Chapter 217 Promotion to B-Rank Adventurer
"Stop the bleeding." Lia spoke a moment later.
"Yes."
Edwin retrieved a high-grade healing potion with his available arm and chugged it down.
Immediately, his open wound began to close, and within seconds, the bleeding stopped.
"Edwin, this is an order. You will return straight to the Scarlet Family and await your punishment. Also, you are forbidden from ever getting involved with Leon again."
"Yes, Young Lady."
Edwin slowly stood up and walked to the door.
He didn't forget to bow to her before leaving the room.
After leaving the room, Edwin went downstairs to check out of his room.
When the receptionist saw his missing arm and the blood that stained his clothes, she swallowed nervously and asked, "A-Are you okay, honorable guest?"
"I'm fine. Check me out." And without saying anything else, he walked out of the hotel.
'Holy fuck… Did Lia Scarlet do that to him? As expected of the Blood Princess… How brutal…' The middle-aged woman sighed inwardly.
Lia reapplied her disguise and made her way back to the Adventurers' Guild, where Leo had just finished writing his report.
"Oh? You're back already? How was it? Did you find him?" Leo asked her.
"Yes, I found him."
"Did you… kill him?" Leo swallowed nervously.
"Not yet. Did you want me to kill him? I plan on punishing him first, but I'll kill him when I return home if that's what you want." Lia calmly spoke.
Leo shook his head, "No, I will let you decide how you want to punish Edwin."
Lia nodded, and she asked a moment later, "What are we going to do now?"
"I plan on staying in this city for another day to see if I can receive my promotion tomorrow, and for the rest of the day, I am going to rest at a nearby hotel."
"Okay."
They left the Adventurers' Guild shortly after and rented a room at a nearby hotel.
Once they entered their room, Leo pulled out his cellphone and called Eve to let her know that he was safe and that he would be returning soon.
After calling Eve, he called Camille and did the same, but he also told her about the bounty.
"Was the Adventurers' Bureau able to find anything about the culprit?" Leo asked her.
"They are still investigating when I asked them about it a week ago." Camille said.
"Alright, then I will see you later."
Afterward, Leo began looking through his loot from the Labyrinth.
He'd acquired several hundred B-Grade mana cores, but they were akin to a drop in the ocean when compared to what Eve gave him, so he didn't really care much about them. There were several A-Grade mana cores inside Matthew's spatial ring, but once again, they were nothing impressive.
Matthew had about fifty different high-grade potions, but he only cared about the energy potions, he had no use for mana potions due to his ridiculous mana regeneration.
The items he anticipated the most from Matthew's spatial rings were definitely his magic artifacts, as there are almost a dozen of them.
However, after analyzing them with the Magic System, he felt a little disappointed.
"Most of his magic artifacts are not even B-Grade, and he only has a single B-Rank artifact. I thought this guy was rich, but he was actually pretty poor. How embarrassing for an S-Rank Adventurer."
"You can still sell those magic artifacts for decent money, and you can probably use the B-Grade artifact." Lilith said to him.
[Embar Staff]
[Grade: B]
[Description: Increases the potency of all fire magic by 30%]
"It's decent, but it's pretty useless for me." Leo shook his head, as he could easily get something better through the Artifact Shop.
"Also, Lilith, can you teach me some more dark magic? I kind of feel like I am lacking in variety. For example, I have many spells that attack a large area, but I lack powerful single-target spells."
"I see… Alright, I will teach you some more dark magic spells. When do you want to learn them?" Lilith said.
"Let's do it now."
"Okay, but you have to do something for me." Lilith suddenly said.
"Huh? Like what?"
"That depends on what you want to learn. If you want to learn a Tier 5 magic spell, you'll need to…" Lilith pointed at her cheeks and smiled, "Kiss me."
Leo was speechless.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
"..."
"Fine. Get over here." Leo beckoned.
Lilith immediately approached him with a bright smile on her face.
Since it was just a kiss on the cheeks, Leo didn't really care about it. He may be bad with women, but he wasn't so bad with them that he wouldn't kiss one for a Tier 5 magic spell.
Leo gave Lilith a gentle kiss on the cheeks a moment later.
"You call that a kiss? There was no passion in it!" Lilith complained afterward.
"That's what you get for using such a method." Leo shrugged.
