Chapter 12: In the middle of nowhere?

"Where are you guys heading?".

"The quest destination is Lucknow and our clan was supposed to take care of a level 15 manster."

Rahul replied instantly.

"Feeling interested?".

Saransh was in a bit of a dilemma. The place Rahul mentioned was in the opposite direction where he wanted to go.

'It's not like coincidences doesn't exist, and I do wish if it happened sometimes.'

Saransh thought to himself.

"Sorry, Rahul but I had a quest too and the location is Jaipur."

"Oh… I understand. Then we can atleast drop you off the Delhi borders."

Rahul was still trying to help Saransh for all he had done.

"That would be helpful."

After an hour or so.

Saransh was already out of the Defence vault and was heading to border. Rahul had gathered his clan's top offensive team for the mission. They were travelling in a very peculiar vehicle. It was built especially for rough terrain and it could detect mansters even before they even approached.

After roughly 30 minutes, the border gate was visible. It was not like Saransh imagined it to be. It was more like a small machine covered in dust and all sort of things.

"Is that really the gate?". Saransh was surprised.

"Yeah it is." Shilpa replied. She was sitting right next to Saransh. Even Rahul was staggered after seeing Shilpa taking sudden interest in Saransh.

"What is its purpose then?". Saransh asked.

"The gate is just for the namesake. It was built to keep track of the huntsman's whereabouts."

To get out of the Delhi's Defence vault, Saransh had to sign up a couple of papers since he was going out of the Delhi borders for the first time after the whole 'Apocalypse' thing

The machine scanned the 'Huntsman Card' of all the huntsmen. Some of the huntsmen were Ranked C which was necessary for a C-Ranked quest and they even had an A-Ranked huntsman among them. Since they were going different ways, Saransh had to finally say goodbye to his newly found friends.

"And I'm all alone again."

Saransh sighed.

After parting ways with the Rahul's team. Saransh was planning to run for the rest of the distance.

"Even if ran with all my might, it would atleast take me 10-12 hours before I reached there."

*[ Why don't you check your new skill, dummy? ]*

Mira sent a notification after seeing Saransh being gloomy.

"Which Skill?"

*[ Atleast check your skills once in a while. ]*

Skills:

(Weapon dependent skills)

1. Rapid Fire (Lv6)

2. Snipe (Lv7)

3. Astro Sound (Lv7)

(Passive skills)

1. Vital Point Insight (Lv6)

2. Regeneration(Lv3)

(Creator's skills)

1. Creator's Skill Mastery(Lv1)

2. Creator's Space(Lv2)

3. Creator's Gateway(Lv1)

"Creator's gateway isn't it?"

*[ Yeah that one! ]*

"Anyways, where are my sword related skills?"

*[ You can't use them until you complete your sword related quest. ]*

"Oh I see."

"What will happen if I don't finish the quest in the stipulated time?"

*[ You won't be able to synchronize with swords anymore. ]*

"Sigh".

"Creator's Gateway!"

Saransh shouted after thinking hard about Jaipur. Since he had never gone there, he was thinking about palaces, since Jaipur was once famous for all of that."

Plasma started fabricating around him and started covering all his body. It took atleast 10 seconds before he was vanished to the naked eye.

After a second or so, Saransh opened his eyes to get truly surprised.

"What the hell?"

He looked around him and he could still see the border gate.

"It took this much of my plasma but I still didn't get anywhere far."

Even though he had covered some distance, it was negligible to the distance he had to actually cover.

Unlike for mansters, the plasma regeneration for humans was almost insignificant. Only high level huntsmen had some decent amount of plasma regeneration only because of a couple of skills boosting it.

He sat down for second and concentrated on replenishing his plasma energy for another couple of seconds. Saransh didn't want to give up on his new skill.

He used the 'Gateway' skill coupled with periodically replenishing his plasma for a couple of hours. He even killed a couple of low level mansters and absorbed plasma from the life stones.

"I realize it now."

Since had been exhausting his plasma so much for using the 'Gateway' skill, he could finally understand the flow of plasma.

*[ What is it? ]*

"You see, whenever I try to replenish my plasma, my body is trying to build its own plasma from scratch by replicating the plasma I had absorbed so far."

*[Oh… Is that so? ]*

Mira replied as if she knew nothing about it.

*[ Do you have a work around then? ]*

"Look around! Earth is brimming with plasma energy if nothing else now. So If I can focus, I could very well absorb it from Earth itself."

*[What?? Can you see plasma energy now? ]*

"Yes… Why are you so surprised Mira?"

Saransh received two new notifications soon after.

*[ You have two new skills!] *

*[ Would you like to register 'Discerning Eyes' and 'Replenish' skill permanently? ]*

"Yes!"

Saransh very much expected one of those notifications. He knew that if he perceives a plasma related phenomenon to its full extent, he will be able register them as skills. But still getting 'Discerning Eyes' was a total surprise for him.

*[ The skills have been activated permanently. ]*

*[ I never thought you could grasp the knowledge of plasma this fast. Most huntsmen still don't even know how plasma works. ]*

"Maybe I really am a genius.!"

Saransh started grinning again.

Saransh took a quick peek at his skills.

Skills:

(Creator's skills)

1. Creator's Skill Mastery(Lv1)

2. Creator's Space(Lv2)

3. Creator's Gateway(Lv3)

4. Replenish (Lv1)

5. Discerning Eyes (Lv1)

'Aren't the last two skills just great?'

After using 'Gateway' for a couple of hours it had to jumped Lv3. Now the activation time had shortened to 7 seconds and the distance he could cover had also drastically increased.

