Logan returned to adventuring after Max told him he was free to do that. Naturally he would still train his division but he also began to take E and sometimes D rank missions alongside Storm, Jin and Jade.

Jade had shown off a great promise with the fighting techniques after evolving from her blessing. It made sense that she was turning into a paladin. Paladins were known for their immense arsenal of blessings. Of course, her physical strength was not as up to par compared to the other three.

The natural strength of Storm was obvious, he had also learned to train mana development in his human form and has been learning the sword causing his endurance and strength to rise another step.

Jin learned to fight hand to hand and used his hammers with extreme skill. He had a huge affinity for the ‘Fist of Regulus’ and it was among his favorite skills to train.

Among these, his skills at using his drums had greatly improved. Bards are a strange type of class, originally they were nothing more than musicians but the Hero wanted to see the fantasy stories of his world come to life in this one and actually taught magic to some of his closest bard friends of the time and they ended up developing an entire system of music related magic.

Since then, almost every instrument has been studied and this branch of magic developed, this naturally also included things like dancers who would use similar magic but used their dancing to cast it.

The effect of their magic is amazing when several bards and dancers combine their music and dances.

That didn’t mean they were weak though, they all learned to fight to protect themselves in this harsh world so even more subdivisions of bard and dancers were formed.

Jin had learned from one of these called Battle Musician. This subdivision learned the normal bard blessing music, which he is able to do with his drums without controlling the lightning all around but battle musicians weren’t limited to that. They use a special brand of music to cast very powerful magic.

Using the unique ability of blessings through music, Battle musicians can take control, enhance the power and use it to attack most natural elements in their surroundings.

This is quite devastating when Storm and Jin combine their powers. Storm calling a storm and leaving it in Jin’s hand is like putting a massive weapon in the hands of a professional.

It takes a while for the music to enhance and gather the power but even Logan and Storm would not want to deal with that much lightning in a single instant. It has one form and that is a pillar of lightning falling down from the sky.

Jin called it Heaven’s Wrath when he used a stick to talk to them.

At this exact moment, the four of them were not traveling, they had found a safe location in the wild. The last few months had been the perfect amount of time required for them to finish all their final cycles.

Before they had sat down, each of them gave a new oath to the altar of the Golden Lions and began to learn the D rank.

This system would upgrade as the previous system of vortexes would be swallowed up by the new one. Using any of them would decompress mana from now on.

The way to break through to this was to constantly compress and purify while trying to reach the limit so that once the mana exits the E rank vortexes bottom as it is released, the mana isn’t simply released, instead it suddenly gathers and ignites like a flame.

That spark would suck the entire vortex of mana into the flame and release D rank mana in the form of an extremely energetic flame like gas. It would cycle through his body doing the same throughout the entire body’s acupoints that were undergoing the same process forming a huge number of sparks that would inhabit the acupoints.

The training method follows that in the same method as when Jin was born and his flames were cycled to form a sphere, the flame needs to be rounded like that but the energy has to come out the top and circle the body of the orb and connect at the south pole. The circling energy needs to be spiraling and this will cause compression.

Once the mana is passed once through that, the orb naturally releases the mana into his body where he will have to do the same to every spark using the gathering mana. Once it is complete, they will have their basic D rank mana.

The benefits of this is that it has a weak but constant absorption through the first mana to be absorbed is likely to be the one in their body.

The reason they had stayed in the wild is that none of them knew the reaction they would have and each of them were in their most natural shape and wore casual clothing so that any armor wouldn’t be destroyed.

Storm was still 15 meters long and meters tall while Jin was like a lion cub.

They all sat absorbing mana, while Logan had figured out how to close the connection of the Micro world so that he does not suck up the mana the others needed.

At this moment, they were all absorbing mana and constantly grinding away and producing more.

Logan was just finishing combining the 9 vortexes into one leaving the F and E rank ones above and below but it was slowly sucked into the E rank vortex.

It kept growing while Logan was stimulating the vortex to compress more and as soon as it swallowed the last of it, suddenly a shine came from a node inside the vortex. It was a singular node of mana that had achieved a higher purity and compression beyond all others.

At the same time, the weight increased and it instantly began to drop while absorbing mana and finally it hit the very bottom.

