Versatile Mage

Translated by XephiZ

Edited by Aelryinth

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Lingling took the Jellyfish Evil Maggot back. Late that night, Lingling summoned Mo Fan, Mu Ningxue, and Bobby to the beach. She was holding a tiny tablet on her hand. It was showing a blinking red dot right in the center.

“What are you doing?” Bobby saw Lingling opening a box and placing the transparent Jellyfish Evil Maggot into the ocean.

The Jellyfish Evil Maggot was barely visible to the naked eye when it was placed on a person’s hand. However, when it was placed in water, it blended in perfectly!

“The reason why no one discovered any trace of poison, parasite, or curse from the victims of the Drowning Curse was because these Jellyfish Evil Maggots were no longer detectable in the water!” Lingling said.

“You mean that every victim of the Drowning Curse actually had maggots like this in their bodies? They were under its control, which drove the victims to drown themselves in the ocean, allowing the maggots to leave their hosts and escape into the ocean?” Mo Fan asked for clarity.

“Exactly! The truth is, most maggots are a lot bigger than this one. The people that died to the Drowning Curse all dried up in a short period of time, like all the energy in their bodies were sucked dry in an instant, but it actually happened because these maggots left the hosts after taking a huge amount of energy from them. They simply drew all their nutrients away, resulting in the horrible deaths we saw,” Lingling said.

Lingling knew the three were still clueless about the details, so she explained her findings in detail.

“First of all, these maggots are a type of extremely terrifying parasitic creature. They normally reside in seawater, and are as tiny as plankton, meaning that they can enter a living creature’s body easily through their mouth, nose, or ears. Actually, in the early days, these maggots were unable to live inside human bodies, but since a few decades ago, they started to evolve into something that can use human bodies as their hosts. These maggots will enter a person’s body and attach themselves close to the stomach, drawing in the nutrients and food of their host crazily. As such, the people that were under the Drowning Curse had a greater appetite, since they were not only trying to provide energy for themselves, they had to feed the maggots in their embryo form inside their bodies.

“These embryos in human bodies will gradually mature. The food that their hosts eat will no longer be enough to satisfy their needs. Instead of taking the energy of the hosts they were living inside secretly, they prefer to acquire all the energy they want from the vast ocean. The maggots will start to eat the human’s body, securing all the energy available and storing it inside itself to prepare to move into the ocean. These terrifying little creatures will then control the minds of their hosts and urge them to head for bodies of water, especially the ocean…

“Once they reach the ocean, these maggots that have feasted on their hosts will leave the empty human bodies, instantly drawing all the remaining energy from them, killing the victims in mere seconds. These transparent evil creatures will then swim freely into the ocean and start their new lives!”

Lingling explained how the maggots entered a human, parasitized it, grew in their bodies, and left in the end. Bobby, who often went swimming in the ocean, immediately shivered in fear. He could feel his stomach twitching, as if there was a terrifying parasitic, vampiric maggot lying on it!

“Such a terrifying creature. It’s basically impossible to watch out for them!” Mu Ningxue said.

They were various kinds of demon creatures, including sea monsters, mountain beasts, undead, and even parasitic creatures like the maggot. Some were basically invisible to the naked eye, living inside creatures like a little devil and slowly killing them!

“I’ve analyzed it thoroughly; this Jellyfish Evil Maggot has two different forms. The first form is the embryonic form I mentioned before, the Jellyfish Evil Maggot is incredibly weak in this form. Even the slightest hit will kill them, and their chance of surviving in human bodies isn’t high, either. As such, even when a Jellyfish Evil Maggot ends up in a human body, it won’t necessarily kill the host with the Drowning Curse. However, once it successfully matures into the Jellyfish Evil Maggot that can control its host ‘s mind, it’s basically a stage-four cancer. There’s no cure at all! Killing the Jellyfish Evil Maggot will draw away all the energy of the host, but not killing the Jellyfish Evil Maggot means the host will eventually run to the ocean and drown themselves.

“Their second form is the form they take after they have killed their host and entered the ocean, but they are only like younglings that have just hatched from eggs. They need to continue feeding on other creatures in order to achieve their complete form…” Lingling said.

“What’s their complete form?” Mo Fan asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’ve analyzed the embryo of a Jellyfish Evil Maggot, but I wasn’t able to find any immune system on them. I assume it only exists when they reach the complete form of their second stage,” Lingling said.

“So if we can come up with a vaccine and ask the Magic Associations across the world to inject their people with it, does that mean no one will die to the Drowning Curse again?” Mu Ningxue asked with glittering eyes.

Mu Ningxue had learned how smart Lingling was at Chongming Island, yet she did not expect the little girl was able to learn the truth of the Drowning Curse that had boggled the whole world so easily. Mu Ningxue could not help but wonder where Mo Fan actually found such an intelligent capsule? Her intelligence was out-of-this-world, yet she was only a little girl!

“So you’ve released the creature to let it grow in the ocean?” Mo Fan asked.

Lingling nodded. She waved the little tablet on her hand and said, “I’ve already implanted a tracker in it. I can precisely locate it no matter where it is…”

“So what do we do now? Do we just wait until the little creature reaches its final form?” Mo Fan asked.

“What we have to do now is the trickiest part,” Lingling said.

“Tracking?” Bobby asked.

“Tracking the creature is way easier than what we have to do. We’ll need to make sure the maggot we are tracking can grow healthily. I already mentioned that even though the maggot is pretty scary, it’s very weak once it leaves the host. These maggots that return to the ocean have a very high chance of dying. Only a few of them manage to evolve into their final form… therefore, not only do we need to track it, we’ll need to protect it too, to make sure it can grow safely!” Lingling smiled.