15: Completing the task

Sorry for the delay with the chapter, my cell phone broke during the week and I was frustrated for a while.

Now I will continue as usual with the story.

I hope you like the chapter and in the next chapter we will get closer to the canon.

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Chapter 15: Completing the task.

While Tom maintained his Domain of the plant and earth element to hold off the monsters, suddenly his private communicator with Ai Jiang Tu rang, when he looked he saw the message from his friend:

-' I have the plant, we are at the bridge Tom, the evolving warrior level monster was wounded by my curse magic but is still alive and very angry, be careful on the road brother'-.

With a smile, Tom deactivated his domain causing all the terrain around him that was a hellish jungle to return to normal.

The monsters around him that were still alive after the confrontation quickly reacted to the deactivation of the domain and took it as an opportunity to attack the unprotected Tom, but before receiving any attack from the monsters, Tom reached out and used his earth magic system making the presence of the earth element surround his hands and then used again the spell with which he had entered the meadow scepter where it was the monsters' territory.

"Over," said Tom, and quickly the magic kicked in and he was back to where he was before he faced the monsters.

When the monsters attacked Tom, they saw that he had disappeared and there was only dirt. Furious they quickly began to search for the whereabouts of the wizard who had invaded their territory and killed several of their own.

Tom, who had successfully escaped thanks to his earth magic, saw that a few monsters had managed to locate him, so he wasted no time and quickly headed to the bridge where he and Ai Jiang Tu had arranged to meet and then finish off the monsters crossing the bridge one by one.

After arriving at the bridge, Tom could see the figure of Ai Jiang Tu at the end of the bridge.

"Looks like he was able to escape without much trouble from the evolving warrior-level monster after injuring it with his curse magic," Tom thought as he approached his friend.

"It's about time you arrived, you had me worried, I already thought something might have happened to you brother Tom," Ai Jiang Tu told him when he saw him arriving at where they were going to perform the ambush against the monsters.

"There were more monsters than we counted at first, some came pretty close to my position within my domain, but it wasn't a big problem, luckily my domain is more defensive than offensive, so it can hold them off without any problems, they just delayed me for a while being so many" Tom replied.

"It was likely that some things escaped us in the investigation, but it's good that there was not much difference with the information, just a few more monsters don't alter our plan, now we'd better prepare to finish this task," said Ai Jiang Tu.

"Good, then let's continue with the plan. Ohhh right, and the plant brother?" asked Tom.

"Here" replied Ai Jiang Tu while pulling out from his space bag a 5-11 tall plant with an erect and stiff reddish-green colored t, had the leaves, oval and pointed green colored and 5-8 cm long, while the are solitary and hanging with the cream white colored with a which is a scarlet red globulose resembling one that is wrapped by a scarlet red-colored ribbed vesicle in the shape of 'Chinese or Japanese lantern'.

"Wow, you hit the jackpot. Uffff I don't know why I have a feeling that after completing this task we are going to be very busy" said Tom knowing that if Ai Jiang Tu brought the plant to his family and won the favor of one of the elders in the inner circle of the Ai family after the Ai family was cured by the plant, it was very likely that this one would offer Ai Jiang Tu many benefits along with many specific private tasks to strengthen the relationship and trust between them, and knowing Ai Jiang Tu it is safe to say that Tom was going to have to accompany him in these tasks given by the elder.

This was good since, in all private tasks given by the elder of a powerful family as the Ai family is, they are usually very well paid, much more so than the common hunting tasks given by the hunters union or the academies/universities, since being private tasks requires having certain discretion when performing and finishing the task to thus maintaining the anonymity of the one who issued the task along with keeping private the information of what happened in the task, this is why these missions are usually entrusted to train and trusted people, where the one who issues the task can corroborate that the people who take the task know that a low profile should always be kept.

