by Pegaz
It surprised Sarah that the new information was so accurate. Now that her master was done explaining, she found her anger returning.
“Fine,” she spat. “I’ll go capture him. In return, this arranged marriage gets voided.”
Her master rubbed his chin as if considering her deal. “Fine.”
“How long will it take to get to the Sword sect from here?”
“Around six months,” the master stated. “We also know that he will arrive between eight to ten months from now. To be sure we don’t miss him, you need to leave tonight.”
Sarah nodded, stood up and left the house.
...
Inside the Death sect…
The Rank 9 man who had blown up his and John’s booth at the auction was kneeling down in a dimly lit hall. At the end of the room was a throne sitting atop a flight of stairs. Sitting on the throne was an old man with a short white beard that reached to his shoulders. Around the room were hundreds of other Elders that were standing at attention with their hands behind their backs, waiting for the man on the throne to speak.
The man on the throne looked down at the man who was kneeling.
“Do you know why you’re kneeling?”
The man kneeling looked up. “Yes.”
“Good,” the man on the throne said in a mocking tone. “But for those here who do not know what is going on, explain it to them.” He motioned for everyone in the room to quiet down.
“At the yearly Adventurer Guild’s auction, I threatened a person because I was unwilling to pay a higher price for an item.” The man’s voice quivered ever so slightly. “When I made my move, the person I threatened was revealed to be from the assassin’s sect that we do not know the name of.”
A pause.
“I failed to kill this man—”, the quivering increased,”—I failed to remove this threat to the sect, and I failed to win the bid on the herb that Sect Master asked me specifically to get. The man from the assassin’s sect was too fast for me to do anything to him. Because I couldn’t stop the man, he threatened to come to our sect.”
When he finished speaking, the Elders in the room began talking amongst each other. Most of them had knitted brows, clenched fists or clenched jaws. It was easy to see that they were angry.
One person next to the flight of stairs spoke up.
“You’re one of the strongest Elders inside the Death sect, but you couldn’t do anything? Did you even try?”
“I did!” The man kneeling down clenched his hands to form fists too. “But his speed was unreal! He travelled from in front of me to the stage before I even finished blinking! After he took the herb and paid for it, he disappeared from everyone’s sight. Even the Sword sect tried looking for him. None of us could find him. His Life Power was masked so we couldn’t trace where he went either. Even when he stood in front of me, I couldn’t feel any Life Power. He… He might have already transcended.”
Every Elder in the room became silent.
Transcension. That was the realm above Rank 9. Only a few people know how to transcend. Over the eons, the information had been lost. Each person was different, so there was no set technique on transcending. The man sitting on the throne was the person with the highest amount of Life Power. He was Rank 9 Level 9 too, but even he did not know how to transcend.
The man on the throne had cold sweat running down his back.
“Do you have any proof to back what you’re claiming?” he spat. “That man could be the end of the Death sect. If it is true, then I’ll skin you alive and hang you at the entrance! Maybe seeing your tortured corpse will calm his anger when he comes!”
The man who was kneeling slammed his head on the floor, pleading for forgiveness.
Chapter 49
Elementals
After a month of waiting and reading all the books he could, John re-scanned the whole capital city. All Rank 9’s were gone. Currently, the highest-ranking person in the capital was a Rank 6 Level 7. This person had less than 5 Sin points, so John planned on leaving him alone.
There were millions of people with 25 or more Sin points left, so John decided to use the same technique as the last time. He changed his appearance to his Jonathan disguise and flew high above the capital. However, this time, he made a sword out of his threads and put it under his feet to make it look like he was using the sword to fly.
Lifting both arms up, he created 8 inch spheres in both palms. Once he was ready, he fired bullets all over the capital. He called this technique Rapid Fire.
It only took forty-five seconds for ‘Jonathan’ to shoot millions of bullets. After shooting them off, he vanished from his location. Within ten seconds, the Rank 6 Level 7 arrived at the place ‘Jonathan’ fired from. Seeing no one was there, the Rank 6 searched a wider area, including above and below. He kept searching for over twenty minutes, found nothing, then went back to the Adventurer Guild.
‘Jonathan’ was back to his hotel room, where he teleported. He changed appearance back to his regular self. He was pale and shaky from using so much Life Power all at once, but he had earned millions of Sins.
Welcome to the Idle System 3.0
Name: John
Title: A Selfish Punisher.
Age: 32
Idlers: 0/225
Skill Points: 2
Life Pool: 143.9M
Sin: 94.6M
Misc List:
Defence - Idlers 225/225, Repair - 0/3, Drain - 2/5, Time - 1mo 9d
Wow... The score of a lifetime made up of Sins. I expected nothing less from the Adventurer Guild’s public planet. I’m never going to get this many Sins all at once ever again. Now, I only need to get a minimum of 6.4 million more Sins before reaching the Sword sect’s public planet.
BOOM!