"Whatever. Since you're a poor virgin, I'll let you go with that." Lilith sighed.
Leo's eyebrow twitched after hearing her words, but he resisted talking back.
"The magic spell I am about to teach you is called Death Scythe. It's a single-target magic spell that has a chance to instantly kill your enemy." Lilith said a moment later.
"Instant kill? Isn't that a little overboard?"
"Do you want to learn it or not?"
"I do…"
Lilith showed him the magic circle the following moment.
Sometime later.
<You have learned the Magic Spell: Death Scythe>
[Tier: 5]
[Mana: 25%]
[Mastery Rank: F]
[Description: Inflict massive damage in a small area in front of you. There is a 5% chance to instantly kill your target. The chance increases the lower your target's health. This effect is lowered to 1% for boss monsters]
"Do you have any long range single-target magic spells?" Leo then asked.
"I sure do. Tier 5? Tier 6? Tier 7?"
"Let's do another Tier 5 since I don't have the time for Tier 6 or above."
Lilith nodded, and she proceeded to point at her lips.
"What happened to the cheeks?" Leo raised an eyebrow.
"That's clearly too easy for you, so I'm upgrading the difficulty."
However, to Lilith's surprise, Leo managed to do it without any hesitation.
After receiving Leo's kiss, Lilith chuckled, "Maybe we should do something even more intensive next time…"
"If you do that, I will stop giving you more mana." Leo immediately said.
"I-I was just joking…" She quickly said.
Sometime later.
<You have learned the Magic Spell: Needle of Despair>
[Needle of Despair]
[Tier: 5]
[Mana: 5,000]
[Mastery Rank: F]
[Description: A small but deadly projectile that will stick to your target, increasing the damage they take by 1%. This effect is stackable. Maximum stack(25).]
"This magic spell will become more powerful as you keep using it on the same target." Lilith said.
"This spell is pretty neat, especially for bigger targets like bosses and such." Leo agreed with her. "I cannot wait to use it."
The following day, Leo and Lia returned to the Adventurers' Guild to look for Aaron.
"Here. I managed to push your promotion ahead because of your mission result. If it weren't for your teammates, even I wouldn't have been able to do such a thing." Aaron said as he handed Leo his new ID card.
"What do you mean?" Leo asked after accepting it.
"Your teammates praised you to no end in their report, stating how you basically carried them through the raid and even defeated the boss by yourself."
"Did they mention the assassins?" Leo then asked.
"Of course. Though, the Adventurers' Guild will have to investigate that issue separately since this involves an S-Rank Adventurer. You'll probably be visited by someone in the Adventurers' Bureau soon." Aaron said.
"How troublesome." Leo sighed.
"Anyways, since you managed to fulfill your promise, I won't continue causing trouble for you. However, I won't forget about it either." Leo said as he glared at Aaron, who apologized again with a stiff smile on his face.
Leo and Lia left the Adventurers' Guild shortly after, and they made their way to the teleporter.
Several hours later, they returned to Stellar City.
"I'm going to return to the academy for a bit and then meet up with Khrome so that I can become part of the monster nest raid. What are you going to do?" Leo asked Lia.
"I'm going to return home for now. Call me when you have to leave the city again."
He nodded, "Thank you for the help. I couldn't have done this without you."
"If you want to thank me…" Lia suddenly pointed at her lips.
"..."
Leo was speechless.
He was someone who never got to kiss a girl for 18 years, but after coming to this world, he's already kissed two, and they were both extreme beauties.
"It's not good to keep a girl waiting, Leo." Lilith chuckled.
Leo sighed inwardly. He approached Lia, stopping in front of her.
Lia calmly tilted her chin towards the sky and waited for Leo to kiss her while keeping her eyes wide open.
After taking a deep breath, Leo leaned forward and kissed Lia on the lips.
Lia kept her eyes open the whole time, almost as if she wanted to engrave this moment into her mind.
"See you later." Lia said before disappearing from his sight a moment later.
Leo returned to the academy shortly after.
"Welcome back." Eve said to him, who'd just entered her office.
Leo proceeded to give her a more detailed report about his experience.
"I see… The Scarlet Family, huh? This is quite troublesome, indeed."
"I think it'll be fine. Lia's already dealt with it." Leo said.
"If you say so." Eve nodded.
"What are you going to do now?" She then asked.