Elementals are creatures formed purely out of elemental mana. They are extremely rare, and possess cores of similar design as dungeon cores; with the exception that they only accept elemental mana adhering to the creature it was taken from. Despite their value, elemental cores are extremely rare as finding and defeating an elemental is an arduous task. As elementals grow, they progress from lesser, greater, and then to elder elementals, which have been shown to have the most powerful cores available, only second to high-grade dungeon cores. Unfortunately, defeating an elder elemental is nigh impossible; they are the true essence of walking calamities should they be provoked. Sveran, the Highland’s guardian deity, is an elder earth elemental that went dormant after an invasion nearly a century ago. Despite its hibernating state, it has activated a defense mechanism that acts as a substitute as it rests; the Hell Valley Sky Trees. Unfortunately, it attacks both natives and intruders, which prevents the Highland army from going further to awaken the guardian.

An educational textbook about elemental cores

Cerebella meditated. Although her exterior was deathly still, her mind was anything but. New magical formulas, theories, and concepts whirled in her head like an academic tornado. The fairy-elf mage spent a majority of her days concocting new items and concepts, pushing the limits of what magic is capable of every single day.

Her eyes snapped open, and she hurriedly wrote the formula down, muttering calculations and words that even the highest level mages struggled to understand.

‘Twin primers go here, and putting down a seal matrix should prevent the whole thing from exploding…’

She summoned a massive, spherical crystal. It was nearly her size, and its glass-like surface gleamed like a million diamonds; a low-grade dungeon core worth tens and thousands of gold.

Cerebella’s pointer finger lit on fire. It started off as a cherry color, before turning a deep orange. The flame turned white, and many items in her vicinity began to spontaneously combust.

“Whoops. I’ll need Marco to fix that.” She muttered to herself. The mage summoned a barrier, encasing her and the entire room in a fire-resistant shield. Compressing the small flame on her finger, it became even hotter; and turned bright blue.

Despite the shield, many items that possessed strong fire-resistance properties began to melt. The walls stood strong, having been enchanted by the Archmage herself in order to conduct her experiments without having to constantly replace her furniture.

Condensing the flame into the size of a needle, she began to carve into the dungeon core. It was absurdly dense, and possessed insane durability that surpassed adamantium. However, the flames pierced the surface, and she began to write a runic script in a concentric pattern around the crystal sphere.

A few hours passed, before a knock on the door took away from her focus.

“Good timing. Marco, do you mind fixing up my room? I kind of got my hands full.” Her mesmerizing eyes didn't move from her project as she addressed her assistant behind the door.

Not even blinking, an older man with flowing, white hair entered the Archmage’s personal chambers.

“As you wish, ma’am.”

All the damaged items floated in the air, encapsulated by a soft, white light. Within seconds, the objects reverted into their original state. Marco’s display of chronomancy was mesmerizing, but the two acted as if it was a regular occurrence.

Marco quietly admired the Archmage at work. In all his decades serving her, she never stopped advancing; growing at a rate that surpassed his own.

Cerebella held enough concentration to continuously reinforce the magic barrier, which depleted at a rapid pace due to the sheer heat her flame gave off. At the same time, the mage continued her inscriptions on the dungeon core flawlessly.

“What do you need? As you can see I am somewhat busy…”

“The authorities have deemed it necessary to warn you about the Omen. It appears that their operations are more sinister than we’ve originally assumed.”

She snorted. Her eyes were still fixed on the dungeon core, not even pausing at the news. “That stupid cult? What a joke.”

To the Archmage, the Omen was nothing to be taken seriously. Their plans had been massive disasters throughout the decades, failing miserably upon attempted invasions of several kingdoms throughout the continent. Despite their fanatical devotion to world domination, they hadn't ever come close to succeeding.

She recalled that the only threat was their leader, an unknown that evaded all capture attempts and remained an elusive target.

‘If I recall, they tried to sacrifice a village to summon some demon several months ago. A wandering group of adventurers had foiled them with ease.’

