Jack grimaced. He looked at the runes used by the archaic machines. They were... complicated. Even with the help of his [Eyes of Judgement], it would take a lot of time to study them. And he didn't have that much time.
He felt a rare moment of hesitation. He couldn't lose Chloe just like this. Not after coming this far.
Then, a thought suddenly flashed in his mind. He opened his own status panel. Searching through the list of supernatural abilities he had accumulated so far. And there it was. The [Djinn's Wish Manifestation].
It was a powerful, yet rarely used ability. It was designed to fulfill the spoken desires of others, or his own, provided the price was paid in Karma.
Usually, it required a verbal contract. The person wished for something. And they had to say it. Chloe was unconscious. Her mind was a battlefield. She couldn't utter a word.
But, what if Jack was the one who uttered the wish. What if the wish would be the combination of her desire to survive and his desire to make her survive. It was worth to try.
He stepped closer to Chloe's tube. Pressing his hand against the cold glass. He used his [Eyes of Judgement] to check her karma again. It was positive. Not overwhelmingly positive, but it was definitely more than neutral.
He focused his intent. Activating the [Djinn's Wish Manifestation].
"I wish..." Jack whispered. "... she actualize her wish to survive against the soul invasion from the Queen of the Shadowling."
Jack didn't wish for the Queen to die. He didn't wish for the tubes to break. He targeted Chloe's own subconscious will to live. He framed the wish as a mixed manifestation of what he wanted and her own survival instinct.
The [Djinn's Wish Manifestation] flared to life. Jack felt a massive drain on his energy. And he could sense his own Karma decreased slightly.
But the primary cost of the wish was pulled from Chloe herself. Her positive karma dropped to neutral. It was being leveraged as the fuel.
The effect was instantaneous.
The dark, oily light in the rootlike wires stopped flowing toward Chloe. It shuddered. The blue liquid in the tubes began to produce more bubbles. Inside her cylinder, Chloe's body arched. Her eyes didn't open, but her mouth moved in a silent gasp.
Jack could sense it. And his [Eyes of Judgement] could see it too. The flow was reversed.
The Shadowling Queen's soul no longer invaded Chloe's body. The parasite wasn't the invader anymore. It was the fuel source. It wasn't the hunter anymore. It was the prey.
Jack watched through his [Eyes of Judgement] as the Queen's misty-black soul tried to return back to the dark-elf girl. But, it was violently absorbed by Chloe's spiritual core.
Chloe's soul wasn't resisting anymore. It had become a vacuum. Tearing into the Queen's essence and absorbing it.
The dark-elf girl in the other tube slumped. The blue tint of her skin faded slightly. The pale blue liquid in the tube turned even paler. Almost white.
In Chloe's tube, the blue liquid turned a deep, royal purple. The energy was being refined, stripped of its malice, and integrated into her own being. She wasn't just surviving. She was evolving.
The wires connected to her tube began to glow in pale purple color. Jack noticed that she wasn't just taking the Queen's soul. She was taking the laboratory's power too.
He used his [Eyes of Judgement] to check...
[Status Update: Host Chloe Chase is undergoing 'Soul Assimilation'...]
[Entity 'Shadowling Queen' is being consumed...]
[Estimated time for completion: 2 hours 12 minutes]
Jack let out a long breath he didn't know he was holding. He stepped back from the tube. His hand was still tingling a little bit from the manifestation of the wish.
"What an insane luck..." Jack said. Looking up at Rune, who was watching the glowing tube with wide, curious eyes. "Truly the Inheritor of Fortune, isn't she?"
Jack casually sat down on the floor. He didn't know what Chloe would be like when she woke up. Assimilating a Shadowling Queen wasn't exactly in the academy's curriculum. Or in any book he had ever read.
But for now, the threat was gone.
"Let's wait here." Jack told Rune. "Reina and the others should reach this place soon. As long as they don't make stupid mistakes."
The fairy nodded. Her light shifted to a calm, steady green. She landed on Jack's shoulder.
The silence of the cavern was now filled only with the sound of bubbling liquid in the tube. The sound of a soul being absorbed.
Jack stayed vigilant. His eyes kept scanning the shadows. Ready for anything else this strange realm might throw at them.
...
About fifty minutes afterward...
Jack heard footsteps echoing through the stone tunnel. Many footsteps. Metals clanked. People were breathing hard.
Reina appeared first. She burst into the cavern with a spellcard still glowing in her hand. It was the [Blood Oath Tracks] card. A faint red trail led directly to Jack's feet.
