Shadow parasite

There was also the possibility of him falling into that weird state again. If that happened, he counted on Nora to keep him relatively safe. As long as they weren’t in any immediate danger, and she brought his body to a big enough tree, then things could work out just fine.

For that reason, he was very careful not to stay too much time at a dangerous place. Be it a place full of monsters, or a place high into the skies. ‘If my stealth ability can remain active even in that state…’ if such a thing was possible, it would make the whole ordeal a few times easier.

Gorn did not tell her about these things. He didn’t want to scare her, or induce panic. If this was the good choice or not, only time could tell.

“Let’s go,” said Gorn after a few minutes. “The faster we find it, the quicker we return.”

“Alright…”

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While Gorn and Nora were busy looking for their target, certain interesting things were also happening back at the city.

Norman was still in the same bizarre room, his shadow connected to multiple reservoirs. This time, no more liquid came from the huge tanks. Whereas the amount decreased considerably, there was still some left inside. From the looks of things, the issues lied somewhere else.

The big mouth on his shadow disappeared, everything returning to normal. Norman’s body remained in the same position, no signs of anything unusual. After multiple hours, his face started to express discomfort, and his body started to sweat profusely. Ultimately, his eyes opened.

Norman slowly got up to his feet, looking rather weak. Clenching his fist, he punched the floor with great force. At the same time, he let out a muffled shout that was full of pain.

A door opened, and a figure dashed inside. It quickly came to Norman’s side, helping him to stand up again. “Father…”

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Gorn and Nora were systematically looking around the area. The terrain and the vegetation varied from place to place. In some places, the area was rather flat, with small amounts of vegetation, whilst, in other locations, there were bushes so tall and dense that it made it almost impossible to tell what was underneath all that.

‘Should I go higher up the mountain?’ thought Gorn, a little unsure where to look next. Up to this point, he searched the relatively flat region between the various mountains.

Higher up the mountains was the territory of the red-tailed foxes. At this moment, he didn’t feel very comfortable dealing with them, so he chose not to go higher than a certain distance.

He found multiple snakes, but unfortunately, none of them had the suitable power level that he was going for.

“Look there!” whispered Nora in his ear, while at the same time pointing out in a certain direction with her finger.

In the direction that she was pointing was what looked to be a small waterhole. Approximately ten meters in diameter. Its depth was a mystery, since the water wasn’t the cleanest. At a first glance, one would be compelled to say that it wasn’t anything of great importance.

A huge snake was currently coming out slowly from that hole. One meter, three meters… When its whole body was outside the water, it appeared to be exactly what they were looking for.

“I see it. Hang on tight…”

Gorn teleported at an appropriate distance.

“Select!”

Race: Monster

Bloodline: Medium

Power level: 1000

Abilities: None

Loot: 1000 gold;

Confirm target? Yes No

‘Would you look at that? Exactly one thousand. Perfect!’ He quickly filled all fifteen spots with this target. Doing this took him only a few short moments. The snake stopped in his tracks, and looked towards their direction. Even with his stealth skill, he couldn’t escape the sharp senses of some creatures if he got too close.

Blinking out, Gorn avoided any possible complications. With the weird presence being gone, the snake continued to advance in a certain direction.

“Good job Nora! Now we can return to the others.” Gorn was happy that he managed to find a fitting opponent in such a short time. The number of snakes in that area was high, so his success was bound to come eventually anyway, but he surely didn’t expect it to come so fast. Two sets of eyes were, indeed, better than a single one.

“No problem,” she had no idea what he just did. In her eyes, he just looked at the snake then left.

Thanks to Nora, there were still a few hours until evening. “Do you want to go back right now?” she asked in a low voice.

“Well, that was the original plan.”

“I saw some interesting plants. Do you think we can collect a few of them before going back?” her eyes sparkled with expectation.

She was of great help to him, so it was only natural he fulfilled such a simple request. “Of course we can.”

After receiving a positive reply, Nora became much happier. “There! Let’s go and grab that one!” full of excitement, she already pointed to a place a few hundred meters away. With a few steps, Gorn reached the spot.

Nora got down from his back, and slowly approached the plant. She looked very excited while analyzing it from various angles. “It’s so beautiful!”

The plant in front of her was roughly forty centimeters tall, and was a combination of long green leaves, and small red flowers. It was a pretty known plant back at the city, having a plethora of valuable uses.

“I want at least ten healing herbs such as this!”

The healing herb was very efficient when it came to the recovery of the body, and was commonly used to produce healing potions that resembled the one that his system had to offer. The herb grew in all kinds of conditions, but despite that, its price was not low at all.

Beside that healing herb were a few healing plants, but Nora only gave them a short glance, and nothing more. Those were way smaller, and had only a little red flower. It took them quite some time to fully mature into a healing herb, and were only ten percent as potent.

This place was pretty far away from the city, and had a big number of powerful snakes lurking around. Since snakes did not eat such plants, the area had quite an abundant number of healing herbs, and other useful plants.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. Anything else?” asked Gorn, a little curious.

“Ten fire nettles, and ten purple sun’s, then we can do anything you want,” gleamed Nora. Seeing that he was also in a good disposition, she became more daring.

“Anything that I want? Are you sure?” grinned Gorn evilly.