《Kingun》


 Evil Fire

    <Lumina Minor Kingdom - Halley Village>


    It was around noon. The sun shone strongly in the sky whilst the wind gently moved like a breeze amidst the trees and verdant hills filled with short grass blades that hid all sorts of bugs and critters. It was around this time that a teen sat cross-legged on a small hill near the forest outside the village, from where he stood, it was easy to overlook the whole village with only a mere glance.


    The place was amongst the smallest of the region, but it still had it''s own protection as it was surrounded by large walls of grey stone, making it look like a fort from afar. If it was all for intimidation or posturing or if these walls truly had a defensive purpose, the teen did not know, but the fact remained that those walls seemed sturdy considering that they were two meters thick, and to match those mighty walls, at the four cardinal directions there were four matching enormous two meter thick wooden gates reinforced with iron that allowed access to the village.


    His eyes were closed as he sat seemingly in deep meditation. He wore a blue sleeveless shirt and some dirty white pants that seemed really worn out and also quite big for him. The boy seemed to be around fourteen years old. His nose and lips would move slightly as he breathed in and out while meditating.


    He was quite thin for his age but that didn''t mean he was malnourished, in fact, his body was actually quite lean and defined, his muscles, light scars all over his body and calluses showed that he certainly was a fighter, even if a novice one. His hair was short and messy as if he had just gotten out of bed that looked quite good with its light brown coloration, though, were it not for the fact that he was quite clean, one could easily mistake him for an orphan or a beggar of some sort due to his oversized worn out clothes.


    His meditation was steady and tranquil, at times he seemed to merge with nature and become one with his surroundings, his figure flickering with faint nigh-invisible light. As his practice continued the wind around him would ever so slightly bend and sway towards his position for a few instants and then resume its normal course without ever actually touching him, seemingly preferring instead to just slightly revolve around him. As the wind flowed close to the boy, if one paid full attention they could notice that the wind brought along with it small sparks, or rather, minutes particles of light that would be pulled into the boy''s body once they got close.


    "Haaah..." The boy exhaled a breath of hot white air.


    "Although dad explained to me how to circulate my inner mana and use that to boost my physical performance, how to sense mana outside my body and also how to recharge my mana reserves with world mana, I can''t sense the elemental mana at all!" He grumbled.


    The boy was currently training to discover which element he had the most affinity with. But he couldn''t determine his primary affinity even though he spent about four hours in meditation to try and sense which element he could connect with the easiest. He finally grew bored of this activity and decided to head home and consult with his father about this.


    At this time he figured that his parents and his sister most likely for the traditional family lunch before they each returned to their respective activities, be it work, homecare or studying.


    These thoughts made him drift through his memories and smile as he remembered his family. His father was a tall man standing at 1.9 meters in height, he had a defined muscly body much like his own that was lean and strong instead of the usual strongman¡¯s bulky and cumbersome muscle filled structure, he had a good nature as he was a kind and wise man that would train the boy and teach him things about life and how he should live properly once he grew.


    The man was a present father figure despite working every day till late at night, no matter what he was doing in the village he would always be home for every meal and would make sure that he always took the weekends off so that he could spend time with his family and practice his hobbies. The boy was proud of his father and especially proud that, at least when it came to looks, he was the spitting image of the man he respected, loved and admired.


    Then his thoughts drifted towards his mother. For all he knew the woman was the image of perfection itself, he did not have a great sample to compare, but in his perception, she was a beauty that no one could hope to compare. She had light brown eyes that resembled amber when under the sun¡¯s light, her hair was somewhat long as it reached her waist, it was well cared for as it was smooth and lustrous and naturally wavy and light brown approaching blonde in color. Her skin fair and so soft it seemed like she was a moving statue made of marble, and to top it all off, she had a curvaceously proportionate body that made many men lust after her and many women envy her beauty.


    But even with all those attributes in her favor, the thing that made her well known in the village and truly loved by her children was her kind soul. She had a one of a kind personality that was loving, caring and merciful at all times. She would often find herself busy with aiding the village in various task as well as making food from time to time for the poor and sewing their clothes all for free, and since it was genuine charity, many would kindly offer help in the process which made the overall population of the village all the more friendly.


    And lastly, his mind flashed with images of his younger sister. She was a sweet little girl that was growing to be just like their mother, however, she was unlike the boy. Instead of being a small replica of her parent like he was, she inherited the kindness and care that her mother had. In looks she was a mix bred of the pair, she had deep green eyes just like their father and wavy brown hair like their mother, her skin was fair like their mother but she showed traces of having lean defined muscles despite no effort like their father. She was sweet and was only ten years old, the boy¡¯s face shone with an especially meaningful smile when he recalled her.