When it did, Logan felt his body shake and he knew it was time.

He instantly stopped the E rank and started the D rank.

Mana coming in began to spin in a different manner and pushed into the vortex and channeled into that node. It began to shine brighter inside his mana pool while his body was sucking up mana at a much higher pace.

It maintained the vortex while the new glowing nodes began to form and drop down before merging with the glowing node making it bigger and bigger for close to half an hour until finally, a limit was reached. As if a barrier was stopping that energy, it began to pressure Logan.

This was a barrier basically all creatures had and as Max had explained, reaching the limits of a race and breaking it was each a challenge each step of the way.

Pain began to fill his body but he knew why and began to focus on the flow through his acupoints. The internal space of every one was large and had the same system going through.

He started on the next and mana focused until a node of higher quality mana formed and began to be fed. He left it and left it to grow naturally and went on to the next.

One by one he was forced to go through hundreds.

During that same time, the other three all entered the process and their bodies began to release a faint glow.

They were quiet for hours as they made node after node through their entire bodies until finally it all returned. The acupoints were all glowing as they filled and it was just a grinding game now and felt each of them as they kept reaching the limits and mana exiting from each node was better and better.

Finally as the limit reached the final acupoints before the mana entered the vortex glowing.

It was almost a different shade when compared and the old E rank mana began to get sucked into this slightly more compressed mana released by the nodes. Slowly the vortex finally started to shrink by half while the node rose higher.

When the mana hit the node, the light intensified and the barrier of the limit felt a shake as mana was once more being released. The same thing continued throughout his body in another flowing cycle and each acupoint had the mana further compressed.

The final push arrived as the mana returned releasing immense heat and the vortex was completely swallowed up by this and it was pushed down from top all the way into the node and it finally erupted.

Like a new star being born, the flame-like mana erupted from that node and all the mana in his mana pool gathered at that point and burst.

It invaded his mana channels and rushed into each acupoint causing every spark to erupt as it absorbed and released the flame like mana.

The mana in his body trembled as it was sucked in through the acupoints leaving only the film of mana around their bodies.

Only when the mana returned, the flame was wild and they gained control.

The source of the flame began to spin and release heat from the bottom and began to circle the source.

The erupting flame like mana began to weaken the leak until finally it released only one wild flame from the top that began to spin like a flame vortex.

This circled the orb that shined like a star and connected at the bottom.

When it did, a magical stability was achieved.

Mana in the form of heatwaves was released and rushed through the body under their control and began to put every acupoint in order and when the heatwave returned, they were all D rank.

They did not stop, the orbs were constantly absorbing and releasing new D rank mana but they no longer needed help.

They each opened their eyes and felt this new mana leak into their bodies.

Jin was the first and he roared as his body finally glowed as he started to evolve.

His ring grew larger as a third drum formed and his body grew taller until it was the height of a 15 year old. A mane of hair grew and was the end. When his body reformed, his powerful aura spread.

He was muscular with a majestic black mane on his head and extending a bit down his chest.

Next, Jade glowed as she stood up. Her Lord orbs on her elbows and knees shined as her armor formed but formed more pieces that seemed incomplete without her normal priestess clothing as if they were meant to be alongside them.

Along with the armor, a golden round shield formed and at the center was the crest of the gods.

When she stopped glowing, her armor and shield returned to the orbs. She did not evolve, that was clear. Evolutions happen either early, at the limit of a race’s capacity or when special conditions are achieved.

That said, C rank was the requirement for her to become a full Lord, so she would definitely evolve upon breaking the limit of D rank.

The final one was Storm.

Unlike them, he roared and his body glowed and instantly began to expand.

Dragons grew in size no matter what. As long as the limit is passed, it will grow in size.

His 15 meters of length and 2 meters of height instantly began to expand.

His height quickly reached 3 meters to his back while his length extended by a full 10 meters.

Furthermore, they could hear some cracking and that was from his skeleton as internal changes were happening. It was clear as day that the crystals were starting to spread further throughout his skeleton. As a Lightning Crystal Drake, he was now between adolescent and adult size.

It was hard to say which because he was the first but using the general grading, he was adolescent already.

His body was now extremely massive and everyone could feel the electrical power radiating from him.