John’s hotel room shook. It was so intense that John thought the whole hotel might collapse. He turned Hover option on and started to go to his balcony, but before he could open the door, he heard the sound of thousands of screams. His heart stopped in his chest.
Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and ran out to the railings. John looked down at the streets and saw hundreds, if not thousands, of people running in the same direction. Raising his head to look at where people were running from, John could see the volcano outside the city had smoke coming out with lava spitting into the air and landing everywhere.
A natural disaster?
He looked up at the sky and saw people flying toward the volcano. Wanting to stay in the loop, he created a sword with his threads and pretended to use it to fly, catching up to a person flying.
“HEY! YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON?” John had to shout because of the noise of the wind at the speed they were travelling.
The woman on the sword heard John, turned her head then signalled to him to slow down. When they came to crawling speeds, she spoke.
“One of the guild staff reported seeing Fire Elementals coming out of the lava! We’re going there to slow them down so the mortals can evacuate.”
“Fire Elementals?” John blinked. “I’ve heard of them. Since they’re made of fire, normal Life Power is ineffective on them, right? Will we need to turn Life Power into water element to fight?”
She nodded. “Yeah, but finding anyone who can turn Life Power into any element is rare. We’ve already asked for backup from the Adventurer Guild’s headquarters, but it might take an hour for them to get here.”
“Wait, it’s not a common thing? I thought anybody could change Life Power to different elements?”
“Who told you that? Out of billions of mortals maybe one person becomes an immortal, and out of billions of immortals, only one can change Life Power to an element. How is that common?”
No wonder I haven’t seen any immortals from the Rogue sect use different elements when we fought. And it makes sense as to why they were unprepared for my fire bullets.
John continued asking for information. “Are there many Fire Elementals?”
She shook her head. “No idea, but
judging by the amount of lava that’s spilling, it could be thousands.”
“Is there a boss among the Fire Elementals?”
“There is, but it doesn’t come above ground. It leads the army from the back, where most immortals can’t go. Why?”
I’m immune to the fire, which Fire Elementals use in most of their attacks, I’m assuming. Even if it’s a Rank 9, it wouldn’t matter. I should be fine.
“Hey… humour me,” John smiled. “If I can kill the boss, will there be a reward?”
She knitted her brows. “Don’t screw around. This isn’t the time...”
“Just humour me.”
“Yes,” she said after a moment. “There should be. This is an emergency, so they pay 1.5 times the pay for any kills. If it can stop the situation from getting worse, they’ll pay five times the rate.”
John nodded. “Good. You go tell everyone that they only have to stall the smaller ones, I’ll go kill the boss. I can use the water element.”
John then sped up and used the system map’s teleport to make it seem he went too fast for the woman to follow.
The woman was shocked at John’s words. She tried following him, but even her eyes couldn’t catch up. She went toward the immortals gathering spot to report. When she got to the gathering spot, there were hundreds of immortals standing around two people with a map in between them.
She ran up shouting, “Report!”
The immortals who heard her made way so she could get to the people in the middle. One man looking at the map looked up and asked the people to let her through. When she stood in front of the two men, she started her report.
“An immortal found me and asked me what’s going on. When he found out, he asked me to tell you to stall the smaller Fire Elements while he went to kill their boss!”
Everyone in the room whispered with each other. Only the two people in the middle kept their cool. The one closest to her scrunched his nose.
“Does he know what he’s fighting and still said that?”
The woman nodded. “Yes, he said he’s able to use water elements in his attack.”
The man turned around and looked at the other person next to the map. “What do you think?”
“If he’s telling the truth, then he’s our best chance of surviving until backup gets here. We’ll do what he says.”
The man nodded, turning back to look at the woman. “You did well.”
The other man looked at the crowd and shouted. “We will kill as many of the Fire Elementals coming out of the volcano as possible! We’ve got a man who can use water elements rushing towards their boss, and if he’s successful, this will be over. If not, then he’ll at least buy us time for the backup to get here. Everyone, move out!”
The man who was shouting was the Rank 6 Level 7 who had chased after ‘Jonathan’ only moments ago. When everyone was out of the room, only him and the other leader were left. The man who had chased after ‘Jonathan’ looked at the other person.
“Could this be connected with how the people died earlier?”
“You mean someone killed all those people then lured those Fire Elementals here to finish the rest?”
“The Adventurer Guild has many enemies. The attacker could have been motivated by the money, resources, and rare objects that we have here. All this could be a distraction for a robbery.”
“Then, send someone to check the vault. You might be onto something.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Do you know someone you can trust with no doubts?”
“A person without greed? I haven’t found a person like that in centuries.”
The Rank 6 Level 7 then walked out of the room while saying. “You stall for time, I’ll go check. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, then we’re right.”
John was flying toward the volcano. He left the map open with the teleport option at the ready. When he finally flew over the volcano, he saw the Fire Elementals.
The Elementals were just a ball of fire with legs and arms. John observed for a moment as they climbed out of the lava, their feet hardening as if they were walking on water. Some even jumped back into the lava to heal up.