    For as long as he can remember they were his everything. He didn¡¯t have many desires apart from one day grow and have a family of his own that could make him easily say that it was a family that could rival his, it was a happy thought that gave him a somewhat clear objective of his prospects towards the future.


    His father, on the other hand, had different plans. He always spoke to him about the wide world and how much more there was to see, about the many wonders and dangers and that he should not be content in merely building a family in a quiet village like this. The man would always tell him stories of mighty beasts and battles that shook the earth, especially of a single being that ruled over all, ¡°Kingun¡±.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    That was the name given to the most powerful being on the planet. None could stand in his path and he was only known by that single title, although all feared his might and knew of his prowess, there was not a single soul that actually knew his name.


    He was just called that, Kingun. Or as it was known in the ancient language of this world, ¡°Supreme King¡±.


    The boy had to admit that every time he heard those tales he would get hyped and would immediately want to train and become powerful. But when he calmed down he knew that it was an objective far too grand for a simple kid like himself. He had barely entered the world of fighters with his father¡¯s daily trainings and teachings about the nature of mana, he was far too weak and far too young to actually talk about power.


    And as one would expect from such a caring kind soul like hers, his mother actually thought that he should just live a fulfilling happy life instead of one fraught with combat, dangers and bloodshed. Every time his father brought this matter up, she would instantly shoot it down with her more pacifist positioning and idealism.


    All in all, this family was what one could call a happy one. And as if fate itself didn¡¯t allow for such a thing, too much happiness would often beget tragedy.


    As his thoughts settled in his mind he suddenly noticed a strong burnt smell of ash in the air and frowned. He opened his eyes and looked straight at the direction the smell came from. When his eyes focused on the spot, he saw that within the gates of the village, specifically in the northern part of the village, rose a huge cloud of greyish black smoke towards the clouds.


    He immediately shot up from his spot as his heart raced. He was all too familiar with that certain spot. He could not let another second go to waste! But just as he prepared to dash away to the village his body felt light and he couldn''t help but step back a few times trying to recover his balance.


    After an instant of breathing deeply to shake away the dizziness that hit his brain due to standing up too quickly, he raced downhill towards the village. As he frantically ran his face was tense, his amber colored eyes easily revealed his worry as his pupils had shrunken to the size of pinholes.


    The boy was quite fast. In mere minutes he crossed the distance between the hill and the village and arrived at the east gate where two guards stood holding simple lances in their hands, they wore light iron suits of armor composed of simples iron helmets, gauntlets, boots and crude chestplates that looked more like they had attached iron boards on the chest of the guards.


    They long saw the boy running towards them and placed the lances in between them as to signal that entry was forbidden and that he should stop.


    "HALT!"- they shouted.


    The boy looked up and glared at the guards, his once worrisome eyes turned ferocious. He had no time for this! He had to reach the spot and see for himself what that smoke was all about, he could not waste time and stop to deal with them.


    The guards saw that the boy had no intention of stopping and, albeit reluctantly since they didn''t want to cause harm to a kid, pointed their lances towards the boy''s head intending to make him stop through intimidation.


    The next few seconds would leave those guards stunned for quite a while.


    The boy was but a few meters away from the lance tips, in three large steps, his eyes were in range to crash straight into the tips and kill him in one move with but a single step more.


    The boy''s eyes glowed with a mysterious light and time seemed to slow down.


    His body abruptly sped up and he somersaulted, his body spun in mid-air and landed in the spears shafts, he then kicked hard at them and jumped, in the next instant he landed he immediately dashed towards the village.


    Time''s flow the return to normal. Although well described in the boy''s perspective, in the guard''s, it was more like a blur that had just passed through them.


    When the guards finally reacted they noticed their spears were shoved in the ground at an angle, they desperately looked behind them and saw the faint silhouette of the boy turning a corner and disappearing.


    Although the village had quite imposing walls of stone, inside it everything was different. All the houses were purely made out of wood, straw, and clay. The structure was made out of wooden logs and the ceiling was covered in clay and straws to protect against the rain.


    The streets inside the village were laid down with cobblestone, on the sidewalks, there were various merchants and pedestrians. On the streets, horses and carriages normally strutted about calmly. Today, however, you could see several carriages riding fast towards the northern part of the village where massive amounts of smoke rose into the air.


