The Mysterious Black Magician

They landed in the forest where the young raccoon man was hiding.

"Ran!" Achan called out. "Good thing that you are fine."

"Achan, Lilia, are you okay?" He asked when he noticed that the two of them were a little paler.

"Mhm!" Achan nodded.

Lilia exhaled and nodded also. Ran on the other was staring at them with a little doubt. Regardless, he was happy that they were fine and that they finally reunited.

After saying his gratitude to the person named Crimson, they heard an earth-shattering howl.

OOOOOHHHHHHHHRRR!!

They simultaneously glanced to where the howl comes from. It was at the entrance. A humanoid beast with sickle-like arms. It was standing on its two limbs and was exuding the same golden aura as the Wisp.

"Twin Scissor Adult Mammoth, " Yman read the data that could be seen in his vision.

"They evolve again?" Ran exclaimed.

"Now it's more powerful than before?" Lilia also muttered.

"We need to do something!" Achan said with a tinge of guilt.

Yman narrowed his eyes at them.

The other two went silent when Achan said it. "I think we need to tell Mr. Crimson about it," she added.

Lilia nodded her head and Ran sighed. "Yeah, let's be fair. After all, Mr. Crimson had saved us."

The three had finally decided to tell him. However, Yman's wasn't on them anymore. He was staring at the cave entrance.

More monsters were coming out of the cave, and most of them were exuding the same golden aura.

He wondered if the Heavenly Water had such an effect on all of the beasts of monsters around.

But it also puzzled him that those monsters seemingly knew about it from the start.

Could it be that their smells guided them here? He asked in mind.

However, how about the other insects, animals, or monsters around? Why were they not as interested in the Heavenly Water? And aside from it, the dark blue miasma at the northern part was also suspicious.

It further puzzled him.

While he was contemplating, he noticed the Adult Mammoth flapped its transparent wings with a frame of gold as its bone.

A second later, it disappeared. His eyes went wide.

"Dammit, we need to leave!"

He hastily said.

They could not loiter anymore in this place. The monsters had become stronger. If they kept hiding here, there was a high chance that they noticed them.

"Okay."

"Wait Mr. Crimson!"

Ran nodded but Achan called out.

"Hm?"

He made a low moan sound, seemingly asking her 'what's the matter?'.

Then, Achan told him all that they were hiding about the current situation. Yman did not expect that it only took this early for them to blurt out their secrets.

"An experimental specimen?" Yman repeated Achan's words in disbelief.

She told him that their alchemy department had made an elixir that forcibly evolved a person's magical energy.

When he heard it, he remembered the Body Tampering drink of Airi. The next word she said had made him understand why they were making identical elixirs.

She said that the academy was promoting a contest to all Alchemy Departments, and the theme was Evolution.

Back to the topic, Achan and her group succeeded in making the elixir which they called Next Level Elixir.

To verify the usefulness of the Next Level Elixir, they used a worm as their subject for experimentation.

Yman slightly widened his eyes upon hearing it. Then a hypothesis formed in his mind. He guessed that it was related to those weird worms.

But he didn't interrupt her as she continued telling him.

At first, it was a tiny worm as big as the smallest finger of a person's hand.

When they dropped a little amount of Next Level Elixir onto it, there was no sudden reaction. They thought that the elixir was a failure. Since they made it at night, they decided to transfer the worm to the garden where they were keeping their other specimens.

However, when they came back in the morning, all of them were shocked.

The garden was in a mess.  

All the magical plants and herbs that they took much time to take care of— had their leaves gone.

Then they saw in the middle of the garden, a plump creature. It was a worm that was supposedly as big as the shortest finger in a human's hand.

It had grown into size as big as the pig!

Everyone was stunned. Soon, they rejoiced. Everyone got excited. Although it wasn't the expected effect they originally planned, the result was still a good start for their Next Level Elixir.

A few days ago, they had taken it with them to the mountain. Before leaving, they had given it a name. They called it Devourer. The name was of course for fun only.

They left it that day and they came back the next day.

Then they noticed that most of the magical herbs and plants around the mountain had their leaves suffered the same as what happened to the magical herbs in the garden.

No need to guess who was the suspect of it as they already knew the cause of it.

Every hour they record Devourer's growth. Not only its size and also its magical power. No doubt, it had tremendous growth. They could even say that the Next Level Elixir was half success. But they soon realized a big problem. If things continued like it was, the whole academy would suffer a lack of resources if Devourer continued devouring the magical plants and herbs in the mountain— and all the resources that could produce magical energy.

After all, any resources that could produce magical energy were the most important resources for alchemy.

They started to feel worried about it and their professor demanded a meeting with all the department members.

Their meeting took a long time because of some disagreements from the other members. Especially seniors.

In the end, they decided to end Devourer's life; otherwise, their whole department would be in danger of getting disbanded if the higher council or even the student council would know about it.