The Bounty Hunter

February 2nd, 2089

In my cave lab, I have taken out a set of materials that would be considered stuff of myth and legends.  7 items in total and they are all valuable beyond measure.  Most of these items I acquired during my travel while the remainder I managed to buy at great personal cost.  

The reverse scale of a Titanic Desert Dragon, the ashes of a Heretic Phoenix, a seed of a Cloudy Skyward Tree, a vine of a Voracious Abyssal Strangler, water from the Tearful Maiden’s Spring, a completely pure Inspirational Light Crystal and of course the Celestial Spirit Steel were all in front of me.  The crystal and steel I had to buy at great cost while the other five I gathered after encountering them or their remains in my travels. 

Back home I had faked having the flu and had Rin mimic my form to fool my parents.  I have 3 days completely to myself to conduct my experiments.  I plan to first fully examine the properties of the materials here, particularly the Celestial Spirit Steel. 

After a day’s worth of analyzing I believe that I have gotten this Celestial Spirit Steel at an absolute bargain.  My examination into this metal can be summarized as follows:  it has near-perfect mana conduction, it has the consistency of quicksilver, and most importantly it can be considered a “living” metal.  It can grow and self-repair and even mutate given the right conditions, materials and enough mana.  The legends were right on the money which is somewhat surprising. 

It will be the perfect anchor for the magic ritual I am going to perform.  Other than the unattributed Celestial Spirit Steel, each material I have here represents one of the 6 elements of the world.  These elemental particles are not directly used by normal wizards, we use unattributed mana which is an even composite of the 6. 

To access the elements for spells we have to convert unattributed mana, which is somewhat inefficient.  Some wizards actually choose to specialize in an element, they intentionally create an imbalance within themselves and accumulate pure elemental particles in their body instead of unattributed mana.  They are called elementalists and although their spell selection becomes more limited due to the imbalance they gain incredible control, power and efficiency with their chosen elemental specialization. 

I plan to take advantage of this by accumulating all 6 kinds of elemental particles in my body while still keeping my unattributed mana.  In other words, my plan is to become an “elementalist” with all the elements.  This will only be possible by fusing the 6 elemental materials I have to myself.  My augmented body will then naturally accumulate elemental particles so I won’t have to cause an imbalance in my own mana pool.    The Celestial Spirit Steel will be the most important item because it will alter and augment my body so it can handle the strain of the additional elemental particles. 

Well, I think it will.  Frankly speaking I am basing this all off of my own conjectures and research so I have no idea what will actually happen.  The ideal scenario is that my body, senses and mind all become far more potent while my magic becomes more potent as an elementalist.  Unfortunately, there is also a possible scenario of me dying or worse.  But if things work out, I will not only become stronger I will also gain the traits unique to the items I am using themselves.

The reverse scale of the Titanic Desert Dragon is the size of a surfboard and is widely known as both the toughest and yet also the softest material in this world.  It is extremely difficult to penetrate and is overflowing with the Earth element.  I encountered the corpse of one while in the Sinister Desert.  It is an Eastern style dragon and surprisingly the rest of the body is completely worthless even though its reverse scale is nearly priceless. 

The Heretic Phoenix has an inexhaustible vitality compared to ordinary phoenixes, yet it cannot be reborn from its ashes unless the life blood of another phoenix soaks upon it.  The ashes still contain remnants of its life force and is full of the Fire element.  When I was hunting phoenixes for a bounty I found a Heretic Phoenix among them and attacked it.  It took me a full day of hacking at it with my rhomphaia before it finally died.  

The Cloudy Skyward Tree is an odd plant that only grows on clouds high up in the atmosphere.  It has incredible adaptability, being able to weather the freezing cold, the low oxygen levels and the high UV exposure without worry.  Only on the windiest of days does it release a seed and I received one by accident when I practiced flying and got caught by a fierce updraft.  I was only able to stop by wrapping myself around one of those trees which was when I got the seed which had an amazing amount of Wind element.  I nearly died trying to descend back down, though. 

