Broken Soul Part 3

"Shouldn't you be working on making a combat pet?" Akari asked when Taylor finished using the ki from one of the spirit stones to create a cat sized green pig with short twisted tusks that curled sideways, making them practically worthless.

"I'm working on it, I just have to merge a couple of beasts," Taylor replied as she glanced over the pig's stats, slightly disappointed that the pig's vitality was on the low end of the range her interface had listed for the green pigs. 'I guess it doesn't matter, it's not like I'm keeping it.'

"Let me guess, it turns light into food?" Akari asked, only half joking.

"No, it's just green," Taylor replied with amusement as she pulled another spirit stone out of the bag of stones that Myst had given her. "I'm trying to give my cat a better sense of smell and a boost to her vitality," she explained as she used the energy in the spirit stone to merge her creepy and boney spirit cat and her spirit pig, paying extra to make sure it still ended up looking like a cat.

"That's adorable!" Selena squealed when she saw the resulting green furred kitten with blue eyes.

Taylor smiled when she checked the kitten's stats and noticed that the kitten had double the vitality of the previous spirit cat. "And the kitten has twice as much vitality and a better sense of smell."

"Can she still cause people to feel uneasy?" Selena asked as she used her weapon conjuration ability to conjure a pair of black gloves.

Taylor checked the note on the ability with three question marks on the cat's page. "No but she's also a kitten, she'll get a random ability when she defeats enough monsters to awaken her power."

"It seems cruel to toss a kitten at monsters," Gwen complained as the kitten started wandering around Selena's room.

Amy glanced away from fixing a couple of Ron's old injuries and looked at the adorable looking green kitten that was exploring the room. "I feel sorry for the monsters."

"I don't," Taylor replied as she used a spirit stone to create a twisted black cat that was mostly skin and bones. "Can you give me the ability to conjure a spirit beast?" she asked Myst.

"Not currently, my avatar is fighting chickens," Myst replied as he used his ability to conjure a spirit chicken. "But you're welcome to see if you can sacrifice the chicken to see if you can get something interesting."

Taylor picked up the twisted and sickly looking cat and walked over to the spirit chicken and used her ability to merge the beasts, resulting in a mutated black cat with wings and a chicken head. "Shit, I forgot to pay the extra ki to keep it from ending up a monster."

"Live and learn." Myst frowned when he realized that his ability was gone. "I think you destroyed my ability to summon a chicken."

"Sorry…" Taylor trailed off when she realized that her list of monster abilities had increased. "On the upside, I unlocked the ability to give the beasts I create the ability to drain ki and give it to their owner. Sadly, the ki it's still corrupted which means it's not particularly useful for most of us."

"Sounds more useful than a useless chicken that gets killed in one hit by just about everything I've run into," Myst assured her, not particularly worried if he couldn't get the ability back since he didn't particularly like chickens and a chicken that cost more to summon than you'd get back was basically worthless, especially since he had other things he could use as distractions.

"You should try sending one of her spirit beasts into the pocket dimension," Ron suggested.

Myst glanced at Ron then focused on the twisted abomination that Taylor had created. "It's worth a shot."

"Start with the mutated thing," Taylor replied as she mentally directed the mutated spirit beast to walk over to Myst and follow his directions.

Myst reached down and touched the mutated abomination then shoved it into the treasure realm. "I'm surprised it worked."

"Can you send us?" Ron asked excitedly.

"Worth a shot," Myst admitted as his avatar pointed at one of the chickens he hadn't killed yet.

"What happens if he can't get back?" Gwen asked.

"If he can send me, he can probably send me back, if not, I can conjure food, I'll be fine," Ron assured them.

Myst walked over, touched Ron's arm and tried to shove him into the treasure realm. He frowned as his power refused to activate. "Nope, I think it just works on items and spirit beasts."

"That's probably because he doesn't count as loot," Akari suggested.

Ron put his hands to his chest and sighed dramatically. "That hurts."

"You'll get over it," Akari replied with amusement.

Myst turned to look at Akari. "There's a part of me that wants to try picking you up and seeing if it works."

Akari snickered as she walked over and jumped into Myst's arms, causing him to almost drop her as he wasn't ready to catch her. "Go for it."

