I just went back and read Chapter 12 and it isnt that good?!?!?! So I hope this chapter makes up for it.

The hollowed-out tree was more like a withering willow. Instead of staying a fully-grown tree, the branches began falling and the bark began dissolving, leaving a pile of dead shrubbery. In a perfect world, my summons would be 5-star. It wouldn’t just be a hollowed-out tree; it would be a hollowed-out island with trees as chimneys for a nice vacation. Sadly, this world isn’t perfect and this collapsed tree is proof of it.

Morning is supposed to be a peaceful time of day. It’s the time of day where you are allowed to wake up and have a drink of coffee, man I miss coffee, and slowly awaken yourself for a hardworking day. Today, morning felt like I shouldn’t be sitting around and waiting. Despite the blue skies and the nice breeze, everything was NOT okay. How can the world still act normal while Mingyu is being held hostage?

“We’ll save him. Don’t worry, okay buddy?” Vernon’s hand met my shoulder. I looked over to him and smiled weakly.

“I know we will. I just want to know when. When is this rescue—” I was interrupted by the rustling in cornstalks in front of us.

The cornstalks bent awkwardly as three people pushed their way through the slight opening. Jun fell face first onto the floor, followed by Yoolhee tripping over him. Another girl walked around them, avoiding the embarrassing fall. She didn’t look at all familiar; in fact, does she even attend the institute of the talented? I’ve never seen her before.

The girl’s wavy hair fell down her shoulders and her skin was flawless. Her eyes reminded me of a rainforest, green with hard-to-see blue in the background. The outfit she was wearing was super casual: blue jeans with a blue t-shirt. She seemed to be older than the rest of us, but not by much.

“WATCH WHERE YOU STEP!” Yoolhee hit Jun on the back and stood on top of him. “Whew, it feels good to be out and about!”

“Can you get off of me? How do you deal with this child?” Jun did some sort of crocodile death-roll and stood on top of the small Yoolhee. “If Minghao were here, he’d squash you!”

“GET OFF OF ME YOU…. FIGHTER!” Yoolhee’s eyes gleamed yellow as she stared at Jun. His eyes reflected yellow back and he stepped off of her. “Hit yourself.” She commanded and Jun began smacking himself.

“Would you both cut it out? We need to go save Mingyu.” My expression was cold as I cut into the situation. Yoolhee apologized and released Jun from her control. “If you don’t mind me asking: Who exactly are you?” I politely asked the pretty girl.

“I’m Melissa, but call me ‘Meli’ please.” She bowed her head slightly. “I’m a junior at IOTT.” What’s IOTT? “Shall we get moving?”

We all agreed and I told them about the visions Professor Suarez sent me. Nobody knew of any local haunted amusement parks so we ended up following the broken-down corn path that the rock gorilla made the night prior. After following it for a while, the corn field ended and it lead us to a large open field. Flowers were spread out in different groups, almost like high school cliques. In the middle of the field, a pile of broken rocks sat, forming a mini mountain. That can’t be right. In my vision, Mingyu was being held by a rock gorilla at an amusement park. How did he get to the amusement park if the gorilla never made it?

“Something isn’t right.” Meli made her way up to the mini mountain and looked at it for a while. Did she read my mind or are we just on the same track? “This ‘mountain’ has a hidden enterance.” Her body became incredibly slim as her arms and legs tucked into her body. Scales formed on her skin and before I knew it, she had turned into a snake. She slithered into the pile of rocks and we waited for something to happen.

“Did she die?” Vernon asked as he crept forward with a defensive stature.

Out of nowhere, the pile of rocks exploded outwards and a T-Rex stood in its place. The eyes of the T-Rex were that of Meli. The massive creature shrunk down, lost its scales and became a human girl. Meli flipped her hair and gestured us over to her. On the ground, a wide cave tunnel shot downwards into complete darkness.

“Can we get some light? Vernon: spit?” I looked over to him and he nodded. He walked up to the hole and spit some fire into it. The flames fell straight down, revealing a large assortment of bugs as it passed. Spiders, roaches, snakes, termites and even skulls were citizens of the creepy walls. The flame hit the bottom of the horrifying cave, revealing a small glimpse of a metallic room.

“Do we have to go down there?” a terrified Vernon said and walked behind me.

“Meet you at the bottom!” Yoolhee’s eyes met Meli’s eyes and they turned a shade of yellow. Meli’s body began morphing into a spider with a saddle. Yoolhee jumped on top of the saddle and the spider jumped into the abyss. I shivered at the thought of riding a spider into a spider-infested cave.

“I don’t do well with critters. May the martial artist gods be with me.” Jun did a little prayer and became completely invisible; his presence completely erased.

“How do we get down?” Vernon sounded scared out of his mind.

