Illusion

"Ugh...um, argh...uh, cough, cough..." Marissa felt like her neck was being chocked by someone. She felt so stuffy and felt a difficulty to breath. When she looked up a while ago, she felt like someone was right in front of her, flying on the air, eyeing her with a pair of malicious eyes.

At this moment, not only Marissa's clone that felt like she was being choked, even her original chicken form was influenced by the mysterious force. Marissa's chicken form and her puppet clone shared the same soul after all, it wasn't that her soul being divided into two, but the original one was duplicated, then put the copy into the puppet clone. So, when the puppet clone of hers was being choked and suppressed, her original chicken form also experienced the same thing albeit it wasn't as intense as what the clone was experiencing right now.

"Who...are...you?" Marissa's clone asked with so much difficulty.

There was no respond at all, but a gal of cold win suddenly appeared in the underground place from who-knows where. The security system was such a great product, how could any random evil wind entered her little shop. It can't be, right? There must be something wrong. Sure enough, three seconds later, the feeling of being choked was gone, it's as if the caster of this wicked spell couldn't hold that longer to cast the spell. Eventually, he or she was giving up.

"Huft..." Marissa's chicken form took a deep breath, as she inhaled the air in the surrounding in a very exaggerated way. It can't be helped, though, as she had been choked so badly that she felt like her breath would be gone for good if this was to be continued.

Meanwhile, Marissa's clone just sat still on the mattress as the soul of Marissa inside the puppet was now working hard to adjust her condition. After all, the physical body of the puppet didn't need any air to breath like the living being. Actually, a cultivator or warrior like Marissa didn't need to breath the air so much either like any ordinary living being who couldn't live without oxygen. But when a cultivator was suppressed or choked by the other cultivator, that was a different matter all together. After all, when two or some cultivators were having a fight, they didn't use any ordinary means, but use a magical strength that was imbued by the power of nature, heaven and earth.

So, although cultivators could live well even without air, if she or he was being choked to death by using the energy of heaven and earth, it was all the same, like any ordinary individuals, they will also feel suffocated.

After successfully calming down her heart and mind, Marissa finally could think clearly. "That person, to be able to cast that spell, he or she must be here in this shop right now... and, there must be a reason why the system didn't react earlier to this sudden attack... this person..." She widen her eyes with this sudden realization. Without thinking any further, she instantly moved with her fastest speed to the upstairs.

However, even before she could make her move, she suddenly realized that her surrounding was changed. She looked around and found that all she could see was an endless ocean of sand. It was an extremely hot red desert. In a second, Marissa understood that someone had casted an illusion on her.

Marissa after all had been studying illusion this past few days. Although she still couldn't make a breakthrough from the Earth Stage to the Heaven Stage, with the help of the system, her awareness and understanding of illusion had been increased quite a bit. Even with her top memories and how easy she usually to understand something, she could found it very difficult to understand the complicated matrix and concept in it.

"System, please help me to negate it..." She said calmly. Then, in just less than a second after saying those words, the security system immediately expell the illusion, but in that instant the illusion was expelled, Marissa also tried to record the feeling and concept in it, so that later on she could self-study it to increase her level and knowledge regarding illusion. By then, it would also greatly help her to level up her skill <Dream and Illusion> from Earth Stage to Heaven Stage.

After the illusion was gone, Marissa immediately gone upstairs. In her invisible mode, she looked around and immediately spotted someone suspicious among her customers. 'I got you!' She thought as she rushed to the seat of that person. How did she find that person immediately? Of course, it was because the <Magnifier>. This magical tool could catch and see any type of different energy on an individual or in the surrounding.

The moment Marissa rushed to that suspicious man, that man also rushed out of the shop. "Stop him!" Marissa yelled.

The peoples at the shop who enjoyed their noodles, omelet, or a cup of cappuccino, heard the yelling. Although they weren't sure what happened, and they didn't even know where was the source of the yelling, but because that suspicious man also rushed out of the shop, peoples suspected that he was a thief, so everyone instantly got into the action. It didn't take a long time to catch that man and subdue him!

At the same time that man got caught by that bunch of cute customers, Marissa also already arrived in front of the man. She was about to seal him and brought him to the little prison at the shop when her <Magnifier> suddenly caught an evil black-aura. When that aura appeared, it instantly dispersed and vanished, leaving behind some malicious words and laughter. "Heheheh, it was so fun to play with you, little girl. Don't worry, I will come back again later and we could play again to our heart's content."

Marissa looked around the peoples and the surrounding, and she instantly understood that no one could see the evil black-aura, and no one could heard the malicious words and laughter. She was the only one who could see and hear it, because she possessed the thing called <Magnifier>.

This time, she also finally realized that the evil aura was the remnant of someone's incarnation. The man in front of him wasn't possessed by an evil soul. It was just an incarnation that was manipulated by using the light and environment. It wasn't a soul, a clone, a usual incarnation, or any other thing that possessed a trait of 'living being'.

