Holy Institute Main branch

Within a massive castle like city made of white marble and white stone which shun with a holy aura surrounded by walls almost 40 meters high with countless runes forming massive defensive magic defenses lay the main Holy Institute building.

Within the walls is an entire city owned and run by one church or another and managed by the students who are of lower rank and have lesser potential.

At the very center was a massive castle like structure taking one fourth of the cities space and surrounded by another interior wall. This was the Holy Institute itself. The holy institute is an academy formed by almost all the churches except demonic churches. That said it is not like all the churches formed one massive religion, instead they formed one location to train all the children forming bonds to better their relationships and slowly get rid of negative relations if possible. The institute also served another purpose. It was a neutral ground that no church would dare attack and all important conversations are done here.

At this time, at the highest tower, protected and sealed by magic making it impossible to peek or hear what was going on inside, a somber atmosphere existed.

Around a large round table, countless old men were sitting. Each and every one of these old man had a different robe, one with white and gold trims looking holy and a large white staff with a cross, another with pure white, a shaved head and a staff with six rings, one with red robes, another with blue, all different colors including black and mixed like red and black.

These were all the popes of the many church of the gods. The pantheon is divided between Light gods and Dark gods. The method they had formed to distinguish is to show their element color with trims which expresses their church. Red robes with white decorated trim is for the Light god of Fire and similarly, Red with decorated black trims is the Dark god of fire.

As for Demon church, they aren’t counted among the churches because demons are the enemy of the gods, they are referred to as demonic cults instead of church.

“This is not good.” The pope with the gold trims. White with gold trims and pure white robes may represent the same element but they are two different church. The pope with the golden trims and rich look is the pope of the Holy church while the pope with the pure white robe is the pope of the Light church. The difference is the point of view. The Holy Church will never accept people with demon familiars while the church of light does. Ernest is someone who wants to join the Light church and not the Holy church and has strived to make his demon into a half demon.

“Indeed, reports from Niska reports waves of demons appearing among the waves.” A pope directly opposite of the Holy Church pope. This robes was pure black but his trims were also gold. This was the pope of the Holy Dark Church.

Similar to the Holy Church, Holy Dark Church is a righteous church who are dedicated to the god of darkness. This god is borderline between the Light and Dark gods and is the most neutral god as well as one who is said to be highly regarded among the dark gods and is the twin of the goddess of Light. It is said he is the leader of the dark gods but he has never taken the role and remained neutral which caused him to be borderline as a neutral god.

“We need to prepare for the worst! First we need to send reinforcements as well as get the other large forces to aide!” A hulking old man in brown and white robes.

“Indeed, a crusade is indeed required but we should not be blind bats and send all our people to Niska. We must remember, the cleansed lands in hell have reawakened. We must first go to that site and seal the spawning pools to prevent the erosion of the holy aura as well as reinforce it once more.” The light church pope said. This monk like man didn’t even open his eyes but the feeling of his aura caused others to not refute. Well almost all of them.

“I disagree!” The holy church pope said, “We must mobilize and locate the space crack as fast as possible. We do not need to worry about the holy city at the first crack that can take care of itself. The forces there are nothing short of forming its own army and the people located there are all powerful. Not to mention there are five level 90 overlords who are constantly living in the holy city to fight back against any demon lords.”

“We should not throw everything into the search for the crack, if by chance they form a powerful force in hell and break through the holy city in one push, all our power will be concentrated at the new crack and they will be able to flank us since we have yet to stabilize or even find the new crack!” The holy dark church pope said.

“I agree with his holiness, to recklessly focus our forces is not good. We should send reinforcements to Niska, yes, but not any large force, it is a frontier so at the very least we need three or four level 70 paladins to guard the front in case of an archdemon or high demon. A company of 500 knights from each of us is enough to reinforce the entire frontier and help the expansion. We can also send 1000 scouts from each of our church to aid the search.” the dark water god’s pope said.

