Xero runs up the Ash who was bringing back another monster.

“This is number 35.” Xero sighed and looked at the rabbit that was the size of a dog and had three horns with the middle one being the longest and having a golden tip. “This is really slow hunting.” He muttered.

“But you're such a good hunter.” Meldie said, “Your Im… Ash is already as strong as a level 2 monster.” She said.

“No it's not, it’s strength is definatly level 1, it can’t even lift more than 10 kilos and its slower then a 4 year old. It only has good jumping ability like a level 2 because it naturally developed that before I summoned it.” Xero said.

“But isn’t that good? After all this test is for testing your control.” Meldie said confused.

“Yeah he is strong when I control it but he is still an Ash golem, a level 1 weak monster made of easily breakable ash that was compacted into a body.” He complained.

“But… isn’t that the whole point of being a mage?” She said.

“What is?” he asked.

“Controlling the familiar completely and having them fight as you want.” She asked.

“Even if it’s good it doesn’t change the fact that he is weak.”

Meldie was forcing a wry smile at this point and there was a bit of sweat on her forehead and her mouth twitched as she listened to him. “Does he not realize that the imp was able to hunt 12 level 2 monsters and 23 level 1 monsters without dying once? Could it be that he believes he is weak as well?” She pondered.

Its nothing new to her that Xero has been targeted by the nobles because he is the poorest but it's also not anything new that he is a monster in physical training and even Professor Grunt took a liking to him, everyone knows Grunt Crack only likes people who show potential in creating a powerful body for themselves instead of depending on their familiars.

Still she looked at the Imp, it was already taller than her and the figure wasn’t so skinny, its movements weren’t fluid but when receiving orders it moved just as he commands. His own fighting talent he uses to transfer to the familiar makes it really strong.

“Big bro said that sentient beings like humans are naturally weak compared to monsters but their strength is their ability to think. Doesn’t that mean that the imp’s abilities plus Xero’s hunting talent make him strong?” She thought.

Even then she didn’t say anything and just watched as he removed the main horn from the rabbit and the rest was devoured by the imp. The horns seem to shine as it ate but that was all.

Like every time it eats it tries to activate magic, “Don’t use magic.” Xero says and stops the Imp from using magic to self destruct. Even without letting it break down and rebuild, his body was still improving with the meat he ate energizing his bones and muscles.

That said like all demons, most of the energy is stored inside the demon core and only death releases it which is why Ash wanted to die, it wanted to use its power.

Storing the golden tipped horn Xero does a count and then looks at his wrist that holds a magic device for telling time.

“We have about an hour left until lunch and I gathered 47 points worth of hunt. This sucks.” He cursed

Meldie behind him could only smile, “That's good isn’t it? The record for level 1 group isn’t that high either.” She thought to herself.

Xero sighs and stands up, “Let’s go, we need to keep hunting.” He said and told the orders like always to only warn him when prey was found.

They kept moving through the bushes and soon came upon a lake. He stopped them both and crouched before peering out into the water. Taking a stop the threw it hard at the edge of the lake far off almost 100 meters away.

Instantly the area became riddled with what looked like driftwood.

“Freshwater Alligators, Level 2 almost level 3 monsters and there are lots of them.” Xero said.

Alligators were lizards that naturally grew to level 3 at adulthood their full size was that of almost 4 meters in length and it is said a rare few can evolve into a Level 4 Crocodile Dragon that can rise to level 10, most of these were adolescent and were only level 2.

“Let’s circle around and see if we can’t find something on shore and alone.” Xero said.

Saying that they follow the shore line but all they find is some really large ones almost level 3.

Xero himself had hunted with Grunt and could say he could kill a Level 3 his familiar was too weak for it. He looked at Ash’s hand and sighed when he saw no thumb.

“If only he had thumbs, I could train him to use weapons then.” Xero thought but sighed. “Let's go back, there is nothing weak enough for us to kill. Ash can’t attack any of them.”