Myst tried and failed to hand her to his avatar then set her down. "While you're certainly a treasure, I don't think I can toss people into the treasure realm."

"I had to try," Akari replied with amusement then walked over and held her hand out for the cute green kitten to sniff, trying to see if it was safe to pick up.

"Huh, your pet actually managed to kill one of the chickens," Myst said as his avatar walked over to the pile of loot.

"Did it drop anything good?" Ron asked.

Myst checked the scroll and the upgrade tile. "A scroll that gives a random technique related to spirit beasts and an upgrade token that you can use on a spirit beast, it gives them a bonus point of a random stat or it gives them a bonus ability."

"Are you planning on using the tile on the chicken the staff summons?" Taylor asked.

"I'm not sure I want the damned thing combat effective," Myst admitted as he had his avatar hand him the tile and the scroll. "Besides, you killed it."

"I'll take it." Taylor smiled and quickly broke the seal on the scroll when Myst handed it to her, giving her the ability to create links with spirit beasts that would let her see through their eyes and communicate mentally. "That's useful, it gave me the ability to form a connection with spirit beasts and look through their eyes. I'm going to burn through a lot of spirit stones at this rate."

"Don't worry about it, burn them, they're a common drop," Myst assured her as he handed her the upgrade tile. "You'll get more out of this than I will."

Taylor used another spirit stone to form a link with her cat so that she could see through her eyes and talk to her mentally. "Speaking of spirit beasts, can I test something on the chicken your staff makes?"

"Sure, just be careful," Myst replied as he had his avatar use the staff to give himself the ability to summon a ki draining chicken. 'Okay, that worked, might as well check to see if Talent can make an indestructible minion.' He had his avatar hand him the staff, ready to toss it back if the chicken tried to attack anyone.

Ron lunged forward and kicked the chicken when the translucent rooster lounged at Taylor, sending it into the stone wall and dazing it slightly. He jumped on the chicken and grabbed it by the neck, holding it in place as it thrashed and tried to toss him. "You might want to hurry, I can feel its rage growing!"

Taylor quickly pulled two spirit stones out of her bag then dashed over, touched the translucent chicken and paid to merge it with her cat, paying the extra to keep the kitten's form, personality and mind intact.

Myst winced when he heard the sound of a tree breaking coming from his staff and the translucent chicken vanished. "Did you get anything useful?"

"It's immortal!" Taylor blurted out when she checked her cat's page and realized that it had the immortal quality.

Ron laughed. "Just call me the chicken wrangler."

"Yeah, I think that broke the staff," Myst admitted as he handed the staff to his avatar so he could take a look at it, getting a jumbled display when he took a look at the description that didn't include the ability to summon a chicken. "It's still indestructible but that destroyed the chicken spirit that was bound to it."

"Sorry?" Taylor offered.

"Don't worry about it," Myst replied with a smile as he glanced at the happy looking green kitten that was rubbing up against Akari's legs in an attempt to get her to pet it. "It's still an indestructible staff that can give people the ability to summon a chicken that can drain ki."

"Did you figure out how to create indestructible spirit beasts?" Selena asked hopefully.

"I picked up the ability, it's completely out of my price range," Taylor admitted.

"Don't worry about it, you'll get there," Myst assured her.

"Are you sure you don't mind me using the upgrade token on my cat?" Taylor asked Myst.

"At this point, I'd almost be offended if you didn't," Myst replied with amusement, curious what the cat would end up getting.

Taylor used the glowing crystal tile on her cat, giving it the ability to turn invisible and causing the cat to fade out until it was nothing but a glowing outline when the cat realized she could turn invisible.

Akari blinked when the cat vanished but she could still feel the cat under her fingers. "Did you give your cat the ability to turn invisible?"

"Yes," Taylor replied with a smile, rather happy with the ability since it meant her cat could travel with her and avoid people and monsters.

Selena yawned. "We should probably get some sleep so we're less cranky when we're dealing with the shitheads tomorrow."

"It would help," Myst agreed as he headed for the door, looking forward to making sure all of his stuff was in his locked chest so no one could steal it.

Akari yawned. "Now you have me doing it."

"Thanks again for fixing my asthma," Peter told Amy.

"You're welcome," Amy assured him.