So they need the lava’s heat to survive, otherwise their fire gets snuffed out.
John flew to the top of the volcano. Lava was spitting everywhere. He watched the lava’s level for a minute and noticed it was rising. In a few minutes, it would overflow.
There are only a few hundred Fire Elementals out of the volcano so far, but if this overflows, then it will soon become thousands or millions. I need to hurry.
Chapter 50
Another Experiment
System, scan a 5-mile square around the volcano.
Scanning.
What came up was a map of the volcano with millions of icons inside it and thousands of them running away. Hundreds of icons were headed towards the Fire Elementals, most likely the immortals coming to stall them. John found that one immortal was walking in the opposite direction. So he checked that person out with Life Vision and Immortal Eye.
???
Rank: 6
Level: 7
Oh, that’s the person who came after me earlier...Why is he’s moving in the opposite direction?
He kept checking the person through the map, but after a few minutes, he was at a building and stopped moving.
System, can you place an icon where that person is to remind me to check it later?
Nothing happened.
Well, I’ve got to remember to check that building when this is all over. If someone would rather go there than help with killing the Fire Elementals, then something valuable has to be inside. I’m not a thief, but I am a curious person.
Looking back at the icons inside the volcano, he asked.
System, remove all icons beside the Fire Elementals.
‘Ding!’
Remove all Fire Elemental icons other than the boss.
Nothing.
How do I do this then? There are millions of them so how do I filter it? Hmn… System, remove all icons beside the highest-ranked Fire Elemental.
‘Ding!’
It worked! John did a fist pump.
John looked at the icon. It was 16 miles below where John was, deep inside the volcano. And so, holding his breath, he dove inside the volcano headfirst into the lava. The lava was blocking his view, but he stayed on course. It was like swimming underwater with your eyes open and you couldn’t see very far since the water was murky.
He used Life Power in his hands which were placed behind his back as an improvised propeller. The further down he went, the more Fire Elementals he met. They each attacked as soon as they saw him but the attacks dispersed as soon as they touched John.
The only annoying part was that each attack reduced John’s speed. Plus, if too many of them attacked, he was knocked backwards. It was an unfair advantage because, although John couldn’t see the attacks coming, the Fire Elementals had perfect vision.
John got close to the boss. While he still couldn’t see it, the icon told John he was only 300 feet away. He folded his knee, getting ready to attack. He turned part of his knee blue with the water element.
BOOM!
The water element being surrounded by the lava caused a small steam explosion. The lava that met his water element hardened, turning to jagged rocks and causing his knee to get stuck for a split-second until the force of the explosion pushed his knee away, with his body following.
BOOM!
The force of the explosion pushed John to the rocks that were keeping the lava contained. He was buried inside layers of hardened lava.
How the hell am I going to kill this thing if I can’t use the water element?!
John dove toward the boss again. This time, he grabbed the Fire Elemental boss’s arm and dragged it up. The arm morphed, and John lost his grip.
Shit, I can’t get it out of the lava without using an element either. Ah... that might work. John smiled and dived underneath the Fire Elemental.
/>
Turning his feet brown with the earth element, he kicked out towards the icon.
BANG!
He hit the Fire Elemental boss and saw the icon travelling straight up from the force. It worked!
John kept repeating the attack from underneath, trying to get the boss out of the lava. Of course, the Fire Elemental boss tried blocking the attack, but it still got pushed further up. After a few minutes, the Fire Elemental boss’s head was poking out of the volcano’s top.
BOOM!
One last attack pushed the Fire Elemental boss out of the lava. It was launched into the air and fell towards the city. Because it was out of the lava, it began turning into the same black, jagged rock that formed on John’s knee.
When it landed on the side of the volcano, it was back in the lava. The rock fell off its body. John came out of the volcano and could see what it looked like now. It was a being of pure lava and fire, standing at 25 feet tall with four arms and a tail like a snake. Its head’s shaped like a human’s but with four eyes.
Fire Elemental
Rank: 4
Level: 5
No wonder the immortals were panicking and asking for backup. Their Life Power wouldn’t hurt it that much, and it’s strong enough to kill most immortals here. I can’t push it towards the capital anymore either. It will melt the buildings and turn them into lava.
John flew to the top of the Fire Elemental boss’s head and launched downwards, knee first with the water element wrapped around.
BOOM!
The same steam explosion happened, and John got launched upwards from the force, but the Rank 4 Fire Elemental was thrust downwards too. Its face was buried inside the rocks of the volcano.
John had blood coming out of his mouth. The system didn’t nullify the explosion.
Goddamn, that hurt! John wiped the blood flowing down his chin.
Taking a deep breath, he felt his insides moving ever so slightly, healing.
The force of the explosion must have moved my organs. The reward better be worth it!
John launched another attack, but this time he flew underneath the Rank 4 Fire Elemental and kneed it.
BOOM!
