"One more thing," Lin added before leaving. "When the ti cos to talk to Julius, let prepare the ground first. As I said, he's trustworthy, but even he might have a strange reaction when he learns a first-year student achieved sothing supposed to be exclusive to royalty."
The silence that followed Lin's departure was heavy.
Min, Liu, and Taro watched Ren with concern, their excitent diminished by the taphorical rain falling on his achievent while he remained unusually still, apparently lost in thought.
"Hey," Min began, "it's not so bad, you just need to keep the hydra secret for a while and…"
He stopped when a big smile began forming on Ren's lips.
"Lin..." Ren murmured, his smile growing. "Lin was so worried about the hydra issue that she..."
His eyes suddenly lit up with a mischievous realization.
"SHE FORGOT ABOUT MY TRAINING!" he jumped from his bed with explosive energy. "This is our best chance!"
"Oh no," Taro recognized that look. "Oh no, no, no..."
Ren grabbed Taro by the shoulders, his new muscles enhanced by the stacked 60% buff making his grip surprisingly firm for a 10-year-old.
"Ren!" Taro blinked in surprise. "Since when are you this strong?"
"Fifty percent extra strength increase..." Liu reminded him.
Ren practically glowed with excitent. "This ti we don't need an elaborate distraction like last ti!"
"Last ti?" Min narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"I wanted to start gathering materials for the hydra and my world mushroom's next level but they'll have to wait... We need to seize this morning!" Ren was already dragging Taro toward the door. "The ruins await us!"
"Wait!" Taro tried to resist, but Ren's new buff made it surprisingly difficult. "Shouldn't we at least discuss what you want to do or...?"
"There is no ti to talk!" Ren was already running down the hallway, dragging a resigned Taro by the arm. "Lin could rember about our training at any mont!"
Min and Liu looked at each other for a mont.
"Should we...?" Liu began.
"Follow those idiots before they get into trouble?" Min sighed while his snake coiled nervously. "Probably."
♢♢♢♢
In Yino territory...
Morning light barely illuminated the path when a figure crawled out of a mine.
Its anthropomorphic silhouette was grotesque: where arms should be, two enormous scorpion pincers moved erratically.
The guard at the entrance noticed the movent and raised his lamp, tense and prepared to face a threat.
The light revealed a disturbing sight: a man covered in dirt and dried blood, his uniform in tatters.
The guard's initial tension dissipated upon recognizing the characteristic marks on the uniform of a Yino abyssal soldier, though he'd never seen one in such poor condition.
"Registration?" the guard asked automatically, following protocol despite the obviously abnormal situation. "I need to note the materials that..."
The scorpion pincers vanished, revealing stumps where the man's arms should be. His blood-shot eyes tried to focus on the guard before his body finally gave out.
The soldier collapsed at the entrance, his last incoherent mumblings about lost cores and stolen eggs.
"It's Hagen!" the guard shouted. "The abyss cartographer!"
Other guards near the entrance ca running.
Few people in Yino didn't know Hagen, the man who had mapped the depths longer and across greater expanses than anyone. His maps had discovered dozens of new mana veins for the city in recent years.
"Bring a healer!" another guard was already running toward the ergency post. "And notify the Captain!"
Transport was complicated. They didn't want to cause more damage...
When they finally reached the infirmary in the city center, the head healer was already waiting. Enjoy exclusive adventures from My Virtual Library Empire
"By all the..." the healer stopped upon seeing Hagen's condition. "What in hell happened here?"
The damage was extensive, not just the lost arms, but massive internal trauma suggesting he'd been crushed and beaten multiple tis.
♢♢♢♢
When Hagen finally awoke, his first instinct was to reach for his bag, only to find himself moving a bloody stump.
'Right…'
He tried with the other arm, achieving the sa pathetic result.
"Damn it," he muttered, concentrating to manifest the hippogriff's claws.
The transformation was painful, his beast as exhausted as he was.
The claws weren't the best "hands" now, they were clumsy, designed for tearing, not fine manipulation. Though they were better than the pincers...
After three frustrated attempts to reach his bag, Hagen let out a curse that would have made a sailor blush.
"Mr. Hagen," the healer rushed in. "I need to administer more treatnt. The damage was too severe to heal in one session. My mana wasn't enough to heal everything in the first round."
Hagen tried to wave his "hand" dismissively but with his claw… only succeeded in knocking over a tray of instrunts. He rolled his eyes, frustrated by his new clumsiness.
He sighed heavily, concentrated, and moved his claw slowly... He felt his bag, confirming he still had what he needed.
"About your arms..." the healer began cautiously. "I'm afraid we have no way to..."
"Don't worry about that," Hagen interrupted. "Soon it won't be a problem."
A familiar laugh resonated from the door. "Won't be a problem? What are you planning to do? Grow new arms?"
The east zone supervisor entered, followed by the guard who had found Hagen. The smile on his face froze upon seeing the damage to his body.
"Hell, Hagen, you look terrible," he whistled. "Did you run into the King of Yano or what?"
Hagen let out a laugh. "The King? No, no... from what I heard, if it had been the King, I'd be dead."
He straightened with difficulty.
"This one," he raised his left stump, "I gifted to that Director Ignatius when I tried to recover the first egg soone stole from . And this other one," he raised the right, "was a farewell gift to the prince when I tried to save the second egg."
"The eggs?" The supervisor frowned. "The ones you were supposed to find in the deep zones?"
"You see..." Hagen told him most of what had happened.
"Why the hell did you leave the depths?"
"Because I'm a proud imbecile," Hagen rolled his eyes. "A stubborn idiot who wouldn't accept to lose what was lost..." Hagen sighed, making the hippogriff's claws disappear and raising his stumps. "But I learned my lesson."
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