“I fear not, ma’am. One of their agents recently participated in the Finamore tournament, and was interrogated upon discovery.”

Cerebella said nothing as the chronomancer read the reports aloud.

“Unlike previous encounters, this agent had powerful protections surrounding their body. An enchantment provided a false identity, which had him at level nineteen. His true level was twenty-eight.”

She absorbed this information with little trouble, knowing about the many ways one could deceive low-tier observation items. The Finamore tournament occasionally suffered from overpowered contestants hiding their true level, and invested in mid-tier observation items produced by the Tower of Magic to prevent it.

“High-tier mind magic was unable to bypass the man’s mind, and physical interrogation did nothing to reveal his work. A truth serum had to be consumed, which allowed for authorities to ask only one question before the subject expired.”

She remembered the truth serum. Although Cerebella wasn't the original inventor, she had played a role during its development to make it circumvent Mind Magic Resistance.

“They confessed that he was part of a plan to assassinate you in a long-term infiltration mission. Upon revealing this, the man collapsed and died on the spot.”

Cerebella continued to work, unfazed by what he just said. “Is that all?”

“Ma’am, I beseech you to take this seriously. Your safety is inte-”

She glared at the man. Her eyes shined like the night sky, and pierced him where he stood. Marco stiffened. His body trembled as a defense mechanism, coping with the attention it received from the strongest magic user on the planet. Despite his own notoriety as a skilled sorcerer, he wilted under the pressure from his teacher.

His aged hands squeezed into fists, and the man’s white eyes looked down on the ground, feeling the urge to prostrate himself before the Archmage.

Sometimes he forgot. Her kind, laidback attitude had led him to forget that Cerebella was a transcendent being. A god amongst humans who lived for centuries. Her hair floated in the air, changing colors with every move. Although his aging had slowed to a halt after reaching a high level, the Archmage looked the same as she did when they first met.

The pressure faded, and Marco breathed a sigh of relief. The Archmage perked up, looking at something to her left.

“Let me show you something, Marco.”

Wordlessly, she teleported them into the edges of Elway floating hundreds of meters in the air. Her casual display of space and wind magic keeping them afloat only served to show the gap between her and the chronomancer.

From several kilometers away, a green horde rapidly approached. Hobgoblins, ogres, and trolls rushed towards their city. An enormous monster wielding a tree trunk led the charge with alarming momentum. Thousands upon thousands of monsters acted as one on their march of destruction.

The dungeon core, now covered in arcane runes, inched closer towards Cerebella. She placed her hand on the ball, pumping out mana and infusing the item with her power.

Like a leech, it greedily absorbed her energy. The dungeon core’s unique properties allowed it to handle up to millions of mana points, making it an investment for the finest of mages who looked to create powerful items such as lich phylacteries, city-wide shields, and much more.

Brimming with esoteric power that shined like the sun, it vanished soundlessly.

Something began to form in the charging ranks of the monster horde. They stopped in their tracks, and several attacks were launched at the mysterious ball above their heads. Chunks of rock and dirt were thrown at it, and some makeshift spears bounced harmlessly off its surface.

A pillar of light completely incinerated anything within ten meters of the dungeon core. At first, beams of light sprung out from its side, moving in a circular motion and decimating the horde. Few of the higher-tier creatures survived, escaping the pillar with scorched hides.

Some were resistant to the light-magic. The ogres possessed absurdly tough skin suffering from mild burns instead of being outright disintegrated.

The pillar of light stopped spewing out lasers of death, switching to high-speed jet streams of water. Its speed meant that it pierced through tough monster hides and blasted them away, causing chaos in their ranks.

The leader of the horde, a mutated ogre with red skin, was drenched and enraged. It hurled the tree trunk at the pillar of light, and roared to the heavens. An unsightly red aura bubbled from its pores, indicating that it was a high-level monster. It rushed towards the pillar, intent on breaking the mysterious construct destroying its army.

Lightning crackled, as yellow arcs shot out and electrocuted the monsters. The red ogre was susceptible to this form of damage, spasming on the ground after the powerful elemental attack.

