After leaving Lance Owari made his way to Noel’s. The train wouldn’t be leaving for another two days so the two of them were planning on lazing around together since it would be a while before they got the chance to do so. After all, they were going to be pretty busy in the future. When he got there he immediately laid on the couch. He was feeling very lazy today, he found the stronger he got the more complacent he got with his training. He would need to fix that habit in the coming few months, but for now he decided to indulge a bit.

“Where am I supposed to sit?” Noel stared at Owari who was taking up the whole couch.

“Who says you need to sit? Just lay down with me.” Owari looked at her with amusement.

“Where am I supposed to lay down? You’re taking up the whole couch.” She argued.

“You’re clever, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” He said with a grin.

Noel looked him over for a second before shrugging and laying on top of him. “There we go, there’s plenty of room here.”

“See? I told you that you could do it.” Owari chuckled.

“Indeed.” Noel smiled.

“I kinda want to just lay like this for the next two days.” Owari wrapped his arms around Noel who snuggled up to him.

“Me too. It’s more comfortable than I thought. I had assumed with your muscles you’d be hard as a rock.” Noel laughed at her own joke.

“That would be my water and mud affinity at work.” Owari replied. “Not that it matters.I’m just happy you’re comfortable.”

“Of course.” Noel leaned up and kissed him, he obviously returned the kiss. “Let’s sleep like this tonight. It’ll be a new experience.”

“Here or on the bed?” Owari asked curiously.

“Whichever one makes you more comfortable. After all you’ll be the one laying down while I’ll be up here.” Noel smiled.

“Well I’m just glad you got over your snoring. Though you still drool.” Owari teased her.

“Then I guess you’ll wake up covered in drool.” Noel’s mouth twitched as she fired back.

Owari shrugged. “Could be worse. I always take a shower in the morning anyway.”

“True.” Noel chuckled.

“I’ll take the bed.” Owari got back on topic. “It’s more comfortable than the couch for sleeping.”

“Fair enough. I’ll make sure to change into something special before bed.” Noel smiled mischievously.

“I’ll be waiting with bated breath.” Owari wasn’t going to let her throw him off.

“How unfortunate, looks like I’ll have to do something very special this time.” Noel fell into thought, causing Owari to smile forcefully. He had no idea what he had just done.

The two continued to talk and play around with one another until the sun fell and night time came in. When it did they moved to the bedroom where Owari laid down right away. Even though he had laid down all afternoon he was still feeling lazy. Noel on the other hand had to prepare for bed. She immediately stripped to her underwear and made her way to the bed.

“You can’t be serious.” Owari said with some hesitation.

“As a heart attack.” Noel got on the bed and crept her way up on top of him. “I wonder how much sleep you’ll be getting tonight.”

“Probably not much.” Owari admitted with a sigh. She had finally done it. He had been wondering when it would happen.

“Good.” She smiled happily and fell asleep within a few minutes leaving Owari to stew in his thoughts.

The next morning came slowly for Owari, and when he woke up Noel didn’t let him escape for nearly half an hour. Eventually they managed to get out of bed completely. Today Owari wisely chose to sit on the couch normally. Noel didn’t let him escape though and sat on his lap. Owari sighed and accepted his fate. Eventually after spending the day together they went to sleep once again ready to leave and get things going. Noel seemed to have been comfortable the night before as she wore the same thing to sleep that night.

The next day they made their way to the train station and got on a train and made their way to the dragon territory. Owari took a thousand or so credits out of his store's account to use for the trip. He planned to do some hunting once he got there to earn some money. Dragon materials always sell for a lot.

The 12-day trip was neither fast nor slow. As always they spent the time in meditation slowly but surely expanding their mana. Owari found his mana breathing method never slowed down and continued to raise his mana slowly but surely allowing him to amass a decent amount of mana at a good pace. He had also taught Noel about it, and while she wasn’t as good as him it still allowed her stagnant growth to get a burst as she was born with so much mana it was difficult to get more.

When they arrived they went to the same guesthouse as usual and treated it as if it was their own home. After ensuring that they were comfortable in the house again they made their way to the receptionist for Francis and set up an appointment for tomorrow. Seeing as how they had a full day to do stuff they went into town and did some sampling of the local foods to try and find the best place to eat in town.

After finding a good place in town they remembered it and made their way home. After a good night's sleep and after the morning was through they made their way to Francis’ meeting room a little after noon time after eating out at the restaurant from the day before. It was a quaint out of the way cafe with okay food but good drinks and snacks which were perfect for a light lunch.

