While Michael was indeed a bisexual who wouldn't mind either gender and had indeed done it with both sides, but when he said he wanted Roger's flesh bag, that wasn't what he meant.
While he was young, Michael also used to be a handsome gentleman that caught the eye, it was only at an old age did he turn into this wrinkled and freckled bag of bones.
After obtaining his second life, it was natural that he couldn't reuse the 'Michael' identity.
Roger's appearance was quite decent, handsome and unyielding. Additionally, Michael knew who he was as a person, as well as the fact that his family was quite wealthy, which made him a good new identity to assume.
It was because of this that Michael didn't immediately kill off Roger when he entered his underground lab. Furthermore, his influenced rationality also decided that it was a good idea to play around with Roger a little bit at this crucial point in time.
As for the female student called Quirl, Michael had automatically filtered her out of his vision, she was nothing but a normal student.
"I can tell that you also have a bit of mana in your body. If that's the case, let us have a little bet: If you can still remain conscious after ten seconds, it will be your victory and I'll let you go" Michael flat out lied without changing his expression.
Regardless of whether Roger won or lost, he would still strip Roger's skin from him.
Without waiting for Roger's answer, the white threads that restrained Roger entered his body. These threads that were formed from Michael's flesh had uniquely adapted to mana; or rather, it was due to the influence of Michael's mana within this magic ritual that they were turned into their current state.
After entering Roger's body, these threads that contained great force immediately reached out in search for the mana hidden inside his body.
"AAARRGGGH!" instantly, Roger began to scream in desperate pain.
The white threads were already extracting his mana. For Mystics, mana was essentially a part of their body, and having one's mana literally taken out of one's body was no different from having one's flesh being flayed off while still conscious.
Not to mention, while these white threads extracted his mana, they were also growing rapidly. After not even three seconds, Roger's body had already gotten completely puffed up with countless white threads wiggling under his skin.
The intense pain caused Roger to be unable to breathe, his mind was completely blank. Under such circumstances, Roger had already discarded any sort of pride or arrogance, even this so-called bet had already been thrown out of Roger's mind, the only thing left he felt was pain.
It wasn't until he heard a 'shing' that this pain subsided somewhat. Roger's nearly-blank eyes regained some of their shine. He saw Quirl holding a couple of glowing yellow blades of light in her hands, with several broken white threads flailing around them.
Roger's nearly overwhelmed brain could no longer process what was happening.
As the ringing in his ears faded away, he was finally able to register other sounds, the first of which was Quirl's shouts.
"Roger, use your magic and kill him, don't betray my trust!"
Quirl continued to swing the blades of light in her hand to cut off any white threads that attempted to approach them. She came from the House of Mages, a spy sent by one of its big shots; she had chosen to ambush Michael right as he was immersed in torturing Roger. Unfortunately, Michael's observational abilities surpassed Quirl's expectations.
Michael was sharply able to recognize danger, but having only an outer shell left, Michael was still a bit slow to react despite noticing it ahead of time. This ended up with Michael not being cut up by Quirl's sudden attack but still allowed her to realize he wasn't as strong as he seemed.
At this point, even Quirl understood roughly what stage Michael's ritual was in. He had divided himself up to become a part of the ritual, while this empty shell of himself became the center of the ritual.
This was a common technique in many species-transformation rituals. Firstly, it prevented the blood of the new species from recoiling on the caster due to the sudden change and turning them braindead; secondly, this also allowed one to quickly adapt to the various abilities and characteristics of the new species.
However, there was also an issue with lacking defenses as an empty shell; as long as the empty shell acting as the center of the ritual was broken, it would easily cause every possible problem of an incomplete ritual to occur at once.
Watching as Michael retreated, Quirl had no choice but to rely on the amateur Roger.
He should have mentally prepared himself now, this time he should be able to cast his spell.
Just a little bit is fine, even a little bit is fine, as long as he successfully attacks, he would be able to destroy Michael's current empty shell and cause the magic ritual to become disturbed.
If we're lucky, Michael might even be struck by the recoil of the ritual and lose what little vitality he has left as well.
After a long while of being stunned, Roger finally realized what was going on. Although he didn't understand why the quiet Quirl had suddenly become so powerful, he knew that his current priority was to attack Michael as strongly as he could to repay him for torturing him.
Recalling the four spells he knew, Roger tried to keep his mind clear, maintain a stable mental state, then fire off his spell.
On the other hand, Michael was also in a hurry to retreat. Right at this moment, his rationality had finally gotten online again. He understood that the female mage wasn't actually too powerful, most likely a unique talent nurtured by one of his compatriots.
She shouldn't have too much mana, so the white threads should be able to deal with both of them in little to no time at all.
For that reason, Michael's current priority was to stall as much time as possible and wait until Quirl could no longer endure his attacks, after which he would have plenty of time to 'take care' of the two of them.
Right at this moment, he was a bit hateful of his previous statement about closing the door, as a door that had been closed naturally needed time to be opened again.
Roger was sweating bullets. A large number of broken white threads were still inside his body so the pain still affected him. He took a step back and aimed his hand towards the retreating Michael, trying his best to stabilize his mental state and unleashed the simplest offensive spell among the four spells he knew: Fireball.
However, Quirl had overestimated Roger, and Roger had also overestimated himself. It was already superhuman for him to be able to wake up and prepare himself to use a spell right after being subjected to that inhumane torture, but he was still far from being able to create miracles.
As Roger failed to mobilize what little mana he had left in his body, Roger experienced another wave of intense pain that completely knocked him out. Meanwhile, Michael had already managed to open the door and fled his underground lab using the flight of stairs.
However, what greeted him wasn't just the stench of the sewers, but also a hand coated in powder. The hand directly caught Michael's neck and tightly grasped it, the powder ignited almost like incandescent charcoal, burning through Michael's skin.
Pweeee…
Like a punctured floatie, Michael's entire body instantly deflated until the only thing left on 'Negary's' hand was a skin bag.
Just like that, the mastermind behind the chaos of the Mobis Institute was turned into a mere skin bag. Of course, he hadn't actually died as the majority of his body was still scattered all over the school, turned into humanoid maggots.
The magic ritual still hadn't failed completely, as long as the remaining humanoid maggots were able to complete the ritual, Michael would still be resurrected and obtain his second life.
〖 How disappointing, all of these humans require a little bit of urging 〗
As 'Negary' held the skin bag in his hand, he infused mana into it, causing the skin bag to appear as if it had come alive, enveloping Negary.
