-----


    Mark, Rita, and Josuke finished cleaning the Rat Monster corpses, gathering a big pile of Magic Crystals. There were over thirty of them, and the Rat Queen''s Magic Crystal was the biggest, overflowing with magical power.


    "Oh man this is great! So much loot out of nowhere!" Laughed Mark happily. "I guess we got lucky. You too."


    "Yeah, I guess I should be thankful." Rita said. "If you didn''t came out of nowhere with that giant cannon, I would be rat''s food right now, or something. Though, you never told me you had such a hottie as your friend, Mark! Hey~!"


    "H-Hi…" Josuke felt slightly overwhelmed by Rita''s personality. "Name''s Josuke, I am… A Sword Agent, I imagine you''re a civilian that awakened her powers much like Mark and this yne friend you share?"


    "Yep!" Said Rita. "Hey are you single?"


    "Single? Yes, why?" Josuke wondered.


    "Hehehe…" Rita started giggling.


    "Aren''t you married?" Mark said, quickly killing Rita''s mood.


    "Geez! Why are you so much like yne?! So killjoy! Let me flirt with a cute boy now and then, will you?!" Ritained, crossing her arms.


    Josuke felt confused, looking around and trying to read the mood, but he was unable to. And quite honestly, the nightmares he had in that fight left him mentally exhausted.


    "Okay, rx." Sighed Mark. "But don''t be unfaithful to your husband…"


    "I-I am not!" Rita said, feeling all down. "Geez, sorry about that Josuke…"


    "No, it doesn''t really matter, don''t worry." Josuke said, looking at the magic crystals. "How exactly are you two going to use these things? Usually they can be sold for a lot of money, though they need to go through purification first-"


    FLUOOOOSH!


    However, before his eyes, he saw how the magic circle Mark had been inscribing using the blood of the rats began glowing. It was the magic circle that yne had done before with the Great Spirit''s help. He had used his phone to take pictures of them and keep every rune stored there, so he easily recreated them.


    The magic crystals began disappearing into ashes one after the other, Josuke was bbergasted as he saw Mark and Rita''s Magic Circles develop further, growing much stronger. Their Runes became many more, and they were already reaching Tier 2!


    FLAAASH!


    Their Magical Auras were so strong Josuke had to step back. In Earth, magicians of such high amounts of power were praised as geniuses, and usually only lived in their own territories on Europe,manding their families.


    "T-To think there could be people out there with this much magical power that arepletely unrted to the Magician Bloodline Families…" Josuke was shocked. If the two were to tell him he could also get as much power if he were to get a magic circle, he would lose his mind.


    The Magic Circle engraving was an unique technique of the World of Arcadia, and only the Great Spirit knew about it. People of Earth developed differently, mostly relying on magical artifacts they crafted and relying on their own base Mana Quantities.


    Because of this, the Bloodline a Magician was born into was essential. If they were from special bloodlines of magicians, they would be naturally born with high quantities of Mana and possessing various Magical Affinities.


    However, because collecting magical artifacts, ormissioning them was so expensive, all of these Magician Families were rich and few. Urban Magicians that didn''t belonged to any of these families were often weaker inparison due to theirck of artifacts.


    Of course, Josuke belonged to the first section, he was a young man born from a Millenary Family of Shamans in Japan that made contracts with Spirits and Yokai to gain power. He was a genius amongst geniuses that was able to create a contract with the Legendary Spirit of mes, the Vermillion Bird, bing the bird''s vessel.<novelnext></novelnext>


    However, the nightmares he had just now  made him remember the traumatic moment when his entire family was destroyed by their foes, and their territory was taken away forcefully. Since then, he had be an outcast and escaped Japan from his family enemy''s clutches, now working as an agent of Sword instead.


    "I wish I could had been stronger back then…" He sighed, seeing Mark and Rita powerup.


    "Huh? What''s wrong friend?" Mark wondered.


    "Oh, nothing." Josuke sighed. "So anyways-"


    "Uwaaaah! I feel so strong now! I must at least be Tier 2 now, right?! I''ve developed so many new Spells! And all of my Mana''s fully recovered! Insane!" Rita celebrated, jumping around and conjuring darkness.


    "I-Incredible… You''re such a strong Shadow Sorceress already?!" Josuke was surprised.


    "Well, if it wasn''t for our friend we wouldn''t had been able to grow this strong~!" Rita giggled.


    "Rita don''t just say such things openly!" Mark reprimanded him.


    "Your friend? Is this yne woman the one that taught you this magic I''ve never seen before? It almost feels like it is from another world. These runes… and the way they''re formed, it feels so easy yet soplex…" Josuke was amazed.


    "Something like that…" Mark sighed. "She… just knew thanks to her spirit."


    "I see, I do remember hearing something about her having some sort of Spirit as her partner. Certainly, Spirit Magic is still a very powerful and mysterious magical subject, very few Magician Families even have close contact with Spirits even in Europe." Josuke analyzed.


    He felt relieved that it was because of this Spirit, which he knew very little about the subject but had heard they were incredibly strong beings. These Spirits were different from his own, which was more like an Incarnation of a beast than a normal Nature Spirit.


    With Mark and Rita finally hitting Tier 2, the trio was ready to advance. However, before they could even step to their next destination as they tried to follow yne''s presence, something emerged from amidst a nearby cave, a gigantic beast coated on phantasmal mes!


    FLUOOOOSH!


    "CRYAAAAAAHHH!"


    Its gigantic and sharp ws hit the floor, shattering it apart wildly!


    BAAAAAMMM!!!


    "W-What is that?!" Rita evaded the attack barely, looking at the enormous monster.


    "That''s… a bird of some sort?" Wondered Josuke.


    "Huh?! Falco?!" Mark was surprised.


    This bird… it was his familiar, the Wind Eagle he had lost when he was sucked int the dungeon.


    -----