Chapter 19: Vol 1 – Chapter 19 (First Leyline 2)

• 3^rd Person POV

“I never play sudoku before but at least I know the rules in solving them” Evan thought as he stares at the large grid that shows the weird looking runes hoping for it to magically solve itself. Spending several extra minute in doing that, it was in vain as he loudly sigh while scratching the back of his head.

“I’m guessing these runes cannot be the in the same grid, columns, rows, and I need to fill all of them” He look at the upper row of the grid as he sees the runes.

“I see… hmmm… by the process of elimination, I think I can add this type of rune” Upon drawing & adding it to the grid suddenly the panel turn red before returning to normal. There’s a loud ping accompanying it when it happened.

“Eh?” *RUSTLE *RUSTLE. Evan turn his head to the left as Umbra’s tail is straightened and tense. The wolf-dog went a bit low in a pouncing stance. “GRRRRRRR” He growls to the direction of where Evan is looking at.

*BAM* A hand emerges from the ground near the tree, it is a wrinkled and desiccated arm, it moves as if alive and drag itself from the black soil revealing the main body of that corpse-like arm.

The main body is humanoid with pointy ears resembling an elf. Although it is undergone some kind of injury such as a cut on that ear. There are some hairs, but it is already fallen off & turn ashen white. Their skin is wrinkled and dark grey in colour, having a deep hollow & sunken eyes as it look at the pair with that facial feature and lumbering forth.

“Graaaaaa….” Its voice is hoarse and dry as it lifted its arms towards the pair. *BAM, another one appears again adjacent to that creature.

[Zombie]
Type:	Undead
Level:	Unknown

 

Evan & Umbra went on caution mode as he weave mana into a sharp lance. The magic he weave form a javelin made from pure light as he shoot towards the undead creature on his left.

“GRAA!!” It hits as the undead body hisses, knocked down then slowly standing up again from that spell even if they are weak against holy magic.

Since they move slowly, Evan have more time to weave stronger version of holy magic. On the tip of his index finger a condensed mote of golden light emerges. He aimed at his front at the centre of the two-lumbering zombie.

He unleashes it, in doing so a brilliant bright pillar of light engulfed them both. “Holy Light!” One of the spell that clerics have to fight instead of healing.

He learned it from watching MeTube about the clerics and their spells including hyping the viewers about the feeling of a cleric when fighting a horde of undead. Inspired by it, he weaved the very same magic knowing how effective it was in the video. Evan distinctively heard a faint sound of notification in his status panel, yet he already tuned it out in favour of fighting.

The zombie that got initially hit by Evan’s Holy Javelin have turned to dust upon being blasted by Holy Light. The other one, its body is steaming & hissing from the blast as Evan weave another Holy Javelin.

It shoots and pierce the zombie leaving behind a hole as it spreads to its entire being, and its body turn into ash. Looking around the area, for more things such as that. Evan couldn’t find it as he didn’t get any experiences from it either.

“I guess that’s the consequence of getting it wrong. But how though? I certainly add the specific rune… unless….” He begin to ruminates on his decision.

Evan moves forward to the tree as he commanded Umbra to guard him. Touching the bark, the surge of mana reappears as the panel emerge before him.

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The very same fantasy sudoku panel, He guesses and using the process of elimination, but he also added a new twist. He switches his vision to detect mana as he sees something different in that sudoku panel.

“The runes! As I suspected… they aren’t what they seems. They each have particular colour of mana that is one of the factor in solving this sudoku. No wonder why I see a similar runes in one grid.” Evan sees one of the rune that looks similar almost indistinguishable like upper case (i) and lower-case (L). but their colour of mana is different allowing Evan to notice it.

He began the process of elimination figuring out a particular rune that will exclusively fit one grid. Due to the added factor, Evan can see the ‘uniqueness’ of different mana in these runes. Taking a lot of his time in deciphering it in addition, knowing that each mistake summons group of zombies.

“Okay… I’m going to put it here. And here… and… most likely there.” He spends around two to three hours standing in front of the twisted tree purely focusing on solving the puzzle.

Umbra stand there with wide eyes looking at the twisted tree. For each correct piece, Evan puts on the grid. The twisted parts of the tree begun to fix itself. The spiralling & splintering bark begun to realign themselves as it turn from stone grey colour into rich earthen brown.

The change went unnoticed as the mage continues in his focus in placing the correct runes. As he did so, The tree begun to sprout fresh green leaves on its branches. The blackened soil slowly turn into reddish-brown as patches of grass begun to grow.

Several hours passed again with Evan focus begin to dwindle. He look to the side and see his MP bar is getting depleted as he activates [Mana Gathering] skill. He can see the MP bar slowly & steadily going up. “After few seconds, it would beat the MP consumption but I’m getting more & more vulnerable”  Evan thought as he continue in his pursuit in solving this in addition, commanding Umbra to get closer to him with the wolf-dog snapped out from his stupor then follows Evan’s command.

Until he spend a total of six hours solving the sudoku as he put the last piece together. His forehead are drenched with sweat from the concentration as he take heave a heavy sigh. “Haaah… Umbra its done! Finally…”

*PLOMP*

Evan lay down on the soft soil as the magical effect of his robe already wore off long ago revealing his normal face, but the robe is still purple with sharp shoulder pads.

“Umbra… I need a lot of rest time from the puzzle. Huhuhuhu… give me your fluffy fur please.” Evan requested to Umbra as the wolf-dog rolled his eyes but still move even closer to the mage and let his head rest on the wolf-dog’s fluffy back.

“It’s so soft hehehehe…” Evan recharges his energy by ruffling Umbra’s soft fur as his mind begin to wander about the whereabouts of other leylines. He can’t even rest for a while as prompt appeared so suddenly in front of him.

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