Chapter 268: New Branch Of Magic
The group fell silent after hearing that. If a High Rank species was willing to abandon its own egg because something else had caught its attention, then whatever was waiting at the top of the hill was probably not something simple. It could be a prey, but there was a high chance it was an enemy, and the adult Basilisk thought this enemy stole its egg.
’So we came to a hill where a High Rank monster lives.’
Alex looked toward the slope ahead.
’That makes sense. If these Lightless Nights happen periodically, stronger monsters would naturally choose places that don’t get completely submerged.’
"Let’s continue moving," Sarah said while adjusting Frank on her back.
Alex was about to follow when he suddenly stopped. He looked toward the petrified monsters scattered around the slope and then turned toward the others.
"Wait a second. I want to check something with these stones. We don’t know when we’ll encounter the Basilisk, so we need to understand how its ability works and, if possible, find a way to counter it," Alex said.
"You can figure that out from these?" Emma asked.
"I can try," Alex replied.
Alex moved toward the nearest intact statue. As he approached, he finally got a clear look at what kind of monster had been petrified.
They were chimpanzees, each roughly the same size as Alex. Their bodies had been frozen in the middle of movement, and their expressions made them look furious, almost as though they had been shouting at something when the Basilisk’s ability struck them.
Alex walked toward the first statue and placed his hand against its stone body before slowly pouring mana into it, and as expected, he immediately sensed the Origin Energy left behind by the Basilisk.
However, there was something different this time because the statue contained an extremely powerful Will. It was far stronger than the weak Will Alex had encountered inside the stone covering his own body.
Alex tried sending more mana into the statue, but nothing happened. He stopped for a moment before punching the stone with his fist, yet even that did nothing.
With Alex’s current strength, he could easily punch through ordinary walls and bend steel with his bare hands. Despite that, the stone statue didn’t even have a dent.
"Joseph, use Kinetic Mana Bullet on this one," Alex said.
Joseph nodded and immediately fired the spell at the statue. The Kinetic Mana Bullet struck the stone and ricocheted away before disappearing into the forest, leaving the statue completely unharmed.
’So the Will of the Basilisk left inside the stone is holding the statue together, and it is also responsible for making the stone so hard.’
’But then, what is the Origin Energy for?’
Alex already had some experience with the Basilisk’s ability because he had been infected by the unborn monster. When he had removed the Origin Energy from his own body, the transformed flesh had crumbled almost immediately, which meant that the Will was likely the one responsible for maintaining the structure and hardness of the stone.
That still left the Origin Energy. Alex thought about it for several moments before another possibility occurred to him.
’Maybe Origin Energy works like poison. It infects the target and transforms them into stone, while the Will is responsible for maintaining and strengthening the stone afterward.’
The theory seemed reasonable, but another question immediately followed. How exactly did the Basilisk infect its target in the first place?
Alex remembered the moment the unborn Basilisk had looked at him. He hadn’t sensed any Origin Energy traveling through the air toward him, and normally, he would have assumed that the amount was simply too small for him to detect.
However, that explanation didn’t make sense because the amount of Origin Energy that had appeared inside his body was enormous. There was no way something that large could have traveled through the space between them without Alex noticing it.
’This petrifying gaze is definitely magic, but what kind of magic is it?’ Alex wondered. He still couldn’t understand the mechanism behind it, but the more he thought about the ability, the more certain he became that it wasn’t elemental magic.
While examining the statue, Alex suddenly noticed something else. The monster hadn’t completely died.
He couldn’t completely remove the Origin Energy from the statue, but he compressed his mana into narrow drills and used them to probe deeper into the stone. His mana eventually reached the monster’s internal organs, allowing him to examine what remained of its body.
Its heart and brain had already been completely turned into stone, and both had stopped functioning. However, there was still a small area around its navel that hadn’t been petrified.
Alex immediately focused on that area. There was an abnormal resistance against his mana, although it was slowly weakening.
’The navel is where one of the three Soul Gates is located. It seems the monster’s soul is slowly dying, and the Will being generated from it is protecting this area.’
Alex continued observing without interfering. The resistance gradually weakened as the monster’s Will became weaker, and eventually, the remaining Will disappeared completely.
The Origin Energy immediately spread into the final remaining area. The moment the entire body became infected, and became stone, the Will holding the stone together collapsed, and the statue suddenly crumbled apart.
Alex stared at the scattered pieces for several seconds, and a chill ran through his body as he understood what he had just witnessed. He had finally confirmed that the Origin Energy was responsible for infecting the target and turning it into stone.
More importantly, the process didn’t appear to stop on its own. The Origin Energy would continue spreading until the target either died or the Origin Energy was completely exhausted.
’That means when I was infected earlier, if my Will and mana had been weaker, the petrification wouldn’t have stopped at my muscles.’
Alex’s expression became serious as he considered the possibility.
’It would have continued until my entire body was turned into stone and I died.’
’What a terrifying ability.’
Despite understanding how dangerous it was, Alex couldn’t stop himself from feeling excited because he wanted to learn this magic.
The ability clearly wasn’t elemental magic, and Alex had an unusually strong feeling that he was looking at an entirely different branch of magic. Something deep within him, likely related to his SSS Rank physique, seemed to be telling him that this ability belonged to a completely different system from elemental magic.
Alex moved toward the next statue. Since this one had remained intact instead of crumbling like the others, he wondered whether the System would still consider the monster alive.
Its brain and heart had already stopped functioning, but its soul was still slowly dying. Alex didn’t know whether that counted as being alive or dead, and there was only one way to find out whether killing it would give him EXP.
He decided to test it.
Alex placed his hand against the second statue and began compressing Fire Element mana inside it. The stone had a surprisingly high compression limit, so he focused the mana around the navel area where the monster’s remaining soul was still resisting the petrification.
He continued compressing the Fire Element until it approached the limit. Alex then used his Will to stabilize and temporarily harden the compressed mana before immediately moving away from the statue.
Several seconds later, the Will finally became unstable. The fire element mana went berserk, and statue exploded. Alex watched the remains scatter across the ground as a familiar notification appeared in front of him.
[Level 21 Grim Ape (Mid Rank Species) killed.]
[You have leveled up. Level 19 → Level 20.]
[Mana (+1), Mind (+1), Stat Points (+2).]
..
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