Jack looked at the pathetic man below him. His skin was shredded and torn, his eyes were sunken, and his skin looked deathly pale. With a wave of his hand, the many black vines encasing Leon’s body like a cocoon slithered away.
"What a smart little plant," Jack said with amusent. "Maybe you are the one absorbing all the mana here and making those spiders mindless?" he said while poking the vines with his cane. The vine gradually curled up his cane but paused before his hand as if trying to admit defeat.
Jack smiled at the intelligent plant. "You and I are going to be in a business relationship soon. I will provide food, like these spider corpses that I have gifted you; in return, I will require your sap as paynt."
At the center of the cavern, there was a mountain of spider corpses that he had grouped up with Psychokinesis. Pulsating black vines covered every inch of the mountain as blood was pumped away.
’Maybe with all that blood and mana, the plant will turn into so creature with intelligence? That would be interesting.’
"Thar and Varn carry Leon back to the surface. Take the torch with you. linda and I will investigate the rest of the cavern and return later."
Thar and Varn bowed and left the cave with Leon without another word. They were secretly crying tears of joy from being allowed to leave this cursed cave. The black vine unwound itself from Jack’s cane as he walked toward the far end, where a small opening to a tunnel could be seen. The black vines parted where he walked, which Jack found quite adorable.
The tunnel was quite tight with Jack’s large fra, so he had to crouch his way through. He had already checked most of the cavern with Clairvoyance when he first entered. Since he had never visited this dungeon during the ga, it was essential to be cautious. Psychic mages had two strengths above all other schools of magic: no cast tis and information gathering. If a psychic mage were to be ambushed by so re monsters in a cave, it would be an embarrassnt to all psychic mages out there.
The dense rock limited his range to only around twenty ters, but it was enough to check the cave’s contents at the end of this tunnel, and it possessed just what he was looking for... Spider eggs.
Jack and linda glanced around at the black eggs the size of human heads that covered the cave’s walls in a web of silk. He ran a finger along their surface and grinned.
"These ones will do nicely."
linda quickly caught onto Jack’s plan. "Master, do you wish to raise these spiders as pets?"
Jack nodded as he looked around. "I planned to enslave those spiders in the cavern, but communication seed futile. I have no use for mindless monsters that I must control all the ti manually. The number one reason a drug cartel fails is disloyal or incompetent subordinates. If I can utilise people I have under soul or Blood Contract to do the complicated work and use monsters for the grunt work, then there should be no problems."
linda laughed. "What about that Leon fellow? I could practically sll his bloodlust and hatred for you."
Prodding a spider egg with his cane, Jack answered, "Once he has served his purpose, I will feed him to the vines, just like everyone else who outlives their worth in this town. Blackthorn is my territory now, and I will not tolerate people who try to go against . This is not a democracy."
linda tilted her head. "Democracy? What’s that?"
"A political idea that works great in places where everyone is sowhat equal, but in a world like this where mages can kill people without repercussions... well, it doesn’t matter. I have too many enemies coming after already. I don’t need a town of backstabbers near my house. There is no future here for the disloyal."
Jack pointed toward the grotesque and disturbingly big spider eggs. "Night Crawlers use Earth Magic to dig tunnels and are large enough to carry goods on their backs. If I could have a fleet of Night Crawlers at my beck and call, I could build a complex underground network for drug smuggling. Not to ntion they would be loyal and couldn’t betray . I an, who could understand spider speak?"
linda nodded. "But Master, how do you plan to ta them?"
Jack let out a sigh as he shook his head. "I have so ideas but no concrete solution like a Monster Tar skill. However, vampires do keep creatures as pets, and I have heard that one of the noble vampires from House Thornvlad raises demonic bats to carry ssages for him—a rather weird guy. But I digress. If he can ta monsters, then surely I can as well."
"Maybe try dripping so blood on their eggs?" linda suggested. "Or saturate them with your mana, so they recognise you."
Jack nodded. "Those were my thoughts as well."
Slashing his wrist with his own claw, he allowed a single drop of blood to fall onto each of the ostrich-sized spider eggs. The blood was absorbed and gave the black eggs a slight red hue. Jack then carefully pushed his psychic mana into the spider eggs. He chose psychic mana to boost the spiders’ intelligence and potentially help them unlock telepathy. It was a long shot, but Jack felt the idea of a Space affinity spider was too terrifying, especially if he failed to control them. Maybe he would raise an army of teleporting spiders in the future, but that day was not today.
This ti, there were no visible changes to the eggs, but he could feel the mana swirling around in the black liquid surrounding the little spiderlings.
Jack and linda stood there for a while, yet nothing happened.
"Co on. It’s getting late. We can check on them tomorrow," Jack said with a sigh as he left the cave. Both his lazy trait and weary body were practically screaming at him to have a nice, long sleep.
Little did Jack know, once they left the cavern and entered sleep’s warm embrace, in the middle of the late night as the full moon hung in the starlit sky, a new species of spider awoke in a small cave beneath the surface.
* * *
Within a smoke-filled room, a young man slumped in a wooden chair was puffing on a crudely made cigarette that loosely hung from his lips. His crossed legs were up on a desk, and a brown cap lay over his closed eyes. His arms dangled loosely at his sides, occasionally swinging to keep the blood flowing.
Suddenly, a low but urgent whisper was heard throughout the room. "Duke Henson, I found—" And then it went silent once more.
The young man stirred in his seat as he removed the cap from his eyes. His expression went from drowsiness to surprise as he noticed one of the many communication stones hanging from the wall slowly fading. Jumping up from his seat, he leaned on the table for a mont as the blood rushed from his head, making him feel dizzy.
Getting his pathetic situation under control, the man walked over to the wall. Just like all the walls in this room, it was covered in hundreds of labelled communication stones. The briefly lit-up one was labelled "Spy: 1034."
"Spy 1034..." the man muttered as he opened the only book on his desk. He coughed as he haphazardly skimd through the yellowing pages. "Ah, here we go, Spy 1034. Also known as John, he was last assigned to Blackthorn town a month ago."
The communication stones were one-way, so he couldn’t communicate with John. It was to avoid any chance of him accidentally leaking information. Many Wind spells could fake a person’s voice or Mind Magic to control John to gather information.
The man pulled out a drawer on his desk and found a folder that contained all of John’s, or Spy 1034’s, logs. Opening to the most recent page, he added in the man’s most recent report: "Duke Henson, I found—"
’What a weird ssage...’ the man thought and shrugged. He was simply the bookkeeper for these backwater agents. The higher-priority spies were handled personally by either the duke or his secretary.
After putting in the entry, he debated telling his supervisor but groaned at the thought as he looked around the smoke-filled room. "That old geezer will just shout at for smoking on the job again. I’ll tell them later... maybe."
Putting away the folder into the drawer and lazily closing the massive book, the young man lit up another cigarette and put his feet back up.
"Man, I hate this job..." he muttered as he placed his cap over his eyes and day-dread of flying through the sky with a mage girlfriend in tow.
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