Supreme Magus novel Chapter 35

"Not here, not now!" Lith inwardly screamed. "Until it’s over, I will be a sitting duck!" He knew that it was impossible to hold back the impurities refining process until he was back home.

He had no choice but to offer no resistance, making it as fast and painless as possible.

Soon, black ooze started being excreted from all his pores and orifices. Lith’s eyes and throat were burning from the nasty feeling the impurities inflicted on their way out.

Lith felt like a river of bile was coming out of his body.

When it finally ended, he was kneeling, hands on the ground. A huge puddle of the tar-like substance was below him, tainting the air with its putrid smell.

"Congratulations on evolving your mana core to deep cyan!" Solus voice was full of joy.

"You also should have lost at least a kilogram or two (2.2 or 4.4 pounds), judging from how much impurities you expelled this time. I can already feel the quality of your mana flow improving. My meals have never been so tasty!"

"Deep cyan?!" Lith coughed up some impurities that got stuck in his throat.

"All these years, the hard work, even risking my life against not one but two consecutive magical beasts, just for the worst cyan core possible?" He couldn’t help but feel depressed and frustrated.

"I’m still below Nana’s level, and she was born with that core! If she practiced my breathing techniques, there’s no telling how strong she would be. She could probably already topple mountains and split the sea."

With a pulse of dark magic, he banished all the impurities into nothingness.

"Look at the bright side. Thanks to the break through, you should finally be able curing Tista. Isn’t that what you wanted from the beginning?" Solus tried to console him the best that she could.

At that thought, Lith’s mood lightened up immediately.

"You are damn right! Sometimes I am just a self-centered a*shole."

"Sometimes?" Solus sarcastically remarked.

"Okay, fine! Most of the times I let my hunger for power get the best of me. Happy now?"

Solus giggled.

Despite having yet to use Invigoration, Lith could already perceive the world around him more vividly than ever. The colours, the smells, the sounds everything was different. It was like being born again and experiencing the world for the first time.

Still feeling light headed, he splashed the river’s cold water on his face, trying to regain his focus.

Suddenly, Lith could feel a shiver on the back of his head, his neck hair suddenly standing up.

Lith abruptly jumped back on his feet, turning around to discover that a Ry, the very same Ry from two years ago was silently walking toward him.

It had become bigger, its height at the withers reaching 1.6 meters (5’6"), and its red fur had gained shades of white, dancing in the sunlight like a wildfire.

Just trying the Soaring Hawk spell almost made Lith faint, so he was forced to cancel it while using Invigorate to regain his strength once again.

Yet Lith’s mana core was still unstable after the evolution process, and therefore unable to assimilate more world energy.

"F*ck my life! I can only escape on foot."

Sniffing his stress and fear, the Ry spoke up.

"Fear not, Scourge, I mean no harm. On the contrary, I have come to give you my thanks. It was my duty stopping Irtu and Gerda, but you managed to precede me."

It threw a magnificent deer he was carrying on its back at Lith’s feet. Both the skin and the antlers were in perfect conditions, aside from a single bite mark on the neck, where it had been cleanly broken.

"I noticed you humans prefer them like this, since after eating the meat you can exchange the rest for those things you call ’money’."

Lith didn’t feel much reassured, he decided to keep stalling while he was catching his breath and searching for the best possible escape route.

"So, you can talk too, uh? Why didn’t we have this conversation two years ago, instead of fighting?"

"Stop eyeing for an escape route. If I really wanted to kill you, I would avoid useless talk and strike when you are at your weakest. I am not arrogant and cruel like Irtu. I would not make the mistake of underestimating you again.

As for your question, it was you that attacked me first.

Also, do you know what happens when one of us speaks? Either the human faints or runs away. In both cases, they come back in numbers, even setting the woods on fire trying to kill us all."

The Ry growled at that unpleasant memory.

Lith relaxed a bit.