“It is indeed reasonable.” His counterpart the light water god’s pope said.

“Hmph.” The holy church pope snorted, “Fine, 500 knights and 1000 scouts from each of our people and two level 70 paladin should be enough. The most pressing matter at this time is to find the space crack and establish a new holy city. This will even aid the frontier expansion effort, it can be a further investment area for us as we open up the land.” He said.

“Indeed. This matter of the space crack is critical but I am very curious.” The holy dark church pope said lifting a single page.

“What is it your holiness?” The dark water god’s pope asked.

“This list, it shows all the second and third year students of all the schools. I had never expected that there was such an increase in demon familiar.” he said.

Everyone blinked and looked down at the similar page.

“Oh? There is are a few strange ones, hmm… quite strange, a blind Imp how strange.” The Light church pope said looking down. What was strange was that his eyes never opened. He waved his hand and another page appeared focused on Xero’s information including Ashley. After a moment his eyes opened and revealed the pure white clouded eyes with a blue Iris and white pupil, “How interesting.” He said and took the page in his hand.

At once the others became interested and took the information and read before their faces turned serious, “1st layer demon core, a new race of demon never before seen, a strange personality and great humanoid shape with sword type abilities and can even eat and assimilate creatures related to swords. This is quite something. The potential of this demon is quite high.” The Holy Dark Church pope said.

“The boy almost suffered very small scale corruption and this was under the effect of a mass release of mana.” The pope from the warrior god of honor, which Grunt had once wished to serve under, commented.

“This report comes from my disciple Snide, seems he saw everything front row. Hmm, this devil’s personality is quite strange? Affection for its owner without malice what so ever, this is quite rare for demons.” Another pope said. He was from the Serpent god church.

“Enough! This small boy is of no use to us! But I must agree, the number of demon familiars has been increasing. Maybe it has to do with the disturbance in Hell interfering with the summoning.” The Holy church pope said.

“That is a definite possibility for now we should keep these demon familiars under observation. In the coming year they may be useful, after all, no creature is stronger in hell then demons.” The Light Church pope said.

They all nodded and continued their meeting.

***

“Such a boring battle.” Ashley pouted.

Far off in the distance, in a trench dug out by the force of his body, Richard was bloodied and battered. In Ashley’s hand was a large very dense stone and metal sword spirit. It was created under a very unique process of summoning countless stone sword spirits then piling them up and burying them before summoning another one just above them.

Given time and effort, it would form a large number. Of course Richard can only summon one spirit at a time so he had to summon and pull the spirit back and it simply built a more powerful body out of its old bodies.

Ashley’s eyes turned red as the shaking sword spirit felt fear once more and like before she began to eat the sword, that was more than 10 times harder, like chewing a hard candy. This was the unique effect of Sword Artillery. It makes it possible for Ashley to eat any kind of weapon no matter the metal, though there is a limit regarding her own strength because to assimilate the weapon it takes mana.

“So that is how that one as made. So it compacts more swords on top of each other.” She said in a bored tone. “How boring, you could have been more creative and made harder to eat stuff instead of just packing rock swords on top of each other.” Ashley pouted.

Disregarding the boy, who had insulted Ashley to once more battle her but did not believe she would be able to kill his spirit once more, she walked away.

The boy that was on the ground was in a daze while he was near the point of vomiting from the kick he received. After all, Ashley ‘jumped’ on him after using super pounce, in other words she drop kicked his gut and sent him flying before taking the sword.

“T-that beast… I-i’ll destroy it!” He cursed.

Standing to the side, Surge looked at the boy while sighing, “It seems he became too spoiled, he can’t accept defeat and grow from it. He is delusional about the fact that he is part of Hellvine academy and thinks he is better than everyone his age.” Surge thought. He regretted taking his as a disciple, even if he was talented.

Surge walked forward and stopped in front of the boy looking down at him, “Such narrow mindedness. Richard, I never remember teaching you like this.” Surge said.