Behind her came the rest of the expedition. All of them were fine. They just looked tired. Two guards were limping but they could still move quickly. One had a bandage around his thigh. The other held his side.
"Dear!" Reina said. She moved fast. She didn't care about the weird tubes or the glowing liquid yet. She reached Jack and grabbed his arms. She looked him over for blood. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine, Love." Jack said calmly.
Reina let out a breath. She stepped back but stayed close. The others filled into the room. Dr. Crafton and Professor Enderson pushed to the front. Followed by the guards.
The students came in last. They looked scared. Yet, amazement could also be seen in their eyes. They had immediately noticed the room and... Chloe Chase.
She was floating in the tube. Her eyes were closed. The purple liquid pulsed around her. Opposite her, the dark-elf girl was in another tube. Filled with pale blue liquid.
"By the gods!" Professor Enderson whispered. He adjusted his glasses. "What is this? This technology... It's definitely not from Elrush. Not from our world. It's nothing like I've ever seen."
"It's an extraction and infusion system." Jack said. He pointed at the root-like wires. "The shadowling queen was using it. She wanted Chloe's body. The dark-elf girl in the other tube is her current host. She's dying."
Dr. Crafton stepped closer to the glass. "And Chloe? Is she being possessed right now? We have to break the glass!"
"No! Don't touch it!" Jack said. His voice was a warning. It stopped Dr. Crafton in his tracks. "If you break it now, the shock will kill her. Don't worry! The process is already reversed."
"Reversed?" Dr. Crafton asked in bafflement. "How did you manage that? Could you understand this technology?"
Jack didn't blink. He had prepared his lie. "No. This is a completely different technology form steamrune engineering I studied. I didn't dare mess up with it."
He scratched his chin and continued. "I used a consumable item, the [Luck Reversal Scroll]. It's something I picked up in an adventure sometime ago. It flips the causality of a spiritual event."
Pointing at the tube, Jack confidently added. "Instead of the queen invading Chloe... Well, it is Chloe that is consuming the queen's spiritual power. It's a nourishment process now."
The professors looked stunned. They had heard of the item. Although they had never seen one. A [Luck Reversal Scroll] was incredibly rare and expensive. Most people would have kept it for a life-or-death situation for themselves. Jack using it on a student made him look like a hero.
Jack didn't mind the reputation. He could just consider it a public relation stunt. It was much better than explaining his [Djinn's Wish Manifestation] power.
"You sacrificed such a treasure for a student?" Professor Enderson looked moved. "Jack, the Academy will hear of this. We will see that you are compensated."
"I wouldn't let a kid like her die on my watch." Jack said simply. "But, I wouldn't reject any compensation either. Obviously."
The students whispered among themselves. Chloe was a relatively new student. But, she was quite popular girl. Seeing her in a tube was traumatic. But knowing she was 'winning' the fight against a monster relieved them.
While they waited for the process to finish, the group began to analyze the room. Jack kept his eyes on the dark elf. She was a mystery.
"Look at the skin tone." Dr. Crafton noted. He was taking notes in a small leather book. "Deep blue. The bone structure is elven. But the mana signature seems to be very different from what is recorded in books."
"True." Professor Enderson replied. "But that's not that surprising. We haven't seen dark elves, or any other elves, in our world for centuries. It's said that they all left when the Nagaean Empire fell down."
"There were shadowlings here before you came." Jack gave them information. "They seemed to serve her... or rather, the shadow queen inside her. These shadowlings seem to be a mix of ancient goblin and void-based energy. They disappeared into shadows when I killed them."
Professor Enderson walked along the perimeter. "This realm, Purplesky... seems to be more than just a strange realm. This laboratory suggests a fallen civilization. Maybe the dark elves ruled here before the shadowlings took over."
"Or maybe they were the ones who created the shadowlings." Leon Drake chimed in. "From Jack's description, they sounds like a bio-engineering failure."
Dr. Crafton added. "Perhaps this entire realm is a unique ecosystem of various species, with their own stage of civilization. Like... the lizardmen we fought before as the current dominant surface dwellers. While others, like the shadowlings and these elves, operate in the shadows or deep underground."
"An intriguing hypothesis, Doctor." Prof. Enderson mused. Tapping his chin. "A tiered ecosystem, with varying levels of technological and mystical advancement. The lizardmen represent the primal, primitive force. The dark elves... perhaps a fallen, powerful race. And the shadowlings... a more insidious, ethereal threat?"
"The shadowlings were kidnapping people for a reason." Jack said. "Chloe might not be the first. Look at the floor. There are old bones under the grates..."