    The boy ran after the carriages, his body was constantly emitting a faint glow making the wind flow around him and improve his speed by boosting his aerodynamic. The boy, however, was oblivious to this effect as his heart raced.


    After a few minutes, his body came to a screeching halt as he stumbled and fell.


    "Sh*t!"


    His body hit the ground hard scraping his knees, elbows, and hands as he stopped himself from crashing headfirst into the cobblestone ground. He recalled the events during his fall and noticed that as he fell he saw two figures running away from the burning scene. He tried his best to burn their silhouette to his memory, but he found himself currently unable as the waves of pain hit him at full force making him wince and all he could brand in his mind was a symbol that was sewed in the clothes of the fleeing figures. It was a heart of many colors with a black dagger piercing it, but as his mind flickered in pain, the boy could not really think about the matter as much as he¡¯d like.


    He slowly turned his gaze upwards and straight into the smoke-filled building in front of him, and just one glance was enough to tell him that what he feared most became reality. His face lost all color as horror filled his mind.


    In front of him was the ruins of a common house. The collapsed ceiling and the fragments of the former structure were all around the place, inside the rubble one could see three burnt corpses beyond recognition, their skin was charred black but one could clearly see they died hugging each other.


    "no...no...no...no..NOOOOO!!!!!!"


    He screamed as he punched the ground hard. Tears flowed down his eyes and blood flowed from his wounds as he repeatedly punched the ground in pure furious grief. The bystanders looked at his direction due to his shouts and immediately understood why he grieved.


    That boy was the sole survivor of this disaster, he was the single remaining member of this family that was consumed by flames. However, they grew scared, the boy emitted an immense ominous aura from his body as his eyes glowed with fury, but when the next sentence came out of his mouth in a cold, murderous voice, they were truly frightened:


    "I. Will. Destroy. Who. Did. This!"


    But in the next second the boy heard a voice behind him.


    "Okay okay killer, cool your jets why don''t ya?"


    The boy turned his head around fiercely and shouted:


    "WHO...?!"


    But before he could finish his sentence and recognize who spoke to him, he felt a great pain in his neck. His consciousness grew increasingly blurry and eventually, everything turned black as he fainted.

 Unexpected Offer

    After he was knocked unconscious by the mysterious figure, the boy "slept" for half a day straight. His overuse of mana brought about a great deal of exhaustion, one which obviously needed several hours to replenish from.


    Worse than that was the fact that his overuse of mana did not protect his body from being overtaxed, and due to that, he strained his body quite a lot and ended up receiving some internal injuries that would take quite a while to recover from.


    Some of his limb bones were cracked and his skin was scraped at the places he fell on. And although it wasn''t apparent, his overuse of mana surely left some inner damage which only when he woke up he would be able to notice the effects.


    When he was knocked out, it was a bit past noon, so by the time the boy finally woke up it was close to half past midnight. The sky was dark and the stars above made it seem like the heavens were made of an endless dark river full of precious rocks inside, and the protagonist of that splendorous starry river was the planet''s natural satellite that shone the brightest among all the stars.


    "Ugh.." The boy groaned as his consciousness returned.


    Before he had time to even open his eyes, his body''s numerous alarms hit him at full force and made him wince in pain.


    "Sh*t!" He cursed out loud.


    But even speaking made him feel pain so immediately he regretted his decision to rant. He couldn''t even bring himself to open his eyes due to the numerous waves of pain that hit him non-stop and made him shift in the place he was laid upon constantly.


    As that happened he figured that at least he could find solace in the silence of his mind, and so, he decided to calm himself and analyze his current health status. He knew that the events that took place a few hours prior took quite the toll on him and he had to figure out just how much of a price he had to pay for his reckless abuse of his body''s limits.


    When he was just about to focus on that task, the memories that his brain had repressed to allow him some time to stabilize came rushing back and immediately tears found their way into his eyes, he couldn''t open them but he could easily feel the bitter sensation of warm tears flowing on his cheeks. Several remembrances flashed through his mind in mere seconds as grief built inside of him, but it didn''t take him long to toss all of that aside.


    It''s not that the boy was unfeeling and cold-hearted to the point he wouldn''t grieve his family''s demise, but he knew that he was quite wounded had to prioritize his recovery before he could allow himself to suffer. The sorrow of losing everyone he had ever loved and known the most in a single swoop was quite heavy, however, he knew he needed to thoroughly heal himself, otherwise, he would only leave himself open to hidden dangers in the future should he not recover completely.


