Epic Of The Demonic Sage

With the guards done, Lucius locked the door of the lab before coming back to the table where the prisoner was currently restrained.

Removing the black cloth from the man's head, Lucius allowed him to see everything.

"Welcome to my lab, mister Doyle." Lucius greeted the prisoner with a smile.

The man in question first flinched before being stunned upon gazing at Lucius. It was evident that the man had recognized who Lucius was.

"Ah, I see you know who I am now. Well, I know who you are too, mister Doyle." Lucius said before walking around the man in circles. 

"I've heard all about you, your life, your acts, your gifts and your crimes… and I have to say some of the points are quite interesting. Managing to rob three nobles by posing as a messenger, melting off their faces and running off with the valuables, and even escaping for over a year.

This is not something an average man can do. Your gift too is something I find very interesting… Acid touch, now that's a good gift if I've ever seen one before." Lucius spoke as he continued to walk around in circles.

His voice was even and varied in tone, sounding as if he truly was very interested in the life of the prisoner named Doyle.

In reality, Lucius was quite interested in it and had heard everything from Kiana while he was on the carriage ride here. Lucius had instructed Kiana to gather the reports and documents that contained the information about the various prisoners so that he could take a look.

Since the people in this world had gifts that could give them some very significant advantages, the gifts of criminals were specifically recorded so that the guards would know who to watch out for.

The methodology was developed so much that even the Church of Etara was involved in this and provided their appraisal services to the guards in the prisons. In Inanis city, it was usually priest Maleck who did this or one of his students.

This is what he did in his off time when there were no appraisal ceremonies to be done and also what they made most of their income from. Of course, this was an officially sanctioned job and the fees for the services were paid by the kingdom directly to the church of Etara.

This helped a lot since there were often criminals that would either lie about their gifts or just not speak anything at all. With the involvement of the appraisal sphere, there was no scope for a mistake left there.

Lucius was going to take full advantage of this to update his knowledge about gifts and also to get information added to nexus without the cost of Aether. He would simply have to read up about it and gaze at the prisoners for it to be added.

'Let's see more about him shall we…' Lucius thought to himself as he activated Nexus.

Gift Name: Acid Touch

Description: The user can produce acid from his hands and touching things with this would result in those objects being corroded by the acid. 

Rank: Rare

Type: Emission

Evolution: Possible

Evolution Requirements: 12x Aether crystals, 4x Blast beetle rune crystals, 100 liters of sewage water.

Looking at the description, Lucius nodded his head as it was the same as what he had read in the report. Though when he saw the evolution requirement, he was a bit surprised.

'Sewage water? Now that's a very peculiar choice of material…' Lucius thought to himself.

But he was not satisfied with just this. Having information about a single person was not enough for Lucius. If he did only this, it would be a waste of his time and Aether. Rather than just this, he wanted more… way more.

"Now then… let's see who else is the same as you, shall we?" Lucius spoke as he got a bit closer to Doyle. 

The man tried to struggle and even used his gift acid touch on the restraints. Sadly for him, this metal was alloyed steel and won't melt from the acid at this level so easily. While it wasn't actually resistant to it, just surface contact of acid would barely cause any damage to it.

Only if it was fully immersed in a vat of acid, for example, would it work. This was also the reason why Lucius had prepared equipment such as this 'T' shaped table, as it was needed in restraining people with gifts like these.

Lucius activated Nexus again, but this time he also used Hell Aether in it.

Lucius's eyes glowed gainly for a moment, making Doyle flinch slightly. But with how quickly it disappeared, he mistook it as an imaginary thing. Lucius on the other hand, tried his best to not wince at the pain of the headache that was coursing through his head right now.

Other Owners: Doyle Smith, Ava Dirk,… (total: 1247 people)

A long list of people had appeared in Lucius's mind and he had to forcibly suppress it. He feared that if he let it fully expand, it might be a bit too much for him and he may let out a grunt.

Losing composure was not something he liked not preferred and thus he nipped it in the bud. With the list condensed into a mere number, it became easier for Lucius. 

'It'll take a few more tries to prevent it from showing the entire list at once. At least it's better than before when it still showed five names at once…' Lucius thought to himself.

Still, Lucius was quite satisfied with this result. Now that he had the identities of the other owners of the gift whenever he saw them, he would automatically know that they had this particular gift.

It also worked as an identifier… but in a roundabout way that would only work, if he had used nexus with Hell Aether on other people with the same gift.

'Now I'll be able to keep tabs on people with more dangerous gifts and have backup plans ready…' Lucius thought to himself.