MMORPG : Ancient WORLD

It had been two days since Alex and Lady Yue arrived in the Iron Empire, and while they had killed more than twenty of the mutated individuals and even raided two of the labs they located through the memories of those they hunted, they had yet to find a single perfectly stable individual.

But that would change soon since after going through the minds of six of the individuals he killed, Alex had gained a large number of fragmented memories and also lucked out on great intel.

In their last encounter, Alex had found through the memories of one of the enhanced criminals that his group was recently given orders by a higher-up who referred to himself as a Litchguard to capture or negotiate with any talented individual to join their side.

It was their first encounter with a representative of the mad apothecary, as all the criminals and low lives had only met their benefactor once before their enhancement process began.

Alex had seen the apothecary in all the memories he had extracted, always accompanied by individuals of different races, depending on who he was meeting, with him using the said individuals to display what he could offer to the criminals.

Those memories were a few weeks to a few months old, and once the process was done, the apothecary did not approach the criminals, leaving them alone to do as they pleased.

It was not hard to guess the apothecary wanted them to cause chaos to spread his name since he had only picked criminals and had only let loose those who had experienced major mutations and were not in the best state.

The technique's success rate was clearly not high, and those who have gained strength at the cost of mutating their bodies will undoubtedly suffer from far-reaching consequences in the future.

But the apothecary knew that once the information spread to the public, everyone from geniuses to criminals would come rushing to find him, too proud or desperate to believe that they were not the special ones, and in both scenarios, he would benefit.

This led Alex to believe that the apothecary either had the backing of a big power or he was planning to pick and choose his subjects and take his time building an army of servents loyal to him with monstres power.

In both scenarios, Alex needed to act and meet with the apothecary and kill him to extract the technique from his corpse because he knew whether that madman succeeded or not, his technique would never reach the hands of the public.

So, knowing that the mad apothecary was looking for talented individuals, he killed everyone in the group, even when they offered him a chance to join their side, but not before making it clear he was too proud to join their group of weaklings.

Alex only left a single individual barely clinging to life, making it seem like an accident. Once the deed was done, he casually announced their destination, hoping his trick would work and that one of the Litchguards would come looking for him.

It was a risky approach since an Elemental Ruler could come looking for him, or the apothecary could be protected by such individuals, making his plan a failure and putting him on their target list, but he had no other option.

Alex spent a few hours resting and cleansing his mind, knowing the fragmented memories would only become more troublesome as he consumed more of them before he left the city, hoping he could finally meet with an old benefactor.

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"Outside the City"

Alex stood beneath the clear blue sky in an empty expanse filled with rich grass, with a massive mountain chain in the distance. His eyes were fixed on his right hand's palm, which bore the seal of an ashy white skull of a dragon being burned by pitch-dark flames.

It was the Dragon Monarch Seal given to him by Nyla, his very first summon, who was extraordinary, and to this day, only Vorinax had come close to leaving an impression on him similar to the one she had left.

After the Summon Elemental skill was erased, Alex's permanent contract with Vorinax was also erased, so he suffered a significant loss, but he still had hope that one day he might be capable of summoning that monster back to his side since he did leave a soul imprint when he established a contract with him.

But that was a worry for the future, and for now, he needed to focus on the task at hand since he was finally capable of sensing the unique soul imprint of the Monarch Seal and could use it to establish a link with the summoner realm that Nyla came from, hopefully summoning her without facing too much trouble.

Alex had learned about summoning from the Elders, and from what he understood, summons belonged to worlds similar to their own, living, breathing individuals who could die.

The sole difference was that summons could agree to a summoning contract, with their worldly law granting them the ability to travel to other worlds as near-immortal beings.

The benefit was that they were near-immortal and received small compensation for their work, while the side effect was that they needed to obey the orders of their summoner or suffer a heavy penalty from their worldly law.

Alex also learned that there were countless worlds that one could summon, so the chances of summoning the same individual twice were near zero.

However, since he had the unique soul mark of his target, he could use it to specifically target the world and the target he wanted, and if he matched the timing properly, things should work out just fine.

Alex began using the Thought Acceleration skill to push his mind to new heights, to perceive things with much more clarity, and to process ten times the thoughts he could normally do.

Simultaneously, he activated Parallel Thinking and the eyes of the Ancient, making him see the world in literal slow motion.

Alex took a deep breath as he activated the Summon Elemental skill, creating a small pool of darkness before him. As he poured more and more mana into it, the pool grew in size, stopping once it reached fifty meters in length.

The calm darkness began to swirl at such a speed that it became a raging vortex ready to tear through the fabric of space.

Once Alex felt the connection to the void had been built, and the gateway to a random summoner world was about to open, he began channeling his own spiritual energy through the monarch seal on his right palm, taking the seal's unique spiritual presence with it into the swirling vortex.

The pearly white stream vanished into the swirling vortex, acting as a guiding source for the law to connect to the world he wanted before finding his target.

While a lot could go wrong with the spell, and even if it worked, Nyla might not want to enter another world, Alex could only try and hope for the best.

The big advantage of the Summon Elemental spell was that Alex could pour as much mana as he wanted into the portal, making the worldly law select the best target for the price he paid, and the higher the price, the more attractive it would appear.

So, if Nyla was willing to go on a raid, she would surely wish to enter, knowing a great challenge awaited her.

Once Alex felt that his spiritual energy was no longer entering the vortex, he stopped using it along with mana and began to wait for the result.

After close to three minutes, the vortex began to shrink without showing any changes. Seeing it, Alex realized that his first attempt was likely a failure, something he had expected.

Alex watched as the dark circle shrank to a radius no larger than three meters, and just as he accepted it was a failure and was about to prepare for another attempt, a pillar of darkness erupted from the small circle, a continuous torrent of pitch blackness that pierced the clear sky like a dark lance.

The force of the beam was immense, sending ripples through the surrounding air and creating a low, ominous hum.

Alex was momentarily surprised, but he quickly realized this must be a new change to the skill since it had advanced to the Sixth Rank.

As swiftly as the beam appeared, it began to break apart and dissipate into the surroundings, leaving behind a female figure on an erased patch of grass and eroded ground.

'Who is she?' Alex thought, a bit taken aback by seeing the appearance of the female figure staring at him with ashy gray slit eyes.

Alex instantly recognized that while she looked very similar to the Dragoness he remembered, she was surely not the same person.

A quick appraisal verified his thinking, but what he saw on the mostly blank stat panel sent a cold tremble down his spine at the impossibility of what he was looking at.