The boy looked up coldly. To him, his master should be helping him but instead he is saying something like this. His heart burned with unquenchable rage.

“Richard, give up trying to beat that devil. Her race is the nemesis of every sword based creature. Your spirit has already firmly implanted the form of sword spirit you can’t change that fact.” He said.

“I… I can still… evolve it.” He said lifting himself up and on shaky legs. “I know, I can still… take the path… to ghost and… fairy.” he said.

Surge shook his head, “Although you can still remain at Hellvine but your mentality will kill you later on. The day you pick a fight you can’t walk out of against a power you can’t hope to win, know that I warn you of your fault so do not say that I, as you master, did not teach you this important lesson.” Surge said before turning. “Come, the time to remain here has ended. We and the Holy Institute will leave today and tomorrow Everlight shall take their exit when the outpost pioneers arrive with the escort.” He said.

Richard’s face was dark as he shamefully followed behind.

***

The day the two academy left, those who were friends bid farewell, those who were enemy could not stand to see each other. They each left on their own returning to Niska before leaving for their academy.

The next day, a large amount of trees were toppled as a large number of big creatures bulldozed their way from Niska to the outpost in a straight line crushing trees and plants while their masters packed the ground into almost paved dirt roads.

Behind it was an armed caravan of people bringing their furniture and even more bringing stone and building material to set up their homes within this stretch of land.

When the caravan arrived and kept coming more and more the tents were already down while furniture and other goods were stored. Such goods would sell at Niska or even be used at the academy to decorate the students rooms. The tents were all returned along with the magic bag but since everyone had their own bag it did not matter.

Unlike before though, the dragon did not come, instead, for some reason unknown to any of them, Grunt was able to talk Mrs. Gilbody to using the giant sword transport.

When told to Xero, Grunt commented that it was a good method to train his ability with it and to test its top speed.

So outside of Niska, Ashley summoned out a pocket knife sized sword and handing it to Grunt, he filled it with mana to reach a good enough size and let it drop.

When the students were panicking the sword began to slow down its fall before slowly dropping to a soft hover.

“Alright brats, get on and sit down, the sword has a barrier against wind so you don’t need to worry.” Grunt shouted.

The students one by one slowly climb one and sit down and when there was almost no space more mana was put in making it grow a bit bigger giving plenty of room for everyone to put down a bed if needed on the flat surface of the sword.

Xero jumped on the control space and he felt his body get in control while everyone finishes climbing on.

“Which way master?” Xero asked.

After a while Mrs. Gilbody got up and walked over and sat near Xero to look down from the sky later on and pointed in the correct direction.

Softly lifting the tip and accelerating upwards, the massive blade drew a massive amount of attention as it began to climb into the sky and turn. Because there was magnetism or some kind of anti gravity resisting the planet's gravity, within the barrier of the sword there was also gravity to hold their body on the body of the sword when turning as such when the sword tilted in a dangerous angle causing the passengers to pale, they still did not fall but almost had a panic attack but once sword pointed in the proper direction, it began to accelerate and began to climb into the sky.

The sword kept speeding up and soon it seemed as if a god's blade was cutting the sky as the speed reached almost half of what the cloud dragon could reach.

When it got to this point, Xero summoned out Ashley and asked if the sword would last forever if she used it and she explained quite easily.

“Of course Master~! Both me and you can use it forever even if we want to make an entire world on top of a sword.” She said while blushing, most likely thinking something that would irritate Xero.

“Can this go faster?” Xero asked.

“The speed depends on the strength of the rider~! If the old inept bear were to control it…” She put her finger on her chin thinking, “The speed would almost literally tear the sky and we could probably reach the academy within 3 to 4 hours but if used by master with your current strength it will take a day.” She said in a matter of fact manner.

Mrs. Gilbody who was sitting nearby looked startled by this but figured that it would be hard to control it.

“Hey Ashley, how do I dismount?” Xero asked.

