CHAPTER 32: CHAPTER 32 - SEARCHING FOR NICOLE

"Yo auntie, are you aware of the rumor about students going missing?" Zion asked, warping into the room as usual. He still found this annoying.

"Yeah, it’s a false rumor though. It happens every year. It’s just a prank the upperclassmen do. It’s practically a tradition at this point." She didn’t even look him in the eyes, focusing on her Headmistress duties.

"Yeah, I thought so too, until I fought the kidnappers today. Look." He tossed the vial to his aunt containing the black blood.

"What is this?" Raven asked, catching the vial without looking.

"Blood, black blood. The blood of the kidnappers. They wore black hooded cloaks with black masks on to hide their face."

"You’re not fucking with me right?" She knew Zion would pull pranks from time to time so she had to make sure he was telling the truth.

"Honest. You can talk to Alice, she was the one who was attacked. And check it, they used demonic energy."

A loud sound pierced through the air as Raven slammed her hands on her desk, rising from her seat. "What?! Are you sure? Did you see demonic energy? Did you feel it?"

"It felt like a weaker version of it. It wasn’t as chaotic. Those individuals also weren’t that strong. I think they’re average demons. The vampire I faced was a low rank and these five individuals weren’t hard to apprehend."

"Did you secure their bodies? Take me to them, now!"

"They burned. No trace was left behind. There were four attackers, they all died. But there was also a fifth one. That guy killed his companion before she could answer my questions and tried to flee. I managed to injure them, but they had some sort of teleportation spell and managed to get away. I only got their blood as compensation."

"This isn’t good. If demons infiltrated the Academy, every student would be in danger. I might have to put the school on lockdown. Can you take me to where they were?" Raven asked

"Yeah, also Alice is in the infirmary, you can speak with her to hear her side of the story."

After doing what his aunt asked, Zion headed back to his dorm where Lidia and Aurora greeted him and proceeded to get their backs blown out for the night.

---

"So do you believe me now?" Bryan asked.

"Yeah, man, I believe you."

"Yes! Haha! See, I knew you would come around. I promise I’m not always crazy."

"I just don’t understand though, why would people kidnap students? What do they have to gain from that? Slavery maybe?" Zion understood demons wanting to eliminate anyone that stood in their way, but commoner students with no background or resources? That didn’t seem logical in his head.

Sure, the demons could frame the nobles for ’kidnapping’ students on academy grounds, but then what? They would put themselves in a bad situation because the parents of said noble children will do anything in their power to find the people who framed their children.

And if they find even one hint of demon activity, the church will be called and their plans will go to shit. Nothing was making any sense.

"Maybe they’re using them for experiments," Bryan said, slapping Zion on the back in a playful manner.

"Experiments? How so?"

"I don’t know, man. Maybe they want commoners who have potential to experiment with them. They don’t go after nobles because it would draw too much attention."

If this was their plan, then it would all make sense. No one of importance would care if commoners were kidnapped or killed, so choosing them for whatever sick plan they had going on was actually smart.

The next question was, why would they need to kidnap students, and what is their end goal? Zion knew they were after the relic, but those students wouldn’t help with that. They didn’t even know where the relic was, according to Zion’s knowledge.

"Bryan, use that Frankenstein brain of yours and give me a reason why someone would kidnap students and experiment on them."

"Frankenstien?" He furrowed his brows in confusion.

"Don’t worry about that, just answer the question." Zion also had an idea, but he was hoping he was wrong.

"Hmmmm. Let’s say I was evil, right? I would kidnap promising but non-important students and engineer them into a ’perfect creation’. If someone harmed me, I would use those creations to kill them, or if I needed something, I would use them to find that something."

He continued

"Or if I needed a distraction, I would use them to draw the attention of important figures so I could enact my true purpose."

"And if they are captured?"

"I would install a fail safe. Something that would kill them and leave no traces behind, and someone who can monitor the situation from afar."

