I felt a fantastic power overflowing within me, there was even more that wanted to come out, but it looked like there was no energy to fuel this power.

I sighed and shook my head. I attained a power that I never imagined in my whole life, something that I thought would be going against the world itself. But here I am, looking at the stars in the sky, admiring the nature and the world that surrounded me.

Althaea was looking at me with an amazing face. It seemed that she had never expected my mutation to be so powerful.

Just like the mana had cycles and Nature force its nine concepts, mutations had stages as well. The stronger the body, the stronger the mutation. The Ki users nurture their bodies, and in consequence their mutations, making them evolve together with the body tiers.

Classifying a Ki user is a hard thing; after all, there is no bottleneck during the ki cultivation. The tiers were classifications that appeared after an in-depth study of how the body reacted, accumulated and could use ki. After this study, the rankings would be simple if you didn't consider mutations. Mutations could appear in many forms and manners.

Someone could awaken a mutation that transformed his body in fire at will; another one could only awaken an enhanced regeneration. They usually varied in strength as well. Two different people could awaken enhanced regeneration while in the first body tier, but one could have the capability to regenerate a lost finger and such injuries, and another one only superficial scratches. Until today, nobody could understand why the strength of the same mutation could variate so much.

Ullach mutation was undoubtedly one of a kind! He had enhanced regeneration, enhanced senses. And it seemed that there was still more to discover. These were only the things that he found until now.

"Ullach, Let's spar!" Commanded Althaea.

"Yes, master!" I sensed my surrounds and entered a fight position. I released my soul power and sensed everything around me. My soul power, together with my enhanced senses and high mana sight, would give me an edge in battles from now on.

Althaea opened her wings, and numerous wind feathers began to appear around her. They looked as beautiful as they looked dangerous. I concentrated my soul power and created aa rock cover and backed away. The feathers went through the wall as if it was nothing and continued to head in my direction.

I concentrated my soul force in my legs and backed away quickly. It was almost as if I had transformed into a gust of wind. I jumped sideways and swiftly evaded the feathers in a smooth movement. It was almost as if my body could do anything right now. Although I knew that my power was not endless, I could now evade master's attacks.

I formed a rock spear and threw it in her direction. The spear looked more like lightning bolt them a spear. Master swiftly formed a barrier around her and stopped the spear.

My concentration was at its peak. It looked like I could observe anything that happened around me. The battle continued for some time. Although I have received a massive power-up from the mutation, I still couldn't compare it to master's power. She was indeed a force of nature!

While I was frantically moving around the battlefield, she never took a step from her place, only threw attacks at me like they were nothing to her. She didn't even look like she had spent any energy.

I was surprised as well. While my soul force was beginning to get weaker, my body was still in top condition.

I wasn't even sweating, and my stamina must have improved a great deal for me to continue the battle like this.

"Let's end this," Althaea said while looking in my direction.

The air around me began to get colder and denser. A longsword formed of ice appeared in front of me. The spear only hovered there for a second and slashed at me. Even with my improved body and senses, I could not evade this attack.

"Slaaaash"

A huge gash appeared on my chest. I realised that master was holding back on me, because the wound was only superficial and could be healed using soul force in mostly two days, and if master helped me, the injury could heal in a moment.

I concentrated my soul force in my wound with the intent of stopping the bleeding and accelerate the healing. But it looked like my efforts were for nothing.

The wound closed by itself, almost as if a magical hand was making it happen. The blood that was on me began to enter the injury. I saw that the blood that fell on the ground tried to move in my direction, but it didn't have enough strength to reach me. After only 1 minute, I looked as new as possible. Even the blood on my clothes disappeared.

My healing factor was genuinely staggering! With the help of my soul force, the wounds could heal much quicker!

Master stood on her position, scrutinising my chest and looking for signs of anything. The only evidence left of the wound was the blood on the ground, and that stopped trying to move by now.

"Amazing! I had never seen a recently awakened mutation with so many powers as yours have." She said. "In the future, when you evolve it, I don't dare even to imagine what it can achieve."

"Master, my mutation still have some other ability. But it looks like I can't use it due to a lack of appropriate energy source, my life force, and soul force don't have the qualities that it needs to be used." I said with a pang of regret in my chest. Even to this day, my inability to use mana still haunted me!

"Don't worry about it. We still have plenty of time to implement and test your idea. While it can take a while, it will all be worth it!." She said to me.

