A bright light covered the whole city, and an explosive force pushed everything back. It was hard to see what was happening because of the bright light. As soon as that punch connected, Wilbert felt like a massive burden that he had been carrying for a long time left his body.

“Ahh, I should’ve intervened.”

Idarin reached his hand forward, the ones who had a barrier spell were already casting it, but Idarin’s was more extensive and took everyone inside around. The vast explosion didn’t even scratch his barrier. Aaron turned towards him.

“Why do you never participate?”

Idarin smiled instead of answering. It took a while for the blinding light and immense force to disperse. When it did, there was only Wilbert standing. The houses, the palace, the trees around were all gone, vaporized. The city looked like a dry land, and the cause for all of it was just a punch. Elius was watching the scene with his mouth open.

‘All that time, when we were sparring, I thought he was just fast. I thought I could surpass him before long if I worked hard. But this…’

A wall appeared in Elius’ eyes. It was a wall so long that he couldn’t see the top of it.

‘Let alone surpassing, can I even reach this level?’

Wilbert turned towards the ones who were watching and spotted Elius. He made a hand gesture meaning okay.

“Finally! Man, that felt good!”

But he was still standing there because he wasn’t able to move. He suddenly felt the mana leaving his body and heard a crack sound. That was the sound of his mana core. He smiled at Elius.

“Zero fucking regrets.”

And began to fall.

* * *

“Ooooh.”

Someone on a cliff in the Lazor Kingdom watched the battle from afar. He was clapping fastly as he had just watched an entertaining show.

“Did you see it? Did you see it? His experiment succeeded.”

He pointed towards there.

“Yes, I can see, but I still don’t get how is that possible. Putting a soul into a vessel, bringing it back to life, and giving it a purpose that it has to follow absolutely… Isn’t this beyond necromancy?”

The woman who was standing next to him seemed thoughtful.

“That is why we are searching for him, but something interesting is also happening.”

He squinted his eyes.

“There is someone who can use chakra in this hemisphere. How?”

“Yes, I also felt that, but congrats so you can feel it from this distance. Nice improvement.”

“Mhm.”

He hurriedly rubbed his dark blue hair.

“Try not to think much, Kaiser.”

Kaiser put his hands on the ground and pushed himself lightly to get up quickly.

“I don’t care if someone uses chakra or not here. The important thing, how can he both use mana and chakra at the same time?”

He frowned.

“Isn’t that what you want to achieve?”

“…”

Kaiser rubbed his hair again.

“Is he like the ones in the history books?”

“Are you talking about that again?”

“A battle mage…”

He paused for a while and didn’t even blink.

“We should keep an eye on him.”

He turned and began to walk.

“Come on, Lyra.”

“Where to now?”

Kaiser smiled.

“Watching them running around as a little group made me a little jealous. Let’s find some group members for us too.”

Lyra also began to walk.

“Hmm, who do you have in mind?”

“For starters, let’s go to the Limbo Prison.”

Lyra surprised.

“The prison that high-rank adventurers guard?”

“Hehehe. Yes, we will help prisoner 009 to escape.”

“Oh, the guy we heard a few days ago? How do you plan to control him? Don’t ask me to beat the shit out of him until he accepts. That is getting boring.”

A paper appeared on Kaiser’s hand.

“There are really convenient items in this hemisphere. This paper lets two people make an unbreakable agreement.”

They went deeper into the forest with a weird smile on Kaiser’s face.

* * *

Ruvyn opened his eyes.

“What?!”

And he screamed in confusion. That also made Liam scream.

“What?!”

“What?!”

Ruvyn screamed again.

“Why are you shouting?!”

“Ahh, every part of my body hurts.”

“You were sleeping for three days.”

“What?!”

“Stop saying what!”

Ruvyn took a deep breath.

“Where are we?”

Liam smiled.

“At Neil’s house.”

“You mean… the palace?”

“Yes.”

They both began to smile. Ruvyn whimpered and got out of the bed.

“To the explore! Ughh!”

They quickly got out of the room. It was a luxury that they had never seen in their entire life. Gold framed paintings, bowls, vases, countless luxury items, and a vast place.

“Woah… Too flashy.”

After curiously wandering around without touching anything, they saw Neil, going back and forth in front of a door hurriedly. He was biting his nails.

“This guy…”

Liam approached him.

“Are you fucking stupid?”

Neil didn’t realize them until Liam talked. He flinched.

“What is happening?”

Ruvyn asked.

“You know that ‘The Demon’ guy that Neil kept talking about?”

Ruvyn nodded.

“Turns out that he was Elius’ dad. He is also here, and this idiot can’t get in that room for some reason.”

“Ooh. Let’s meet him.”

Ruvyn got excited and opened the door.

“N-no wait!”

Neil hid behind the wall.

“Tsk. Tsk.”

Liam shook his head while giving Neil a pitiful look and went in after Ruvyn.

“Hey, you finally woke up!”

Elius said with a bright expression after seeing Ruvyn. Idarin, Ian Elius, and Wilbert were inside the room.

“Ooh, are these your teammates?”

Wilbert asked as he sat up in his bed.

“Yes.”

“Finally. Ruvyn, Algor was waiting for you to wake up since you came here.”

Idarin said while getting up.

“Why?”

Ruvyn was surprised. He wasn’t expecting that.

“I don’t know.”

“O-okay. By the way, why are we here instead of the academy?”

“Academy is destroyed. It will take a while to recover.”

Idarin said calmly.

“Damn…”

Before Ruvyn could ask anything, Idarin continued.

“I guess you are the only team that doesn’t know yet. I’ve changed the way the academy works, again. In six months, if you can reach C-Rank as an adventurer, I’ll graduate you.”

