Eight Star Dragon General (II)

"Ah." Reed turned bright beet red. She cast her gaze down in shame and stuttered. "S-sorry about that. He's a brute."

"Well, what exactly are you trying to show me?"

Reed started to unbutton her top vest. Zero felt a rush of heat come up his face, he couldn't look away because Reed was trying to show him something important.

She pulled off her vest and was in a tight-fitting tank top that exposed her shoulder. Zero noticed a large red mark with black and blue blotches running down her neck and down her right shoulder. It reminded him of red lightning that struck her mercilessly.

Zero couldn't help but feel surprised at how badly the bruised shoulder looked. Was this all caused by this so-called ghost that Valiant was talking about? How were they supposed to deal with something intangible?

"If I could explain how it feels, my energy doesn't flow quite well through my shoulder. I can't seem to pull out any aura around it to protect it."

"That's bad."

"Yea, the monster keeps aiming for the shoulder whenever I fight."

"Have you found anything to make it disappear?"

"Not completely. For some reason, mint has been doing the trick by helping it recuperate faster. So far, it has been slowly receding in its natural state. Give or take another three hours; it should disappear."

"It should? You're not sure."

Reed shook her head. "It's an approximate guess."

"What other side effects have you had?" Zero hurried over to get a closer look at her shoulder. He could see a faint pulsing black light that came out, giving it a slightly sour stench. His nose wrinkled, and he pulled back in surprise.

"I know. It gives off a strange odor too. I thought it was just me, but Valiant gave the same expression. There aren't any other problems but the circulation of my energy being wacky, though I'm not the only one with this problem."

"Wait, there's more?" Alarmed, Zero raised his voice. He quickly looked towards his group, scanning for any possible injury he could see, but so far, everyone's armor and clothes hid the injury.

"Yea. I think twelve of us had brushed up against those strange shadows." Reed pulled back her vest.

"That's not good. We'll fight the 40th-level dungeon boss and need everybody to fight." Zero felt a bit peeved that no one had brought this up till now. He pulled out the remaining herbs that he had left and started to mix herbs that could help the blood flow in her body.

No new message appeared that showed his success or failures. Everything he had to do was based on intuition, making this much more difficult. Even still, he produced the basic amount of medicine without too much of a hurdle and made them into tea.

"What are you doing?" Reed glanced over curiously.

"Medicine for your shoulder. Bring everyone with the same predicament over. We're not leaving till all of us are at 100%."

"But."

"Just get them before I change my mind."

"Okay." Reed got up and went towards the crowd.

"You got an idea of what you need to do?" Valiant was glancing over toward Zero with interest. His eyes shone in awe at Zero's skillful hands, creating the medicine.

"Somewhat; she said that the mint she ate helped a bit with the blood flow. So I got some cinnamon barks to help the circulation mixed in with the mint."

"Wait, where did you find a cinnamon bark here, of all places?" Zeraph was stumped at Zero's answer.

"There are some leftover plants here and there in those old treasure chests. So I traded with the others who found them."

"That's peculiar."

"I know. Who would've thought the plants wouldn't deteriorate but stay fresh longer? There are so many things on this side of the world that are so different. It's just so strange." Zero couldn't put the finger on it, but he felt they were more to this part of the game than he realized. He thought it over, trying to piece the information in his mind while his hands automatically created the medicine.

The gift of the Seed was given to the players, which allowed people psychic abilities that could be used in the real world and the game world. He was not sure where this game was taking him, but he knew for sure that it had become much more entertaining. Though, being captured by psychic fanatic enthusiasts wasn't what he ever expected.

What was their true purpose? So far, his snooping around did not bear any fruit. Only baseless rumors that did not have solid proof. The time to snoop around was much more difficult than he had thought, though he had started to find out the routine pattern of the staff working in the building.

There were some clues that he found strange in the psychic academy. The lower-level Psychics were not killed but seemed to be in some strange hypnotic trance. At first, it was unnoticeable, but the oddity could be found if one paid close attention too.

Some of the kids were more prone to be battle crazy to the point where they became mindless in the game. Zero had seen some of the clips of their battle footage from behind Angelina when she was not looking. Their psychic ability had grown extensively, almost as if it was forced to bloom.

While the higher-powered Psychic ability users were more curtailed to specific regimes that even Zero had to follow, he was in the class of the strong. The tests were also conducted with simple exercises of repetition after repetition. Sometimes their power would increase; other times, it would dramatically fail. What he found out was a balance of 'wanting' to make it happen and then 'forcing' it to happen.

"Hey, Captain. I'm going to help Reed. I get the feeling she doesn't know what she's doing." Valiant sighed, cutting through his thinking.

"Huh? Yea." Zero glanced up and saw Valiant getting up and heading towards her, leaving both Zeraph and Zero alone together.

Agnis walked over and sat down with a sigh. "Hey, guys." She replied, her hair flung back as her white hair dropped from behind.

"Hi." Zeraph and Zero spoke at the same time. Silence followed after, leaving everyone to do their things. Agnis did not seem to be in the mood to talk.

Zero's mind was back to what he was thinking before. He started to speak. "Zeraph."

"Yea?"

"Have you noticed that the Seed's power has rapidly grown these past three weeks?"

"I thought I was the only one. I noticed that too."

"So it's not just me." Zero was thinking over what he had just found out. He thought his psychic ability was growing rapidly while they were in the Pyramid of Light. It was as if it was made to enhance their psychic skill.