A few minutes passed by in silence.
"Haaa....."
Feeling ready, Zick breathed out and spread open his fist in front of him. The space ring on his finger shone before a drop of snow essence appeared above his palm. It was the size of an adult thumb fingernail, cold energy flowed out of it, instantly making the room cold.
Lifting his hand, Zick opened his mouth lightly and placed the snow essence within it.
GULP!
Zick gulped it down resolutely.
The cold feeling traveled from his throat to his stomach. After staying in the stomach for a few seconds, it dispersed — heading toward his heart rapidly.
Zick's heart absorbed the snow essence greedily, before sending it to his mana nerves. The same thing happened again, his mana nerves rejected the cold energy.
The cold energy spread across his body again. But this time it did not start freezing his internals, instead, it was slowly absorbed into his body.
Zick breathed out a sigh of relief seeing this and bore the pain with a clenched jaw.
'The pain is bearable too. With this, I should be able to breakthrough to the peak rank knight within today's night.'
The feeling of his body getting strengthened was intoxicating but Zick kept his vigilance up so that nothing unexpected happened.
After three hours.
A turbid breath left Zick's mouth. All the snow essence was absorbed by his body and it also gave out cold energy too.
At that instant, Zick's body shook and the mana within the mana in nerves his body started getting condensed at a rapid pace. His black mana became even darker and denser.
As the mana evolved, Zick's body also started getting strengthened. The cold energy also was strengthened to a degree with it.
After the process was over in a few hours, Zick clenched his fist, feeling the power coursing through his body.
He was successfully able to become a peak-rank knight and his potential also increased slightly. His potential in the mage profession also increased to mid-high. Along with it, he also became a middle-rank mage officially.
This was natural as his affinity with mana increased, it became easy to infect mana with his will.
Zick felt the speed of his thought process increase slightly. A soft snow-white glow covered his body, its protective feature had been enhanced.
'I should be able to use it for another time...' The recuperation from using the snow essence was milder than the first time, so Zick was not fully exhausted.
After thinking for a few minutes, Zick decided to use the snow essence again.
Repeating the same process, Zick patiently waited for the cold energy to be absorbed by his body. This time within two hours all of it was absorbed but his body was only strengthened by a little.
A cold light flickered in Zick's eyes: 'I will need to take in a larger amount of snow essence if I want to see visible progress but...' Zick held his head lightly.
His head throbbed in pain and his ears buzzed, making him feel dazed. He took out a stamina potion and gulped it down at once.
'My mind has already reached its limit, I can continue with using the stamina potion but it is already morning.' Zick looked out the window, where he could see the sunrise from the horizon.
Getting up from the bed, Zick headed towards the dining hall on the ground floor of the inn, where he could feel Seveleen and Varine sitting, and talking.
'They got together so easily, actually, it's suspicious how they can get so close in a little time. This isn't like them at all, both of them were people who kept their distance from others but they get along so naturally now....' Zick felt suspicion rise within him but he hid it perfectly.
'The first time I had taken in the snow essence was also weird. It was totally unlike me. Normally, I would have used a slave as a guinea pig and seen the effect of snow essence, but I used it upon myself impatiently.'
Zick squinted his eyes slightly: 'Something is wrong, I should keep watching further to be sure.'
Ordering breakfast for himself, Zick entered the dining hall quietly.
"Good morning sir Zick." Varine greeted immediately after seeing Zick enter.
Seveleen on the other hand was surprised, she could not sense Zick's presence at all.
'He is the most talented person on the continent, yeah.' Seveleen thought before greeting Zick: ["Good morning, mister Zick."]
"Good morning." Zick sat on one of the seats before starting to train in his mana.
Seeing this, Seveleen could only shake her head. She had never seen Zick waste even a second in the whole time they stayed in the carriage. He would either read, train, or be lost in thought all the time.
'Does he even rest at all?' Seveleen didn't find it weird if Zick stayed up the whole night to keep training. Though she was also someone who kept her distance from others, she had not fully become a solitary person like Zick.
Seveleen had been getting suspicious thoughts for a while, but in the end, she ignored it all.
She was going to die anyway so what's the point of fretting just because of some feeling that might be true or false?
Soon, breakfast was served by servants. It was soup and fresh bread.
Eating the bread slowly, Zick thought to himself: 'It is hard to guess what Seveleen is thinking when there is no change in her expression.'
The Feanert poison had made it so that Seveleen would stay with him but it also made it hard for Zick to guess what she was thinking.
Finishing breakfast, Zick got up: "We will leave within an hour, be ready till then."
Without a change in expression, Zick walked towards the receptionist. The reason he chose this inn to stay in was that it belonged to the organization.
Using the teleportation circle, Zick arrived at the main base of the organization in the Hevertec kingdom. He headed toward the mission board without any hesitation.
There were fewer people than before as it was still morning, but there was still quite a crowd of people. Knight had a superior recovery rate compared to normal human beings so it wouldn't be a problem even if they didn't sleep for multiple days.
In the midst of the crowd, Zick walked at a normal pace, he was lost in his thoughts.
'Is there something affecting my thought process and theirs?'
If so, what should he do? What can he do?
Nothing at all!
This made Zick feel a sense of helplessness.
'Well, it's a waste of time fretting about it. I can only be guarded all the time and increase my strength so I can respond to any situation.'
The answer to all of this was still strength in the end.
Arriving in front of the mission board, Zick started going through the mission.
At some distance from him, some people looked at him with frowns on their faces. The rumors of Zick buying hundreds of poisons had already spread all over the fourth floor.
A middle aged man in the group felt cold sweat forming all over his body looking at Zick.
Zick looked like a normal person with a very handsome face, but to this old man, it was different.
'He is a monster!!' The old man couldn't sense Zick's strength but that wasn't the main point, he could smell a thick smell of blood all over Zick. This smell stuck closely to Zick's body like he had taken a bath in it, which was the truth in reality.
Many people retracted their gazes feeling Zick to be stronger or feeling their instinct warning. They all had lived their whole life killing and trying to survive, this made them more aware of the danger than others.
Zick could feel their gazes but he ignored them seeing no one holding any intention to probe yet. He chose a mission soon.
[ Kill the military chief of baron rekert, Jeisen
Recommended: purple rank member or higher
Merit points: 5000
Achievement point: 100
Additional information:....]
Zick was confident in completing this mission.
And currently, Zick was in baron Rekert's territory so he felt it to be appropriate to choose this mission. Next, he went to the trading port and brought some books about the basics of assassination for Varine.
Going back to the inn, Zick headed towards the carriage.
'My next destination, Chertel city, a side character with immense talent and potential exists there. There are actually two important characters in there, the wicked eyes, Realen, and the two-handed dagger user, Kerene.'
'She was an exceptional knight who used daggers and she was a peak master in the novel. She was the most famous mercenary throughout the eastern continent. But now she is just a beggar living in the slums...'
The only problem was that Chertel city was going through waves of Revelner disease right now. The security would be rigid and on high alert.
'Even while entering this city, the guards checked Varine and Seveleen thoroughly. Luckily with her magic, she was able to trick them easily. I don't know if it will work in Chertel city too...'
In the worst-case scenario, Zick could only sneak into the city after hiding the carriage.
After a while, three of them left the city using the carriage.
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