After a few hack and slash. Saransh was dismantling a manster's corpse and his shortsword was cutting the lizardmen's body like butter. He was enjoying the so called 'Dismantle time.'

Saransh was literally in the middle of nowhere. He had covered half of the distance which he had originally planned to cover.

After a couple of hours, he could see the broken down fortresses of Jaipur from afar. With his newly acquired skills he was able to use 'Gateway' way too often and Discerning Eyes could even tell which way to take in case of any emergencies, since he was able to see the concentration of plasma clearly.

"Discerning Eyes".

He started scanning the plasma energy all around the castle. He could clearly see what was lying in front of him. Whenever he used the 'Discerning Eyes', he could see the plasma in purple color and when it gets concentrated, it turns into black.

The inner chamber of the castle was pitch black and he already knew what that meant. The fortress was in a very bad shape and had all sorts of mansters lurking around.

"I need to be atleast level 8, before I can think about entering the inner chambers."

*[ You know how impossible of a statement that is right? ]*

"It is difficult but not impossible."

Saransh smirked.

Saransh always wanted to say something like that.

Most of the masters around the castle were what you call the golem type. They all covered in mud and were slow.

When Saransh approached the castle its then he realized how big of a castle it was. The palace was once a pyramidal shaped monument. It now looked like a honeycomb that was abandoned by the bees (literally: Search for Hawa Mahal).

"I'm really am surprised about how is it still standing?"

*[ Humans do intrigue me for creating such structures. ]*

When he was admiring the wrecked beauty of the palace, two golems had already targeted him. They were preparing to attack him.

"They are level 5… aren't they?"

*[ Yes they are. ]*

Saransh was took a quick peek using his 'Discerning Eyes'. Since 'Astro Sound' wouldn't work anymore, he was planning to use snipe instead.

"Creator's Space."

He took out the gun from the creator's space.

"Snipe."

He shouted. The plasma started building at the tip of his gun.

'Paralyze wouldn't even work on these things!'

He planning to use the full scaled power of the Snipe and was aiming for its heart since it was supposed to be the only weakness of the golems.

*PIYYYUUUNG*

*BAAAAAANG*

It blasted of the face of one of the golems even though he was aiming for the heart and the funny part was that he was aiming for the first golem and it hit the second one.

The second golem fell on to the ground with a bang while the first one kept moving towards him. Saransh was planning to use the second snipe and was waiting for the timeout to finish. But what worried him the most was the sound. When the face of the second golem blasted off, it created an enormous sound which echoed throughout the vicinity. Now all the golems were aware of his location.

"This is bad."

He used his 'Discerning Eyes' and he could already see a couple of golems approaching them and plasma concentration around him drastically increasing.

"I need to withdraw for now and comeback with my 'Astro Sound' skill!"

"Mira! Scan the manster… Please!"

*[ I'm on it! ]*

After a couple of seconds.

*[ Level 5 Manster, Type: Ground Golem, Resistant to all physical attacks. ]*

Saransh already knew what that meant after seeing the second golem coming back to life with all its face regenerated.

He didn't think for a second and started sprinting out of the golem's view. He didn't want the golems to use any skills.

After running for a couple of a minutes, the golems were out of sight. He was far away from the palace itself.

"Oh… That was close".

As Saransh was celebrating his successful retreat…

*THUUUMMMP*

Saransh suddenly fell on his knees because of some extreme pressure.

"What??"

He used 'Discerning Eyes', only to find something severe. The pitch black plasma which he saw earlier in the inner chambers of the palace had completely vanished. He could feel that intense plasma right above him.

*THUUUMP*

Before he could grasp anything, he fell on to the ground unconscious.

Meanwhile,

Rahul and his clan were heading towards Lucknow which was expected to be the hiding place of one of the mansters which destroyed vaults around the country.

His clan wasn't alone in this, there were also other clans who were appointed for the same.

"Do you think Saransh would be alright… bhayya?"

It was Shilpa who asked it.

"Yes, I think he is a very skilled huntsman and he is capable of handling mansters anywhere up to level 10."

Rahul replied.

"What made you think so?"

Shilpa asked.

"It's just a hunch… but he is still a man of so many mysteries nonetheless."

"I also agree with you bhayya. You wouldn't believe sword skills he used once he was in the plasma realm. He was a completely different person when he started fighting… as if… as if"

"he had tons of experience in fighting with swords."

"Yes, bhayya! But didn't he tell he just became a swordsman?"

"Yeah… that's what confuses me too!"

*THUUMP*

The vehicle had finally stopped since they had reached the destination. Everyone in the clan were mesmerized by the sight in front of them. A single manster was sitting with its legs crossed right in the middle of a large lake and it was levitating above the water.

The whole sky around it was brimming with plasma energy as if the creature was born out of pure plasma itself.

"Everyone take defensive stance!".

Rahul shouted. Rahul was a kelvin mage with magnificent capabilities. The defensive stance was very weird. Instead of the entire group protecting their strongest mage, the mage was standing right in the front of the group.

"Freeze!"

All the clan members could see the marvelous spectacle unfolding in front of them. The large lake which was the size of a cricket stadium was frozen almost instantly.

The humanoid manster which was right in the middle was already aware of the humans who have come to kill it and it was intrigued by the human mage.

The next instant, the manster opened its eyes.

Everyone in the vicinity was shaken by what happened next.

"Do you intend to kill me, human?"

"Let's see if you can try."

The mansters voice echoed inside everyone's brain.