Epic Of The Demonic Sage

Lucius raised his brows upon hearing Gellor's words. He could tell that there was more to this and the man was not just saying it lightly.

"Could you tell me the reason for it?" Lucius questioned.

"Well, if the young lord is asking for the rune crystals of Rock Bees then he must know about their gift, right?" Gellor replied.

"Yes," Lucius nodded his head. "Their venom can stiffen and petrify the victims." He spoke.

"Indeed, young lord. But that's not all. While we have no problem dealing with five, ten or even a hundred Rock bees confidently… there is no way there are going to be just that many of them.

Once a single Rock bee is hurt or attacks, the entire hive will rush in within moments. One needs to be extremely careful in dealing with them. Even ten stings of the rock bees will be fine and we will be able to bear them, but beyond that our abilities will get affected. If that happens there is no way we would be able to survive it.

Thus to prevent it, we would need special armor. The armor we would need is a type of thick leather armor. This armor is different than that of metal armor and is better for defense against Rock Bees.

If rock bees attack metal armor, they would be unable to pierce it but they won't be harmed either. But, if they attack the thick leather armor, their stingers will be able to pierce through the armor partially.

But this is exactly what we want as once they sting their stingers will get stuck and when they try to pull it out, it will break rendering their combat ability to the minimum." Gellor explained.

Lucius pondered over his words and found them to be logical.

"Alright, that works. I believe you will fulfill the job since Kiana is vouching for you." Lucius replied while taking a glance at Kiana.

Kiana had her chin in her hand as she thought.

"Actually… you won't have to buy those thick leather armors." Kiana suddenly spoke.

"What do you mean?" Gellor questioned, and even Lucius looked at Kiana with an inquisitive look.

"Well, I believe we should already have some of those armors in the storage. I'll ask the servants to check the armory when we get back." Kiana answered.

Gellor face brightened up, upon hearing her words.

"Really? That's great! It will save our time as well. At least I won't have to bargain with a blacksmith and get them to make the leather armors." Gellor said, as he took a breath of relief.

Lucius looked at his face in amazement.

'Seems like this guy can't deal with businessmen or something…' Lucius thought.

"Well, then it's decided. You five shall come to the mansion when you are done here. We will talk the rest of the things including the particulars about payment there." Lucius stated.

"That is fine. We have a few minor tasks left to do here and after that, we can come." Finch was the one who spoke this time.

Gellor looked at her and then at the sword in her hand before secretly clenching his fist.

This minor action of his didn't get past Lucius's eyes, but he did not speak. He knew there was something more to them, but currently it was neither the time nor his place to speak about it.

"We shall return then. The guards will be informed of your arrival so they should not stop you." Kiana said before she and Lucius left the tavern.

The people in the tavern could not help but watch as they left. It was not every day that a noble of his standing came here. Usually, it was their subordinates that came here to commissions jobs or they who were directly contacted by them.

Some of them had heard when Kiana introduced Lucius and thus knew who he was now. Still, they did not dare to speak anything about him while he was in their presence and waited for him to leave before the gossips began.

Unknown to Lucius, he had already made his first mark on the people of this world.

***

At the mansion, Lucius and Kiana walked into the library. They had finished their task much earlier than they had expected, and John was still not here. Besides, hearing Gellor's words had sparked some curiosity in Lucius's mind.

While he had read about the gifts and even knew what they did because of his own gift nexus, he realized he barely knew how to actually deal with them.

For example, the use of thick leather armor instead of metal armor to not only defend but also disable the rock bees? That was a novel use.

Lucius remembered he had passed over a couple of books that dealt with this and was now searching for them.

"Ah, here it is." Lucius said as trailed his finger over a book.

" 'Tactics against gifts', a rather simple name but accurate," Lucius said as he pulled the book out of the shelf.

This was merely the first volume of the book and there were around eleven more of them lined up on the shelf. Merely this showed how many gifts there have been, both in humans and rune beasts and how many methods had been devised to deal with them.

"You search for an entry on Rock Bee's too in the other volumes. It should make our work easier." Lucius said.

"Alright," Kiana said as she got to work.

After fifteen minutes of search, Kiana spoke up, "Here it is!"

Lucius took the book from her hands and started reading it.

"Method 1st: Rock bees are territorial rune beasts that are protective of their queen. Killing their queen will collapse their cooperation and make them scatter in the search for a new queen. The queen can also be captured to lure other rock bees once one hive has been killed.

Method 2: Use of thick leather armor will cause the rock bees to break their stingers and disable their combat abilities.

Method 3: Dense smoke is a good repellent for the rock bees. While this won't kill them, it will prevent them from approaching the smoke." Lucius read.

"Hmm… this should be easy enough…"