“Isn’t it too sudden?”

Elius wasn’t expecting it to end that fast.

“If you ask me, there shouldn’t be a necessity to graduate for people who want to be adventurers. After your graduation, I’ll also quit my job.”

“Hmm?”

Wilbert raised an eyebrow.

“What will you do?”

“I’ll mess around like we used to.”

Idarin said with a grin.

“Man, I want to come too. How come people still can’t heal a mana core?”

“What kind of idiot uses mana burst?”

“That bastard deserved it. But you know…”

Idarin waited for him to continue before leaving the room.

“Is it really true that it can’t be healed?”

Wilbert asked with a sly smile.

‘No way he did it on purpose. Even if his goal was to trigger the process, he didn’t need to use mana burst.’

Idarin smiled with the corner of his mouth.

“It took you long enough, you dimwit.”

The kids didn’t understand anything from that conversation. Idarin sighed.

“But you know, you are lucky to be still alive.”

“Umm, what happens if your mana core gets damaged?”

Ruvyn asked curiously.

“Worst case scenario, you’ll be dead, but in this case, since it is a little crack, he won’t be able to use mana anymore.”

“Damn…”

But despite that, Wilbert didn’t look sad. Ruvyn turned towards Ian, who was silent this all time.

“Why are you in bed?”

“I’m not sure…”

“Okay, kids!”

Idarin shouted.

“I advise you to start ranking up without wasting too much time. You can do it as a team or individually, but only those who reach C-Rank in a team will graduate. I’ll check others now. Byee~”

Then he hurriedly left.

“I want to go out too. I need some fresh air.”

Ruvyn said.

“Yeah, me too.”

Ian got up from his bed. Then all of them left the room together, leaving Wilbert behind. Liam looked around after they left, but Neil didn’t seem to be there anymore. The garden of the palace was huge. At a corner, Aaron was showing some moves to Eldron.

“Ooh, he found himself a good teacher.”

Elius said and began to walk towards there. Ruvyn took a deep breath.

“Ahh, I suddenly feel better.”

The palace looked even bigger from the outside.

“Must be good to live in a place like this.”

Ruvyn said while examining the palace’s exterior.

“Yes, it is pretty fun.”

Nora came from behind them.

“Ian! How do you feel.”

She completely ignored Ruvyn and Liam and focused on Ian.

“I just had some headache. Thanks for letting us stay here.”

“Hehe, You should be thanking my dad.”

“I’m also good, thanks for asking…”

Nora just smiled at Ruvyn in response to that. Then Ruvyn grabbed Liam and tried to drag him away.

“Let’s leave them alone.”

“Hm? Why?”

“Just come.”

Ruvyn facepalmed and dragged him away. They also followed Elius.

“Heey, you are awake.”

Aaron said after seeing Ruvyn.

“You are free to stay here until you completely heal.”

“T-thanks.”

“Elius.”

Eldron stopped swinging his glaive and turned towards Elius.

“Yes?”

“I’ll stay here until graduation. Sir Aaron accepted me as his student.”

“Ohh.”

His eyes began to glow in excitement. After all, getting direct training from the emperor was a rare occasion.

‘I should also ask Idarin to teach me some. Why do I keep forgetting it?’

“Okay, okay, don’t even think about failing to graduate.”

Eldron nodded with a smile.

“By the way, Ruvyn, Algor can come at any time. He said he needed to give you something.”

Aaron informed him, and the palace gate opened before Ruvyn could answer. It was Algor who came in.

“Here he is.”

Algor spotted them and quickly went there. He stood there for a while and gave a stern look to Ruvyn.

“Y-yes?”

Algor didn’t answer. Instead, a sword appeared in his hand. Before anyone could understand what was happening, he swung it towards Ruvyn.

“W-what?!”

Ruvyn tried to step back, but he wasn’t fast enough. He instinctively raised his hand to protect himself, and something weird happened. From the ground, vines suddenly shot up and built a wall between Ruvyn and the incoming sword. Algor stopped after seeing that, but the vines didn’t, and they tried to attack Algor even though he stopped.

“Fascinating…”

His eyes widened, and he took a step back to avoid vines. Everyone was confused.

“Since when can you control vines?”

Elius asked, but Ruvyn was as clueless as them.

“I’m not controlling them!”

The vines danced around Ruvyn after protecting him against a dangerous situation. Then they began to rub themselves to Ruvyn, like a cat.

“W-what?!”

Algor took a step forward towards Ruvyn, and again, the vines turned their attention to Algor.

“W-wait, he is not an enemy.”

As soon as he said that, the vines completely stopped moving. That made Ruvyn even more surprised.

‘I wondered why Algor kept wanting to see him, but this is interesting.’

Aaron was watching them silently.

“Okay, go left.”

Vines did what he said without delay.

“Go right.”

Ruvyn was speechless. He wasn’t even using mana. Then he pointed toward Liam.

“Immobilize him!”

Suddenly more vines grew and entangled Liam in the blink of an eye.

“Ew, take them off! Take them off!”

This time instead of commanding out loud, Ruvyn just thought about what he wanted vines to do. They followed his will.

“What is happening?”

Ruvyn turned towards Algor. Algor took out a letter and threw it to Ruvyn.

“You’ll go on a trip…”

Ruvyn didn’t understand what was going on. Algor also took out a map and gave it to him.

“…to the Empire of Dwarfs.”

“Dwarfs…”

Elius’ eyes sparkled.

“Count me in!”

And he shouted in excitement.

“What am I going to do there?”

“There is a ring only you can take.”

“W-why am I the only one?”

“Because it is only reacting to the mana of a high elf.”