    He forcefully stilled his mind through great efforts to suppress his raging emotions. After adjusting his body to lay down in the best and the most comfortable position he possibly could in his current state, He began to breathe slowly and slowly try to circulate his inner mana to check the current state of his body.


    At first, he felt just how low his inner reserves of mana were inside his core. The mana core was the supernatural structure existing inside every being on the planet that allowed them to absorb, store and use the world mana as it''s own. It was a crystalline organ existing right above the stomach and right below the heart that varied in size and toughness depending on genetics.


    The boy grimaced as he checked his core and noticed the bad development that happened during his reckless overuse of mana. His inner reserves were at a measly 10%, and not only that, his body was having an extremely hard time refining world mana into inner mana to refill his core due to the next set of problems the boy noticed after trying to circulate his mana through his body.


    "F*ck! This time I truly screwed up!" The boy cursed in his mind.


    Physical damage could be quite easily recovered with the use of mana, but damages to mana related organs and structures were immensely harder to heal and if one were to be damaged beyond a certain extent in that area, one could lose their ability to use mana forever.


    As his weakened mana circulated through his body he noticed his core had slight signs of cracking, and as the mana exited the core and entered his meridians, his already foul mood took a turn to the worse as he discovered that his entire meridian system was damaged. To make matters worse, the meridians on his legs were especially damaged as the region showed signs of being dangerously close to snapping.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    The boy calmly willed the weak mana to finish circulating and then return to his core as he breathed slowly.


    "That''s just fantastic..." He grumbled.


    He was dispirited. His body was in bad shape and at the moment he really didn''t want to deal with that issue. As the mana circulated his body he felt bitter at how weak he was. If it were his father, that bit of running wouldn''t have caused that much damage, in fact, considering how strong his father was, he even doubted his father would be strained at all.


    He had no idea how he looked right now as his eyes were still closed and his mind was fully focused on enhancing his other senses. Even though he was doing a thorough analysis of his body''s condition, he also knew he was at an unknown location and anything could cause him harm at any given time, so he had to be ready to react as soon as possible.


    It was exactly at the moment the thought of danger passed through his mind that he heard footsteps coming his way, they were muffled so he figured he must be inside of a room or something similar that had its door closed. his mind began racing as he thought as fast as he could about how to escape his current predicament.


    Suddenly he heard the muffled steps get ever louder. He was sure that in the next moments it was all or nothing, as such, his body painfully tensed up and he prepared to fight. his breathing remained slow as if he was still sleeping and his body remained immobile, he had to catch them by surprise if he was to escape this place.


    "Creeek...."


    The boy heard the sound of a door opening really close to him, his heart sped up enormously and adrenaline began to work it''s magic as his pain began to lessen. He knew that his body wasn''t healing, but being able to move was better than being immobile like a dead fish about to be chopped.


    "Calm down....you can do this...when they lower their guard...you strike!" The boy screamed in his mind.


    The footsteps came ever closer and they were louder than ever now. The boy could feel a presence right above him, observing him attentively. He had to do it now! it was his best chance! he was about to move when a very familiar voice sounded from above.


    "Hey hey killer, how about you dial down all of that bloodlust and relax, I know you are awake"


    The sound of that voice struck the boy''s mind like a lightning bolt. This was the one that knocked him out all those hours ago! his rage immediately multiplied as his eyes shot open and his mana began to revolve furiously causing him immense pain.


    "YOU!" He shouted, "It was you who knocked me out isn''t it!?"


    "Calm down and stop circulating your mana, do you really want to cripple yourself?" The figure replied, "Also, is that how you thank someone that treated your wounds and saved you from further harm in that horrible event?"


    The boy calmed down significantly and his reason finally kicked in.


    "You...saved me?" The boy inquired, "how exactly did you save me old man?"


    "Old man? now that''s quite a bratty way of referring to your savior kid" The figure chuckled.


    Although the figure before him was quite aged indeed, he looked far from being old. The boy looked at the figure carefully and identified his traces correctly as his body relaxed and the pain made him wince slightly.


    Before him was a man that looked to be in his early 40''s. He seemed to be a scholar judging by his long robes and the glasses he wore, his whole self emitted an aura of wisdom and knowledge. The man''s face had light wrinkles, however, it didn''t make him look older but only enhanced the feeling that he was a wise man.