When they entered the meeting room with him he couldn’t help but sigh. “Is this a serious topic?” He seemed to read their faces.

“Very.” Owari said with a casual smile.

“I see. So what is it? We’re on a time limit.” He hurried things along. He couldn’t afford to talk forever.

“Well I should start by saying Noel’s mother tried to sell her off to the Osiris family.” Owari began with the start of it all.

“I was aware of the deal. However I didn’t think much of it. After all you two didn’t strike me as the type to accept it. I tried my best to keep it from happening but she did it anyway. Unfortunately Noel’s father played the role of guard dog and helped his wife sign the deal. It was quite baffling as recently he had started to warm up to you. Yet he suddenly switched to her side on this despite knowing how that family treats outsiders.” In truth Francis was confused about the whole thing.

“Father agreed? I’ll have a serious talk with him next. Is he here?” Noel said with a frown.

“Yes he is. I put him under house arrest for going behind my back. He’s being punished severely.” Francis nodded.

“Alright, I’ll talk with him later.” Noel let Owari take it from there.

“Well I came here because I have a goal I want you to help me with.” Owari kept his casual mannerisms.

“What is it?” Francis wondered what it was. He assumed it had something to do with getting a hold of the contract.

“I’m planning on tearing down the Osiris family and I was wondering if you could help me.” Owari didn’t change his expression at all.

“You want to destroy their family over this?” Francis was shocked, that was quite petty of him.

“Not just this, but also their actions and treatment of others. I’m sick of people who run rampant among society. We have enough to deal with due to magical beasts, let alone infighting.” Owari was done with all of the infighting among humanity that weakened their overall ability to protect themselves.

“I see. It’s true that they aren’t the most reputable family around. What exactly do you want from me? I won’t do anything unless I can get benefits out of it.” Francis couldn’t concede this point. Him helping would require an equal benefit for the family.

“I have another thing to ask first. I want you to help the Luna family gain recognition. Specifically I want you to be the main party interested in their success. This in itself isn’t a bad thing for you. The Luna family would owe you a debt of sorts, and Noel and I plan to have our wedding at their gathering hall so the two families will have some ties to one another. I don’t need to tell you what you can gain from that.” Owari explained the least important thing first.

“Alright, I planned on supporting them from the start. From what I heard it was a good party. The addition of platinum rank geniuses was quite a good decision.” He nodded, this was no problem. It was trivial to put in some extra effort to get them recognized for sure.

“That’s good. Now onto the first benefit. Noel and I will start a training regimen among the younger geniuses to help them reach platinum rank. We’ll allow two Silverbloods to join. This will give you some extra sway among the bigger families if they succeed. Though choose wisely as the training is both difficult and dangerous.” Owari gave the first benefit.

“Can you really do it?” He was curious, if they could then it would mean the family would soon have perfect instructors for the next generation.

“Probably. Though the success chance with Silverbloods is lower since we can’t explain how to achieve the evolution of mystic arts into spirit arts.” Owari replied.

“I see. I won’t allow you to explain the secret, but if they happen to find out through other means there is no helping it.” He secretly gave consent to letting them know the trick.

“Alright. That brings me to what I want you to do specifically. I want the Silverblood name to be behind my actions. I also want you to help me cut them off. What I want is for you to use some resources to have their supply chain be cut a bit.” Owari responded.

“That will be a bit hard, but if you can get the two to platinum rank then I’ll do it. Until then I will only lend you our name.” He gave a concession to Owari.

“That’s fine, I wasn’t planning to enact my plan until after that’s over.” Owari accepted the concession easily.

“What is your plan exactly?” This was an important factor.

“I plan to call in favors with various agencies and families to cut them off and help me squeeze them dry. Once their supply is gone they’ll start hedging money to obtain the materials discreetly, at that point I want to attempt to catch them in the act of illegally obtaining items and use that to systematically tear down their management. After that it’s only a matter of time before the family is forced to do menial tasks to make up their expenses.” Owari laid out his plan. “And it all starts by helping a number of families and agencies to obtain platinum rank geniuses close to our own level.”

“So your training program is to show the various groups of interest your ability to teach others and show your worth in investing in a good relationship with? How cunning.” Francis was impressed, he could now fully see how he went from a nobody to someone few would mess with. He was systematic and thorough.

“Now then as for the details of the plan, I still need some time to sort out the specifics. For now though I have the simple roadmap. Train people, show my worth, build relations, call in the favors in exchange for some light debt to each to build relations for both sides, and then enact the plan.” Owari gave a more detailed plan to ensure both sides understood.

