In a massive desert with nothing but white sand in sight, an unexpected area was covered with strange clouds that swirled around one specific area. At this area a crack in space was perfectly visible but all around it was a huge circular stone structure. Under it, was a huge altar platform with hundreds of steps and on it were hundreds of thousands of magical formulas and symbols just like the circular structure.

This was a very unique magical artifact that can only be constructed by the mighty demi-god like existences above level 90. This structure had captured and sealed the space cracks and had perfectly sealed it but recently it had forcefully opened once more but soon the structure once more turned on and the black crack in space began to close once more stabilizing the space. Only an enraged roar could be heard from beyond the crack.

At this time though, 100 meters in the air, space began to spine, bending itself and turned incredibly wide. Slowly a 100 meter wide sword blade that stretched nearly 500 meters began to appear from the space distortion.

As it came into being, it attracted a huge amount of attention but it suddenly shrank leaving behind several hundred people to freefall while some 300 children with 11 or 12 years old remaining up what was left of the sword.

All those free falling suddenly revealed a large number of lights as countless familiars burst out.

Those without flying familiars called out to their friends and were caught quickly or some used magic slowing down and stopping in the air.

Soon everyone began to land at the base of the massive altar. Some 10 kilometers away, a large wall of stone existed around the magical artifact, something made by the level 90 powerhouses as a type of natural ‘wall’. Near the relic a large impressive green temple with countless snake idols and the final idol of a powerful looking man whose lower half was in the form of a snake.

His exposed chest and human formed torso was finally sculpted and was easy to see from far away as it was built in grand style in front of the massive magic artifact.

There were three types of serpents twisting around the statue. One was made of white stone and looked similar to the familiar of the Priest that went to the camp with Madrid the previous year. Another looked like Cascade’s strange snake dragon but it was more impressive with a large mane, much longer antler like horns and two five finger dragon hands holding the two blue and red orb in its hand. The last was a black evil looking Serpent with spikes in the place of horns.

These were the so called ‘idol’ beasts of the church. The first is known as the Basilisk, the type of snake making up this serpent doesn’t matter as variants always exist by this point. This creature is known as the idol aligned to the holy and light path. The second is the Celestial Dragon, it is considered the strongest of the three, and is considered neutral alignment and a judge of the heavenly order. The final one is aligned with darkness. It is called an imoogi and is a powerful serpent that failed to successfully reach the status of Celestial dragon falling from grace.

These three make up the idol’s of the serpent god, as for anyone that can force a snake into a perfect half human form like the god himself they would be considered the most perfect Saint priest but it would be like forming one of the Lamia race which is a sentient race and a die hard follower of the same god.

The people who fell slowly gathered on the ground while the large blade landed and the young children shakingly came down, some of which collapsed due to the fear they had when the sword suddenly shrank dropping everyone.

That happened because Xero could not support the size as it took a huge amount of his mana and had to pull it back causing everyone to fall and they began to walk over only to see him sweating on the ground after the sword vanished completely.

Miss Gilbody walked over and put her hand on him and a green colored aura filled him and he thanked her.

In the air, Valmor soon appeared from the distorted space and fixed the space itself showing no difference it had before.

He descended landing in front of the stairway. “Students, we shall be entering the dungeon, I shall not be able to defend you as I will be busy from the get go.” He said and turned.

Xero, who walked over to Grunt asked what he meant.

Grunt smiled, “Just look.” He said

He watched as he walked up, from his familiar seal a 30 cm ruby appeared covered in bright red flame. Slowly it grew more and more before the an foreboding sinking feeling filled everyone’s heart as a growl appeared.

Slowly from within the fire, a pair of wings appeared, then arms, torso then the fire dropped to the ground and the creature crawled out of the flames. Its limbs seem like it was made of burning wood but it was incredibly powerful. It stood up showing its immense 12 meter size. It’s three toed claw feet came out of the flame and soon a long reptile tail appeared.

The flaming demon stood fully before turning around. It turned around showing a long human shaped head but with a crown of horns.

“Hehehe!” The demon laughed causing a chill to run down everyone’s spines.

At this time, Valmor reached the platform at the top and did a single hand seal.

The space crack began to spin and twist before it slowly began to open.

“You little brats get back some if you don’t want to die!” The demon grinned showing its sharp black fangs before turning and jumping up towards the gate and throwing a punch.