    He had a head full of black hair but his sideburns were gray colored. His eyes were of a deep green hue and when one looked at them they gave off an unfathomable feeling as if the man hid untold mysteries in his mind. His body seemed quite frail as it was thinner than most men his age in Halley village. However, he didn''t seem weak as there was one aspect that made him far scarier than the whole village population combined, he had an enormous amount of mana in him, he certainly was not one bit weaker than his father, in fact, he seemed to be far stronger, and that put quite a lot of pressure on the boy''s mind.


    "you..." The boy said with a frown on his face, "exactly who are you?


    "What manners are those kid?" The man laughed lightly, "Asking someone for their name without giving yours first? that''s quite rude" The man shook his head as if he was disappointed.


    A shade of red took hold of the boy''s face as he corrected himself.


    "My name is Ventus Astriss" He then glared at the man, "your turn old man"


    "Ventus huh?...quite wise to name him that way" The man mumbled to himself.


    "What are you spacing out for old man?" Ventus inquired.


    The man let out an embarrassed cough and then replied.


    "None of your concern kid, now, as you''ve been polite enough to speak properly, it is my turn to do so," the man said "My name is Richard Weise, and I''d like to make you an offer kid"


    "An offer?" Ventus inquired, "What kind of offer?"


    "How would you like to be my apprentice?" Richard spoke.

 Three Paths

    "Become your apprentice?" Ventus asked stunned, "why would I do that?"


    "Well.."Richard replied, "For one, having a master will aid in the growth of your personal power and also your knowledge, secondly, you would be able to learn techniques and receive guidance on your training, and lastly, you need to have a master if you ever want to enter the Magi Association and have access to their resources and knowledge, they require an introduction from a member just to be able to participate in the trials"


    "And who told you I wanted to enter the Magi Association?" Ventus pouted.


    "Well, it doesn''t take a genius to figure out you wish to master the Magi Arts kid" Richard chuckled, "You''ve been taught how to circulate your inner mana and use it to strengthen yourself as well as how to replenish it by refining world mana am I right?"


    "Yeah, so?" Ventus snorted.


    "And that indicates you''ve had formal training before" he spoke matter-of-factly, "No matter how talented you are, it is ridiculously hard to learn how to use mana reinforcement and mana refinement without proper training and guidance"


    "And that also indicates that someone taught you since I can easily recognize the Entry tier - Whirlwind Revolution refinement technique you''re using to refine world mana"


    "You can recognize it!?" Ventus asked unbelievingly, "This is my father''s original technique, how could you possibly know about? and what''s that about Entry tier?"


    "Remember the Magi Association?" Richard smiled lightly, "Almost no magi art is created without them knowing about it, especially if said art is created by one of their members"


    "You''re saying that my father was a member of the Magi Association?" Ventus inquired.


    "Precisely" Richard replied, "Not only that but he was also well renowned for his High Tier High-Rank Tornado Policy art"


    "Again, what''s that about tiers, and also, what''s that about ranks?" Ventus asked annoyed.


    "Patience kid" Richard chuckled


    "The magi arts are classified by the magi association into 7 tiers and each tier is divided into three ranks depending on the power, requirements, and usefulness of the magi arts" He explained.


    "For an example, your whirlwind revolution refinement technique is an entry tier magi art, however, it is a high-rank one, making it one of the best on the entry tier"


    "After that, we have the low tier, the middle tier, the high tier, the legacy, the inheritance tier and the legend tier" he continued. "And all of them are divided in low-rank,middle-rank and high-rank"


    "That all said, your father was pretty impressive you know?" Richard commented.


    "Why''s that?" Ventus inquired.


    "Well, living in a minor kingdom, in a small village like this one, he was able to create a powerful technique like the Tornado Policy magi art, that takes diligence and quite a lot of talent and luck" He replied.


    "What exactly is so special about it huh? he never told me anything about creating a magi art" Ventus sneered


    "He didn''t? I''m quite surprised kid" Richard spoke, "I mean, the technique you''re using is the very first technique of the Tornado Policy after all"


    "What? what do you mean?" Ventus asked stunned, "Isn''t the tornado policy just a single technique?"


    At that moment Richard burst out laughing.


    "A single technique!?"


    "The reason your father became so well renowned wasn''t due to a single technique kid!" he was baffled, "The reason your father became famous was that the tornado policy he created isn''t a single technique"


    "It is a complete set of techniques that range from the entry tier all the way to the high tier that covers all the subjects necessary for the growth of a powerful magus!" He spoke further.