By this point, the horde had been decimated to a quarter of its original size. A brief pause from the pillar gave the monsters hope that the onslaught had ended.

Until an explosion of ice left everything within a kilometer radius frozen.

It was followed up by a layer of magma surging outwards, dropping on the frozen horde like apocalyptic rain. The red ogre displayed considerable resistance as the ice melted, but eventually succumbed to its wounds and the intense heat.

Within a few minutes, the horde had been utterly destroyed. Marco gulped nervously, knowing that he couldn’t even replicate a tenth of what his teacher was capable of. The statement of power was more than enough to convince him that nothing short of another transcendent being could match her power.

‘How far will she reach? Master is already at the zenith of our kind, but she still improves at such a fearsome rate.’

“Now you see why I care little for petty criminal organizations? They are not the first to try and bring about my downfall, and they will certainly not be the last. I will take them seriously once they show that they are a threat.”

With the demonstration over, the dungeon core appeared at her side once again. The glow had died down, indicating that a significant chunk of its reserves had been used in the attack.

“Bring this to the R&D division. Have them improve upon the prototype and refine its mana output, see if it can be mass-produced. If they encounter problems, let me know.”

As her assistant and right-hand man, Marco bowed. His faith in the Archmage was renewed once again.

“As you command, ma’am.”

Jack Kellinton sighed. His head was wrapped in bandages, looking through documents and reports from his contacts far and wide.

He eyed the newspaper which described the conclusion of the Finamore tournament, and saw the description of the champion. A small, pale boy who boasted incredible magical and physical prowess. The photo on the paper showed the injured boy standing amongst unconscious bodies. A massive warrior triple his size collapsed on the ground in a pool of his own blood.

‘There’s no doubt. He was from the attack a couple days ago.’

Jack knew the Rose family. The descendants of the first vampire, Dracule Rose, had all made a name for themselves. His thirst for vengeance dried up right then and there. The survival instincts that allowed him to thrive in a world full of monsters had activated, and he opted to lay low instead of dying in a foolish quest for revenge.

‘Braham the Unfallen’s brother. Gideon Hellscythe’s son. I would rather take my chances jumping into a volcano. Atleast that would be a quick death.’

The former adventurer shivered. He vividly remembered being dispatched to Pearl Island, and witnessing the Unfallen’s genocide on the island natives. It took the intervention of the island’s guardian for the fearsome vampire to retreat.

His search for the red-haired man turned up no results, however. Aside from a minor appearance at the coliseum, there were no previous sightings of a powerful red-haired man prior to the scuffle he had with them.

‘The only one who matches that description is General Reinherz of the Idil Empire. But I know he doesn’t look like that. Nor is he affiliated with the vampires. Perhaps it is a disguise?’

His door opened, and he didn’t even look up. The people he had recruited lacked etiquette or manners, but he grudgingly admitted they could be relied upon for basic tasks.

“I told you buffoons to knock bef-”

A heavy thump on the ground forced him to look up. The man he had stationed to guard his office fell unconscious to the floor.

He scrambled to get into a fighting stance, grabbing the knife he had installed under his desk.

The red-haired man grabbed his forearm, tightening it to the point that Jack was forced to drop the weapon, clattering to the ground harmlessly.

“Easy, easy.” The man spoke in a neutral voice. “I’m not here to beat you up again.”

“That’s reassuring.” Jack hissed wildly. His brown eyes seemed to radiate hatred and fear. “You have an odd way of showing that.”

He let go of the man’s arm. But gave him a firm warning. “If you call for help, I’m breaking every bone in your body.”

The black-haired man stared at him balefully before sitting down. His mouth was set in a firm frown. He was still cautious; as he had sustained massive losses during their first battle and didn’t have proper equipment to defend himself with.

“Why are you here?”

“I need information. I want a floor plan for the Corpsfield Warehouse, and information on all the people stationed there. Levels, class, skills, anything. I’m willing to pay for this,”

Several gold coins fell to his wooden desk.