I took a deep breath and calmed my anxiety. There was still plenty of time to find a solution. While I could not use any external energy by now, it was only a temporary thing.

"Sleep well tonight! Tomorrow we depart to find the dragon." She said with a calm face and went into her house.

I looked down at my shirt and saw that it was in shambles, it seemed that I would have to use the spare one for now.

I entered my hut and slept like a baby that night.

***

Waking up in the morning, I looked at the sun rays that were entering through the window. The valley looked as beautiful as always. In the sunrises, there was still a rainbow hue that appeared in the valley.

I packed my bags and looked the last time in my room. These last two years were the best years of my life. I had attained something that I have always wished for, albeit only slightly. There was still a long way to go.

I grabbed my greatsword and left my hut.

I looked at the sword in my hand and shook my head. In the distant past, I choose to train with a greatsword to challenge my limits when I was a little boy. I even invented the mana cutter technique to use with it. There were many good memories that I had with this weapon.

Looking at it now gave my heart a pang. I trained with the greatsword for the last two years as well, but it was dull and deformed by now. This happened in my first spar with Master when I tried to defend from rock spear. The weapon almost snapped in half. Lucky, it had a strong core that held it together.

I looked around, and many memories of the place began to come to me. It had been a long time since I had loved a place so much as this one. The clan compound was a place of suffering and struggles for me, but this one was a place of transformations and new paths.

I looked up and saw that Master was already waiting for me.

"What is that sad face for? It's not like we will never return." She shook her head while saying. "When you live as long as me, you will realise that places are not that important, there are more valuable things."

I looked at Althaea with a puzzled face like always. I had known her for only two years, and she always acted like an older person. She seemed to be in her early twenties. I knew that powerful people could age slowly or even stopping getting old at all for peak experts. But how old was she? It was a question that I would never dare to make.

I was pushed out of my thoughts by another surprise. Althaea began to form some circles in the air, using mana! It was the first time in years that I had seen her using it. She had always used soul force to fight against me. I had studied magic formations for many years before I met her, and she even helped me in my studies during these last two years. I could recognise a summoning formation when I saw one.

The formation that she was making was majestic. It was something that only high circle mages could use. She swiftly wrote the runes and completed the summoning circle.

I could feel a massive quantity of mana coming out of her and powering the formation. I had never seen someone use so much mana in my whole life. Although my clan was pretty powerful itself, I had never seen an elder taking action. The last time I saw someone using mana with such finesse, was when I last saw my brother, but the quantity and quality could not even compare with Althaea, even though he was already a sixth circle mage when I last saw him!

Tiomnach was a monstrous genius. He was already a sixth circle mage by the tender age of fourteen. Two years had passed now, and I felt that he may even have achieved the seventh circle by now.

The higher the circle, the harder it was to progress, and the seventh circle was especially tricky. From the sixth to the seventh circle, a mage needed to have a high stage of enlightenment in the element that he was proficient in so that he could form a specialised mana core for that element.

Many mages stopped their progress on purpose so that they could form a dual concept or multiple concepts core.

The stronger the concept that the mage had, the harder the breakthrough. Their clan mainly used wood, a concept formed by the combination of the aspect of life and the elements of earth and water.

The wood was a pretty high tiered concept, but I doubted my brother would form a core of wood. His vision was aiming much higher for only creating a wood core. Even before I left the clan, he was secretly meditating on the laws of space and time.

Some legendary clans only used these two laws, that had an inheritance rich enough so that their descendants could grasp the law of space or time through their inherited memories.

Even with their genetic memories, those descendants had to study hard and dedicate a long time to grasp it. Outside of these clans, only geniuses could understand these legendary concepts.

Tiomnach was probably still on the sixth circle, but Ullach wouldn't bet his chips on it, after all, his brother could achieve the impossible.

After the magic circle was adequately fed, a blinding light emanated from it, and Ullach protected his eyes with his forearm.

After the light vanished, a loud cry resonated through the valley.

"KYAAAAAAAA"

It lowered my arm and was stunned by what I was seeing.

In front of me, a huge bird appeared in front of Althaea. The bird was ten meters tall and had two pairs of wings, its feathers were cyan coloured, and it had a flaming crown on its head. The creature bowed in front of Althaea and rubbed its head against her hand.

I didn't even have words to describe how magnificent the creature was. I could also feel a high quantity of mana emanating from it.

"Flamy will be our ride for these next months." She looked at me and laughed at my flabbergasted face.