    "The tornado policy has techniques that cover mana refinement, mana reinforcement, and meridian tempering" he then continued "Not only that, it has offensive, defensive and movement techniques as well"


    "And to top it all off, your father created techniques for one of the most difficult subjects to develop on" he then finished, " He created sensory techniques"


    At that moment Ventus was astounded. He always knew his father to be immensely strong and also very intelligent, but he never knew that his achievements were that big! A surge of immense pride grew inside of him and made him feel warm inside, though, at the same time he found tears welling in his eyes and very soon he was crying once more.


    "That''s right kid, your father was just that awesome" Richard sighed, "Him dying the way he did...it was an immense loss for the magi association and for the progress of magi arts as a whole"


    "I mean, I came to this small village to congratulate him for having his magi art officially recognized and bring him his reward for successfully achieving Grandmaster Magus rank." he sighed, "but it seems this time I have done my trip, unfortunately, in vain"


    Richard then approached Ventus and gently place a hand on his head.


    "It hurts, I know it does, cry now and let it all out," Richard said as he ruffled Ventus hair slightly, "grieve for now you have time and then rest, later we''ll focus on healing all the damage you''ve received and then we''ll talk more about what happened as well as about what you''ll want to do in the future"


    Ventus just nodded as he rubbed his eyes with his wrists. He didn''t look at Richard anymore and silently let loose the hold on the memories he had suppressed. He let himself feel the pain and all the other raging emotions that came along with it.


    He laid down and closed his eyes as his memories surged back. His breathing became slow once more and this time he purposely began to rest. He was really tired and all he felt like doing was sleep and try to escape this immense pain that was washing over his mind.


    Richard looked at him for a few more moments and decide to let him be. He walked away and soon enough the sound of his footsteps became muffled as the door was shut.


    Ventus''s consciousness slowly but surely became ever more blurry and heavy, and soon enough he fell asleep.


    This time, however, his rest lasted for a full day before he woke up once more.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    He immediately focused on his inner condition. This time his expression was far better than when he performed the first analysis. This time he found out that under the mana quenching, his bones had greatly recovered and most of the cracks were mended, his internal organs had recovered completely from the stress, his muscles had fully been healed and were slightly stronger than before.


    But when he went on to check his core and meridians, his former frown reappeared as his meridians and core hadn''t recovered whatsoever, they were still as damaged as before. Though if Ventus insisted on looking at the bright side, he could say that at least his inner mana had recovered from the measly 10% to the much better result of 50%.


    "50% still?" Ventus complained, "With how much I slept, I would''ve recovered to full capacity 3 times over by now"


    With his condition improved he could move far more easily now as the pain had mostly subsided. He stood up from the place he was laying on and looked around him to see exactly where he was.


    Ventus was stunned immediately. Before when he spoke with Richard he was so stressed that he didn''t notice at all how much the man had taken care of him. He was inside a room that he immediately recognized to be on the best inn in the village. It was quite simple, with sturdy stone walls and a thick wooden door and at the door, there was a small golden tiger symbol that stood for the inn''s name "Sleeping Tiger", he then looked at where he was laid down whilst he recovered and found out a single iron metal frame bed with thick plume pillows and dark beast fur covering the mattress, opposite to it was a sturdy brown wooden table with a single chair made of greyish white antlers . On the ceiling and on the walls there were candles lit up the room.


    Though it may seem quite crude compared to inns and hotels at other more developed places, to the small Halley village this was something that not many could afford to stay a day in even if they spent their entire year''s earning.


    Ventus then looked at his body. His previous clothes were gone, he had bandages all over his body except for his face. Ventus was even more stunned, however, when he noticed that the bandages were not regular ones. They were inscribed with various runes and he could feel that his world mana absorption had risen by several folds and was being refined by a different technique than his whirlwind revolution. The mana that was refined became a gentle energy that was constantly nourishing his body and greatly accelerating his healing. He was marveled by the bandage''s effects.


    He then looked around and saw a single window, he immediately walked towards it and saw that outside was already dark.


    "I slept quite a lot huh?" Ventus sighed.


    Sounds of footsteps were heard coming towards the door, Ventus turned to face it, and soon enough it opened. Richard walked in and saw that Ventus was already up, in his face a smile lightly grew.


    "Glad to see that my efforts weren''t for naught," he said.


    "Thank you for taking care of me, you really didn''t have to," Ventus said as he looked downwards.


    "It''s nothing really" Richard shook his head, "Now, shall we talk about more important matters?"


    Ventus simply nodded and sat back on the bed, Richard then grabbed the chair by the table and sat on it. he looked directly at the boy before him and after a slight sigh, he spoke once more.


    "You lost your whole family in a single blow," he said cautiously, "I know that must hurt immensely to you"


    Ventus didn''t reply.


    "Well, now that they are gone, I see three paths you can follow"


    He stretched one finger.


    "You can continue training with your whirlwind revolution and become a man strong above average, then you can find your job on the village and eventually build a family and, if nothing goes wrong, die a peaceful death of old age as you watch your kids grow with your wife at your side"


    He stretched a second finger.


    "You can also choose to practice on your own and then attend the selection to Lumina kingdom''s military where you can get better opportunities and maybe one day to become a great person under the king if your achievements allow you to"


    He then stretched the third and last finger.


    "Or you can choose to become my disciple, and if you do, I''ll not only introduce you to the magi association, but I will personally guide you on your training and you will have access to the full contents of the tornado policy"


    "Wait" Ventus interrupted, "I will have full access to the tornado policy? isn''t it my father''s? why wouldn''t I have access to it?"


    "Well, if he were alive he could teach you and distribute his techniques to anyone he wished, but since he has perished, the rights to the tornado policy and it''s distribution belong to the magi association, and that''s because of the contract he signed when he joined the association"


    "In any case, you''ll have to worry about that later, right now, you must choose a path" Richard chuckled, "So, what will it be? what will you do?"


    Ventus frowned slightly and began pondering the options. He had his ambitions, even more so now that his family died. He needed the power to take his revenge, and as such, becoming just a strongman in the village wasn''t an option.


    Joining the military on his own might be quite honorable, but something told him that this status was simply nothing, and the resources he could get from the military would also be heavily restricted. As such, joining the military was simply not enough.


    So, after a few minutes of pondering Ventus came to the natural conclusion. Becoming the disciple of someone stronger than his father that was recognized as a grandmaster magus was certainly a good thing, plus, joining the magi association would grant him access to his father''s Tornado Policy which he already had his training on, and he didn''t want to change it.


    "I will become your disciple" Ventus stated.


    "Excellent, you sure know what''s best" Richard replied happily.


    "But how do I become a disciple anyway?" Ventus inquired.


    "Well, first you pass through an assessment to check your potential, then you must register yourself under your master''s tutelage on the magi association and start your official training as an apprentice magus"


    "Check my potential? what''s that about? didn''t you offer to become my master because I have a good potential?" Ventus questioned annoyed.


    "That''s indeed why I offered you this opportunity" Richard replied smiling, "With my strength, I can certainly determine if you have potential or not, but to have a precise measurement of your talent, strength, and mana affinity as well as to register your strength on the magi association''s database, i must use more thorough methods"


    "Okay, and how will we do that measurement?" Ventus asked.


    Richard then procured from his robes a blue gem the size of a fist and showed it to Ventus.


    "Well, with this marvelous invention from the magi association, the avatar stone" he smiled, "This wonderful thing rates your attributes and assigns it points based on your current rank on the association" he continued, "Since you''re not a member, the stone will only assign you from 0-100 as a form to rank your potential"


    Richard then handed it to Ventus, he then held it in his left hand while looking at it.


    "It''s very to simple to use, all you''ve got to do is drip a drop of blood on it and channel your inner mana into it, it will use your blood to determine your physical condition and natural abilities, and it will use your mana to verify your mana affinity"


    Ventus silently proceeded to do as instructed. He bit his thumb and let a drop fall on the gem, it then immediately became violet in color. Ventus then closed his eyes and started circulating his mana in the way his father taught him.


    His mana circled through his whole body before he finally directed it all towards his left hand. The energy slowly filled the gem making it glow, gradually it began to shine and tremble.


    "That''s enough mana Ventus," Richard said.


    Ventus opened his eyes and handed the shining violet gem to Richard.


    "Now let''s see the measurements"


    Richard channeled his mana into the gem. It released a brilliant flash of light and then a hologram of a stone tablet formed, it contained a picture of his face and the following:


    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------


    Name: Ventus Astriss


    Age: 14


    Membership Status: Non-Member/No-Rank


    Race: Human


    Bloodline: Common


    Intelligence/Comprehension: 70 Points | Rating: High


    Physical Strenght: 40 Points | Rating: Low


    World Mana Affinity: 80 Points | Rating: Superior


    Primary Elemental Mana Affinity: Wind - 90 Points | Rating: Excellent


    Secondary Elemental Mana Affinity: Earth - 70 Points | Rating: High


    Tertiary Elemental Mana Affinity: Fire - 50 Points | Rating: Normal


    Overall Potential Rating: 70 Points | Rating: High


    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Spirit Mending Pill

    "Would you look at that?" Richard smirked, "impressive stats you got there huh?"


