The Earth Online

17 The Fight for the Blood Souls

Thaleos went inside the giant iron cage and directly charged towards the chickens. After watching them fight for the past three hours, he memorized their attack patterns.

He noticed how they usually relied on their wings and claws when it came to attacking their enemies. Since he had the element of surprise on his side, the two fighting fowls were momentarily shocked.

They fretted around on what to do and just decided to blindly charge at Thaleos, thinking that fighting against one person as a team would work in their favor.

As the pair of poultry jumped up the air at the same time, Thaleos stunned them by leaping at a higher height and promptly decapitating the chicken on his right.

The chicken on the left was successful in scratching his arm but failed to consider the bearded man’s agility. Because as soon as both of them landed on the ground, Thaleos swung his katana towards the chicken’s direction, swiftly slashing off its head.

It took him only a couple of seconds to kill the Elite Malay Fowls, which made Haya and Kedrick clapped their hands in amazement.

“Wow, looks like training’s been paying off.” Kedrick said as he whistled at the sight of the dead fowls inside the iron cage.

The two men proceeded to go inside the metal structure and approached Thaleos. They saw the man kneeling down and gutting the two fowls’ bellies to get out these red glowing balls.

They looked like perfectly shaped circular rubies and taking a closer look at the round ball would reveal that had swirling mana waves inside of it.

“What are these things?” Haya asked in fascination as he borrowed one of the blood souls from Thaleos.

“Any information about it from the ‘holy gospel’ of James?” Kedrick jokingly asked, these little jokes constantly reminded Thaleos and Haya that Kedrick was a priest, based on their Godly Gambles’ occupation.

“Actually, yeah. James said that these Blood Souls store up the retained mana that beasts absorb from other beasts. Then, if we absorb it, we get added skill points.” The bearded man said as he rolled the ruby-like ball in his hand. As he saw the dumbfounded look on Kedrick, he decided to explain it in simpler terms,

“So, basically, every time a beast kills another beast, they collect their souls and absorbed mana into one collective red stone. These little things have all those dead chicken souls from earlier.” As Haya followed his thought process, he helped in concluding Thaleos’ words,

“So, if we consume these blood souls, we can get skill points to increase some of our specialized skills and attacks.”

“Thanks for explaining, man. There are just so many things going on. Honestly, it kinda gets tiring trying to remember all these new facts. I’m basically getting the same mental blocks I had in uni.” The umber man said as he winced at his university days.

He felt like Haya and Thaleos were fast in grasping everything about the new world, and he felt like he was getting left behind.

Thaleos nodded in understanding since he knew how Kedrick focused on being street smart rather than book smart.

“I’ve told you this once and I’ll say it again, we’re all smart at something, might not be math or science, but we enjoy and persevere in fields we deeply connect to, like music or socialization. It’s all good, bro. Without your help, the Melam Base won’t even be here, we would’ve died on the spot.” The beast tamer couldn’t help but put on his psychologist hat at times like this.

He knows how some people were taught to not feel or talk about their feelings, but he knew that if they were to survive in this world, they needed to be stable on all fronts.

Kedrick rubbed his hands together, as he took Thaleos’ sincere words in. Haya squeezed the giant man’s shoulder in support, and the man smiled at his two friends in deep gratitude.

After a moment of just reveling in the wholesome atmosphere, the umber man asked,

“So, are we going to consume these babies or what?”

~ ~ ~

“Ugh, I definitely thought that this would’ve been more exciting than the usual. So, let me get this straight, just because these blood souls are expensive, we’re gonna sell them instead of consuming them?” Kedrick drawled out, as they were back in the Lagash Interpoint and casually walking through the market.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s more strategic since we can easily just hunt down the beasts near us and still get the skill points used for leveling up. Besides, in the next few weeks, blood souls will become the most valuable item in the market. Humans and other new species are planning to buy them to level up before dungeon crawling.” The bearded man calmly disclosed from James’ journal.

Kedrick raised his eyebrows approvingly and proceeded to stare at a faerie that was moving towards their direction. The delicate beauty seemed to be floating in the air as her alluring tan skin nicely reflected against Lagash’s beaming moonlights.

She gave the umber man a wink and proceeded on her merry way, leaving Kedrick smiling and dazing around. He suddenly shook his head as if waking up from a fevered dream and speeded up his strides to catch up with Thaleos.

Currently, it was only Kedrick and Thaleos striding across the colorful store stands, since Haya was already in one of the stands found at the northeastern part of the market.

“And, also, when the hell did Haya had the time to start a business here?” The priest stated in confusion. He didn’t understand how Haya started up a small store in the interpoint and still had the time to fight fire sprites and giant chickens with them.

“Oh, Haya and I just talked about this offhandedly, we needed to increase funds since the Melam Base started taking care of larger livestock and poultry. We’re burning through our cash right now.” Thaleos commented as he waved his hand to catch Haya’s attention.

Haya waved back at them and signaled for them to approach his stall.

“Butchering services? Do you even know how to butcher poultry?” Kedrick inquired doubtfully as he eyed the cheap sign stating Haya’s butchering experience. 

“Well, I did work as a butcher for about a year or two while I was in architecture school. Besides, you’ve seen me fight, Kedrick.” Haya informed sassily, as he took out his shiny cleaver as if to threaten the gentle giant.

“Okay, so what’s the actual plan? Why did you really become a vendor here? It can’t be because of that ‘no money’ bullshit, y’all know I have enough money to feed a whole army.” As soon as Kedrick finished his sentence, Haya and Thaleos immediately shushed him into silence.

The beast tamer took out a note from his utility belt and quickly passed it to Kedrick as he tightly gripped his shoulder,

“Nah man, it’s definitely for the money. I mean shekels work differently.” Thaleos said in a convincing tone while tilting his head to the side. The umber man slowly opened the small note that said,

The gods are listening. Always.

James mentioned in his dream that the gods would carefully monitor my movements since I’m the first human to ever reach level 4 and one of the fastest leveling up players.

We need to fool the gods into thinking that I’m just a stupid player charging headfirst in any fight I see. Only we can do this, we can’t trust anyone else.

We need to get them off our backs to win this game.

After reading the note, Kedrick nervously looked up towards their directions and nodded his understanding. He tried to act as naturally as he could because knowing that the gods were watching them right now sent him to slight panic.

Haya leaned inward and whispered, “Trust us.”

Kedrick calmed down a little bit, it felt like he was in a high-stakes kidnapping situation. After forcing himself to calm down, he slowly repeated in his head how their little trio never failed before.

This time, he nodded his head in sincere agreement and trust.

“So, what can I help you guys with?” Haya asked while using his most sales-man-talk voice. Thaleos tried hiding his chuckle and answered his query,

“Yeah, I would love to sell these blood souls. Can we get it at like a marked-up price or something?” Thaleos requested in a reasonable tone with subtle hints of wanting to gain an upper hand over his friend.

“No can do, pal. Actually, since I helped you guys fighting, I think it’d be better if you sold them to me at a lower price.” Haya convincingly argued, to which Thaleos responded with,

“We’re working to survive here! You created this business, so you need to follow market pricing rules.”

Kedrick watched over his two friends as their conversation started getting heated up,

“Then, logically speaking, you should’ve never suggested the price increase, to begin with!” The tan man angrily shouted, there was already a crowd starting to form around them, whispering to one another in excitement.

The bearded man brusquely scratched his head in disagreement and proposed,

“How about this then, if you pay for the increased price, I’ll tell you about the legendary brush monster.”

“Deal!” Haya responded in enthusiasm,

“But under one more condition, you need to defeat me in a one-on-one battle.”