“Pressure both legs down as if you are going to kneel. Do you want me to call the bear?” Ashley asked.

He nodded and she flew off and after a moment, he appeared. Xero explained what was heard and Mrs. Gilbody said her point of view saying she did not trust to life of the students in his hand but when he showed that he could at least control the sword, one summoned for himself, she was forced to accept the fact that he at least had some practice with this.

So to arrive back at the academy with the quickest speed, Xero dismounted and Grunt mounted the pedestal, after doing some tests with the large sword that caused them all to fear for their life he laughed and leveled out before getting his bearings before pressing down his back foot and amazingly the sword broke the speed of sound and turned into a giant blur that tore sky and clouds in two.

***

Within a council room at Everlight Academy the teachers were gathered after the rapid return of the second and third years. The speed of the sword was extremely amazing in the hands of the correct person. To say that it outdid the dragon transport wasn’t a lie. Even if he had 1 hour only, he blasted through the sky and as the timer got near, he switched back to Xero so that he could have a slight rest and to allow the timer to rest.

After returning, the teachers gathered all the markers that counted to kill count and the levels of them all to grade the students. Putting them all within a large bowl like magical item that would analyze and and display the names, the places began to appear.

At the forefront of the second years, without much surprise from Grunt and Mrs. Gilbody, Xero was at first place in both rapid growth under the situation, growth of his familiar and finally the kill count.

“What kind of killing spree did he go through?” One of the teachers asked.

Grunt laughed, “The boy didn’t do anything, the little devil is a killing machine. Not to mention the fact that she was using monster meat from dragon species as a method to have him ‘grow strong’!” He said and laughed.

“Mr. Crack, please do not bring those kinds of unpleasant jokes to work.” Mrs. Gilbody said but she also knew of these moments as Grunt had interacted greatly with the boy during the camping trip.

“But to kill ten level 24, thirty Level 23, fourty level 22 and so many more of the lower levels, how did the animal and monster population survive with this kind of pinpoint hunting?” the teacher responsible for teaching scouts and hunting classes asked.

Grunt grinned, “She has perfect magic eyes. She ‘sees’ mana, magic that affects the eyes don’t work on her, her sense of smell is as keen as a dragon, her hearing is better than a bats and her vision does not permit her to fall to visual illusions. She can ‘see’ the body everything with mana and the world is formed of mana so no one can hide from her eye.” He said.

“So hunting is easy as spotting the mana from the air. It can’t be considered hunting, she is simply looking around for prey.” The principle said.

“Exactly, the imp became rather unruly though, because her power advanced so quickly Xero is far behind her and she somewhat disregards his orders due to her ‘love’.” Mrs. Gilbody said with a sigh.

“Let the boy train, this is but his second year and the start of it at that, the next year will be a good stable time for him to train his own body. Grunt, allow the Imp to laze as she please but train Xero three times as hard. When he develops his skills, it will be more rewarding for him to squash her while she just lazes.” The headmaster said.

“AHAHAH! I love it, that said the girl’s own abilities can’t be underestimated. I went with her once to find a dragon species, she encountered a level 24 Black Fire Drake, with a butcher knife and an elongated kitchen knife she can summon for combat she was able to slice the wings and almost did a preliminary butchering before the beast even landed on the ground.” He said.

The brow of a few teachers twitched.

“It doesn’t matter, those are instinctive skills, for now let us see what the other students produced.” the headmaster said and everyone nodded as they focus once more.

Between all the people, those who did not show sufficient mentality or progress, like Chad and several nobles, were marked for expulsion so they wouldn’t keep affecting the progress of the other children.

As for the people that drew more attention, besides Xero, was Meldie, Univa, the cherub owner and several others who leveled their beast up the most as well as themselves.

These were put to be focused on without actually showing the focus. Like that with the scores tallied, it was wrote down for the semester graduation, which is just a small party but it would not be a happy ending for a number of people.