As soon as Xero said that a growl came and a lot of splashing was heard before the group saw a Razor Fang Leopard coming out of the water dragging another smaller level 2 Alligator with great effort. The lizard tried to attack but it was grabbed at the neck and even when it tried to lash its tail it couldn’t build the momentum.

The lizard was dragged into the forest and Xero grinned upon seeing this. “Let’s go.” He said

The group moved quietly as they watched from afar the Leopard gain a good distance from the lake before it bit down harder and pierced the skin of the Alligator and began to let it bleed out.

“This is the perfect chance.” Xero muttered and turns Ash to face a specific direction, “Walk quietly through the bushes ten paces forward making as little sound as possible then turn to face directly to the left and then take three paces forward quietly then jump up and land four meters forward. Saddle the Leopard and claw at its face with on hand and claw into its body and grip on.” He ordered.

Ash began to execute the orders and walked slowly feeling the bushes around it and being careful and then turn to face the Leopard from behind and walked forward before jumping landing right on the back of the Leopard mounted like it was a horse. It quickly clawed the neck with one hand and clawed the face with the right and by chance one claw stabbed into the eye that burst.

The Leopard instantly let go of the Alligator and began to thrash about and the neck moment the tail of the reptile came in. “Jump!”

On cue Xero made Ash jump and the tail only whipped the Leopard while Ash landed with the tail of the lizard between his legs.

“Find the source of the smell of blood and jump at it and claw and bite into it.”

This had become a high intensity three way battle. The Leopard was stunned by the tail whip and probably had one leg broken because it was whining in pain but slowly it began to get up and limp. The ribs and a few other bones were broken as well.

That said the Leopard only moved away from the fight but remained hidden but from behind Xero still had it in view. It probably had in mind to attack the weakened enemy.

Ash, following the orders, was currently clawing at the open wound but suddenly the Alligator did a rapid roll that caused the Imp to flip with it due to gripping it. Xero could feel the damage through the link but the ash that broke off began to slowly gather once more once the reptile stopped.

Ash’s legs were broken though but it bit into the beast and suddenly ripped out a huge chunk of meat and swallowed. The alligator hissed as it was viciously bitten and had its blood drunk by the imp. What surprised Xero was that the wounds began to quickly heal as Ash ate the Alligator alive and quickly the wounded body was back to full strength and the reptile was dead with part of its head eaten off.

“Jump away!” Xero shouted and Ash followed just as the Leopard jumped at the Imp.

The injured feline landed but the injured side of it caused it to tip over and fell on its weak side making it roar in pain.

The following orders from Xero made Ash accurately aim for the chest of the feline and then the head and quickly clawed it to death which he finally ordered to stop. The two ran up and he began to remove one fang from each of them.

“Two more Level 2, not bad.” Xero said with a smile. This meant that he had crossed 50 points already.

What he didn’t know was that besides the level 4 group that gained 4 points each kill, he had the highest score in the three groups due to how points were given out.

He looked at the time and sighed. “Time to go back already.” He said and stood up and let Ash eat the catch.

He simply turned away and allowed the Imp to eat while he was on watch for incoming beasts. After a bit the two animals were eaten down to the bone and they left. With a magical tool that was like a compass, they could easily find which direction was to the center of the training zone and so they simply went the other way.

Besides a few level 1 animals they encountered nothing until just before they left Layer 1 back to Layer 0 where the portals were.

Xero stopped and looked around and after a bit he noticed a few animal signs. Wolf paw prints and after a bit he heard a loud buzz.

He looked up and spotted a floating monster wasp and frowned.

“That's a Level 2 Great Wasp.” Xero said.

He pulled out his sword since he knew how quick this was, if need be he would slice it in half if it came at him. It suddenly advanced and he commanded Ash to jump and claw it. Doing so he jumped and reached the flying bug but the wasp veered and came at Xero himself. His eyes narrowed and his sword seem to start to glow. He put it in his sheath and since Ash was in the air it wouldn’t land fast enough.

