Chapter 14

Zedd, though, did mention something about Boris that Senro could not grasp the meaning of. She cautiously stated that since there would be no other fire essence wielder among the bandits, apart from Boris, their leader, then the mission had a sixty percent success rate. When Zedd stated this, Senro felt kind of befuddled. He was sure she knew that The Black Moon bandits had at least two hundred and fifty men in their ranks, while the number of the personnel assigned to them by Mom didn't even number up to fifty. They were already at a disadvantage just based on the numbers alone, much less if one were to bring up the fact that their party would be going into the Boravine jungle to attack their hideout, without even a single recon or intelligence, concerning the place and its location. But despite all this, what Zedd was most worried about was some fire essence wielder.

When he tried probing about what a fire essence wielder meant, Zedd simply just said "It's none of your business. Don't worry about it." This really infuriated him that Zedd would be keeping this from him, but from the grave look Zedd had on her face, he knew within him, that no matter how much he would try to pursue this topic, Zedd would simply just ignore him. So he decided to drop it. But, that didn't mean he wasn't curious about it, even up until now.

Since the time Senro had the ability to properly think and reason, Senro had been trying to decipher what 'Essence' meant. He had asked Mom, Zedd and all the people around him that he felt might have a clue about what it meant, but he would always be disappointed with a 'Sorry, no clue' answer.

Essence always came up around strange, unnatural and marvelous phenomenon. For example, if one were to be slightly injured and he takes in just a single low quality essence pill, within a few hours that injury would miraculously dry and heal up. Senro could recall a time when one of Mom's warriors was gravely injured on a mission, almost to the point of death. Mom, unhesitatingly forced down one of the few high quality pills she had in her possession, down the guy's throat. Suddenly, right in front of him, his profuse bleeding just stopped and the injury started closing up at a remarkable speed. This frightened the hell out of him. Although, unfortunately, this didn't save the guy from the cold clutches of death, as the guy died just a few minutes later, but even when the guy died, his injuries were still closing up, like as if his body functions were still working perfectly.

Another example would be essence tools and weapons. This is simply tools and weapons strengthened, coated and brimming with essence, giving it far more durability and a better performance than ordinary made tools. If one were to use an ordinary axe to hack down a huge, tough tree, it might probably take the fellow about a day to five to complete the task, depending on how strong the fellow was and the level of stamina and work endurance, but with an essence axe, if handled appropriately, it would only take only an hour to completely level the entire tree. An Essence sword or dagger can cut through iron and steel, like knife through butter. An Essence spear or arrow can pierce through, even the thickest of stone or brick walls. And so on like that. But, the disadvantages of Essence tools and weapons were that they were way too expensive and they were difficult to handle, so not just anyone can wield or handle this sort of tools and weapons.

Senro also had a feeling deep in his gut that the abnormal combat abilities that Sasha, Zedd and Mom had, also had something to do with Essence as well. Even though Mom and Zedd usually ignored his suspicions, but he was sure that there was no way any normal person would have the insane reflexes and speed Zedd had, nor would any normal person have the innate abnormal strength Sasha and Mom had, no matter how much such person trained and tempered their bodies to extreme degrees. He was sure of this, because he himself had gone through rigorous and extreme training, that would even make the torments in the deepest abyss of hell, seem like child's play and still he wasn't anywhere close to the combat abilities of those three. It really made him feel like the odd one out among them and it made him more suspicious about their abilities.

All this phenomenon, deepened his curiosity about Essence and made him want to know more about it, at any cost.

Essence pills and Essence tools and weapons were only sold in the capital, as only those living in the capital could afford them anyways. This pills and tools were categorized into three levels, namely; high quality, middle quality and low quality and each of this pills, tools and weapons in this levels were divided into eight grades, with grade 8, as the lowest and grade 1, as the highest.

According to Mom, who frequently visited the capital for business, there were many alchemists and blacksmiths, who made this pills and weapons or tools respectively and this alchemists and blacksmiths were divided according to ranks. A level 10 alchemist or blacksmith is just a beginner in the trade. The highest level alchemists in the capital were three, level 5 alchemists, while the highest level blacksmiths were four, level 6 blacksmiths, and this geniuses only worked for the royal family, as the royal family were the only ones who could afford to pay for their services, anyway.

Mom could afford to stock up on essence pills, due to her bounty hunting business running smoothly. Mom never did speak to him or Sasha about how she began this business or even the reason why she began it in the first place. But according to the information he received and the long story he was told by the old friendly locals living in Benison town, he gathered that, bandits used to attack the town and the nearby villages around the town, causing and leaving mayhem, trouble and destruction in their wake. This was a time before Mom and Zedd began living in the town, so this meant that they both migrated from somewhere else.

Since Senro had a hard time sleeping due to his excitement about the upcoming mission, he began to reminisce about the story told to him by the locals.