I did find a strange shrine in the location of [230, 120, 184] inside the mountain.

  Day: 6

  Finally! I found the Matera Vitalis! I uncovered a secret passageway and found a faint glimmering light below it.

  Day: 7

  The Matera Vitalis is too big to carry, and what's worst is that I'm now stuck in this pit. I tried climbing up, but I couldn't even reach the halfway mark.

  Day: 9

  I ate the last moss and there isn't any left here in this pit. I need to do something soon.

  Day: 11

  I've decided to take a different route to climb. The surface looks more jagged but maybe that will give me more traction. Hopefully, I can write the next entry with my successful escape and tell the Condortlians of the Matera Vitalis' location...

  Smoke felt sorry for Nahulog. He was only trying to help liberate the Condortlians but ended up dead. He was glad that he had reliable friends who were coming to rescue him.

  He searched Nahulog's remains but found nothing nothing else. He made a mental note to investigate the strange shrine that Nahulog mentioned in his journal.

  After he searched the entire pit, he returned to his recovering friend. He wondered what Adder would say about Nahulog.

  Smoke lightly shook Adder's right shoulder to wake him up. It had been thirty minutes since he called Laernea and found the remains of Nahulog.

  He estimated that Laernea should arrive within the next few minutes. While they waited, he told Adder about the contents of his fellow Condortlian's journal.

  After he shared Nahulog's tale, he gave an order to his symbiote.

  "Igniz, why don't you make a beacon to help them locate us."

  The dark ember sprite obeyed and released a pillar of light upward. The beam reached the top of the 100 meter cavern.

  Igniz's beam awoke the sleeping monsters nestled on top of the ceiling. They looked like the giant bats that Smoke had fought on Mount Gliseloc, but these monsters had cat like faces.

  With his power chainsaw bow at the ready, Smoke was about to release a storm of fire arrows when a different set of fire arrows came from above him.

  Ichaival shot down a monster with four fire arrows. The monster revealed its name and HP, felisbatus with a maximum life bar of 22,000 HP.

  The Hunter kept on firing his arrows as Laernea brought her carriage parallel to where Igniz's beam formed a pillar of light.

  Smoke hurriedly scaled to the top of the ledge and began shooting down the cat-like bats. Smoke fired eight arrows and Ichaival in turn matched his attack speed.

  He looked at Ichaival and grinned. He nodded at the Hunter and Ichaival understood that it was now a contest to see which one of them could shoot down more felisbatus.

  Ichaival trained hard on his Phantom Arrow ability, and it was now capable of firing eight arrows at once. However, Smoke still managed to take down more felisbatus.

  It was because of his inherited ability from Mitleid. The Beast Monarch ability which tripled his damage on beast type monsters.

  It took them ten minutes to clear out all of the felisbatus. The score ended with Smoke in the lead at two-hundred-sixty kills to Ichaival's two-hundred. Laernea did her share of ninety kills, but she didn't speak up as she was far behind the two of them.

  Smoke was impressed. They were able to dispatch the monsters because of Ichaival's rapid attack of arrows.

  "Great work, Ichaival! I didn't know your Phantom Arrows ability was already at that level."

  "Thanks. I had to do something to improve myself. I mean Sharanga's doing her inventions, and Vijaya has her six falcons going on. In fact I even left my falcon with her, since Ichai would have a hard time inside a cave."

  Laernea envied Ichaival being praised and spoke up.

  "We would've gotten here sooner, but we had a hard time getting enough rope."

  Smoke patted the lioness Lioumerean's shoulders.

  "Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you're here. Come on, let's help Adder out of there."

  * * * * * *

  Nahulog's journal was right. Smoke and his men were not able to bring back the Matera Vitalis. It was indeed too heavy to extract from its current location.

  Adder's new scaly crusted limb caused quite a stir between Laernea and Ichaival, but Smoke told them to keep a tight lid on their questions.

  After all the attention that Adder's new limb was getting, Smoke decided to put a bandage around it and covered it up. They decided that it was best to show it first to Eldmar, Condortl's acting village chief.

  When they arrived they immediately went to Eldmar's hut. Once inside, Smoke removed Adder's bandage and showed them what was hidden beneath it.

  Smoke, Eldmar, Tanda, Laernea, Ichaival, and Espion all gathered inside the hut.

  "Tanda, have you seen anything like this?" Smoke asked.

  "No, never. I've never seen a Human arm grow back before, but why did you make this scaly cast? Adder, do you mind if I remove it? Bits and pieces are already starting to come off anyway."

  "Come off?"

/>   Smoke and Adder were puzzled and checked the brown crusted arm. Slowly, Tanda began taking off pieces of the brown crust which revealed a normal Human arm.

  He couldn't contain his astonishment.

  "Whoa! When did that happen?"