The Messenger of Death

"Wait, let's make this a little bit fun." Amelia chirped in.

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Sara inquired.

"Let's make it a competition. The team that can gather the most ingredients before the sun sets' wins."

"That sounds fun." Lenny concurred.

"Alright, it's a competition then… This will help everyone in locating the meeting point, in case you guys get lost," Sara said as she removed 3 little compasses from her pouch and handed it to the seraphim and aegis team.

"Hope the seraphim team has an alchemy disciple amongst them, or else it would be a strain for you to identify or differentiate between medicine and poison." Amelia grinned at Alex.

"Oh, don't worry about that. Alex is also an alchemy disciple, with him we shouldn't have any issues with that." Camron spoke up.

"Really? Well, then good luck to you guys" She ended the conversation there, then entered the forest with her teammates to search for ingredients.

"Alex, we wouldn't have any issues with identifying medicines and poison with you here right?" Camron asked just to confirm.

"Didn't you just say that with me here you wouldn't have problems? Why are you asking me what you already assured yourself?" Alex asked in a flat tone.

"I only said that to defend you from Amelia. She seems to be coming after you anytime she sees an opportunity."

Alex scoffed at his reply. "Let's get to work." He said and entered the forest.

"Alex, Alex, wait for me," Camron called out and went after his friend. The rest of the seraphim team followed suit.

"System, scan, and identify alchemy ingredients that match the drawing and characteristics of those in your record," Alex whispered silently.

-Ping!

*Initiating scan.

"Begin."

*Scan initiated.

Camron and the rest had finally caught up with Alex.

"I will give directions and you follow. Anywhere I ask you to go will have one or multiple alchemy ingredients." Alex pointed out without waiting for anyone else to speak up.

"There, northeast. A maroon plant amongst the mushrooms." He used his finger to point at the root of a giant tree northeast of their position.

Adrian wasted no time in following Alex's instructions.

"Wow, we found one already, without having to do much." Adrian happily said when he arrived at where Alex had directed him to.

"There. A rose with 4 different colors on each of its petals." Alex said once more and used his finger to point at where it was. This time it was Emma who followed his direction. "Another one." She jubilated when she arrived.

Alex started walking and pointing at random directions and telling them where and what the ingredient looked like. Sometimes he turned and stares in a certain direction for a little while. He identified most of the plants that were in hiding and difficult to find.

"System increase the range of scan by two dozen meters.

-Ping!

*Increasing range might affect the system's accuracy of identification. If the user still wishes to increase the search range please nod your head.

Alex gave a nod.

-Ping!

*Increasing search range.

*Method of search changed to echolocation for wider coverage.

*Sending out infrasonic waves.

Soon notifications from the system filled Alex's sight. The rate and range at which he identified ingredients changed. His teammates couldn't keep up with him.

"Camron, head 6 meters east and dig 11 inches into the muddy ground. There are chunks of alkali beans there."

They all heard what Alex said and they doubted him for a second because this was different from the previous directions he had been giving.

At least those were on the surface hiding in plain sight, but this one was under the ground and he could tell what ingredient it was and how deep it was. Nonetheless, Camron followed his friend's instructions.

"What!!??" Camron shouted out in shock. "It's exactly as he said. There are alkali beans here." Camron rushed to his friend's side.

"Alex, how are you able to do that?" He held his friend's shoulder and asked with his eyes wide open.

Alex shoved his friend out of his sight. "You are obstructing my view, I can't see any ingredient with your face in my eyes. And I'm only able to see them because I have good eyesight. Eat a lot of carrots"

['Hahaha, eat a lot of carrots? That's all you could come up with? You sounded like those commercials that advertise a different thing from what their products actually do.'] Al chirped in.

['It is better than telling him the truth.'] Xander commended.

"Sorry about that, I got too excited." Camron apologized.

After that, the rest of the team made a mental note to not doubt anything Alex told them that day, even if he asked them to check the insides of their clothes for ingredients, they would do it without a second thought.

