Traitor of Humanity

After Seth had left, old doctor Liao closed his clinic. Then, he went shopping. After he came back with a bag filled with various items in hand, he went into his laboratory.

Recalling the concoction process that Seth showed him earlier today, he put on a face-mask and reproduced it, creating an identical small vial of poison.

Going through these fumes twice in one day, caused even a veteran like old doctor Liao, to feel queasy. When the fumes are this strong, a mere face-mask is of limited help.

After he finished the concoction, he placed the finished product randomly on a shelf. As for finding out what the effect of this unknown poison is, that will have to wait for another day. Skipping dinner, and even a bath to wash off the stench, the tired old doctor Liao went to his bed to sleep.

The next day...

"Doctor Liao, is the "medicine" we requested ready?" Throm Bilin, the eldest son of the current head of Haradur city's Bilin family, asked old doctor Liao inside the doctor's office. When he said "medicine", there was a certain undertone to it, as if he implied something else.

"Cough. Cough."

"Doctor Liao, are you feeling under the weather?" Seeing old doctor Liao holding the bottom half of his face and coughing, Throm reflexively asked.

"Ay, my nose is just stuffed due to the fumes from yesterday's concoction. That's all."

"Oh? Then "it" must be quite potent, yes?" Throm Bilin revealed a wicked smile on his face.

"Hm? Oh, that. I won't ask what you will use it for. It has nothing to do with me. Sigh, know that I am only lending a hand to your schemes in light of your backers."

"Yes, I'll be sure to relay elder Liao's assistance to the chief." When Throm Bilin changed his address of doctor Liao to "elder" Liao just now, there was a clear tone of respect in his voice. Due to the old doctor's background, even his family's lord cannot belittle him, not to mention the old doctor's skills. One of those said "skills" can even cause his family lord to feel dread. It is lucky for the Bilin family that the faction backing this old doctor is seeking an alliance with the faction that backs the Bilin family.

"Then, doctor Liao, the "medicine"?"

"Yes, yes, wait a moment. …By the way, does your family have any children that are skilled in the way of concocting?"

"Children? No, sad to say. Could doctor Liao perhaps be accepting students?" For a moment, Throm got excited. If one of the children in his Bilin family can inherit the skills of this old doctor, that would be a huge boon to their family.

"No, forget I said anything." Not noticing the trace of disappointment on Throm Bilin's face, Old doctor Liao retreated into his laboratory. Looking to the spot where he put the "medicine" that the Bilin family requested him to concoct, his expression change into one of… momentary confusion.

The spot that should only have one vial of "medicine", now has two vials.

"Oh right, yesterday's product."

Due to the fumes that could knock a person out if one immersed himself in it for too long, let off from the process of the creation of that poison that boy showed him yesterday, old doctor Liao went dizzy after he had concocted that poison himself, causing him to place the vial of poison right next to the "medicine" that he prepared for the Bilin family's use. Neither of the two vials were labeled, so he couldn't tell the difference between them just from sight.

Old doctor Liao opened each of the vials one by one. "…They're both black."

Then, one by one, he sniffed the both of them. "…I can't smell anything."

The fumes from yesterday ruined his nose. His sense of smell won't recover any time soon.

After thinking for a long moment, old doctor Liao shrugged. "Oh whatever."

Rather than shaming himself by saying a childish excuse such as, he misplaced the ordered product, he would rather take the risk of giving his customer a wrong product. This way, there would be at least, a 50% chance of getting it right.

Due to the discomfort that he was feeling from his stuffy nose, and his aging brain cells, old doctor Liao did not even think to test the vials on some lab rats to identify them. Randomly picking one of the two vials, he brought it out.

In his mind, he irresponsibly thought, "Based on the ingredients, they are of the similar enough type and class. Whichever one the victim suffers, if they do not die, they will at least get the breath snuffed out of them. If the effect was not as intended, I'll just say that the target must have had high poison resistance or something.".

After walking out from old doctor Liao's clinic, another man of the Bilin family walked up to Throm. "Young lord Throm, have we gotten the key item?"

Throm Bilin nodded. "With this, the end of the Zefer family is at hand!"

…

At the Zefer family mansion, in Seth's room, there is a little girl sitting formally on her legs. Her eyes followed the little boy pacing around her. On the little boy's face was a serious expression, which in her view, was obviously fake.

"Nala, considering what happened the day before yesterday, I have decided to teach you some spells for self-defense."

