VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 17: Drink Magic Juice, It’ll Quench Ya!
Beyond being perpetually warm in her hands, as it glided over her tongue and down her throat, the glowing water brought with it a strangely unique taste. The closest thing she could compare it to was as if someone crushed a bunch of mints, mixed them into a malt whisky and then added a dash of lime for flavouring.
It was both an assault to her taste buds, yet strangely refreshing and delicious. Not to mention it burned her throat as it glided down like silk. In fact... It was burning more than her throat.
Belladonna’s hands stopped just as they were reaching for another scoop of the water, instead reversing their course and clutching at her throat. She grasped and clawed at it as if she was trying to scratch out the water as she let out wheezing, strained gasp.
Starting from her stomach, the fire of the water rapidly spread through out her entire body. Her throat felt less like she had swallowed refreshing water, and more like she had eagerly guzzled an entire volcano’s worth of lava.
Every breath was laboured, barely able to get a trickle of oxygen into her lungs as what was already in there was set ablaze.
Countless beads of sweat formed along her ivory skin as her muscles spasmed and writhed beneath it. If her hair was not already soaked from the water, then within a few seconds it would have been clinging to her scalp from the sweat alone.
Desperately she scrambled back from the lake, as if it was actually trying to kill her, before quickly collapsing onto her back as she clawed at her throat more. The contents of her bag spilled across the silver grass that she was too busy burning from the inside out to revel in the comfort of
In a helpless attempt to cool down, Belladonna quickly dismissed her armour. It appeared next to her, neatly folded and cleaned beside her bag. Even the strips of rabbit jerky that had been previously strewn across the ground, were now piled neatly atop her bag, although as if that wasn’t strange enough, it was also missing a few pieces.
Of course, Belladonna was a little preoccupied to notice something as silly as missing jerky. Dismissing her armour had left her in just her in the basic linen clothing that had come with the armour, yet even that wasn’t enough to cool her down.
Instead the fire spread to her veins, setting her blood alight as if it were oil. Every muscle fibre, nerve ending and blood vessel boiled within her, as if she were being melted by acid from the inside out.
The fire crawled up her spine as if it were alive, plunging into her brain and cooking it like an egg.
Whether it was hours, minutes or merely a few seconds. The time that the waterborne flames ravaged and boiled her body felt like a hellish eternity to Belladonna. Finally, it began to retreat.
Slowly but surely, the flames pulled back, Her fingers became cool first, then the muscles in her arms were able to relax. When it retreated from her chest, her heart was finally able to let out its singular, powerful beat as she desperately gasped for fresh air.
However, as it retreated the pain in the areas it still gathered only grew worse. It crawled up her spine, retreating back until all of the fire within her body was concentrated within her mind.
Belladonna let out a slew of hellish screams and cries of agony, her eyes rolling into the back of her head as her mind was melted down to a slurry and rebuilt anew.
After one more hellish eternity of torture, it finally ceased. The blazing inferno within her was snuffed out, deprived of anything more to fuel its flames. Finally able to feel peace and serenity, Belladonna lay completely motionless on the ground.
She stared blankly up at the sky, panting heavily as only a singular thought entered her mind.
The gentle sound of a book closing reminded her of the wizards presence, causing her to shoot up where she sat and scream that singular thought at him.
"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!"
She knew there was pain in this game, she had experienced it plenty up until this point with most of it being self inflicted. But that was on another level!
No one played games to experience the sensation of taking a bath in an active volcano. Because surprisingly, it was not even remotely close to pleasant nor enjoyable.
Just who was this game aimed at? Someone would have to be some kind of depraved masochist to enjoy the pain like this!
Wait... Did that include her? No, there had to be some other explanation. Something about the thrill of life only coming with the threat of pain... Yeah, that was probably it. There was no way that she was a masochist!
The wizard merely chuckled at her hysterical outburst, setting the book he had been reading down on his lap as he gave her another warm and reassuring smile. He almost seemed... proud, for some reason.
"Congratulations. As for what ’the fuck’ that was, I believe that a Graceless term for that would be a... Oh what was it? Ah yes, A Baptism. You have partook of the holy waters and been cleansed. You are reborn. Not literally, of course.
But you have successfully awakened your body to the wonders of Mystica."
Belladonna opened her mouth, ready to scream at him again, but the words caught in her throat as crystal on the back of her hand flashed softly. A gentle notification sound rung in her head as the screen appeared before her eyes.
[Congratulations! You have consumed the Dragon’s Tears and successfully manifested a mana lobe.
You have gained new skills!
Skill - Mana Sense, Basic Mana Manipulation.]
[As a result of the substance used in your awakening as well as the purity of your bloodline, you have gained a new constitution!
You have gained the Source Devouring Constitution!]
As soon as she finished reading the notification, Belladonna had to quickly clench her eyes shut as they became overwhelmed by a sensation, like thousands of tiny needles prickling into her eyes all at once.
Thankfully, unlike the hellish water-fire, this feeling only lasted for a few seconds. She took a few more to get used to the feeling, before opening her eyes once more and letting out a soft gasp.
Her vision exploded with a vibrant array of dazzling colours, some of which she had never seen before in her life nor existed in her world. The grass beneath her feet radiated with a beautiful and gentle golden glow, as if each blade was eagerly showing off how much sunlight they had absorbed throughout their life. A feeling she got as not every blade had the same glow, some were dimmer and almost fading out of existence while others shone bright and proud.
The lake in front of her nearly blinded her at first with how bright it was, but focusing her eyes allowed her to pick out the gentle ripples of the waves. It was absolutely stunning, shining with a white-silver mix. As if someone had stolen the moon from the skies, distilled it into a liquid then poured it into a hole to form this lake where it could continue to illuminate the night. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖
The most stunning thing of all was not the lake, but the man who stood upon its surface. In Belladonna’s eyes, the harmless old man sipping tea had become a roaring inferno of psychedelic colours.
Pinks, purples, blues, reds and colours she could not even dream of naming nevermind describing swirled around him wildly. They snapped and lashed at the surrounding air, looking to her as if he really had been doused in an assortment of strange liquids before being set ablaze.
All of the colours fighting for dominance, creating an almost vomit inducing sight, swirled together to create a flaming tornado that stretched high into the sky, all with this harmless old man at the centre of it all. The same knowing smile on his face as he watched her.
Searing hot daggers stabbed into her mind, causing Belladonna to clench her eyes closed and yelp out in pain. Yet when she opened her eyes the psychedelic display still remained, as did the daggers.
They dug in deeper, twisting inside of her mind, as she collapsed to the floor once more. Her fingers dug into the grass, twisting it in her grip as she desperately sought some kind of relief.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the Wizard slowly approaching her. However, she elected to ignore that and instead focus on the space just below his feet. Even with the searing knives carving her brain into tiny little pieces, Belladonna forced herself to concentrate and focus on what she was seeing.
The silver glow of the lake condensed briefly, becoming so thick and impenetrable to any other light that it was as if the glow had become a solid object. A thought that was only reinforced when a moment later the Wizard’s foot landed on the platform, which dissipated back into a dazzling glow as soon as his foot left it.
Step by step, it happened over and over. By the time the Wizard had made it to her side, his hand slowly reaching down to touch her head, Belladonna was smiling softly. Even despite the blood leaking from her eyes.
’So that’s the trick. Hehe, I got you now you bald... bastard...’
With that thought trailing off, her vision turned black as the Wizard touched her head.