Without warning, a 25 meter wide black snake head with countless spikes appeared only for the demon’s punch to connect with it.

PENG!

The sound similar to metal on metal came from them causing a massive ringing of the children’s heads and instantly a barrier formed around everyone coming from the statue of the snake god.

“You little bitch! Die!” The demon said and threw another punch sending the snake creature flying into the dungeon once more and flying in after it.

The outside turned quiet at this moment until everyone saw Valmor entering and the sounds of intense battle coming as more and more of the portal opened.

“Let’s go, Archmagus Valmor will distract the Imoogi that rules part of the dungeon while we enter. There is a several safe zones already located and set up inside the dungeon, we will be going to one of them. Soon secondary entrance portals will be built but we need to make proper defensive measures.” Grunt shouted and suddenly a huge crystal knight appeared beside him before it’s body broke apart into specific parts and shined before hitting Grunt and forming around him a more dense armor. He pushed off and caused the ground to cave as his body jumped in.

“Headmaster, go on ahead with Grunt and Master Valmor, I shall close the gate and lead the children.” Miss Gilbody said.

“Be careful.” The headmaster said as his Phoenix appeared and the two flew inside.

“Children, let's go, quickly now!” She said as Merlin appeared in the air flying inside and her leading the children from the front.

All the teachers had come and begun to summon their familiars. The weakest was level 65 and the strongest, Miss Gilbody, was level 89. She said Grunt was level 90 while the headmaster was level 91. Finally, to everyone’s awe and horror, she revealed that Archmagus Valmor was level 95 putting him as one of the most powerful beings and it meant that the demon they just saw was a defacto Demon lord level existence.

Inside the children paled as they discovered an area of almost 10 kilometers around them was cleared. What is more, the entire area was filled with countless demonic spawns and burning cracks spewing flames from hell.

Imps swarmed, large red imp like demons rushed into battle against countless snake beasts, and in the sky, far away, the shockwaves come from the battle between the giant snake and the massive demon. Around the two, occasionally a rainbow shine appeared as Grunt weaved around the two and impacted the imoogi that roared in pain.

“Let’s go!” Miss Gilbody said.

No one had time to admire the view. As those with flying familiars began to pull others with them into the air. Xero lifted many 8th year students who were protecting the 2nd and 1st years who had come as well.

The reasons 1st years came was the benefit from the mana rich environment so that the next year’s group would be much better quality and because nearly all the academies would be coming to teach a year or maybe even two within the dungeon while the clearing was happening.

In the entire dungeon, there was only 5 safe zones that could be placed and each were ‘weak points’ in the space within the dungeon. Monsters avoided these areas due to the instability of space and because it was area with least mana due to mana leaking at this point but once a proper portal gateway was made, the chaotic spectral energies would stabilize gathering all the turbulence into the gateway forming a space crack allowing mana to once more gather.

For humans and sentient races there was no need for such high mana concentration to begin with, with their blocked channels, most of them take countless years to open them if they aren’t naturally open.

Once everyone was inside, Miss Gilbody closed the portal leaving it just as a crack once more and lead the children.

“The area we are going is ruled by the other level demi-god existence here, the Celestial Dragon, unlike the Imoogi, it is satisfied being here and won’t cause trouble for us.” She said while on Merlin’s back with everyone following behind.

All around the group countless demonic beasts, bats, dragons, distorted birds, flew attacking anything that attacked the children and on their backs were even more demons and there were even devil’s commanding these creatures.

Travelling at as fast a pace possible, the Everlight school traveled on until they reached a large cliff. The Cliff seemed to have been cleaved perfectly and collapsed nearly 50 meters down. From the top, a raging river collapsed into a powerful waterfall nearly 15 meters wide and the river above was 10 meters deep.

At the bottom of the waterfall was a 30 meter wide half circle lake.

What was strange about this land was that there was not a single tree within 1 kilometer of the waterfall, only hard rock.

“This is the place, this clear area is the safe zone and within 20 kilometers there isn’t anything stronger than level 40 so for the 3rd to 5th year students can train with them safely. Now to raise the walls.” Miss Gilbody said and raised a staff.

Merlin’s eyes shined, “HOO!” Merlin shouted.

Suddenly the ground began to shake. Both above and below the cliff, suddenly a 30 meter high pure stone wall appeared at 4 kilometer mark. It formed a perfect circle around the lake but it did not block the waterflow but under the water were magically reinforced stone bars along with a magic formation forming a barrier to block anything dangerous from entering.

Miss Gilbody began to cast countless spells one after another hitting the walls making them glow more and more and soon a large barrier dome formed.

She sighed and smiled, “Alright children, this place is safe, from now on it is up to you to set up your own homes. 1st and 2nd years are to group up with 3rd years or those older. Once you all have your own homes set up you are free to practice, study, train but no hunting until the other teachers arrive. We are just setting up Everlight academy city.” She said.

“YES MISS!” the entire student body shouted and everyone began to fly into the walled city.

Merlin quickly flew near the lake and where he stepped the rough earth sent ripples and the ground began to break down into rocks and rearrange itself into cobblestone pavement. It then circled the bank of the lake until the cliff walls, forming a bridge over the river coming from the lake, before the earth on the walls began to pull outwards and form a ramp up while a straight two crossing lines of cobblestone headed right to the wall behind him 4 km away these roads formed a 90 degree angle meeting at the lake where the river comes out of the lake. The lake also had a cobblestone pavement around it.

Using this line, the students began to find locations and map out some basic road systems while leaving the main road clear for when merchants and other important jobs appeared.

The older students, and those of high nobility, settled into the high cliff zone while the younger students went to the lower city.

Xero dropped off the students of the 1st and 2nd year at the plaza with Merlin and Miss Gilbody.

Many 1st year students wanted to go with Xero, being the #1 rank of the 3rd year but he didn’t know how to reject them until Miss Gilbody shooed them off. Still, she looked through the list of 1st years and called out ten names and then from the 2nd years she called out five more.

“Xero, you are in charge of these students. When you build your home make sure to include enough rooms. 1st years can bunk two children to one room, 2nd years should have their own room. You are also in charge of make sure they do their school work. This is a form of leadership training so your grade will be reflected by their grades and development.” She said.

“Yes, I understand Miss Gilbody.” he said nodding and turning to all the children. “Alright, let's find a place to settle down.” He said and called out Edge and had everyone climb on and they flew off.

The area they choose is within the tree covered area, there was much less students in this space because the others felt it was ‘unsafe’ to remain closer to the walls but Xero had taken a look at the magic formations on the wall. They were all spells that even a level 90 wouldn’t break and only the top demi-god beasts in the dungeon would be able to crush through it. Of course, this was a speculation since he didn’t understand even 1% of it but he had recognized the spells used from a textbook in the library he read once.

As such he casually flew over the trees before deciding to make his house about 500 meters from the main road heading to the southwest. The waterfall faced south so he was in the south west region, more towards the west of the roads.

“Senior, is it really safe here?” One of the girls asked.

“If it wasn’t, Miss Gilbody wouldn’t have made the walls so far out.” Xero answered simply and landed the sword that shrank from under everyone's feet dropping them 20 cm to the ground making them stumble a bit.

“Alright, this seems as good as any.” Xero said and put his hand into his magic bag and pulled out a yellow long sword with a yellow topaz gemstone stuck on it.

He stuck the sword in the ground causing the gem to shine brightly as the mana in the area began to flow into the sword at at a rapid pace.

“Stop absorbing so much.” Xero ordered.

The pace suddenly dropped drastically and the gemstone shined as it left the sword and turned into a 2 meter tall knight.

“What?!” The children were shocked and took several steps back.

“Alright, Edge, help me carve a good perimeter.” Xero said and using edge to make a line in the ground, he formed a 40x50 meter perimeter. “Remove all the trees inside this space and pile them up neatly in the west corner of the perimeter and flatten the land.” Xero explained.

The knight nodded and took his sword and stabbed it into the center of the rectangle before his body returned to the sword.

Xero called the younger students, “All of you, follow me.” Xero said and took several dozen steps back being perfectly clear from the coming mess.

After a moment, the ground started to shake as suddenly, the earth pushed a tree out, roots and all, from the ground making it collapse and with it followed all 10 other trees within the land. Then some earth hands began to form and it pulled the trees into a pile in the west side of the rectangle area and the land was slowly flattened as the holes were filled and perfectly compacted.

Xero nodded and pulled out a curved sword of wood that had a small green rough emerald on the base of the sword.

It also formed a knight that Xero ordered to get rid of all the leaves and small branches of the trees, then process cut the large logs and break down the roots and throw it away. He then walked to the sword and told it to elevate a small circular ‘table’ for him and he brought out a piece of parchment.

“Senior, what are these?” A curious student asked.

“Their called Sword Demon Minions. They were created by my own familiar.” Xero said as he pulled out a quill and inkwell and began to draw out the plans for a building.

The other students soon joined him and together they thought up a way to fill the ‘yard’ with what was needed and how to build the house. Soon it ended up being dormitory fashion. The bottom floor had the kitchen, completely with oven and cooking places, meeting room, work room and training room. The upper floor would be were the rooms were. They weren’t that big but it was enough to accommodate everyone with Xero getting a ‘master’ room which was only a bit bigger than the other five 2nd years.

Outside was a sparring arena and what remains would be open area that can be decorated over time.

With it planned out, Xero put away the first Sword minion while having the wood sword minion push the trees away and pulled out a new earth sword. This one, on the other hand, was much different. Were the common earth sword minion was made of dirt, this one was made of stone but it had already been forged and was stony grey in color but what was most interesting was the fact that on the blade were countless glittering and shining lights like stars.

This blade was made by the earth control sword Xero had once made. After being made into a Spirit sword, Xero did not immediately make it into an ego sword and instead created one of rock instead of dirt and transferred his controls to the new one before refining the magical sequences after he entered the 3rd year and began to learn more magical knowledge.

The control and abilities were made much stronger and after it was forged into an ego sword, it can personally do it without Xero needing to. It was formed with instinctive knowledge of how to use its own magic though the broken sequences were confusing for it to comprehend but once Xero personally used all the sequences at least once, it memorized it all and could perform it all on its own.

Explaining the floor plans to the minion it took its blade and stabbed it before withdrawing into it before a yellow glow spread out. Several dozen stone pillars began to rise in many key places and thicken greatly until they solidified. Then from each pillar stone walls rose up and then windows and doors formed as the rocks broke down. The ceiling of the first floor quickly seals up and a stairway forms before new pillars rise once more and the process repeats very quickly.

When Xero turned and looked at the wood sword minion, he found that it had turned three trees into several wooden beams that were grabbed by the earth and pulled up to the top floor, put in specific manners it built the frame of the roof and formed stone nails to nail the wood together. Then the wood transformed into wooden planks were used for flooring on both floors. The final trees were made into wooden shingles that were placed to cover the roof.

All this was completed within a period of 20 minutes. All wooden planks were perfectly nailed with stone nails, since Xero could not figure out how to make it control metal, yet. It only took so long because of the wood minion. Xero does not have many of them after all, only earth minions are easy to make.

When the Earth control Sword Minion walked out, it walked to the area that would be the sparring arena and quickly elevated a small space of land for it and then raised walls along the perimeter and made a gate where Xero had marked, on the plan. Finally it was finished and so it stopped in front of Xero and withdrew into the sword that floated in front of him. He stored it and turned to the students with a smile, “It’s done, shall we go look inside.” He said leaving them shocked as he walked in.

***

News, spread by the 15 younger students who went exploring the encircled forest and meeting the other students, soon spread that Xero had the power to make a very structured stone house with two floors, 11 rooms, a kitchen, dining room and even a strong stone sparring arena and strong walls. The only thing that was missing was glass windows though really good wooden ones replaced them and perfectly sealed the house when needed.

Many people actually came to visit to see and were amazed to see the inside.

Although it lacked a lot of things, Xero had formed two wooden sword minions for wood construction purposes. Of course their skill and ability were subpar for the time being as he focused on the earth controlling one but these wood controlling sword minions could make simple items like wooden planks, wooden beams, and parts for furniture. With that they made all the simple parts before constructing things like tables, chairs, beds, cabinets, wooden dining utensils and more.

Xero expanded the first floor after a bit but it was to expand the workroom to turn it into a kind of library room were wooden cabinets were placed and he put his work books and textbooks he had for study.

He gained quite some fame from his house building and what is more is that after the dormitory was complete, he had the Earth controlling Sword minion go to the road and make a road that was as similar as possible to the one made by Merlin to reach his own house.

In fact, it had such a good reputation that Miss Gilbody herself, out of curiosity, asked to see the Earth Control and Wood Control Sword minions. The swords glowed with mystical sequence fragments on the body and the interior was even more filled. Of course for a woman like her, it only took about a minute to decipher each sequence’s purpose and the main group of sequence at the center. She actually openly acknowledged Xero’s ingenuity in the manipulation of spell sequences to form a kind of earth manipulation ability like this. The wood wasn’t as advanced but she said it was interesting and could bring quite a good amount of money if Xero ever needed to work as a carpenter.

Although she did not really need them, she did say that the idea was interesting and for Xero to keep refining these unique creatures, eventually they will prove indispensable as their control of the natural elements keeps growing with his mastery of magical knowledge.

It took two days for the headmaster, Archmagus Valmor and Grunt to find them once more and the three admired the situation of the children. The older students on the now officially called ‘Upper City’ had made quite impressive structures to house themselves, of course nothing noticeably large, but there was plenty of space used for sparring and battle of large creatures. In the ‘Lower City’ the younger students filled the area and a road network had formed.

Xero’s ‘land’ had expanded to a space of almost 500 meter squared and to the surprise of the men, he had actually taken up Miss Gilbody’s suggestion and began to sell furniture made by his wood control minions.

“The boy sure did himself good this time.” Grunt commented as he looked from above.

The area was clear of trees already but it attracted a number of students who still needed things like tables, chairs, bookshelves to the point that Xero and the younger students had begun to make a query and handing out numbers while noting down all the pieces they wanted.

With only three control minions for this type, it took them a while to complete a piece each if it was furniture. Not to mention several dozen students actually asked for building material. Although it was many times quicker and easy, it caused one of his minions to be locked in that service instead of making furniture making the producing slower.

“Come, let us start setting up the portal. Lucius, come and help me build the small portal. I shall gather the loose spatial fragments and energy here in one place while you and Gloria build the Portal gateway.” Valmor said referring to the headmaster.

“Of course Master, Grunt, take care of training for the students.” Lucius said.

“Aye aye sir!” Grunt said and flew off, “ALL BRATS IN THE 1ST YEAR REPORT TO THE EAST SIDE OF THE LAKE!” his roar resound in the lower city.

“That loud mouth.” Lucius sighed.

Valmor chuckled, “Leave him be, come.” Valmor said and floated forward with Lucius behind him.

Soon Miss Gilbody joined them with the headmasters call. “Gloria, you are responsible for setting up the magical formations while I refine the materials into the artifact.” Lucius said.

“Of course.” She nodded and Merlin appeared. On the shoulder of the headmaster, the small red bird appeared and he flipped a magic bag dropping countless magical metals and a huge circular stone that already had some engravings.

“Come.” Valmor said stretching his hand up.

A strange wave of energy spread out from his hands and within this wave, countless shining particles and even large cracks appeared visible to the eye and at his call all the smallest particles of shining energy within a 10 km radius began to flow like a stream and concentrate above his hand.

As that powerful and mysterious energy flowed to his hand, the cracks also slowly got pulled.

“As expected of master.” Gloria said.

“Focus.” Lucius said and she nodded as he waved his hand. The huge circle began to levitate and lifted above off the ground while turning so the flat faces were vertical compared to the ground. “Go Scarlet.” Lucius said and the little bird flapped its way near the circle before its entire body burst into flames completely engulfing the circular relic.

“HA!” Gloria shouted and magical beams shot out of her staff as she fired countless magical runes and sequences into the material and relic slowly causing all the metals and materials to slowly float and ‘melt’ and be absorbed into the relic. Slowly the relic started to spin while on the ground, a platform began to rise towards the relic.

The magic flew, the materials were incorporated and the phoenix flames refined, melted and solidified the relic making it slowly turn like a rock yet harder than the strongest steel. Magical fluctuations began to emit from it as it tried to gather the power of space to form a crack in space and bridge it to the nearest place it could but slowly, as more of the magic formation was built, the control of the magical artifact became more steady and the power of space returned to move towards Valmor.

Soon all the materials were formed and the platform had raised half way. Even so Gloria did not stop and instead increased her pace as more and more magic flew to the platform this time rapidly building a complex severely layer magic formation that overlapped each other so that it could support the spatial power being gathered by the Archmagus. When she finished she nodded towards Lucius and slowly the relic lowered and ‘melted’ into the platform merging the two formations causing a huge reaction as the formations were in the wrong place but the two stabilized the situation until the relic was far enough in and perfectly merged after a few adjustments.

Finally the phoenix returned to its original tiny shape and landed once more on the headmaster's shoulder.

“Master Valmor, the portal gateway is complete.” Lucius said.

“Gloria, align it to the one outside built for this safe zone.” Valmor said.

“Yes master.” She said and began to make a few hand signs. The runes and sequences near the surface of the magic artifact began to move around. In fact, if Xero saw this, he would instantly recognize it as similar to what he did with his earth and wood control sword minions. In fact, this magical artifact was made specifically to manipulate spatial energy and form a bridge between two gateways. By altering the spell formation in the relic, it opens to a different gate and only those who made the gate knew the ‘key’ to open them but ones like this public one that will be used by countless people, it was made with an international standard unlike the private one that requires a special key for like the Everlight training area gateway.

“It is ready.” Miss Gilbody said as she finished activating the portal.

Valmor lowered his hand and between it was a ball which, within, was a spatial storm raging with all its power, perfectly contained within the man’s ball of mana.

He floated to the gate and pushed the ball into the space between the circle relic of the magic artifact.

Under the function of the Magic artifact, several dozen spinning vortexes coming off the ball of mana slowly spun off the sphere and flowed into several points in the magical artifact.

“It has begun.” Valmor said and they suddenly felt a large flow of still loose spatial energy gathering while slowly the ball at the center was slowly pulled as if by force. What is more is that chaotic energy inside grew even more destructive as the energy was compressed and stretched.

The first time a portal is made is the most important, it is when the magical artifact gathers this energy of space to form a bridge between two sources of this energy.

If explained in terms common to earth or earth like planets that focus on technology over magic, the portal gateways use this spatial energy to form a wormhole where the exit is at the other portal.

Many remaining loose space cracks in the area were drawn to the portal and with them the space energy almost seemed ready to blow as the area at the center grew ‘weaker’ with less mana.

That said it didn’t break as the next formations started up and suddenly magic began to infiltrate the space energy and start to organize the energy causing the instability to grow more stable. This also prompted a massive surge of all the ‘fragile’ space around the portal to gather within completely strengthening the space in this area while the portal completely stretched the ball of space energy completely to the edges and the Portal gateway finally opened as the sound of something cracking was heard. A surge of energy burst forth from the portal as it tunneled through space like a drill and finally connected to a separate space gateway created near the foot of the massive portal that held back the Imoogi.

Soon the mana in the region began to leak out and Valmor simple began to perform several dozen hand signs and suddenly the spatial storm calmed down and the mana no longer leaked and instead began flow from the rest of the dungeon dimension to fill the void left around the city to which began to further strengthen the defensive formations around the city as it fed on ambient mana.

“It is done. Lucius, please proceed to the outside and send notice that on our side we have completed a safe gateway into the dungeon. I am sure you have already memorized the spatial location of the dungeon after being here for so long. The price for long distance access can’t be lower than 5 holy mana stones. Also, from my gate the Holy Light church is prohibited, their teachers can’t come through Everlight city to access the dungeon. The Holy Institute students can come but the teachers affiliated to the Holy Light church can not.” Valmor said coldly.

Lucius sighed and smiled wryly, “Ah~! This is going to be a big headache, master, the fact that you claimed pioneer rights of the dungeon has been a thorn in their side since news got out.” Lucius said.

“Who told them to try and kill this old man so many times when I was still young? If not for the old man protecting them, their little order would have burned in Lucifer’s flames.” He said coldly. “Now go. I have business to take care of here.” He said.

“Is master going to hunt the Imoogi?” Miss Gilbody asked.

“No, it involves the Sword Devil boy. He should know a few things early on before it gets too late. Gloria, you are in charge of magic classes, also open the gate to the Everlight dungeon and bring in reinforcements and the teachers. We will need to properly set up a guard force in the city.” He said.

“I understand master.” She said and watched the monk like old man walk away before turning to the now stable portal and see the headmaster walk through.

After she counted to a count of 10 she began to alter the Portal to open to the dungeon that is the backbone of Everlight academy and were all the true experts of the academy train.