"Different from the spells we've been playing with so far?" Nala quizzically inquired.

"Yes, they will be spells that you can HIT people with!" Seth said, as he pounded one of his hands into the other. This was done simply to exaggerate the word, "hit".

"But Seth, you said that I can't use spells in front of people. Should I still hit them with it?" Years ago, when she had successfully mastered her first spell, despite Seth telling her not to show them in front of others, she still showed them off to her mother. After all, what child would not want the praise of their parents when they've succeeded at something?

Her mother's reaction back then, was one of fear, and what came next was a scolding. Ever since, Nala had kept her ability to use spells a secret from everyone other than Seth.

"If worse comes to worst, then yes." Seth nodded.

"...What does that mean?" Nala asked, confused. Idioms are only useful for those whom understand them.

"If they dare to hurt you, kill them!" Seth coldly declared.

"Kill? But I do not like seeing blood and meat and bones and... all that other stuff." Nala weakly said. To her, the greatest impression of the word "kill", was what Seth had done to Fabin two days ago. After seeing that, she would never be able to pick up a kitchen knife for anything other than vegetables ever again.

"Uh. Then, I'll teach you spells that won't result in that. …Even though I like seeing people getting torn apart." Seth complained.

"Eh? What did you say?" Nala didn't hear the second half which the little boy had quietly mumbled.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Just don't forget to cultivate. How much power you can bring out of the spells you've learned depends on your cultivation level and how much magic energy you have."

"Okay." Nala nodded.

Ever since a few years ago, Seth had been teaching Nala magic. He taught her a cultivation technique that can safely gather the magical energy, or magic energy for short, in the surroundings and modify this energy to store in her body for her own use.

He had used the lure of being able to become more beautiful to trick her into cultivating. But in fact, although subtle, all proper cultivation techniques do have that effect, as the cultivators' cultivation levels grows higher, and the impurities in their bodies are gradually removed.

In this world, anyone can use magic. All they have to do is offer a prayer. The language and the specific words barely matter, as long as the message is conveyed.

Each prayer brings about a small miracle. These miracles are mostly temporarily, and some are even hard to see.

"I pray to the god of fire to light a fire in my house." Having said this, a small fire the size of a candle's would appear before the person's eyes. This is the simplest magic and is one known to everyone.

"I pray to the god of fire, to burn all my enemies to ashes." Having said this, a small fire the size of a candle's would appear on one of the foe's clothes. It is small enough that the foe could just spit on it to put it out.

But when many small miracles are combined together, a magic phenomenon capable of changing a person's life can appear.

Magic cultivation techniques, and spells as well, are actually a series of prayers to the gods.

"I pray to the god of motion, to let magic energy gather in my body." To gather magic energy, a cultivator would start with a prayer like this one. After saying this prayer, the cultivator would feel an invisible and mysterious energy enter his body through his pores... and then exit the same way.

"I pray to the god of restraints, to let magic energy stay in my body." But without the first prayer, magic energy would not have entered his body at all.

"I pray to the god of bonds, to allow me to use the magic energy in my body." After having repeated this prayer many times, and still not being able to move the magic energy in his body, the cultivator finds out that he should have said "goddess" instead of "god". Having the gender of the deity wrong caused his prayer to not even be able to reach the other side. Soon after fixing that, the cultivator finds out that he cannot accumulate anymore magic energy, and thus began searching for another prayer to increase his body's capacity for magic energy.

In short, for magic cultivation techniques, the details are important. They are similar to coding programs, and with enough customization, can reach several tens to several hundred of lines. Flaws in a magic cultivation technique can prevent progression, or even cause the cultivator to regress in their cultivation. In most cases, the more complex the code, the better the effect, so long as the cultivation technique still works.

Spells are similar, but while a cultivation technique brings about a more passive effect in storing magic energy and altering the body, spells set up a blueprint, or a device, in the body that can turn on or off with a signal. For example, by waving a hand, a certain amount of magic energy is consumed from the body, and a sea of fire of a certain size appears to engulf the enemy that the hand waved at.

"First, we'll set up the blueprint, like what we did for Telepathy, Water-Ball, and Sand-Bed."

"Mm." Nala nodded. "Like what we did for hide-and-seek, volleyball, and building a sandcastle."

"...Nala, can you take this seriously?"

"Only if Seth promises to stop hitting my sandcastles with cannonballs."

"But that's so fun..."

...