When the formation exploded, it was far enough from Alktarsha that nobody but one person could sense it.

That one person was Topaz, who was waiting near the mines after hearing from Arthur this was the place to find Cronix.

There was an explosion...? Maybe it was just two beasts fighting... Wait, That energy signature... It matches the one on the formation, and where Tornic died, that's where he is!

Topaz turned towards the forest, and began walking, but his walking wasn't slow, each step somehow took him 30 meters.

...

The bear's body was all burnt up and its feathers were everywhere, but it was still very much alive.

It roared at the sky as if to affirm that to the world. The ant was no longer in its view, so it wasn't as irritated, but that ant still managed to injure it, even if it was only a little bit, so its mood was still very much sour.

But now was time to feast on its reward, but when it looked for the crow, their pupils shrank. The crow was no longer dazed by the power of the beast core, instead it was fully aware, only it was distracted.

If Cronix paid more attention to the crow when he glanced at it he would've noticed how big the crow got. Before the crow was the size of any other crow, but now it was the size of a hawk.

Not only that, but its' stars were now all blue, but not the fifth star color blue, no this one was deeper, this was the flawless Caster stage blue. There was no difference in the power of the five stars which only meant one thing, the crow has reached the limit of the Caster stage.

The crow brought its stars in front of them.This was an important moment, so it didn't have any time to deal with the bear, but that wasn't a problem. The bear ran, it coward at the sight of all blue stars.

Two of the crow's stars slowly grew closer together, this was the key to entering the Core Creation stage, the integration of the stars to create a star core.

The stars slowly began to converge into one, but suddenly both stars started rejecting each other. The crow tried to regain control of the two stars, but they didn't listen and broke off each other.

The stars were a bit damaged, but there was an easy solution to repair them, either by resting or absorbing more of the star cores magic.

However the crow decided to end things here for right now, the forest was too dangerous to enter the Core Creation stage in.

When the crow looked up, it finally noticed how destroyed its surroundings were.

This is similar to the time Tornic exploded...

There was a concern gleam in its eyes, but the crow shook it off,

I need to find Cronix.

It took awhile for the crow to find Cronix, but they eventually found him, more than 300 feet away.

It landed on his forehead, and pecked on his eyelids, but this time it knew this wasn't going to work in the slightest.

It flew off his forehead, and into the forest, there were bound to be herbs to help a five star Caster.

After the crow left it was silent, and after twenty minutes, it looked like nothing else was coming.

Inside Cronix's mind, inside the mental expanse, laid Cronix's mental body. The mental expanse was barren, there was little mental energy left.

But that little mental energy was enough, after all of it converged inside his mental body, Cronix was slowly becoming aware again.

His mental body's eyes flickered, before his cat-like eyes became fully present. When his mind was fully aware again he looked around, and sighed "It seems like I'm in the mental expanse again, Why does this always happen?"

There wasn't really any explanation he could grab, every time he passed out through pain, he always found his way into the mental expanse.

Cronix shook his head, "This doesn't matter right now, the bear is still out there!" But after a minute he frowned.

Usually Cronix had full control over when he could leave the mental expanse, but right now, no matter how much he tried, he couldn't leave.

"Why can't I leave...? Why can't I leave...?" Cronix's frown deepened, and he played with his pendent that somehow made its way into the mental expanse.

"The last time this happened was when I fought Tornic, but even then, when I woke up I was able to leave. What's different this time?"

He thought this over several times before he came up with a conclusion, "When I was fighting Tornic I got injured, but I ended up okay, but this time, maybe... I'm almost dead?"

Even if he wasn't sure of this conclusion, it was the best one he got, and it wasn't that far from the truth.

Right now, Cronix's real body was practically an inch from death, but there was also another part.

"My mental energy is all gone too, I've overstrained myself, so this is probably my mind telling me to rest..."

This was the other part, without mental energy the body couldn't function correctly, so in order to protect itself from further strain, it contained itself within the mental expanse, of course this only happened to mental energy users.

Cronix's mental energy was slowly recovering, but not nearly fast enough for Cronix to leave the mental expanse in a short amount of time.

"I wonder what's happening with the crow. I hope it doesn't blame me for things going wrong."