“In gold.”

Jack stared silently at the money on his table, and Chester inwardly got nervous at the possibility of the man rejecting him. Before his thoughts turned towards drastic measures, the gang leader spoke.

“I can get info on the security fast. But,” He gently collected the coins and placed them into a stack. “I don’t have access to the floor plan. There is a person in the Black Market which may have it. You’ll need to ask him yourself.”

Chester nodded. “That’s fair. I need it ready by tonight. If the information is sufficient and accurate, I will reward you handsomely.”

'With the money you've robbed of me?'

He picked up the sword that dropped to the ground. Chester's forearms flexed, and the iron weapon bent into an L-shape.

“I trust you know the consequence of giving me false or misleading info?”

Although Jack didn’t display any outward reaction other than a curt nod, Chester knew he got his point across. A few more minutes establishing details of exactly what he needed. He also requested for more information on the Omen, as his budding curiosity made way for another plan. Seeing and hearing rumours about Jasiah's affiliation with the terrorist organization sparked the creative side of Chester's brain.

“That will be all. Farewell.”

Chester turned and left, stepping over the guard’s unconscious body. His body faded as he descended down the stairs, where several men worked, unknowing of what had just transpired in the floor above.

To onlookers, it would seem as though the door to their building opened on its own.

‘Well, that went as well as I’d expect.’

Chester was prepared for a physical confrontation. Their battle had taught him just how outclassed they were and knew that adding his vampire sidekick was overkill. The man could take out the entire building in a matter of minutes, and he knew that the gang leader was aware of that fact.

Working as a criminal, he knew how to entice and coerce people into his cause. Chester was also aware when there are lost causes, like his morally-upright companion. He used it to his advantage, securing information to use later in the future, and decided to forge long-term relationships in an effort to have some semblance of permanence in his life.

‘He seemed cowed. But rats like these need to be fed, otherwise they’ll get hungry and bite me.’

The man turned on his heel. The directions to the Market were oddly specific, but it still remained in the adventurer’s district. He opened the doors to a butcher shop.

Inside were monster and animal carcasses; some of which he recognized. They hung on meat hooks as a few people worked inside, and citizens checked their available products, looking for the highest grade meat they could find.

“Is Jogor here?”

A muscular man with a scarred eye approached him. “That’s me.” He was several inches taller than Chester, with scarred forearms that evidently went through hard labor on a daily basis. A bloodstained apron wrapped around trunk-sized neck, giving the man a vibe of a serial killer.

“I’d like twelve pounds of hippogriff meat.”

He didn’t move a single muscle. “White meat or dark meat?”

“White.”

Jogor waved for Chester to follow him into the back of the shop. He half-expected an ambush and readied himself to swing on Jogor's bald head, but was pleasantly surprised to see a hatch that led underground.

“Don’t make any turns. Keep heading straight and you’ll find the main square.”

Heeding his advice, Chester climbed the ladder. It was pitch-black in the dank tunnel, and he casted Minor Illusion to provide a source of light. The path was made out of concrete, and it diverged into a forked path after a minute of walking.

“How the fuck am I supposed to go straight?!”

He cursed, but his sixth sense began telling him there was something off about the wall separating the two paths. The light didn’t reflect properly on it, remaining the same color with or without a light source.

Chester pressed his hand, and the illusion vanished.

“Oh…I’m a smart bastard.”

His expertise on illusions had served him well. Working closely with them had allowed him to recognize the flaws and inconsistencies that came with illusions. One of which was that they were not affected by changes in lighting. They are mirages; it does not cast a shadow unless it is weaved into the illusion, and they do not interact with light and shadows the same way regular objects do.

These were all things he observed as he played with illusions. Chester began to feel a sense of satisfaction, knowing that his class wasn’t completely useless.

A light at the end of the tunnel could be seen after he passed through, and he made his way into the Black Market.

“Gotta look for Sandman’s Topography. Asshole forgot to give me the address…”

In his red-haired disguise, Chester slipped into the crowds to search for what he needed.