"Oh come on, don't complain, you are always looking to get all kinds of resources and magical materials, after this, it will be easier for you to get them" replied Ai Jiang Tu who also knew that it was likely that the family elder would entrust him with some private tasks to strengthen their relationship and would also do it to return the favor for the medicine since performing the family's private tasks is also a means for Ai Jiang Tu to become more integrated into the family.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess you're right, but just because I'm looking for magical resources and materials to accelerate my magic cultivation doesn't mean I'm willing to be doomed to live doing quests, I like to make the most of my youth, not like you brother Jiang Tu who only think about hunting monsters and cultivating your magic" Tom complained, if it were up to him, he wouldn't try so hard to look for all kinds of materials or high-level resources with a large amount of magic, but he has to since his Amaterasu fire element cultivation stopped progressing since the last time he went up to the high-level magic level and this is because he can no longer use low or medium-level magic resources to progress, and he can only use high-level resources to make small progress in his Amaterasu fire element cultivation. This is why Tom tries so hard to get all kinds of high-level materials or minerals that will allow him to progress in his cultivation because if he doesn't get these, he won't make any progress in his cultivation. But luckily his earth and plant elements didn't give this kind of trouble for now and behave like the normal mage magic system, with more steady and simple progress, not like the fire element Amaterasu that takes years to progress along with a huge amount of resources.

"Come on come on, later we can continue talking, now let's get ready to hunt the monsters and finish the task once and for all," said Ai Jiang Tu while setting some traps on the bridge.

"Alright, first let me take a break, using so long my earth and plant domain to hold the monsters greatly consumed the magic stored in both systems, I charge you with the first round of monsters," said Tom as he sat down to rest and recover his cultivation.

"Then I go the first brother, don't take too long, I will also need to recover strength and magic in a while, so be ready to replace me" replied Ai Jiang Tu.

While Tom was resting and recovering the magic stored in his magic systems, Ai Jiang Tu installed several military magic mines on the iron bridge that connected the meadow where the Elasmotherium was with the ruins of a human city where they were currently waiting to face the monsters.

This ruined city has nothing special, it is just one of the many cities in China that was abandoned by the sudden appearance of many monsters, it is normal to find ruined cities as the population usually flee to more fortified cities when the monsters begin to surround the cities where the defenses they have are scarce, as in the case of the ruined city where Tom and Ai Jiang Tu are currently located, where no ruins of walls can be seen around the city, which means that the only defensive station it had was the bridge that linked that land with the others, it was common in China that cities were formed in isolated lands without fortifications, since they were easy to protect from land monsters that are not aquatic or can fly because they were surrounded by water and the only way to enter the city on foot was by a bridge, allowing them to focus all their defense in that place and also, being a narrow bridge monsters can not attack in groups, but have to pass one by one, which makes it easier to confront them.

But this widely used strategy also has many negatives, for example, they are not well enough prepared for an attack by a group of air or water monsters and also restricts them to having only one entrance and exit to the city, making them easy to corner without letting the citizens inside escape.

A few minutes later Ai Jiang Tu was preparing for the confrontation when suddenly the explosions of military magic mines start to be heard coming from the other end of the bridge, which indicated to him that the Elasmotherium monsters had already arrived.

Seeing the first group of monsters approaching, Ai Jiang Tu began to summon his magic.

He stood firm looking at the Elasmotherium with his hands outstretched, on his hands could be seen a black silhouette with a red hue indicating the use of his curse element system, after a few moments of concentration and accumulation of magic he said, "Evil Spider's Trap."

Suddenly where were the monsters that passed the mines and were gradually approaching the sector where Tom and Ai Jiang Tu were, a large web was created that spiritually restricted the monsters, then they were attacked one by one by a giant spider projected by the curse that sucked the souls of the Elasmotherium.

After performing his curse magic, Ai Jiang Tu did not stay still and continued the hunt, after performing a few curses he decided to use his next element, so he switched to his space element system.

Connecting his hands he created several projectiles made of space magic that was invisible and apparently took the form that Ai Jiang Tu considered more convenient at the moment, in this case, he created large spears to pierce the legs of the monsters and prevent them from moving, it was the weak point of the Elasmotherium since they had large bodies and horns and when they lost the support of their legs they quickly fell to the ground because of their large bodies.

For those monsters that managed to dodge both the magic mines and his magic spears, Ai Jiang Tu opted to simply grab the monsters themselves with his space element and throw them off the bridge, the problem with this method was that it consumed much more of his space element magic.

After a few minutes, Tom was rested inside and decided to take Ai Jiang Tu's place in the confrontation and let him rest for a while to replenish his magic.

So they both took turns to face the monsters for a few hours until they almost finished with all the Elasmotherium.