When the thing was 1 meter from him he unsheath it and a flash came out. The wasp kept moving but it fell straight down to the ground and slip in two but as he sheath his sword he saw that the split body suddenly turned to light and moved through the woods somewhere.

“What just happened?” Meldie asked.

Xero was scowling. “Someone sent their familiar to attack me.” He said.

Meldie was shocked but was more curious about him. “You’re strong, to kill a level 2 monster with one swing.” She said.

“I hunted with my dad and Professor Grunt trained me, level 2 monsters are not even a warm up for that old man.” he said.

“Then… why are you picked on by Chad?” She asked.

“Huh? He is stronger than me why else. He has his family backing and he trained far longer than me.” Xero said and the halfling just looked at him with a strange expression.

“Does he not know that Chad only has this group of lackey because he is rich?” She thought.

With this incident done they walk out of the layer into the safe area. If anything were to happen here then it was sure to catch the teacher's attention. Clear of any underbrush they walked until they found the portal and walked out. They weren’t the first ones out and checking the time there was still 15 minutes until lunch but most of the students were already out. As he walked out and passed the old man, the man opened his eyes.

“So young man, how was the hunt?” He asked.

“It was good elder but at the end there was a problem.” Xero said and scowled.

The old man had lived many years and could tell the scowl was something a bit more serious, “What?” he asked.

“Someone with a Great Wasp Familiar attacked us, not directly themselves but sending the wasp to attack me specifically. ” He explained.

The old man’s eye widen a bit and he scrunched his brow a bit and nodded. “Okay, I will have someone investigate, was there anything else?” the old man asked.

“Well I did notice some wolf prints but I don’t know if it was someone planning something.” Xero said.

“Alright, please go to your teacher and show your catch.” The old man said.

Xero bowed and left towards his group. Reaching Grunt, the old bear grinned, “Oh so finally out, let’s see the number.” He said.

“Okay, but I didn’t get much good luck the Imp is really weak.” Xero replied and began to remove all the tokens and soon the 23 level one and 14 level two were on the table.

Grunt’s brows raised, “Did you hunt together with the familiar?” He asked.

“If I did I wouldn’t even need it to get 100 points.” Xero said bluntly.

Grunt suddenly started to laugh loudly drawing attention.

“Highest score in both level 1 and 2 groups, 51 points with just the familiar hunting. Not bad not bad at all for a Level 1 imp. You skills at guiding it are quite good boy.” He said.

“Was it that high? What was the highest score of group 3?” Xero asked.

“Until now 73 points, the level 4 group could only hunt level 4’s so they only needed 25 of them to reach 100. Some wanted to show off so the highest was 144.” Grunt replied.

“I’ve got a ways to go.” Xero sighed, “OUCH!”

Receiving a hard punch to his head, “Stop with the fucking pessimism brat!” He growled, “I’ve heard you get beat up by brats like that Chad Liquivet and his mob of mindless weaklings. Why don’t you fight back?! You could pound them to the ground and make them eat dirt five times over already.” Grunt ridiculed.

“That’s not possible! He is from a rich family and I bet he is strong since he trained from a young age while I’m only a poor families ‘prodigy’ son that doesn’t amount to much compared to these rich families.” He replied and got pounded in the head even harder.

“What did I say about that pessimism?! Didn’t you work five times harder in your first year under my junior training program?! Did you even look at that brat when he was training during PE?! His physical strength is only slightly above average because he is a muscle brain that is large for his age. He isn’t actually strong. At most he can only move around with 9 kilos on each arms and that is his upper limit! Don’t compare yourself to someone just because he is richer!” Grunt said.

Just as he said that Chad appeared from the portal and looked at Xero and sneered and grinned before walking over.

“Oh looky! The weakling is already back.” He said and looked down and only saw 37 tokens and grinned wider.

“Oh only 37 points ahah! I killed 43 level 3 monsters!” He grinned.