I stared back into the abyss and only managed to see Yoolhee sitting on her spider throne. She wasn’t at all worried as an army of smaller spiders followed. I couldn’t see Jun but I knew he was either climbing down or already at the bottom.

The scenery around us didn’t seem at all helpful. We couldn’t take vines down; there were too many creatures roaming about. A flower elevator would be pleasant, but I don’t know how to manipulate a flower to that extent. Embarrassingly enough, I can barely manage to grow a rose. Though, I did summon a giant tree. On the other hand, it did die after a while. An idea finally came to me.

I willed a tiny river to begin trickling down into the cave. Soon enough, a decent size stream of water was falling into the hole. Before I could continue, I had to drink some of the water due to exhaustion from summoning something new. After refreshing myself, a massive leaf grew from inside the falling river.

“We’re riding that down?” Vernon gulped.

“Yup. I don’t know how safe it’ll be so be prepared to spit your mad tracks at anything that looks unfriendly.” I jumped onto the leaf and sat cross-legged. My eyes glanced over to Vernon, his legs shivering while he chewed his fingernails. “C’mon. I’ll protect you, okay?” I pat the leaf and he hopped on.

He sat behind me and held me from behind. His grip was incredibly tight, causing my breath to shorten.

“Vernon,” I gasped for air. “May I breathe?”

“No.” he didn’t let go.

“Vernon!” I gently smacked his hands and he loosened slightly, enough to allow me to breathe. “Hold on, tight.” I regretted saying as he reclaimed his tight grip. The leaf-boat snapped from the ground below and began drifting down the river. The fall ride down was traumatizing. At some points of the fall, we were upside down while our boat rode us. The only thing the water did was prevent things from jumping out at us. However, it didn’t prevent the skulls from giving us a death stare.

Just before we landed on the metallic floor, our leaf-boat realized its job and flipped us over, right side up. The landing was quite soft as we floated on the now-flooding room. The room was completely dark and I could barely make out Meli and Yoolhee standing against the corner of the room.

“You killed our spider army!” Yoolhee complained and Meli shrugged. “They all drowned. We could have used them for a fight.”

“Why don’t you join your roach friends up there?” I pointed into the cave that was now complimented with a nice river.

“Hilarious, Wonwoo. Why don’t you do your little tricks and light the room up, yeah?” She crossed her arms.

I knew what she meant when she said ‘little tricks’. Back when Professor Suarez tricked us into believing that Aubrey placed us into a zombie apocalypse, I summoned a swarm of fireflies to light up the laboratory we were in. The only issue with that was the fact that my first attempt ended up with me summoning a regular fly.

I concentrated and a swarm of something flew out of my hands. A sound filled my ears and I realized my mistake. While thinking of what to summon, my mind transferred back to that horrible zombie apocalypse flashback. I remembered me summoning a fly and Yoolhee making a comment about the possibility of it being a bee. Well, now it is a bee. A swarm of bees. This is your fault, Yoolhee.

“FIREFLIES, NOT BEES! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” everybody’s arms began flailing as we attempted to not get stung.

“I’ll be right back.” Meli said. I turned her direction and she was gone. Shortly after, the swarm of bees flew up the cave and out of the metallic room. I walked over to the opening to get a better view. At the top of the cave, the bees followed a larger bee. I assume that’s Meli as a queen bee. Once she reached the top, her appearance changed into a Vernon—I mean a dragon—and the sky lit up with a blaze. Meli transformed into a swordfish and dived down into the river, landing gently next to me.

“You’re amazing.” I complimented her.

“Thanks. You’re sweet.” She transformed back into her gorgeous self.

“I’ll do the lights this time.” Vernon volunteered and it hit me that he was obviously a better light source than I was. His mouth grew full as he spit lava onto the flooding floor. For a split second, the room lit up and a door was visible on the opposite side of where we stood.

“Let’s play smart. Wonwoo, conjure up a stick or something and have Vernon light it to make a torch.” Yoolhee suggested.

From our leaf-boat, I grew a wooden stem and snapped it off. Vernon spit a flame on the top of the stick and we passed a few torches around.

“Where’s Jun?” I finally realized the martial artist was missing.

“I’m right here.” Jun’s voice came from the doorway of the door. “I was just checking the place out. It seems to be a labyrinth.” We all sighed. “Just kidding, but there are a lot of rooms.”

“Alright. Here’s our mission: Save Mingyu.” I said and we walked out of the flooding room into a hallway with many doors.

QUESTIONS:

I didn’t want to add a new character, but the story seemed like it needed something more. How do you feel about Melissa? (Meli)

How do you think Professor Suarez’s rescue team will play out in this situation? Keep in mind that Yoolhee has super smarts and the ability to control people, Jun is a martial artist (he has more potential as the story progresses, by the way.) and Melissa is a shape shifter.

Do you think the group can rescue Mingyu from an unknown villain?