16 The Flame of Frenzy

When Max grabbed the scroll and inspected it, Melina was behind him and also took a look. A grim expression could be seen on her face. Just when she wanted to start lecturing Max again, he didn't let her even start, because he was currently in a good mood and didn't want it ruined by her. Instead, Max asked her to take them back to the Roundtable Hold. However, Melina just ignored him and said:

"Max, I ask thee once more, please do not meddle with the frenzied flame, please cease your intention of learning this incantation. I ask thee for your own sake, because the flame will poison thy mind and reasoning. In the best case thee will end up like these poor villagers you killed a few moments ago ... in the worst case you might become.... "

When Max saw that Melina stopped speaking, he already had an idea what she was about to say, but he didn't comment on that, but instead thought for a moment.

In the game there were multiple status effects, including a bar that shows the madness build up, and Melina saying that he might end up in the same crazy state of madness like the villagers, confirms his theory. That once the status bar is filled up completely, he would lose his mind to the flame and not just some health.

But then he remembered the pure power he witnesses before and wondered wether he could make use of the frenzied flame without losing control, because an incantation this strong would be a huge trump card. Max had already decided that he is firstly going to learn the incantation to discover how severe the side effects are going to be. Furthermore, he is sure that in the worst case he can just craft some Clarifying Boluses.

Having thought of this, he now regrets that he killed all the villagers, because if he hadn't, he could test if it would be possible to cure them with those Boluses.

'Such a shame, well there will be other opportunities.', he thought. Max then looked at Melinas dissatisfied face and said:

"Well, look at it this way Melina, I am in dire need of an incantation that can target multiple enemies, unless you can teach me a different incantation, I will gladly put this one aside."

Melina didn't answer, but instead looked at Max indifferently. 'Does he really think I'm so naive? I can see it in his eyes that he is going to learn that incantation even if I teach him a different one.', thought Melina.

She sighed and lost all motivation, as she realized that whatever she may say, the tarnished in front of her, won't change his mind.

She then extended her hand, indicating, that she will take him to the Roundtable Hold and Max obviously took it.

Max POV:

When we arrived, we immediately went to the usual room and there I used 80 percent of my runes to strengthen my spirit and the rest for my body. Afterwards, I carefully read the scroll multiple times, until I understood most of what's written there. While reading I had some issues figuring out on how I would be able to cast it, since its different than the other fire incantations I learned previously. The most difficult part was making my mana flow in two different directions, one part of mana had to go towards my seal and the other towards my head. Furthermore, that's not all, the scroll says that in order to avoid falling prey to the madness, you would have to channel the madness type mana towards the seal and meanwhile your pure mana to the brain. Then you would use the pure mana to form some sort of barrier to protect your brain from the madness. Because you would then use the seal to inject the chaos mana into your eyes, there it would condense itself in order to accumulate more and once there is enough mana or you feel like you can't handle the pressure in your eyes anymore, you would then release the flames.

In addition, the writer of the scroll warned that if the pressure is too great and the barrier breaks, the caster would inevitably die, as his brain would be grilled by the condensed mana. Furthermore, the scroll states, that everybody using these kinds of incantations, will inevitably fall prey to the flame of madness, sooner or later.

Having read the scroll, I spend the next few hours improving my mana control. I started with trying to form the barrier in my head, as this was the most important thing. Surprisingly, this didn't take a lot of time and I succeeded after around 4 hours. Afterwards, it took 6 more hours of tedious training, in order to be able to channel my mana in two different directions.

Then I had to go to sleep for a few hours to rest. Normally, I would take my time learning, however, I was short on time, so I gave myself two days in total to learn it. At the beginning of the next day, I had high hopes, and I was sure that it wouldn't be a big problem, to combine the two things I had learned previously. How wrong I was. I spend the whole day trying, but continued to fail miserably, so I had no other choice but to prolong my stay at the roundtable for one more day.

Thankfully, I finally succeeded the next day in the evening. When I cast the incantation, pressure in my eyes was no joke, it felt like my head was going to explode. It was pure agony, but the feeling when you release it, was indescribable.

It's the best feeling ever. Its liberating. On top of that in combination with the pure might of the flames which came out of my eyes, it's better than anything I have ever felt.

In fact, it was so satisfying, that I actually wanted to do it again. It was really addictive.

So that's probably how most addicts feel.

General POV:

Max could be seen in the hall fighting his urges with a crazy smile on his face. Meanwhile, Melina was watching him. She has been observing him for the past two days. At the moment, she had her hand near her dagger. If Max would turn out like the villagers, she would kill him without hesitating.

After a few minutes his facial expression returned to normal, and he calmly looked at the direction where Melina stood.

"Tomorrow early in the morning we will return to the Weeping Peninsula and take over castle Morne."

Melina nodded and left.

The next morning, two people could be seen riding Torrent down the hill, soon they reached the area where the merchant was and then they rode through the gate and immediately took a sharp turn to the left and kept riding straight until they reached the edge of the cliff. The reason why they did that, was because Max didn't want to get impaled by a huge Great Arrow. So, they were sneaking around in order to avoid being detected by the golem in front of the castle.

Once they got close, Max got off Torrent and continued on foot. Holding the Bloodhounds Fang with both arms he sneaked up on the golem, when he was a few meters away, he could see that this golem was already damaged, especially on his right foot. So, with his target before his eyes, Max channeled some mana into his arms and then jumped and attacked with all his might. The impact created a small shockwave.

In response, the golem, lifted its foot and tried to step on Max, however his movement speed was very slow, so it was very easy for Max to dodge the stomp and he even counterattacked. This cycle continued for a few rounds and a few mana infused hits later, the golem lost his balance and fell to the ground. Then Max quickly ran to the front of its stomach and performed a critical attack, killing it.

Afterwards, he went to the beach on the left, where 4 red Spirit Jellyfish were, behind them was a corpse and on it was a somber stone [2]. Max quickly killed those angry Jellyfish in one attack per Jellyfish and easily took the stone.

Before he entered the castle though, Max jumped on Torrent and rode to the golden seed nearby. There he inspected the small golden tree, and on one of its branches he found it.

He picked the Golden seed and held it in one arm. It radiated some warmth. Then he made his way into the castle and entered the room near the site of grace.

He was in a small dilemma, because he doesn't know how to make use of this golden seed, so he looked at Melina, who in response just sighed and took out an empty flask bottle.