Alex and his teammates had been going back and forth gathering ingredients to use for alchemy till it was evening and the sun had started to set. Then they decided to head to the meeting point…

"You guys are here, we were about to come to look for you guys. We thought that you had gotten lost in the forest."

Amelia, who was the first to notice the seraphim team approach the campsite announced their presence with that.

"Haha, we weren't lost. We have been gathering ingredients all day." Camron said.

"Then you must have found a lot." A girl from Lenny's team joined the conversation.

"We gathered a lot alright." Drake had a proud smile on his face.

"That's very humble of you." Amelia mocked.

"Since we are all here, we can now show what we have gathered and decide who the winners are." Sara appeared behind Alex and put her hand over his shoulder.

Alex wasn't expecting it and he was about to attack but he restrained himself just in time. He removed her hand from his shoulders.

"Don't sneak up on me next time, you might get hurt." He warned her.

Sara chuckled at his reaction, while the other guys around were jealous of Alex. They also wanted Sara to give them the same treatment. The person that it disturbed the most was Lenny.

Lenny's handshake was rejected by her 2 days ago, over the excuse that she didn't like to touch people. Now she willing threw her hands on Alex and he was also aware of her giving him her water sack to drink from. Lenny who had a crush on Sara was hurt, jealous, and angry at Alex.

"You've been grumpy for the past 2 days, what crawled up your pants?" Sara said playfully.

['His weakness crawled up his pants. Such a child, feeling depressed because he's weak. Life is a journey, but no one said that roads were going to be smooth. So stop acting like you are the only one with this kind of problems in the world.'] Al mocked Alex.

Alex ignored his alter, but what Al had said hit a sore spot on Alex.

"So, the nior team will start first." Amelia sounded excited as she announced that her team was going to start first.

"Wait, why don't we let the seraphim team start first, since they were the last to arrive here. They must be tired." Lenny suggested.

"Okay." Alex agreed. "Show them all we've gathered." He said to his teammates.

Emma was the first to bring out all the ingredients she had picked from her storage pouch.

-Thud!!!

Plants, stones, and minerals of different shapes and sizes fell out of her storage pouch, they piled up on the floor.

"Woah! You guys gathered all of these?" Sara exclaimed in surprise. "I have to admit, this is more than what my team gathered."

"Mine too," Lenny said dejectedly.

"Well, that's not all that we have. That's only a portion." Drake's proud smile got wider. He removed what he had gathered from his storage pouch too.

The pile of ingredients that came out of his pouch was almost double of what Emma had brought out.

"This, did you guys find a treasure trove? With all these, the amount of MP you will be rewarded with should be able to put you in the top 2000 on the MP ranking list." Amelia mentioned.

"That's not all." Adrian pointed out with an innocent smile on his lips. He too was proud of the feats his group achieved. He brought all he had in his storage pouch and it was almost the same amount as that of Drake's.

Camron wasted no time and he also stepped forward and brought out what he had gathered. He gathered more than the rest had gathered.

"Oh my." Sara gasped.

Everyone turned their attention to Alex, waiting for him to step forward and reveal what he had gathered.

"That's all we have, I didn't gather anything." Alex shook his head.

Hearing what he said, the members of the other teams sighed in relief. What the rest had shown had already placed them behind, they couldn't compete with what they had.

"Slacking off while the rest of your team are working their selves off. An orange badge is always a burden." Lenny fumed.

Alex didn't care to give him any reply, he just stared at Lenny.

"Without Alex then we wouldn't have been able to gather a quarter of what we have here. He did the job of locating and instructing us on where the ingredients were." Camron stepped forward and defended his friend.

"Yeah!" the rest of his teammates followed suit and defended Alex.

"I'm going to sleep." Alex interrupted.

He jumped on the nearest branch of a tree not far from where they were and sat down there. He acted like what was happening didn't concern him and placed his back in the trunk of the tree and closed his eyes.