The spikes on his back had also grown larger and just like Logan’s wind wings, he had developed the spikes like wings making them much stronger.

As for Logan, the burning hot mana began to rush through his body and he felt the burning in his body unlike anything until his body glowed. He felt like his muscles were getting denser and his bones stronger.

Each cycle he felt this keenly as mana infused his body and kept pushing the strength higher but the rise in rank shocked as his body felt like it was faintly changing.

That said what really shocked him was his wings appearing and instantly glowing alongside his body. Everyone looked in shock as they grew longer.

When his body stabilized, he looked back at the wings formed of wind. They felt like they had changed somehow as if some gap had been filled in something.

The wings naturally were part of his development, having a spell for flight that developed mana channels was very unique and could enhance his wind control through them. The only time he ever used wind manipulation and lightning clad together was when the wings were extended.

It felt like he connected to the world around him and his feeling was even stronger now but he couldn’t put his finger on it but it felt like something else had changed.

He couldn’t figure out what it was and controlled them. The stability and dexterity of them were higher and he clearly felt it was much stronger. With a thought, they were recalled into his body. He then checked his own body and keenly felt many changes. It wasn’t his imagination, his muscles had grown a lot during the breakthrough but maybe because of his biology, his muscle mass compressed into a leaner form. His bones also evolved as they became much harder and durable and could support the power of his denser muscles.

He took a deep breath and felt extremely good.

He finally checked the others and admired the changes in them all.

Storm was the most majestic while Jin was the most interesting. His new drum was smaller compared to the first two and they clearly needed the D rank development to get full size but it was already open just like the current ones.

“So this is the power of the human limit.” Logan said and they approached.

Storm transformed and his height had grown once more and he looked like a powerful 230 cm tall horned lizard man.

“With this, we can finally focus on D rank missions.” Logan said.

“Master, we should first stabilize this rank first.” Jade said.

“I know but the mana orbs don’t vanish unlike the vortexes of mana we would make previously.” Logan said with a smile.

They knew he was right, they could all feel the pull of mana entering them and even now it was trying to fill up their bodies that still lacked a great deal of mana to reach their current maximum capacity.

They returned and began to activate the D rank technique, it was more complex but not as stressful as the E rank which had two ranks of techniques running in parallel. It is like running the unranked technique to simply form the flow of mana.

Logan didn’t reopen the micro world again, so that the others could peacefully absorb mana.

They stayed like this for about two days for their mana to reach full capacity and began to do the first cycle.

The first is always the easiest and consumes the least amount of mana. They all felt the magical effect as their internal space evolved after a week to achieve the first cycle and fully recharge themselves.

Finally Logan had them return to the Micro world and opened it back to the world and spent a day absorbing and grinding the mana from within. He could feel keenly that the power of absorption was rapidly increasing and the micro world was reacting to the higher quality mana.

He didn’t stay doing this much, it would only work over long periods of times and it was likely that he would be in the D rank for the next year or two. If he focused purely on training then it was possible that he might achieve it in under two years but it was never that simple.

When he finally achieved a bit of the mana swap with the Micro world to let the Ley line sprout to absorb some D rank mana, he finally grinned as he looked at the empty world around him. His camp was packed up and all stored and most traces of him being there would likely vanish after a while when nature retakes it.

He closed his eyes and breathed in the natural air before wind gathered and formed two long wings on his back.

They spread completely and were nearly a third longer than his full height and he swung down.

His body instantly broke through the canopy of trees and was in the air.

“Ahahaha! This sense of freedom!” he shouted and instantly beat the wings. Wind gathered around him and formed a cover that reduced air resistance and he instantly shot hundreds of meters into the air while his lungs instinctively filled with wind mana so that he would not need to rely on the thinning atmosphere.

Very soon he reached 1km, then 2, and eventually stopped at 5 km of height.

It should be known that the Silver rank wind wings shouldn’t be able to reach this height with how it was but it was clear as day that the skill likely evolved to a higher rank during his D rank breakthrough.