"Thank you," Taylor said, glad that she wouldn't need her glasses anymore.

"You're welcome," Amy replied as she left to get some sleep.

0o0o0

"I might owe the lunch lady an apology," Ron admitted as he poked at the lumpy green gruel that one of the locals had handed him in a wooden bowl.

Selena pulled her attention away from the local disciples that were busy chowing down on the disgusting goop that the idiots in charge were trying to claim was a healthy breakfast and looked at Peter. "Is it safe?"

"Define safe," Peter replied as Myst sat down next to him with a bowl and a scowl on his face. "It's filled with ki but it's basically made out of ground up monsters and some plants that cause aggression, I doubt it tastes all that great and the amount of ki is basically worthless compared to a spirit stone."

"If you don't want it, I'll take it," one of the locals said, happy to get more food since he only got three spirit stones a month from the sect if he was lucky.

Peter handed him the bowl, not seeing a reason to eat the foul smelling concoction when they could have Ron conjure something that actually tasted good and wasn't filled with stuff that might push them over the edge. "It's all yours."

Ron handed his bowl to one of the female disciples when she seemed interested, not seeing a point in eating something that would cause him to fly into a rage if the instructors pissed him off.

"It's not our fault if you get hungry," one of the cultivators that was supposed to keep an eye on the summoned group told them, figuring they'd be begging for more in a couple of days when they realized they only got two meals a day. "If you're done, follow me, I'll show you where your classes are."

"Thanks," Taylor replied as she stood up, not seeing a reason to eat the food if it would make her act like Sophia, especially since it might be addictive with the way the rest of the students were eating it.

"Probably for the best," Myst agreed as he stood up, fairly sure he wouldn't have been able to keep the shit down if he'd been able to force himself to eat it, since it smelled like badly fermented cabbage and rotting meat. 'Maybe it's an acquired taste or their taste buds are wired wrong.'

"Thank the heavens," Selena agreed as she slipped out of her seat and started walking toward the exit, unwilling to eat something that smelled worse than her brother's socks.

The group followed the small group of disciples out of the cafeteria then split up and followed the locals to the classes where they'd been assigned.

Myst wasn't particularly impressed by the alchemy lab, mostly because the ventilation system consisted of hoods without fans which meant the entire place was basically a potential death trap as far as he was concerned. 'Maybe this is why mortals don't generally use alchemy in most of the stories with cultivators, they'd end up dying because they're playing with mercury and toxic crap that no one understands.'

"How much chemistry have you taken?" Peter asked in a whisper as he glanced around the lab.

"One year," Taylor admitted as she glanced around the room filled with empty work stations.

"Enough that one of my college professors asked me what I was planning on doing with it," Myst replied, hoping that the old fashioned and mad scientist looking lab was just the student lab or the lab where they created things that weren't toxic and not the general lab because they didn't know better or didn't care about their students.

"Can't be too bad," Peter said, rather excited about learning alchemy.

Myst glanced at the bug squiggles on the board that probably passed for the local language or maybe someone's abstract art project that they did while drunk. "This is going to be a pain in the ass, I can't read the local language."

"Stop speaking in your filthy tongue, if you can't speak something decent, don't talk!" the teacher snapped.

"He was just saying that his translation ability doesn't include reading or speaking," Peter told the middle aged man sitting behind the teacher's desk.

"If you can't read, get your partner to read the directions, you aren't worth my time," the teacher told him, not even bothering to get up from his desk where he was playing with a blacksmith puzzle.

"Don't worry, I'll make a copy," Taylor offered, glad that her ability covered reading.

"Thanks," Peter replied, less than happy about the teacher's reaction.

Myst just nodded, not seeing a reason to say anything and piss the teacher off since it would just make everything harder and he'd dealt with T.A.s in college that barely spoke English.

0o0o0

"Hello?" Myst called out when he saw a short childlike figure wearing a robe walk around the corner of the hallway. "Don't!" he told the staff's spirit beast when the chicken lunged toward the figure. "Shit!" he cursed and quickly tossed himself through a doorway when the green skinned figure pulled an apple sized metal sphere with a fuse out of a pocket and tossed it at him. He swung the door shut then rolled out of the way, in case the blast was stronger than he was expecting. He sighed in relief when the blast that sounded like an M-80 wasn't powerful enough to destroy the stone wall that he was using as cover.