"A fail safe, like their entire body combusting when they die?" Zion asked

"Oh, yeah, exactly like that! That’s actually genius, I need to write that down."

"Fuck. I need to speak with my aunt." Zion got up in the middle of class and ran to his aunt’s office.

"Aunty Raven! You in there?" Banging on her office door, Zion awaited to be pulled through space and into her room, but that never happened.

"Hello there, young Zion. May I ask what you need?" The voice who called out belonged to an old man with a long white beard. His name is Robert Cornsap and he is the head librarian of the Academy. He’s also a Supreme Stage cultivator.

"Yes! Mister Cornsap, I’m looking for my aunt, it’s a private family matter." Zion wasn’t aware of how much Raven told the school, staff, so he wanted to be as vague as possible.

"If my memory serves me correctly, your aunt left campus about two hours ago. She said it was important and she will inform us about it when she comes back. If it’s anything I can help with, I’ll be glad to do so."

"No, it’s okay. Thank you. Oh, do you have any books about advanced runes and magic circles? I need that for my studies." Now that he could use magic, he needed to brush up on his magical skills.

"Oh most definitely. Here." With the flick of his hand, Robert summoned a book Zion needed.

"Thanks Mr. Cornsap, you’re the best. I’ll see you later!" Zion waved goodbye, running back to class.

"Heh, he reminds me of his Mom and sisters when they were learning here all those years ago. Oh well, time for my afternoon nap." He took one step forward. *CRACK* "Arghh! My back!"

---

Back at his isolated training room, Zion was practicing his magic. Spells were a product of not only imagination, but forcing nature to bend to your will.

Elemental magic was easy for Zion, even spells that used raw mana weren’t complicated, but Arcane magic was where he was stumped. He could understand healing magic, but things like teleportation, poison, enchantments, spell buffs and so on were all weird to him.

Also, property changing wasn’t something he thought was easy. Mages could increase their defense against magical attacks using enchantments, but they could also increase their fire immunity if they added fire mana to it.

"How the fuck does that even work? That doesn’t make any sense! How do they not get burned? I’ll stick to body arts for now. Magic is so fucking stupid."

Finishing his training for the day, Zion stretched his worked out body, stepping out of the training room. Upon exiting, Zion was met with a trail of blood that instantly put him on high alert.

"Z-Zion?" A voice called out to him.

Not taking any chances, Zion made a sword out of mana, extending it to the face of the person who called for him. Once he got a good look at who it was, his eyes widened with shock.

"Bryan?! What happened to you?!" His good buddy Bryan was bruised and beaten to a bloody pulp. His eye was black and swollen, his nose and left arm were broken, his shoulder out of its socket, and tons of deep cuts all over his body.

"T-The kidnappers, t-they got her, they got nicole. At the bakery on Flame Street." He coughed violently, blood covering his lips and chin.

"Woah, easy buddy. Let me take you to the infirmary. You need to get patched up before you lose anymore blood."

Zion’s mind was now on overdrive. No way the demons would blatantly cause such a spectacle. Nicole had reported these kidnappers to the higher-ups, so now that she was getting taken with a witness at that, their plans were now open to all to see.

’What game are you bastards playing?’ Zion asked himself

"What happened to him?" Alice asked, reading on her recovery bed.

"The same thing that happened to you, only difference is that he’s not a fighter."

"So how was he able to escape?"

"Because they weren’t after him. His best friend, Nicole, was taken."

"Nicole? I know her. She’s in my class." Alice gripped her book tightly. She was okay with those people going after her, but she was friends with Nicole and now she was angry.

"Are you going to look for them?" She asked, hoping he would say yes.

"Yeah, I might be able to find some clues about her whereabouts." He turned around to leave.

"Take me with you! She’s close to me. I want to help, no, I need to help."

Zion looked back at her, he saw the determination in her eyes, the seriousness, the anger, and a slight sense of duty. He was going to decline but decided that having her around wouldn’t be a problem.

"We leave in five minutes." He left the infirmary.