owlsbooks Rewards for Chapter 26 Maze Quest
Rewards for Chapter 26 Maze Quest
You Che kicked the door open and entered, startling the skeleton mage inside.
The guy first looked at You Che with some suspicion, seemingly not quite believing that he had completed the task so quickly.
However, when the skeleton mage saw the package on his back and the bone urn protruding from it, the soul fire in his eyes suddenly flickered violently.
"...Yes, that's it! Give them to me now!"
It immediately roared, so anxious that it wanted to rush out and snatch it.
You Che laughed, "Okay, okay, of course no problem. But before that, shouldn't you teach me magic first?"
Even after defeating the three mini-bosses in the quest, You Che hadn't reached level 5 yet. Knowing that the other party might turn against him, he certainly wouldn't hand over the soul urn so easily.
The skeleton mage stared at You Che with its empty eyes, but now that the three soul urns were in You Che's hands, it had no leverage to turn against him, so it patiently said:
"...Alright, I keep my word! Come here and choose a spell!"
With a wave of its hand, four ornately decorated skill scrolls appeared on the dilapidated desk in front of it—the items needed to learn new magic.
You Che glanced at the four scrolls and immediately saw their names.
[Summon Necromancer], [Plague Ray], [Touch of Plague], [Undead Poison].
As expected, these are the ones.
He smiled slightly, and then reached out and grabbed one of them without hesitation.
The skeleton mage was taken aback: "Undead poison? You want to learn that?"
You Che nodded: "That's right."
A flash of fire appeared in the skeleton mage's eyes. He was about to say something when You Che, having obtained the scroll, didn't wait a second longer. He immediately tore it open, and the scroll transformed into specks of magical light that merged into his body.
[Learned the spell: Necrotoxic Poison]
"You..." The skeleton mage was dumbfounded again, "You used it right away? So quickly?"
You Che laughed and said, "Sorry, I have a quick temper."
Skeleton Mage: "..."
It had originally planned to wait until it got the Soul Jar back before making the kid spit out the skill scroll, but he used it on the spot.
Now that things had come to this, the skeleton mage was helpless: "...Where are my things?"
"Of course, I keep my word." You Che said, raising his hand and tossing out a bone urn, which the skeleton mage hurriedly caught.
"Hahaha... Hahahaha! Finally!"
The skeleton mage laughed loudly, "Finally, you're back!"
It stuffed the soul urn between its torso, and the bone urn immediately disappeared, merging into its body.
"Where are the other two? Give them to me now!"
You Che smiled again, a smile as warm and infectious as the sunshine, making the soul fire in the skeleton mage's heart... skip a beat.
"I know you're in a hurry, but please don't rush," You Che said. "Besides magic scrolls, do you have anything else interesting here?"
The skeleton mage finally understood: "You...you...you! You're trying to blackmail me!"
In all its years of life, this is the first time anyone has dared to treat it like this!
"You little brat, you're definitely up to no good! You want to blackmail me? You'll have to see if you have the... Wait, what are you going to do?!"
The skeleton mage was about to pounce out from behind the table when You Che stepped back two steps, just out of its reach. Then, he took out a bone urn in one hand and a bottle of holy water in the other.
Seeing You Che lift the bottle cap, as if to pour the holy water onto the bone urn, the skeleton mage's arrogance vanished instantly, and he shrank back: "...What, what do you want? We can talk, we can talk about anything!"
You Che's smile remained unchanged: "Don't worry, I'm not a bad person. Why would I do something like extortion? I'm just eager to learn."
"Well then, I see you're a necromancer who's lived for many years and enjoys conducting strange experiments. So, alchemy... you should know a little about it, right?"
"You want to learn alchemy?" the skeleton mage glared at him. "You're dreaming... wait a minute!"
Seeing Youche bring the holy water bottle close to the bone urn again, it could only concede: "I can't help it! I don't even know complete alchemy myself! And I certainly don't have any skill scrolls for you!"
You Che was not surprised by this. As one of the most frequently exploited locations by new players during the early stages of the game, he remembered clearly what rewards could be obtained from the Hermit in the Forest maze.