“Shut it, Xero got 51 points, 14 of these are level 2.” Grunt rebutted him.

The boy looked at the old bear in disbelief and grinned, “As if this weakling and his weak as shit familiar can hunt anything.” He said.

Grunt growled and released a thick killing intent which made Chad pale, “That little shitty ant isn’t even worth a fart. The most it will ever reach if you work hard is a Golden Fire Ant Beastman or a Giant Gold Fire Ant Soldier that can be used as a mount. Don’t compare the potential of that ant to his Imp.”

Chad shrank back and walked off away from the angry bear.

Grunt clicked his tongue seeing how fast Chad ran away, “ Spineless.” He grumbled and looked back to Xero and scowled. “Since you're also being spineless that makes me force my hand. As long as you remain a spineless weakling don’t dare search for me for training outside of PE. If you let others beat you because they have status then don’t ever hope to get strong.” He said and pulled out a box and stored to tokens and put wrote ‘51 points’ followed by ‘Xero Null’ underneath.

With a ‘hmph’ he waved them off.

Xero was gloomy at what happened. He had no confidence after suffering for 1 year. Only Grunt cheered for him but everyone ridiculed him so it can’t be helped that his self confidence was non existent.

He went and sat down dejected and Meldie didn’t know if she should leave or remain so she did something that made her blush. Patting his head that was bent down just like most people did to her he flinched and looked up at her.

She began to blush even more and pulled back before turning. “Um… you s-shouldn’t feel down.” She said and held her hand while feeling her heart beat rapidly. “You and Ash are both really strong. In 3 days it went from not walking to fighting level 2 monsters. It’s really strong.” She said but couldn’t look and after saying this she ran off with her ears completely red.

Xero looked confused and patted the spot she had patted as he started to register her words.

“Three days from… well it is true that it grew adapt to walking. The food turned it from skinny to something more… human I guess. But besides jumping power its weak, if I don’t control it, it’s weak.” As soon as he thought this her words rang from earlier, “But isn’t that good? After all this test is for testing your control.”, “But… isn’t that the whole point of being a mage?”, “She is right, controlling the familiar is the whole point of being a mage. It isn’t strong like me physically because I haven’t trained it long but I control it efficiently. The blindness isn’t a problem as long as I control it.” He thought.

At this moment the bell rang from the school and the portal suddenly began to whirl and suddenly the students still inside were thrown out.

“Alright, brats that have turned in their token can head to lunch, those that just came out come and turn them in and then go eat. Your free for the afternoon!” Grunt shouted.

Xero thought a bit and nodded, “Let's have lunch then after it's done I will go feed Ash until he is satisfied then I will take him to the volcano zone and train his magic. It will let him grow stronger with all the food he ate today.” Xero said in his mind and went to lunch.

Unlike normal, he waited until everyone left and the cafeteria staff appeared to clean. The trash would magically vanish but the dirty dishes needed to be gathered by hand. He went to the waste disposal and summoned Ash and let him stuff himself until satisfied but ordered him not to use magic.

Then he rushed out and met the old man again, “Elder can you please open the Volcano zone portal?” Xero asked.

“Going to hunt more?” The elder asked raising a brow.

“A bit later but I need the ash in the area for material for my familiar to rebuild his body.” Xero said.

Upon his words leaving his mouth the portal opened and the old and gave him a charm. “A suggesting from an old man, you will see a surprise if you have it rebuild itself near lava flow.” He said and closed his eye.

Confused by the suggestion he took note of it since it was an elder so the advice wouldn’t be bad for him. He entered the portal and fixed his clothing to not affect him as much and summoned Ash before he started to look for a flowing river of lava in the safe area. After some twenty minutes he found one. Taking some distance he pointed his magic sword at Ash. ‘Use Imp Fire once I charge it.’ He ordered and began to make mana flowing into the magical formula.