He covered his ears and winced when another blast went off, wishing he had his earplugs. 'At least it's only my avatar's hearing,' he thought as he scrambled to his feet and got ready to smash anything that walked through the door that had been blown off its hinges. 'Fucking alchemists.' He nearly jabbed the spirit chicken with his staff as it walked out of the door, looking almost smug.

"Is it dead?" Myst asked, trying to listen for sounds of movement on the off chance that the creature wasn't actually dead but finding it hard because his ears were ringing. 'Screw it,' he thought and peeked around the doorframe after twenty seconds of waiting. 'And we have loot,' he thought as he double checked the other direction in case the noise had drawn someone from the area he'd come from.

'Here's hoping the bastards aren't smart enough to fake a loot drop,' he thought as he walked over to grab the robe near the spot where he'd seen the green skinned figure, trying to hear anyone moving. He relaxed a bit when he picked up the black robe on the ground and saw a glowing upgrade tile the robe had been concealing. 'Probably not a trick,' he thought as he read the description of the robes. 'Alchemist robes, wearing these robes increases the rate that you learn alchemy and increases the potency of any alchemy products you create by ten percent. You can also pull a fuse bomb out of the pocket once a minute. That should help dealing with groups.'

Myst put the robes on, slightly annoyed that he had to juggle the cursed staff as it didn't want to leave his hands. He picked up the upgrade tile, checked the description then used it on his alchemy talent, increasing the chances of duplicating things by five percent. He sighed when he saw another green skinned figure walk out of a doorway down the hallway and his spirit chicken charged.

'Fuck it,' he thought as he raised his hand and cast his Conjure Vampiric Chickens of Doom spell, creating a black chicken with red eyes that changed down the hallway like a demented chicken on a mission. He turned and bolted back around the corner, wanting nothing to do with the alchemist's bombs or the explosion from the chicken of doom. He smiled when he heard a weird whoomp and a feeling of warmth washed over him, fixing the ringing in his ears and making him feel like he'd just downed a couple of mugs of hot chocolate, washing away the fatigue he'd been feeling.

He recast his chicken of doom spell, sending the resulting chicken around the corner and down the hallway to blow up more monsters, figuring there were more of the damned things in the room. 'What happens if there are hostages or breakable shit?'

'This feels like cheating, fuck it,' he thought as he cast his spell again, using most of his remaining mana to conjure another black chicken that promptly ran down the hall to find something to destroy. 'I'm going to need to find a decent source of corruption, three spells and I'm out. Maybe two and a half since I hit something the first time, maybe two and three quarters?' he mused, not actually sure how much mana he had since he didn't have a mana bar, just a vague sense of how full his tank was.

He grinned when he heard a couple of explosions and another two whoomps and his mana regenerated by just over half letting him know that the chickens had probably caught a group of alchemists in the blasts. He waited twenty seconds then peeked around the corner when he didn't hear any more explosions. He stared at the blood covered translucent chicken that walked out of the lab looking smug for a couple of seconds then walked over and checked the lab.

He glanced over the blood covered room filled with shattered glass, broken alchemy equipment and piles of loot scattered around the room. He ignored the pile of red spirit stones and walked over to the pile that contained a scroll and an upgrade tile. He used the upgrade tile on his alchemy talent after checking it, bringing the percentage up to eighteen percent. He picked up the scroll and read the description, 'This technique gives you the ability to summon and dismiss a journal with infinite pages that automatically records your lab results and recipes.'

"Nice," Myst said as he used the scroll, picking up the ability to summon a journal. He focused and summoned his alchemy journal, conjuring a leatherbound journal filled with the recipes he 'remembered' from class. 'Nice, this should keep the assholes from stealing my journal and I can pass it off as part of my talent.'

He dismissed the journal then walked over to the next pile of loot and picked up the scroll, slightly annoyed but not particularly surprised to find a copy of the scroll that gave him his journal ability. He briefly considered using the second scroll to see if he could before handing it to his normal self to give to Peter, figuring he'd get more use out of it. He picked up the spirit stones and put them in one of his pockets then moved to the next pile.