Thanks to being in the mental expanse, Cronix still didn't know that the bear had already run away, and even if the bear was still there, it would've been the least of his worries because something else has currently appeared outside of Cronix's body.

The silence of the woods has been disturbed with the arrival of a person, this person had black hair and reddish-orange eyes. A mysterious magical force came out of his body, and quickly scanned the area.

He was easily able to find the bloody cloaked figure on the floor. Topaz picked up Cronix's body, and saw how young Cronix was, "This is the one who killed Tornic? That man was truly pathetic."

Topaz's head was shaking, this was just sad, one could easily see why Tornic was called the embarrassment of the Ayuna family just by the fact that he was killed by a 14 year old kid.

That's it, I want to see the full face of that trash's killer.

Topaz grabbed Cronix's hood and pulled it off. This time he couldn't stop himself from laughing at Tornic, "And... He died... To a... Demi-human!"

Cronix's horns made it perfectly clear what he was, he was no doubt a goat demi-human. One had to keep in mind that it wasn't often one comes across demons or kereta genuses, so it was easy to mistake one for a demi-human, especially when the rumors are often exaggerated.

"Father, how did you create such a miserable son?" Topaz mumbled as he threw Cronix over his shoulder.

"Wait, this kid is about to die... would I get in trouble if he did?" Topaz thought about it and sighed, he would no doubt be blamed for his death. He put Cronix's body back down and touched his chest, magic slowly began to fill up his body.

They flooded his injuries, and all his burns, slowly mending and healing them. New skin grew out and covered all his wounds.

He picked Cronix back up and threw him over his shoulder again, and as he began walking out of the forest, he suddenly dodged to the side.

A bolt of dark magic exploded right at the spot he was standing, Topaz wasn't surprised and despite the fact that he was almost hit with a magic blast, he had a lazy smile.

The crow was perched on top of a tree branch, there were some green plants in its talons. "I was wondering what you were going to do." Topaz said, looking directly at the crow.

Topaz's figure suddenly disappeared from the crows' view, but it suddenly heard a voice right next to them, "A flawless five star Caster, I think you would make a good present for Onyx, his birthday is coming up."

The crow was spooked out of the tree, but Topaz reacted quickly, scooping the bird up. The crow tried to struggle, but its' Caster strength wasn't nearly enough to break free from his grip.

Cronix's eyes slowly fluttered open, after building up enough mental energy, he was finally able to force himself awake.

The first thing he noticed was the angle of his view and the pressure on his stomach, there was also a picture he could see in front of him.

This picture was of a large flame with an orange A inside and an axe and a sword on the sides.

Isn't this Tornic's...?

That's when he heard the cry of the crow, and he panicked.

Cronix started to struggle off whatever he was on, only to find out he was on a person's shoulder. He began gathering the elements and whatever mental energy he could gather, which wasn't much.

Topaz looked at Cronix with his lazy smile, "I think I liked you better when you were passed out."

Topaz used his free hand to touch Cronix's back, he eliminated any mental energy and magical elements he gathered, he also sent in his own magic, knocking Cronix out again.

After Cronix was taken care of again, Topaz put his attention back to the bird, he finally noticed the silver collar around their neck.

At first it was too insignificant, and it blended in with the bird's silver feathers, but looking at it now, he could easily sense its intent.

This is pretty good, I don't think Onyx would've been able to see through these formations, but this is no problem for someone like me.

But it's a good collar, it could be useful for a sneak attack, and going by the mental energy inside, the formations were made by this kid.

I guess this kid was the owner of the bird, but that can easily change...

Topaz reached inside his magic bag and took out a bronze disk, there was a complex formation on it.

He injected some of his magic on it and a few seconds later, an 3-Dimensional image of a burly man showed up, his rough voice came out of the disk, "This better be important."

"Regan, remember that favor you owe me?" Topaz went straight to the point, "I need you to deliver some things for me, meet me at a place called Alktarsha."

"Alktarsha? I could do that, but what's the cargo, I need to be prepared." The rough voice continued, "But if it's too much for my crew, you can forget it."

"It's just a demi-human, and a bird, nothing big. The only reason I'm not doing this myself is because there are still things I want to do before I go back to the Ayuna residence. I'm still in trouble for helping you last time, this is my first time going out since then."

Regan sighed, "Fine, but you're lucky I'm near Varence, it'll only take a day to reach there."