Epic Of The Demonic Sage

Lucius was rather pleased with the work that Gellor and his team had done.

"How did the mission actually go?" Lucius asked.

He now wanted to know how the progress of the group was. A mission could be completed in many ways. It was the efficiency of it that determined how well it actually was. One could complete a mission and still come back with a broken spine, while one could finish it and come back even better than before.

Lucius had seen the injuries that they bore and knew that they must have gone through quite a bit. He knew of the stampeding bulls and the problems that could occur in hunting them down.

"The hunt went as planned at first, but things got a bit complex mid way." Gellor spoke.

"Oh? How?" Lucius questioned.

"Our hunt started rather mundanely. We first found the herds of the Stampeding bulls and chose the smallest one we could. Once that was done, we created a few diverting traps and lures to separate out the bulls one by one.

Only after that did we get to kill them. We know as long as they are together, they are terrifying. But once they are alone, killing them is no different from slaughtering any common bull.

We managed to kill about ten Stampeding bulls this way and obtained four Rune crystals from them. But when we were about to go for the next herd, we ran into a problem… more more like a beast." Gellor spoke.

"What kind of a beast was it?" Lucius questioned.

"We don't know its name, but it was an insect rune beast and looked like a bulky fly. It was about three inches in size and was rather fast." Gellor answered.

"Wait, it was just one rune beast?" Lucius asked.

"Yes… just one. But that single three inch long bug was enough to foil our entire plan. The thing was… it could create fire and speeding around, it could burn things. You can imagine what would happen if a bug like that flew around in a rather dry grassland." Gellor replied.

"Oh… so that's why your equipment has so many burn marks," Lucius spoke.

"Indeed. The bug itself ran away due to his speed. But the fire that he set to the area startled the stampeding bulls and created a stamped. We barely managed to escape, but the bulls had run away by the end.

After that, it took us a couple more days to find another suitable group and begin our hunt. But then that bug appeared again!" Gellor said in frustration.

"We barely managed to get two more before that bug set off another fire." He said with a sigh.

Lucius could tell now that they had truly had a rather bad experience with the hunt and it wasn't even because of their intended target, but rather a random rune beast that was a small bug.

"After that, we knew that unless we got rid of that bug, it would probably keep on troubling us. We didn't know why it was doing that and didn't even know why it was in that area. But we knew it had to die.

We searched for the bug for a couple of days and eventually found it hiding in some grass. But it sensed us and started to zip around at great speed. It also spewed out fire, making things difficult for us.

Only Finch was able to get somewhat close to the beast and use her own flames to resist the heat of the beast before managing to kill it." Gellor explained.

"Oh? So you did manage to kill it." Lucius said expectedly.

"Indeed we did," Gellor said before gesturing to Finch.

Finch then took out a small box from her satchel and showed it to Lucius. In that box, there was the crushed corpse of the bug that had bugged the team and also a small pea sized marble in it.

Lucius observed the insect corpse but couldn't really tell what it was. Though when he looked at the small pea sized marble in it, he knew it was a rune crystal. He lightly squinted his eyes and Nexus Activated.

Gift Name: Flash Fire

Description: Creates small high speed jets of fire that allows the user to fly around at great speed.

Rank: Epic

Type: Emission

Evolution: Impossible.

Lucius's eyes went wide upon seeing the rank of the gift that the rune crystal contained.

'How the hell? No way… was the bug really a C ranked rune beast?' Lucius couldn't believe his eyes.

But then he also knew that what he was seeing was true. So far, all that Nexus had shown him was true and correct. Lucius knew that he couldn't let go of this opportunity when he had presented it to himself.

"Hmm… I see." Lucius muttered.

"So, what is it that you are intending to do with the rune crystal?" Lucius asked.

"Well, we don't really know what this beast is at all. So we wonder if Young Master Asher can help us find out about it so we can sell this rune crystal." Gellor replied.

"In that case, I can just buy this off your hands." Lucius spoke.

"Really?" Gellor was surprised.

Usually, merchants would never buy an unknown rune beast crystals. Doing so would most likely than not lead them to make losses. There was no lack of people who tried to defraud others by selling fake rune crystals.

There were even scams when people sold 'ancient' rune crystals that had been in their families for generations and told people that they belonged to legendary rune beasts and things like that.

Over 99% of the time, those claims were either exaggerated or straight up fake. If a merchant were to buy an unknown rune beast crystal, he would verify its authenticity, and only then would he buy it.

Doing this needed the services of a scholar who would either be an independent appraiser or more often than not, belong to the Artificers guild.