Most of all, his body was not pressured by either the low atmospheric pressure, the speed or anything. He turned towards the north, he was in the Tosmana forest which is the same forest split by Tosmana, Iteno and the Union empire with the dungeon at the center. He was a few hundred kilometers into the forest nation but he grinned as his wind clad in the muscles and bones vanished and only his skin was clad in wind. His lungs were fed wind mana to breathe while the rest of him filled with lightning.

He kept increasing more and more until he reached his body's limit.

When he opened his eyes, lightning streaks formed from his eyes but his body was fully supporting the limit of his innate skill and he grinned when he saw this. He had never gotten the gold rank spell version and had only trained the innate skill until his body finally handled it.

A wide smile crossed his face as he moved. He instinctively began to use brain overclock until his kinetic vision could keep up with his body so that he saw himself moving at normal speed and when he did, he faced northeast towards Eshen and his wing beat.

In an instant his body turned into a bolt of lightning. Those without trained eyes and instincts would instantly miss him as he crossed 300 meters in a single wing beat. All the training over the last 6 years since he obtained these skills were finally coming together as his body was starting to gain the capacity to resist the forces acting against his body without feeling negative consequences.

He pushed it and swung his wings down in an euphoria. From the day he unlocked Brain overclock in the dangers of the Thunder Forest to the day he first used Lightning Clad together with overclock, he had seen speed as the ultimate power. Strength, endurance and all forms of training, they were simply there to train his body so that he could handle the ultimate speed.

He was finally achieving a level where he would not have to worry about every enemy he faced.

He pushed and went to the limit of his speed until he felt the intense G force. While speeding off towards Eshen, he explored his capacity for speed and flight.

***

Far away, deep in the flying continent of demons, the young demon prince was glowing. Over a year of training since his coming, his power was reaching D rank. His body was glowing black as his demon bloodline finally erupted and awakened completely.

All the hybrid bloodlines from human to ogre and other mixes that have blended into his DNA over the last 1,000 years of his family's lineage in Nuntip was slowly absorbed by the demon DNA from his ancestor, the great Demon lord.

From the center of his mana pool, a burning scarlet red flame of mana filled his mana pool and it slowly compressed into an orb. The mana was rotated extremely fast and turned purer through immense rotational speed.

At the last moment, the last of the DNA was absorbed and his eyes opened and two black horns formed on his head as his skin turned black like the others around him. Naturally, his body was filled with mana as his body and bloodline evolved filling it naturally.

He instantly felt the world around him, it was unlike anything before. When he felt it, the worldly corruption and immense pressure of mana entered his body and demon mana was born.

The corruption felt like it would infect his mind and wanted to raise all the most negative emotions in him but he lacked them. The mana was instead pulled into the orb of organized chaos and blended in. The corruption that would drive man and demon alike to madness was pulled, stretched and ground until it was just mana at the call of the young prince.

Around him, the generals were all E ranks and were nearing his level and over the next hour, everyone witnessed their bodies evolve and their bloodlines reach true purity.

The villagers of the Prana race, the humanoid demons, all watched in fear and awe.

Once the prince had reached E rank he had taken over, the chief demon had fought him hand to hand and the result was death. That is how demons worked, these were still primitive and they simply accepted and protected them because of the similar scent they had.

He became their chief and everyone gave their oath to him. Now that his bloodline was pure, they all felt it, each general that finished awakening their bloodlines felt it and they all felt submissive to him.

“It is time we start to spread our power.” the prince said.

All the generals nodded and looked at the many dragon hatchlings who all retained their small size to not frighten the Prana.

They proceeded to each demon and forced their demon core into the correct shape and in doing this, each demon would fall over in pain but their bodies and shapes would evolve, their minds would grow and their magical potential would be unlocked.

The prince could feel each of them form a connection to the world around them as would be the nature of the demonkind.

The demons of the demon continent are not hell demons. In a sense, they aren’t even demons at all. True demons are those summoned by dungeons, dungeons cannot spawn demons, they summon them from hell, the realm of the corrupted and dead. These are true demons and in this world, they are also capable of producing demon mana.

However, the two are still different, demons native to this world are actually fallen angels. Even demon dragons and all forms of demonic creatures on this continent are demons and that reason is tied to the history of demons themselves, etched upon the legend of the demon lord.

Before the world was completed, only heaven possessed life. Heaven contains holy power and Heavenly mana, the two things that make a being celestial. It is also why mortals cannot produce holy power without a holy artifact which is the blessing of a celestial being or a god.

