Chapter 55: Investigating
When Alex and the Ninja left the lodge, they were both equally stunned. The mountain range had disappeared along with any hints of snow.
The world had become a barren plane, flattened perfectly. Alex felt like the land had formed a bald patch.
However, a single cave was now right near the edge of the bald patch, untouched. Instead, it only seemed to have been uncovered from obscurity because of the sudden change in the terrain.
"Well, that simplifies things. Great Grandma said that the Negima group entered the cave." The Ninja said.
Any further possibilities of conversation were closed off from that moment. An uncomfortable silence enveloped the two individuals, who cautiously stepped into the cave. They found that it was an ordinary cave, but it was very deep.
It led underground to a gigantic cavern with bizarre minerals growing out as well as a gigantic flowing mirror.
Alex and the Ninja, cautiously jumped into the cavern, landing on the minerals and carefully making their way downwards. The flow of the river had formed a tunnel. Thus there were two paths to choose from, upstream against the flow of the underground river or downstream.
The Ninja didn't even wait. "There are two paths. Looks like our collaboration ends here. I'll go upstream, you head downstream."
Before Alex could even respond, the ninja actually disappeared. Alex's perception of energy attributes was so fine now, he could see the general fluctuations that the ninja created when they activated a card to disappear.
"Life attribute... and the fortification of the body was so powerful that the body was tremendously strengthened with life energy. Definitely an A grade card. But along with that, the ninja used some really advanced movement art that created the illusion of disappearance." Alex shook his head. He felt like a frog in the well.
Alex decided to carefully head downstream. He walked along the river and noticed the lack of any creatures or living things in the water or the cave formed by the flowing water. Alex also sensed very tiny hints of another attribute. The attribute was very scarce, but Alex could feel it flow upwards against the flow of the river.
Alex tried to manipulate that particular attribute energy, but he found it was impossible to interact with it. It was a very bizarre attribute which Alex had not seen and for the first time found an attribute he could not at all influence.
However, as he went downstream, he felt something was wrong. He found many objects and even jackets, which had the label Negima on them. When Alex analyzed the scene, he felt like the people had begun fighting each other. What exactly happened?
He didn't find anything particular among the remains, so he moved forward with more care and scrutiny. Then as he went further, he saw blood marks and a carcass. The carcass had been terrifyingly mauled to death. But there were no monsters in the tunnel. Alex got a creepy vibe from the dead body, and quietly walked continued to walk ahead. He was beginning to consider the notion that the Negima group had suffered some tragedy.
As he went forward, he found even more carcasses, and the shocking thing was, all the dead bodies seemed like they were trying to run away upstream. Clearly implying that whatever the threat was, was actually downstream. Alex felt a deeper sinking feeling.
Just what kind of special item did this group head out to find? Alex paused, debating if he should poke the wasps nest. But eventually decided to continue. When he finally found the last two carcasses. He had counted and now had come across the nineteenth and twentieth bodies.
However, what he saw shocked him. And immediately all the previous dead bodies and their causes of death became clear. What he saw, was two people terrifyingly biting each other apart lile rabid dogs. The wounds of the others also made sense. They had all gome crazy and turned on each other, literally trying to bite each other to death and succeeded.
"Whatever lies beyond, turned this group rabid." Alex thought for a long time and was hesitating whether he should continue. Going ahead, was clearly a suicide mission at this rate. He stopped amd began looking through the corpses he had come across and discovered notes.
"We have reached the anomalous point where the appearance of the special item was suspected to have taken place.
... The item appears to be a drop of blood floating in the air. The drop is quite large, about the size of a fist. Its appearance is very psychologically attractive and seems to fill observers with intense greed and craziness..."
At that point, the document had ended. Alex searched for any other items and didn't find anything else. He didn't understand how such a big team were so bare handed, but estimated that they probably used up their items in the craze of trying to defend against their teammates going crazy.
Alex didn't know what to do. He didn't want to go any further, technically he had completed the mission. Being too greedy was not necessarily a good thing. The group from Negima were composed of peak Card Apprentices and all of them went crazy and killed each other.
Eventually Alex sighed, and decided to return. He did not deem it valuable to risk his life for whatever was inside. As he turned back to return, he felt the sneaky small amounts of the unknown attribute suddenly leave the river and coil around his body, trying to enter his body.
Alex was shocked. The attribute was so faint in quantity, that Alex could barely see the thin thread that represented that attribute, as it coiled around and drilled into his chest.
Then he felt an incredible urge. Or more appropriately an emotion. It was desire. It was an overwhelming desire to move forward amd find the blood drop.
Immediately, Alex felt scared at being unable to control himself. "No!" He screamed himself hoarse as the voice echoed through the tunnel. He felt a terrifying fear for his life as he simultaneously felt he wasn't able to control this uncontrollable desire to move forward and satisfy his curiosity.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone