In the Black Mercy's training room, another activity was going while Rem meditated on the couch.

This activity consisted of an Elf standing in the middle of a circular diagram with her arm outstretched. Electricity arced from her body and into the gym's rubber-tile. Sigils beneath her feet began to glow with golden energy as it absorbed the lightning.

Outside of the diagram, the goddess and the Badger observed her.

Scathach took a peek at Luxinna's Status ID.

...

Luxinna Latoria

Lightning Caliber

Stat:

Str: 149 [E]

End: 223 [D]

Mag: 290 [D]

Wis: 90 [E]

Dex: 373 [C]

Skill

Active

Thunder Magic [A]

Animal Communication [B]

Passive

Child of Thunder (SS)

Sword's Grace [A]

Hidden Potential [N/A]

Natural Instinct [S]

...

"Fascinating," Scathach said. "Even without three years of training, you managed to develop several incredible skill-set of your own. That's diligence I am looking for."

Cytortia walked in with a tablet and began talking excitedly.

"Yeah, she also have the talent" she started scrolling down the database. "Unlike, the normal elves' [Child of Nature] attribute which enhances there ability to resist, sense and control water and nature magic. [Child of Lighting] was a much rarer trait; electrical resistance, electrical sensing, and lightning-magic augmentation. Our Luxinna broke the current ranking at [SS] to boot. At this point, I believe Lucian was taking drugs when he exiled Lux."

Luxinna's jaw dropped a little from surprise.

"It is that good?" Luxinna asked. "Isn't being a child of your element something common among the elves? My friend was a [Child of Water] and my sister is a [Child of Spirit], so what is so special about [Child of Lightning]?"

After was sure that nothing would be exploding, Scathach answered to Luxinna excitedly.

"You are right. All elves naturally have a passive skill that symbolized their close bond to their talent. Some even gain a rare variation. An example would be your sister [Child of Spirit] enabled her great affinity with summoning and spirit magic. But your [Child of Lightning] was another story. Not everyone was born with such a powerful link to lightning."

Scathach spoke grandly.

"As I said when we first met, your family was a fool. Nobody with two digits of IQ would trade you for anything if they considered what an elf wielding lightning can become. Among all elements, lighting is the most difficult to tame. It possesses the most destructive might and backlash. Using it was incredibly hard, so hard that only beings with [SS]-rank skill over the power of lightning is Zeus."

The badger stood in front of Luxinna.

"And the only reason he managed that was that he was born with a cheat code called [Child of Lightning]!" Scathach proclaimed. "Luxinna, you are practically born to use lightning! Backlash!? You are practically immune to it! Rebellious nature!? Lightning behaves like a puppy before you. My dear girl, you can fire off the most calamitous magical attacks known to man back-to-back with zero hindrances. No one in Phantasia but Zeus can do that. To make it even more broken, your version of that cheat ranked even higher than him."

The badger didn't stop there despite the goddess and the elf shocked expression toward her outburst. Instead, she continued to display her gratitude toward heaven.

"Then we arrived at your race! Elves already have high dexterity and magic stats. When combines those traits with lightning-based reflex-augmenting technique, calling you the second coming of Zeus is not an exaggeration. Hell, maybe you might be even stronger than him."

The goddess nearly dropped her tablet.

"Wait? How could she be-" The goddess said, then she remembered the goal of this session. "Oh! The Mana Core!"

It was known among the three that Rem discovered the secret of the Mana a week ago. With that knowledge, Cytortia and Scathach derived a unique model of the awakening circle to access the Mana Core.

Rem's case studies suggested that Mana Core was a crystallization of the subconscious created by mana and magical power as a container for latent abilities. The knowledge and technique Rem gained from that place allowed him to beat a member of a magically superior race like Luxina and survived a battle with the Paracis with only one week of training. With this hypothesis, Scathach and Cytortia gleefully developed the concept of Secondary Awakening.

If the first awakening, now termed as Primary Awakening, functioned as a method to awakened one magic. The process Luxinna ran through right now, the Secondary Awakening, was meant to access the Mana Core's original potential.

'So what it's like?" Luxinna asked Cytortia as the blue spark surged around her.

Cytortia fiddled uncomfortably. Sweat trickled down her cheek.

Luxinna suddenly had a bad feeling about this. Scathach, seeing the goddess being back to the psychological corner, decided to speed in and intercept the incoming truck.

"She tried, but it didn't work so well," Scathach said. "The best guess we have is that our general approach to spell-casting inhibits ease of Secondary Awakening. Rem said that Mana acted like sunlight to grow Magic, given that modern spellcasting burnt mana to fuel the spell..."

"The more you use spellcasting, the harder the Secondary Awakening," Cytortia completed Scathach's sentence. "We didn't confirm this of course, but it would explain why I have such a difficult time assessing Mana Core."

Scathach nodded and replied to Luxinna in a thankful tone.

"Which mean that you actually have the advantage over your entire clan because they never teach you spell-casting. Your mana is like Rem; completely and utterly untouched. He is a pure human and looked at what he accomplished in a week. Imagine how strong you would be after the same process."

The electricity beneath the sigil hit the crescendo and entered the elf. Luxinna felt like her mind shut off for a second. As her consciousness faded, she considered yelling at them about being used as a guinea pig.

Alas, her infamous luck just refused to hand her that opportunity.

...

A moment later, she woke up.

Golden vine weaved into the sky above her. The sound of the waterfall played a familiar melody into her ears as she laid on the smooth and glassy ground.

She managed to get up, albeit which much struggled. The elf soon found herself in the middle of a circular cavern. The cavern's wall was made out of semi-transparent golden glass. Glowing vines embroidered sparingly on those walls. At the center of the room stood a pillar of flowing liquid, illuminating the room with golden light.

Luxinna walked over to the waterfall of shinning fluid. Against her better judgment, she reached out her hand to feel its brilliance.

Suddenly, a current of golden water shot out of the waterfall and latched onto her arm. She jerked away, frightened by the soft electric sensation on her arm and started cussing furiously. She shook her arms desperately to get the liquid off.

The gooey substance didn't come off. Instead, it unleashed a bright explosion of lightning bolts and erupted into a hysterical flickering. Sparks created from the explosion acred across the room like it was attracted by lightning rods. Electricity webbed the circular cavern. The vines on the wall flickered dangerously in frustration.

Luxinna eventually calmed down after the fit and inspected the goo on her arms. It was a semi-transparent gel coated by a film of... was that electricity?

Luxinna recalled what Scathach said about lightning. It was wild and destructive. The episode she experienced a second ago told her that very well. Yet, the gel on her arm didn't look like a wild animal, it was more like a child wanting her attention.

Abruptly, a thought hit her. Why did she try to shake it off anyway? This slime wasn't doing anything to her. This was inside her own Mana Core; a crystallization of her own power for heaven sake. This ooze was a part of her, rejecting it didn't do anything.

Introspectively, she recalled something Rem spoke before he went into a deep meditation; this place was created by her world-view.

The elf stayed silent, a realization was dawning on her.

After she awoke her power, everyone aside from her grandfather and Eva avoided her like plagues. She understood them now. They were afraid of what they do not understand. And because of that, she also grew to fear of herself and resented her power for her society's sin.

If Magic had feelings, would it be angry? Angry at everyone who hated it for existing? Angry the master who resented it? Of course, it lashed out. Her Magic had as much abandonment complex as she did.

She took a deep breath. This was a time to prove she had become a better person.

"I'm sorry," Luxinna nursed the slime on her arm, trying to see the golden jelly as an extension of herself. "I should have been thankful you existed. Instead, I believed my father that you are evil. I was wrong... you deserved much better than this."

The slimy liquid glowed softly.

Luxinna grimaced. Her Magic was sulking.

"I promised to be better, okay but I really want to know more about you. Can you show me?"

The golden sludge contemplated for a second.

Finally, it leaped off her arms, bounced itself toward the pillar of liquid and jiggled; gesturing her to follow it into the brilliant waterfall.

Luxina got up, gathered her courage and dipped both hands into the flow of the falling fluid. The smooth molten gel crept up her skin and homogenized into glasses with crackles of thunder.

She pulled her hands out to see them coated in vines of golden glasses.

"Now, what can this do," Luxinna curiously drew on her power. With her mere thought, the vine started conducting the massive energy reserved that was her True Magic. With the power belonging to her alone, Luxinna threw a punch.

The torrent of force and lightning emitted from her fist with a momentum of dynamite.

The elf witnessed the raw force of her attack. Her jaw hung open as she recalled the declaration she made with her sister.

"Wow," the bewildered elf looked at the augmentation on her arms. "This is a dream come true, isn't it? Just how piss-off father will be when I beat a dragon with this?"

She smirked and looked back at the waterfall.

"You are amazing," Luxina said. "What else can you do? Come on! Show me something that will make father cry himself a river! You can do it!"

The liquid forming the pillar exploded out. Each blob suspended in the air and weaved itself into an intricated pattern. Branches of glasses stretched into limbs which bent into leaf shape sigil with a circular center. Over hundreds of them floated on the skies like a swarm of bees. Together, those pristine of lightning glass created a collection of majestic masterworks. They were a storm of sculptures. Each was an artwork worthy of the best glassmaker.

All these turrets waited for her permission to fire.

Luxinna grinned like a kid eating ice-cream. She finally got how it worked now. Her magic started as a malleable blob. Its fluid property allowed it to be bent and shaped into multiple forms. Once it formed a shape, it would crystallize into a lightning emitter; ready to fire devastating blast at will.

Now she badly wanted to see how effective these leaves were.

"3, 2, 1," she counted down gleefully. "Fire!"

She was not disappointed.

...

At the same moment in Rem's mind, a similar process was raging on.

Rem summoned a ball of rainbow light which dissipated into petal of red poppies.

[Not exactly a welcoming sign,] Central said. [Your Magic lacked emissivity.]

"So I couldn't shoot it," Rem sighed. "Limited range will be a problem. What can my Magic do?"

[Your Magic? Truth to be told your Magic have no clear properties aside from its instability.]

This was not good, his life-span was on a count-down. There was no method he could use to stop the Center-force from eventually taking over his body. The most logical option he had was to find some way to slow it down; an alternative method of a sort. He must develop a technique that can substitute for or he would be toasted. Moreover, he needed every ace he could get his hand on to save the world.

Rem facepalmed. Things would get ways harder.

For the past few days, Rem researched what was happening to Earth, and it was a disaster. North Korea ate the bullet as an invading force from one of Phantasia's faction, namely the Demonic Continent, took down the country. Sure, he might hate them, but that didn't warrant a massive number of civilians being taken as prisoners. It sure as hell didn't help when that army of demon managed to launch the invasion that bit of at least 60% of South Korea. Myanmar, who tried to stay neutral to Phantasia's advance, paid the price when they refuse to meet the ambassador from one of the factions; the Emma Enterprise. A joint assault between the Demonic Continent's battle-force and Emma Enterprise's infantries took out Myanmar out, along Taiwan and a chunk of China.

"Central," Rem managed to say. "You might not know this, but we are in trouble asap. That legislation the UN signed with the Olympian won't protect Earth forever. Sooner or later, Emma Enterprises and Demonic Continent will get smart and gutted Earth from the inside. We are only talking about two factions at least. If we start counting in the others, Earth was pretty much doom. I need to get my magic straight and be there in time to prevent the upcoming crisis."

[You are paranoid,] Cental huffed. [Terra United Legislation forbids the United Republic of Phantasia and the gods from directly intervening with Earths politic.]

Rem gave a dry laugh.

The Terra United deal was created in an emergency meeting and sign by the Olympians and the UN. The legislation's first clause enforced discount in trade of resources between the Olympus's vessel and UN. The second request that the UN joined the Olympian's and their allies as junior members. The third section stressed that the right and safety of all citizens and parties must be recognized.

"You knew that the middle east and part of Africa already got owned by Emma when they refused to join the UN right?" Rem said to Central. "The Demonic Continent isn't the member of the Olympian's vessel state and, from my research, Emma Enterprises isn't one either."

Rem stood up and revealed the gravity of the situation.

"So this is the situation; the gods and most of the 'legal' side of the world will act like a good guy, but they couldn't enforce total protection. Emma and the Demonic Continent won't bite that legislation. This is when we assume that the Republic of Phantasia won't do something nasty and backstab us. Remember we are talking about twelves organizations here. Twelves factions joined into an alliance with their own agenda. If you want to know how bad they could be, just take a look at the member: Lightwell. Look at Lucian Drakokia's character? Would you expect him to do the right thing? Hell no. I don't even think he has a moral in the first place."

Rem huffed up and summoned his magic.

"The deal was never meant to last, Central. Without a symbol, with no examples to strive up too, humanity is out for ourselves," Rem tried to summon his magic. "Every faction in Phantasia are out to get each other, swallow every last benefit and keep it until the world enemy eventually overwhelm us. That fact is set in stone, but I will reverse that sucky destiny even if I died doing so."

Suddenly, both of them heard a footstep.

'Interesting,' said a deep and gentlemanly sound. 'Isn't wiping them out much easier? You just have to walk into the meeting room and open fire at every evil asshole. A couple of massacres will be enough to get them in line. Maybe we might even need to put their children in front line as an encouragement.'

Central and Rem looked at the figure walking across the field of poppies.

"So the loser has returned," Rem's eyes turned five degrees colder. "I assume you want round 2."