“Alright. Just hold up your part of the bargain and I’ll back you. When is this training taking place?” Francis needed some time to choose the best people for it.

“The end of the month is when it begins. As for who to choose, talent means little. What is important is battle experience and a knack for surviving.” Owari explained.

“Talent doesn’t matter?” He was surprised.

“My method is forceful, how else do you think an average guy like me got so strong so quickly?” Owari said with a smile.

“You’re average?” Francis thought such an idea was ridiculous.

“If I used the normal method of slowly training over time I would probably be mid silver right about now. Maybe high silver.” Owari explained.

“That’s still above average.” Francis insisted.

“I doubt I would easily reach gold rank. I would probably be stuck at silver rank for years.” Owari countered.

“Most people do reach their limit about there.” Francis seemed to understand. Some people were fast to reach that level but slow to breakthrough. “It should be about time though.” Francis looked at the nearby clock.

“Alright. It was nice to see you.” Owari stood up.

“Next time we should spend some quality time together.” Noel said with a sigh. She rarely gets to see her grandfather after all. It was only when she was younger and had been cut off from the world that he would make a point of coming to see her so she didn’t get lonely.

The two of them met up with Morgana outside and made their way around the town wondering what to spend the next few weeks on. In the end they decided to go hunting at a nearby lake. It was rather small but it was big enough to have some decent beasts in it. Supposedly it had platinum rank. However Owari was mostly interested in some gold ranks to make some pocket change.

When they arrived it was quite nice looking, the lake wasn’t the clearest or most beautiful. But combined with the sunset and the nearby woods it looked nice enough. Since it was getting late Owari decided to just draw before they went to bed. When they woke up the next morning they made their way to the beach where they looked around for some beasts. Eventually Owari spotted something in the water.

“I think it’s a serpent.” He said with certainty. He pulled out his sword and swung it with silver wave cutting its head clean off from a dozen meters away.

After he killed the sea serpent Owari jumped into the water and swam over, dragging it back. It was a mid gold-ranked serpent with dark blue metallic scales. “What type is it?” noel asked curiously.

“Not sure of the name honestly. But I do recall that this type of metallic blue scale belongs to a metal and water affinity snake. It has some strong affinities hence the high ranking. It was pretty weird to have it so close to the shore.” Owari wondered what such a strong beast was doing by the shore, but it did make sense seeing as how it wasn’t aquatic.

“Well this should be decent money. Metal and water affinity scales would make for good defensive armor.” Noel noted.

“It would only help against gold ranks, but then again that should be enough for most.” Owari chuckled.

“Of course, it’s not like gold ranks are common either.” Noel laughed lightly.

The two continued their hunt. At some point they made their way to the center of the lake using their own methods. Owari ran over the water using wind walk, while Noel seemed to lose all weight as she ran across the water's surface. When they arrived towards the center of the lake they got to work. They would show their presence as being weak and use themselves as bait and kill whatever looked like it would earn some money. One hunted and the other brought the materials back to the shore.

By the end of it they had a few thousand credits worth of materials. Luckily they brought a car with a trailer for storing materials. When they were about to leave they noticed something stirring in the lake. It seemed they had annoyed the resident platinum rank with all their hunting of gold ranks. It couldn’t accept someone else infringing on its territory. Owari and Noel looked at one another.

“You can take this one. I’ll back you up if it looks bad.” Owari told Noel who became quite excited. She rushed out into the water towards the source of the aura.

Suddenly it rapidly approached her and tried to jump from under the water and bite her down in a single attack. However she jumped up in the air as lightly as a feather rapidly escaping from its jaws and giving both a look at the beast in question. It had the head of a bird with a serpents body, as well as two clawed hands. It looked like a messed up version of a serpentine dragon. It likely had dragon blood of some kind.

Noel could care less about what it had and didn’t have. She just grew excited when she sensed the power it held. She turned upside down mid-air and stomped on the air creating a shockwave and sending her down at the speed of sound. She reached it in an instant and used her force affinity to transfer her momentum and all her strength into her fist and activated one of her spirit arts. The air around her fist warped as she smashed it towards the serpent. As it hit a loud sound of shattering sounded out as she smashed it straight into the water. Her attack had enough force to cause the air to sound like glass shattering instead of exploding.

A large wave rose up as the serpent smashed into the water and sunk over two dozen meters into the water. It quickly reoriented itself and shook off the pain in its head before pointing its mouth at Noel. The water around it coalesced into a whirling ball. After collecting a bit of water it shot out a vortex of water at Noel who was floating up in the air from the rebound of her attack. Of course she could cancel this backward momentum, but she used it to put distance between them instead.