The Voracious Abyssal Strangler is a truly rare creeping vine that grows only in the deepest, darkest crevices and specializes in dragging in victims who come to close to it.  The strength and flexibility of their vines are unmatched in the world.  They suffocate their victims in the dark and use them as nutrients for the plant.  I nearly was one of those victims before I managed to barely cut off the vine pulling at me and escape.  The cut off vine continued to try and strangle me and it took me a day to finally remove the damn thing.  It of course contained a lot of the darkness element. 

The Tearful Maiden’s Spring was a legendary spring located in the heart of the Clear Glacier far to the north.  Its water can cure any illness, curse or poison.  Its location was well known and there was even a trade town located around it, but the spring would only flow when a virgin with a heart-breaking amount of sorrow approached it.  And it would only flow once for each individual.  The gender of the virgin didn’t matter.  I discovered that fact when I met a client at that spring for a personal bounty.  The spring flowed as I came close and the water had large amounts of Water element in it. 

The pure Inspirational Light Crystal was bought from a Bound One in need of coin.  It supposedly shines with the light of wisdom and can allow one to become smarter and more innovative in its presence.  It was gathered from Saint’s Head Peak which is the tallest mountain in the Darkmoon Queendom where the sun had not stopped shining on it for more than a century.  Hundreds of slaves died when the Cult went to harvest the crystals located at the top.  The light element was prevalent within it. 

I spent the next day carving the magic circle into the bedrock of the cave while working out the steps of the ritual in my head.

I stuck to my simple style, making a large seven-pointed star to represent the seven separate stages of the ritual, a smaller circle within to circulate the mana, and an even smaller square within the circle to stabilize the reaction.  Each point of the large star had a smaller five-pointed star where the materials were placed along with the mana sources for the ritual. 

I lied naked within the square as I braced myself for the beginning of the ritual.  My mana surged outwards, causing all of the mana sources to break open and flooding the magic circle with mana.  The first 5-pointed star to shine was the one with the Celestial Spirit Steel, it evaporated into a white-silver mist that enveloped me and seeped into my entire body.  It hurt like hell and I started sweating out a goop comprised of various colors as the Celestial Spirit Steel molecules replaced every biometal and inorganic molecule in my body’s cells and even integrated itself into my DNA. 

The second star started shining and the reverse scale of the Titanic Desert Dragon crawled across the ground and started being woven together with my own skin.  It felt like I was being skinned and I had to start yelling wildly due to the pain.  This torturous experience didn’t stop as the third star started to shine and the ashes of the Heretic Phoenix turned into a bullet that pierced into my heart.  My heart felt like it was burning as the life force within the ashes was ignited by my own life’s blood. 

The fourth star shone and the seed of the Cloudy Skyward Tree was sucked into my lungs, where it started to grow and tear apart my lungs before it too was integrated into my body.  The fifth star shined brightly and the vine of the Voracious Abyssal Strangler regained life as it snuck under my skin and intertwined itself with my musculature and was absorbed. 

I was barely holding onto my consciousness as the sixth star lit up and the flask of Tearful Maiden’s water burst.  It quickly flowed into me and was sucked up by my bone marrow.  I could feel my blood go cold as it started being purified.  The last star finally shone brightly and the Inspirational Light Crystal shattered in a burst of brilliance that seared my eyes and went right into my brain.  The seven stars were shining brightly as I thrashed about in agony for who knows how long.  I finally lost consciousness as the ritual continued to remake my body down to my very DNA.

I awoke with a start in the dark cave.  The pain had thankfully vanished, but that wasn’t what I was concerned about.  I stood up and looked into a conjured mirror.  And to my shock I saw… nothing different.  I looked almost the same as before the ritual. 

Rather than becoming hideous, I seem to have had my looks improve.  My hair was silkier than before and my skin had a nice gloss to it.  I gained about an inch to become an even 6 feet tall and my muscles were bigger and had better tone than before.  I seemed to have acquired a pleasant smelling natural musk and when I spoke I could tell my voice had a more musical chime to it. 

But in stark contrast to the minor superficial changes, I felt that the changes within me were enormous.  My mind was clear and working faster than ever, my senses were sharper and every part of my body felt like it was overflowing with power.  I could feel the elements coalescing inside of me just like my mana.  Fufufu, the fusion of sci-fi and fantasy was a truly brilliant idea on my part!  I might be able to defeat Jupon after all.  With that hope in my heart, I vanished from the other world.