So he knew what he wanted: "You must have a way to learn imperfect alchemy, right?"
With his words having been exposed, the skeleton mage had no choice but to take out a tattered ancient book and place it on the table: "This is it. I learned alchemy from this book."
You Che glanced at it and confirmed that the skeleton mage was not lying.
[Incomplete Ancient Text (Alchemy): After careful study, there is a certain probability that you can learn the skill "Basic Alchemy (Incomplete)"]
"Okay, this is it." You Che nodded. "Give it to me."
"Let's switch at the same time!" the skeleton mage shouted.
"Alright."
You Che clipped the soul urn in his hand to his waist, still holding the holy water bottle in one hand and leaning it against it, while taking out the last soul urn with the other hand and handing it over.
The skeleton mage stared intently into his empty eye sockets, but couldn't find any flaws. In the end, he could only obediently exchange with You Che.
Seeing You Che casually put the ancient book into his own backpack, the skeleton mage felt as if his long-dormant heart was bleeding.
"...What else do you want?"
It realized that this seemingly innocent young man was actually after it; otherwise, he wouldn't have known so much about it.
If it weren't for its skeleton form, it would look like it was about to vomit blood; it's clearly going to have a major hemorrhage today.
However, once it retrieves the third urn and regains its original power, this mere kid below level 10...
To its surprise, You Che did not make another exorbitant demand. Instead, he paused for a moment, then took a broken staff from behind his back and said to it:
"I don't need anything else. One last thing, could you check if there's... a trapped soul inside this staff?"
The skeleton mage was startled, but instinctively looked over as well. Its soul-fire stared at the gem at the top of the staff for a long time before it said, "...There are indeed traces of a soul present."
"Can you free this soul?" You Che immediately asked.
"Huh? You think necromancy is omnipotent... Oh, I see."
The skeleton mage instinctively wanted to sneer, but then realized something: "You want to resurrect the souls inside? Ha! Don't dream about it!"
"This thing is a cursed weapon, not a magical item specifically used to store souls, and it's damaged now!"
"The souls imprisoned within cursed weapons will only be absorbed as nourishment. As for broken cursed weapons, once the power of the curse dissipates, the imprisoned souls within will gradually dissipate."
"In either case, there's absolutely no chance of liberation or resurrection... Aaaaah!!"
Before it could finish speaking, it let out a heart-wrenching scream!
The reason was simple: You Che had already flipped his hand and poured an entire bottle of holy water onto the last soul urn!
"You...you...you bastard!!"
Half of the soul urn was dissolved in the blink of an eye. The intense pain caused the skeleton mage to go berserk. He could no longer care about anything else and suddenly pounced out from behind the table, heading straight for You Che!
However, You Che tossed the soul urn in his hand out the window!
"Go ahead and take it if you want it!"
The skeleton mage made a sudden stop in mid-air, then turned at an angle impossible for a human to achieve, chasing after the soul urn.
However, the moment its bony hand touched the soul urn, a short spear flashing with light flew from behind, first piercing its body, and then precisely piercing the last soul urn!
"Eee-yaaaaaaahh ...
The skeleton mage let out a chilling shriek, but it was powerless to resist the spread of holy light. Its entire body exploded in a burst of light, turning into ashes.
At the same time, Youche also leveled up to LV5.
The skeleton mage died and his soul vanished, leaving behind only the tattered black robe he had been wearing.
"...Hmph." You Che snorted coldly, "You asked for it."
I'm just asking you if you can do it, not asking you to talk nonsense!
And you spoke with such conviction... What do you even know?
At this moment, the small house, and indeed the entire maze space, began to shake. Because the maze boss was dead, this space was also about to disappear.
You Che immediately began to quickly search the study in front of him. Because of the time constraint, he decisively gave up many things, and in the end only took the tattered robe left by the skeleton mage, the rotten wooden wand hidden under the desk, and a pile of small stones that gleamed with a deep light.
After that, You Che only felt a flash of white light before his eyes, and all the scenery distorted, fogged up, and dissipated.
When he regained his sense of solid ground, he was back in the forest, and the stone gate leading to the maze slowly disappeared before his eyes.
The maze is cleared.