This incarnation could vanished at any moment and doesn't possess a real strength. Even if it really possessed a strength, it could only survived for a very brief moment, just like what happened right now. And although Marissa used her <teleportation>, it would be useless as the incarnation has already 'died' and went back to the nature as they blended together. This incarnation wouldn't go back to it's real self. So, even if Marissa wanted to chase after it, there was no meaning to it.

...

"Miss, is this man a thief? Did he steal something from Miss and the shop?"

"Miss, this person must be a thief, right? He rushed out of the shop in a hurry, he must have stolen something."

"Miss, we will help you to get justice. Brothers, let's beat this man up until he was black and blue!"

"Count me in! I must beat this man until his mother couldn't recognise him anymore!"

"The Miss is such a generous and benevolent person. She is also a genious in the field of pill-making, let's help her to get back at this man."

"Yeah, let's make him regret his decision to be born in this world!"

"Let's go beat him up!"

Peoples began to echo one sentence after another, acting valiant and heroic as they said words after words of justice as if they were going to defend their country on the battlefield. Just as they wanted to start their mission to beat up the man, Marissa suddenly yelled once again.

"Stop, stop, stop, stop it!" Marissa pushed both of her hand to the front as high as the chest to gesture for the customers to stop their plan for beating up an innocent victim.

Hearing that, the crowd looked at Marissa in puzzled. There was a big question mark plastered over their face as to why the Miss suddenly prevent them from beating up the thief. Was the Miss blind? Was she stupid or just too benevolence? Or has she fall for this man and intended to spare his life? After all, this thief is quite handsome and he possessed a very good stature.

"Miss, please don't fall for this man. Although he was very handsome, but ultimately, he is still a thief."

"Yes, Miss. We know that you are a very benevolent expert and always try to spare a life as long as they could be spared. But please, do not be blind with someone like this thief."

"Miss, please consider it carefully. Although it was a common trend right now for a girl to fall in love with a criminal or a bad boy, but it's not including a thief."

"Miss, there are still many good man in this world. I'm also a good man. It's better to fall for me rather than with this thief!"

One by one the crowd once again voiced out their mind as they felt so indignant to spare the life of the 'thief'. They continued to persuade Marissa to consider her choice and decision.

At first, when she heard their words, Marissa was like 'Uh?', then, after hearing the few of the next sentences of the customers, she was at a loss as to whether to laugh or cry. 'Hello guys, brothers, sisters, are your imagination a little too high and creative? How come you could make such a conclusion? How could you decide immediately that he was a thief? Moreover, how the f**k are you guys even thought that I'm falling in love with him? Which pair of eyes that you use to see that I'm freaking in love with him that made me decided to spare his life? Come on, my eyes maybe sparkled and radiate a firework whenever I see a handsome man, but it doesn't mean I would be falling in love with everyone of them. My love is very precious.'

Nevertheless, Marissa couldn't say those words to them, or else, would they feel annoyed of her and run away from her shop? Who would buy her products later? She still wanted to make a lots of money, alright!

Marissa waved her hand dismissively. She said in a stern voice. "Don't talk nonsense! This man here is not a thief. Instead, he is a victim. He had been infected by that curse and now got fainted because of that. Now, hurry take him to the shop so that we could expel the curse temporarily. Or else, he would die in a few hours."

"Ah? Is that so? He isn't actually a thief? He's just a victim?"

The crowd was dumbfounded hearing that explanation. Thereafter, they hurriedly brought the man to the shop. They put him on the table and surrounded him like he was some kind of interesting creature.

Marissa flicked her hand and a pill immediately landed on her palm. She infused a strand of energy to the pill and send it to his mouth directly without making any physical contact. The pill entered the body of the man. Not more than a minute, the man finally woke up and was surprised to find a bunch of human and spiritual creatures surrounded him. He was confused and didn't know what happened. The last thing he remembered was he was feeling so tired after hunting in the forest but didn't make any progress.

He heard there was a very good shop near the vicinity, so he came here. He ordered a cup of cappuccino and to his surprised, although the price was rather high, but the taste was so excellent. Not only it was excelled in taste, he could also felt a surge of warm energy flowed inside his body. He felt so agitated and excited. To think that this beverage called cappuccino could actually possessed such an amazing effect! It could help in cultivation! He never thought it before that this brown liquid even possessed a better effect in cultivation compared to the common pills and herbal medication. At that moment, he made up his mind to work hard in earning money so that he could frequently visit this shop and have a taste of this magical drink or other amazing products.

Right after he made up his mind, all he could remembered was someone whispered into his ears, and then everything turned black. He couldn't remember anything after that.

...

Marissa wanted to question the man who had just woke up after being fed a pill by her about many more things, but she suddenly feel so stuffy at her chest. She felt like it was very difficult to breath. 'Did that evil energy come again to choke me?' She thought inwardly. She wanted to stay longer and investigate the situation, but she couldn't endure it anymore, so she excuse herself from the crowd as she made her way to her own chamber at the underground place.

~~~~~

Quizz:

What happened again to the FL?

A. The incarnation from before came back again

B. There was a sneak attack from the 'Undying Race'

C. The FL just got a lung desease

D. It was nothing. It was just an after-effect from the earlier attack

E. The FL was ready to experience her first awaken