Ash held its hands up but from the feeling the magic reached his elbows and was trapped there plus within some channels that were heading from around his body in that direction causing his body to turn red and finally bursting but this explosion came with a strong shock wave that threw Xero off his feet as he felt that strong wave flow into his seal followed by the now cracked red pearl that was leaking a lot of energy. All of it went into the seal and soon his own mana was sucked in. The amount was about double the common amount needed to repair the body. When the seal stopped glowing the energies in his body subsided but he felt the presence of the Imp in his mind.

“Is it reading my mind?” He asked himself and soon noticed the presence fade.

When everything was quiet he looked around and at the seal and seeing nothing happening he summoned Ash.

The completely repaired pearl shot out but he noticed it was even more vibrant and to his shock the pearl shot into the lava river which rapidly began to cool and form a large crust before the pearl broke out. Xero jumped back as the lava began to overflow the stream but then he looked up and saw the glowing pearl attracting a large amount of ash and the body was slowly built.

The body was completely made like before and like previous summons after gathering a lot of energy, a large amount of ash kept entering it and as he watched the lava river melted the obstructing rock and flowed back allowing him to approach a bit closer.

He noticed quite a few drastic changes, one of which was the wings were larger, the body was held more upright and the chest muscles were started to look more defined like a human's chest. The hands were larger but there was no thumb but the fingers were longer. The palm and fingers were as long as his own and the claws at the end of his fingers were sharp like daggers and were a glossy black like obsidian, the legs became more defined and his feet had four clawed fingers but they were smaller and the shape was wide but and strangely there was a claw half way down the side of its feet on the inside probably developing a large toe. The horns on it’s head was also now aligned with the corner of the eye at the top of its forehead and was a glossy black. The eyes themselves didn’t change much but now it had eyelids like human and it would blink every so often. On its back the previously tiny tail was also longer and reached down to his knee and kept waving. It was thin still and looked weak.

What was most striking was the skin was much darker but now most of the body had formed scales.

“Scales?! It formed scales? Did it learn of them from the alligator it ate since it was so hard to pierce?” He asked.

Still remembering how it took several deaths for the Imp to use all its gathered energy he faced it away and used magic. He was surprised that it was nearly reaching the hands of the imp meaning the body and mana channels were almost developed enough to use magic. Still the first death is always the most drastic so the others didn’t affect it as much only allowed it to improve what it already created and the mana channels didn’t open as much.

“A Scaled Imp, I remember something like this would already be Level 2.” He muttered and looked around and took two 10 kilo rocks and had Ash hold one and he could hold it easily and then put the other and it began to tremble and after a minute it threw them down.

“Yeah, level 2.” He said. “Try to fly.” He ordered.

Ash began to flap and a breeze began to form and after flapping really strongly it lifted off the ground. “Stop” He said and it landed again. “Run until you get to max speed then jump forward and spread your wings and glide.” He ordered.

Ash did so and after reaching its fastest speed it jumped five meters in one bound and spread its wings. It fixed itself and spread its wing glided but kept falling faster but still moved forward. Ash landed 40 meters away and ran Xero was running after so it met up with him part of the way.

“So gliding is possible.” He said and grabbed the hand and examined it closer. “The bone of the thumb is barely developed by the four fingers should already be able to grip.” He muttered and took out his sword. “Hold this.” He ordered and Ash did so but it simply held it in his open palm making him face palm. “Grip the handle with one hand.” He ordered once more and Ash looked down and moved the right hand around the sword and held it faced down. Xero took it and fixed it.

“Like this, when I tell you to hold a sword or short sword this is the way to hold it.” He said to engrain it into the mind of the Imp.

It just looked at the sword and blinked. Xero took it back and sighed, “Guess I need to get its own sword for it well at least I can train it better now.” He thought and pulled out his old training weights and put it around the arms and legs of the imp.

“Follow me, we are going to train!” He shouted and ran at a slow pace and slowly increased his speed until the imp could was being left behind and then slowed down and ran at that pace with it. Soon they entered layer one where he was going to hunt more while it was under the weights.