As the vortex approached she flipped mid-air and kicked the air to jump sideways out of the vortex’s path. After that she swung her arm in a slicing motion and a blade of force flew out at the speed of sound towards the serpent managing to create a gash in the side of its neck as it barely dodged out of the way. While it was focused on dodging Noel had kicked the air again and flew towards it smashing straight through the water.

As she approached she gathered a large amount of force in her hand dragging an equally large amount of water behind it. When she punched a lot of force smashed the serpent along with a jet stream of water which rattled its head and sent it deeper into the water. Noel followed it and punched again sending it flying to the side. She rushed below it and punched it up towards the surface causing it to break the waters surface and fly into the air a bit. Then she followed from under the water and like a cannon shell smashed it even further into the air.

The serpent didn’t sit still though and it quickly whipped its tail while mid-air trying to hit her, however she deftly dodged. Then it whipped its head towards her to bite down only to have its jaws caught by her. Then she kicked it in the roof of the mouth breaking its jaw and sending its head spinning. After that it shot a vortex of water at her, only for her to smash it apart. Without the lake water to support it the attack was so-so.

After smashing the water vortex Noel shot at it and punched it sending it flying. She continued to do this, occasionally getting under it to punch it up keeping it in the air. Eventually she reached the shore by their materials and punched it into the solid ground. Once it was on land it was exponentially weaker, and she got to work punching it over and over sending its head back and forth until its neck gave out and finally snapped.

“It sure had the vitality and defense of a platinum rank. But it's combat experience and strength were lacking. How boring.” Noel said with disappointment.

“Not everyone has as much raw strength as you.” Owari laughed. He had been sticking nearby the whole time.

“You could have easily split its neck and cut its head off.” Noel argued.

“I specialize in cutting so obviously I could bypass such a defence. You specialize in raw force hence why you could beat it to death. But a defence focused or guerilla tactic focused hunter might have had trouble with it.” Owari shot back.

“Fine, you’re right. But it was still cathartic to beat it into the ground.” Noel laughed lightheartedly.

“I bet it was. Your method of fighting would be quite satisfying. Maybe I should try beating something down with my bare fists.” Owari considered it.

“You don’t have a strength-based affinity though.” Noel refuted him.

“Remember that drake? It has a force affinity.” Owari reminded her. “Speaking of which, I need to practice some arts to see if I can create some new ones.”

“Go ahead, we have a while anyway. No need to rush.” Noel also decided to try the same, however her mystic arts were all straightforward.

“Alright.” Owari nodded and made his way over to the trees to practice.

Owari swung his sword a few times using the force redirection method and saw that it stimulated his force affinity. Then he used his force affinity to enhance his attack and was shocked. The affinity amplified his strength greatly and enhanced his swing sending a wave of force from his blade. It was a lot like Noel’s slash, but sharper. Owari swung his sword with all his might using the force affinity to transfer all of the strength of his body into the swing and amplifying it.

The air around his blade warped and as the sword swung through the air it caused the area in front of him to experience a great upheaval. As if being gouged out by a massive hand the dirt in front of him was torn from the ground and debris flew away from him as if swept by a gale. A massive fan-shaped gouge now existed in the ground in front of him taking up a space a few meters wide and a dozen meters forward. Owari then collapsed to one knee. He wasn’t exhausted but it had used a lot of mana and he wanted a breather.

“That was quite something.” Noel noted from the side. She suddenly got an idea and focused all her force into her fist and punched forward. Instead of a fan it created a large trench in the ground. “How interesting. I never thought of that.”

“I’m not sure whether to be proud of how quickly you picked up on what I did or bitter about how easy it was for you to figure out.” Owari laughed.

“It’s not as perfect as yours. Yours is more mana efficient. You clearly have some trick I don’t.” Noel was referring to his force redirection method which she had obviously never learned from him.

“I don’t think I can use it in this form. I should focus on using it as a supplement to enhance my other attacks.” Owari decided to use it to enhance his other attacks by redirecting all of his force into the attack instead of amplifying it.

“That’s a good idea.” Noel already did that herself hence why her ordinary punches were so forceful.

Owari swung his sword a bit to get a feeling for what it was like to direct all his force so easily compared to before. It was quite addicting not having to put so much thought into his attacks. After that he toyed with earth breaker and eventually got a trick down to allow him to avoid being in the blast radius when it struck the ground. The debris would go away and up above him instead of exploding entirely upward. This had the added benefit of extending the radius. Even if he doesn’t hit with it the sheer force behind the attack would kick up winds and strike the enemy.