18 [[[ EVIL PURPLE FLOWER]]]

Inside the villagers houses, The poison was slowly seeping in regardless of their attempts to keep it out. The pain that had been assailing them for months had once again returned. They were just about to return to a normal life after drinking the cure. As soon as despair started to sink in a white light entered their house and enveloped their bodies. The villagers stared wide-eyed, They were being enveloped by the poison mist but there was no pain. There was a layer of white light keeping it at bay. In fact, they felt better than before. It didn't take long for them to start throwing up black tar.

At the center of the village, Lucy was staring at Valencia walking away. It looked like she was in a trance . Valencia had started to walk absentmindedly. With her powers she could feel the general location of the source of the poison mist. She just had to follow to figure out its source.

She walked outside the village, Lucy immediately following, into the woods straight deep into the forest, until she suddenly approached a dark path barring rocks, huge rocks. she then paused for a brief minute, looking back where she had come from and then at Valencia who nodded, they inhaled and took the first step onto the rocky path, at the end of the path was an opening. It looked like a cave.

Before she could enter the cave, she was stopped by Lucy. "The cave has a formation protecting it". She took up a rock and threw it to the opening and as if magic. It turned to dust. Valencia was thankful Lucy stopped her, all this was very knew to her. Lucy was perplexed, she had lived in the stone village for all her life but it was the first time seeing this cave. "The cave was set up by a powerful cultivator. The formation is powerful. Whatever is inside must be very important". She had a feeling that whatever was inside could be the answer to poison mist assaulting her village. But she had stumbled upon a dead end. Maybe only the village chief could open this formation she thought.

Valencia walked up to the entrance of the cave and touched it with her finger. An electric sensation ran through her finger. She could smell the scent of flesh burning. She took back her finger and it was instantly healed. She looked back at Lucy with her hand stretched out. Lucy was clueless about Valencia's actions but she decided to just go along. Valencia circulated her holy energy. Lucy's body started to glow.

Valencia smiled, "lets go".

NEW SKILL CREATED

Life link: the skill allows the user to form a connection with up to three allies. The user can instantly heal the allies she has a connection to. <passive> <skill stops when mana runs out>

They both pressed forward and entered the cave. The formation was still active and tried to deteriorate them but the holy energy continuously healed them. They saw their skin peeling and healing at breathtaking speed. The pain was still unbearable. The more they pushed the more the formation tried to expel them. Lucy was about to give up but to her surprise. Valencia was stronger than she expected.

Each of her steps were firm. She kept her pace. It did not take long for them to walk through the formation. They were both out of breath. Even though their bodies were perfectly fine. They had both depleted their stamina and it will take a while before they can continue.

They could now see the cave in all its entirety. The inside of the cave was huge and very well structured so it had to be man-made. That was Lucy's first thought. A natural occurring cave was not this smooth. Deeper inside the cave, they saw a bed of green water at the far end. In the center of the water was an exotic purple flower.

What was more strange about the flower, it appeared to be breathing. The petals kept on swaying back and forth. The flower was like the symbol of death. Occasionally there would be purple mist entering and exiting the flower. Valencia and Lucy knew that they had found the source of the purple mist. Luckily for Lucy, if she had stumbled upon this flower on her own after breaking the formation. She would have died as soon as she stepped into the cave.

"We need to inform the village chief as soon as possible, let's not do anything rash. This seems like the work of an evil mastermind. We should be careful" Lucy was on her toe. Her brain was in full gear. She was worried.

"I agree, it seems this is bigger than we expected. I'm not sure what that flower is but I can bet it's pretty valuable". Valencia responded seriously.

It was then they heard footsteps behind them. They immediately started to look around and quickly hid behind a rock. A man with long white hair walked in.

To Valencia and Lucy, they knew the owner of those footsteps. It was one of the village elders. It was the third elder, Jo Fuui. The elder was puzzled. On his way here. His talisman had detected someone trying to break into the formation but the formation did not appear like it had been broken.

Lucy could not hold back her rage. She knew she was no match for the elder. He was at the 2nd level of foundation establishment. Valencia tried to calm her down but Lucy could not help it. She had already acted. She had to find out why he betrayed his people.

She rushed out of her hiding spot with a dagger in her hand. The elder was caught off guard and put his hand up to block. Lucy had managed to stab him with the dagger. He screamed in pain.

When he realized who it was. He got extremely mad. It was the village chief's charity case. He did not bother to ask how she got in but responded by hurling three fire balls at her. Lucy's face changed drastically. The fireballs rushed towards her threatening to turn her to ash.

Valencia rushed in front of the fireballs. Boom boom boom. The force generated from the fireballs blasted both of them away. The elder was shocked to see the young girl from earlier rush out as well but after seeing them being bombarded by his fireball. He decided this was the best outcome.

Two birds with one stone, he thought as a determined look appeared on his face. One of his favorite things was the smell of burning flesh and the sight of how unique each person burned. Everyone burned different So he could not wait to see his masterpiece. It didn't take long for the smoke to clear but before his eyes, other than a few burned clothes. The two ladies were fine.

He could not believe his eyes. "you both should be dead!" he shouted

Lucy thought she was a goner just now even Valencia did but she was understanding her powers more as the day passed. Valencia had confidence in her power, but her body was telling her to escape as fast as possible but she knew the elder would not allow it.

she knew begging for her life was not going to succeed either so her only option was to fight. not only for herself but for Lucy.