Myst glanced at the glowing tile then checked the description on the green fabric shopping bag that looked a bit out of place in a medieval setting since it was square on the bottom and was bright green. 'Bag of holding, everything put into the bag only weighs a fifth of what it should while it's in the bag.'

"That should make it easier to carry the spirit stones," he mused as he glanced at the upgrade tile's description. 'Huh, so much for all of the tiles upgrading talents,' he mused as he picked the tile up. "Cursed upgrade token, using this cursed tile to upgrade a magical item comes at a cost, it inflicts a powerful curse on the item in question, often twisting it in weird ways."

"Weird ways? That sounds like a good way to screw yourself over," Myst muttered as he put the tile in his pocket then walked over to the next pile and picked up a scroll that was sitting on top of a couple of spirit stones, another scroll and a potion. "Teaches a technique to conjure a cursed education paddle, the paddle can't actually do any damage but it comes with a compulsion to beat stupid people silly."

He stuck the scroll in the bag then checked the next scroll. "This scroll instantly teaches a failed technique that summons forth a horde of blood thirsty goblins that will attack you, they generally drop copper daggers or otherwise nearly worthless loot if you manage to kill them."

"Might be useful," Myst mused as he stuck the scroll in the bag with the other scroll. He checked the description on the fire resistance potion then used his Conjure Recipe spell on the potion, not sure what to expect. He stared in surprise when a scroll appeared in his hand. "One use, teaches the user how to create a batch of ten fire resistance potions."

"That's better than I was expecting," Myst admitted and used the scroll, teaching himself the potion and updating his journal. He cast the Conjure Recipe spell on the potion, getting another scroll and draining his mana. "I'm going to have to do something about my mana pool."

He stuck the recipe scroll in his bag then put the potion in the bag, figuring he'd let Peter take a look at it since he didn't have the mana to extract a quality from it at the moment. He put the spirit stones in the bag then went to the next pile. He checked the description for the grungy looking black robes. "Robes of Useless Ingredients, these robes allow the alchemist to spend energy to conjure nearly worthless ingredients from the pockets, useful for an apprentice learning the trade but little else."

"Nearly useless doesn't mean useless," Myst mused as he picked up the upgrade tile after checking it. 'At least I'm getting a decent number of upgrade tiles,' he mused as he used the tile, increasing his alchemy talent to twenty three percent. 'That's almost a duplicate item a fourth of the time, which seems broken as hell.'

Myst quickly went around the room picking up the piles of loot and looting the drawers and boxes scattered around the wrecked lab, picking up three belt pouches of holding, four cursed upgrade tiles, two technique scrolls, an upgrade tile that he'd used to upgrade his language translation talent to include writing, a cardboard box filled with broken pieces of alchemy equipment, twenty five pounds of low grade alchemy ingredients, and a couple of dozen spirit stones.

He froze then quickly jumped away from the teacher's desk when he opened the drawer and a dark mist started pouring out of it, reeking of death and sending a shiver down his spine when the mist consumed everything it touched other than the teacher's desk. "Shit!" he cursed then quickly used his Purified Pool of Sludge technique on the mist, doing his best to purify the mist before it could spread and eat everything in the area, including him.

Myst grimaced when the expansion of the mist only slowed to a crawl despite his technique burning through his remaining mana at an uncomfortably fast pace. He fumbled in the pocket of his robe for a spirit stone then dashed towards the table where he'd left the box and the rest of the loot when his technique collapsed because he ran out of mana. He quickly handed the box and the bag of holding to his normal half then sprinted out of the room as the mist raced to cover everything.

"Fuck!" he cursed as he ran down the hallway, wanting to put some distance between himself and the cursed mist so he'd have enough time to use a spirit stone. He stopped at the corner and tried to use the spirit stone, wishing it was as simple as a video game where you just pushed a button and it worked. Thankfully after about ten seconds he managed to grab the ki in the stone and start consuming it, wasting a fair bit in his haste.

Myst dropped the crumbling remains of the spirit stone when it ran out of energy that he could absorb then pulled another stone out of his pocket and recast his purification spell as the mist started pouring out of the alchemy lab into the hallway. 'Hopefully, I can burn enough of the mist to get back into the room and seal the desk.'