At that time, there was a war between two factions and the losers were expelled to the world below. They were stripped of their holy power and heavenly mana, expelled to the world as a mere husk.

As they fell, earthly mana tainted their celestial form that is usually preserved and protected from earthly influence by their heavenly mana. Demonic corruption was natural to the world, this is because death was always present and the god of death had to make a clear connection to allow souls into the world of death, aka hell.

This demonic corruption doesn’t affect native creatures but it fills all the fallen celestial beings from heavenly dragons to the weakest of angels.

Their skins stained black, their feathers fallen and turned into black leather and their halos, lost to the corruption of the world.

The last thing to form was a demon core which was the same as monster cores of a dungeon.

They were formed as wildly as a dungeon does and the position was very different.

Once they fell, they couldn’t use anything besides their bodies and the demons went crazy as they were lost in madness like monsters without sentience. Every demon was fated to this.

With time, gods made humans on other continents around the same time so demons did not meet them. As time passed the environment of the demon continent adapted and the Prana was the weakest, no different from humans. They had neither strength or magic as no demon had.

That said, one time, a massive battle between demon waves hit and in the midst of this, a mountain crumbled and from it an ancient dragon appeared.

Dragons are the first and the strongest mortal creature. They were born and grown in the formation era of the world, calling them aspects of nature itself is not wrong and they are the progenitor of every dragon.

This dragon awoke in rage and drew all the mana within its surroundings.

It was at that time that Prana living nearby, fearful as they watched from their cave homes, felt the pull of mana. It was a pull that even drew mana from other living beings awakening the feeling of mana in some who were more intune.

This pull also pulled on their demon cores that were small and slightly fixed the position causing them to become more intelligent.

Then they witnessed the strongest force in the world.

The dragon released a breath that whipped both armies leaving only a massive scar through the land.

The ancient dragon was extremely angry still and with immense, near godly magic, forced the continent into the air by changing the very rules governing that area and returned to sleep. Even still, the magic that holds the continent contains a strange magic that connects it to the core of the world and the magma flowing as the life blood.

It is also the only place in the world where the massive white branches of ley lines could be seen.

In the eyes of those below, it is almost like the continent is held by these roots and it is through them that humans could climb up onto the continent when they finally discovered it.

That said, that was much further into the future as the Prana learned to channel mana and through instinct, they fixed the position of the cores and gained sentience and more. They awakened abilities that angels possessed, controlling the rules of nature. They could not rewrite them by no means but unlike mortal beings, demons could command nature as long as their mana could move it.

The tribe expanded and with the presence of demon mana as the only race with it, they eventually became the strongest creatures magically. That said they only had that power like monsters who grew it by quantity.

Only when humans arrived did they learn about opening mana pools. In fact, they didn’t even have mana pools and their mana channels were just naturally opened and undeveloped.

They traded a great deal, humans obtained resources the Prana thought useless while the Prana gained a lot of knowledge as humans taught them language, crafting arts, mana development and the technique of using magic through spells.

These humans eventually left and it was many years before they could return, the passage was difficult and hard to reach but when they arrived, it was not as friends.

They invaded the coasts and at that time, demons had developed a lot culturally.

Magic smithing, in the hands of demons, had unlocked a faint memory from the heavens, the knowledge of Legend swords.

When the attack happened, it had been a massacre but one magic smith and a small young but talented demon fought while protecting his friend who was forging. He forged the corpses of his fallen friends into a sword and the young demon quenched the blade in his own blood.

The rage in the sword hungered for blood and using it, he saved many Prana and escaped into the continent. This young demon would grow to become the great Demon Lord who ruled the demon continent, opened the ability and tamed every demon breed and formed a massive army that spread throughout the world.

To this day, descendants of these demons still exist in the world under different circumstances but none of them are as united as the Nuntip ones who had a demon general hidden in the shadows.

Now he was opening and rebuilding that same legend and would need a huge number of Prana tribes to achieve the conditions of building their own empire and remove all the demons from other continents so that there would not be a second great war. That said, he knew that this was unlikely to happen and he didn’t know how big the demons of Nuntip would take it.