    Ventus looked at the stone tablet hologram carefully and was quite happy. His capabilities were quite high, he had a good affinity and could train in 3 elements if he wished plus his comprehension was also very good. However there were still some things that made him curious, and a special one that bothered him quite a bit.


    He frowned a bit and obviously, Richard easily noticed the unrest in Ventus''s face.


    "Anything you did not understand?" he asked


    "Well..."Ventus spoke,"why is there a bloodline stat on the projection? also, is there any way I can improve my physical strength?"


    "Oh, so that is what''s bothering you" he chuckled, "Well, the bloodline stat is actually quite complex" he replied, "There are special bloodlines among the races that grant the holder some advantages over others, some may be slightly stronger than common folk, others may have a higher innate comprehension towards mana, and others even may have a special comprehension towards certain elements that will help them develop far easier in that specific field of magi art"


    "As for ways to improve your physical strength.."Richard continued, "Well, there are two paths you could take to reach that objective"


    He stretched one finger.


    "You can do physical training and use the aid of special medicines to massively strengthen your body''s physical capabilities, that is usually the way of soldiers, fighters, and magi knights"


    He then stretched another finger.


    "Or you can train in special magi arts that strengthen your physical capabilities and allows your body to become more attuned towards mana in such a way that allows mana to massively boost the body''s power output in physical efforts by using mana reinforcement, that is the way that magus, wizards, and sorcerers compensate for their weaker physique compared to physical practitioners"


    "Do you have any way of allowing me to train in any of those right now?" Ventus inquired.


    "No can do kid" He replied, "Before we start your training, we must have you take the entrance trials and become an official apprentice under me"


    "Why? you are the one teaching me, not the association! why do I have to wait?" Ventus questioned annoyed.


    "Contractual obligations kid" Richard sighed slightly annoyed, "Although I am a powerful magus, I can''t go breaking rules around the association lest I face punishment"


    "They are pretty strict and annoying with their stupid rules!" Ventus grumbled.


    "I agree" Richard snorted, "But don''t tell them that okay?" He laughed mischievously.


    Ventus laughed and then looked at his body, he saw the glowing runes on his bandages and a spark lit on his brain.


    "Hey old man" Ventus spoke," How do I treat injuries to my core and meridians?"


    "You managed to injure those as well huh?" Richard replied frowning.


    He then stood up from his chair and prompted Ventus to stand up as well. He procured a glowing round green pill from his robes and handed it to him. He then prompted him to sit down in his usual meditation training position.


    "That pill I just handed you is called spirit mending pill, it will aid you in your recovery and by using its effects and your usual training, you should be able to fully recover from those injuries in about three days" He explained.


    "But I must warn you, this pill has an immense amount of mana inside it, if you do not rigorously train precisely in the way I instruct you, you will injure yourself further and make it even harder to recover" He sternly warned.


    Ventus silently nodded as his eyes were closed and the pill was still in his hands. He diligently paid attention to Richard''s words.


    "Now" He instructed, "Before you swallow the pill and start your training, we must first get rid of the bandages in your body, otherwise the different technique on them will interrupt the pill absorption"If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    When he said that, Richard made a hand seal and circulated his mana. Then, he drew an arcane rune in the air and pointed at Ventus. The rune flashed through the air and landed in the bandages that covered his body, a glow then rose from the bandages and they disintegrated into light particles that in mere instants disappeared in the air leaving Ventus stark naked.


    But before the boy could even feel that he was in his birth suit, Richard drew another rune in the air and pointed at Ventus. The rune flashed and landed on his body, light particles started glowing in the air and immediately flew towards him. In instants, a set of clean white training garments materialized on Ventus''s body. He now wore a sleeveless shirt and comfortable pants that fit him perfectly but wore no shoes.


    Richard then pointed a finger at the window and circulated his mana. A minuscule sphere of light the size of a bean congealed at the tip of that finger, with a thought it flew rapidly towards that window and entered its frame. The window then glowed and swung outwards letting in the cold and comfortable air of the night into the room.


    "Now, swallow the pill and immediately begin to execute your refinement technique" Richard commanded.


    Ventus quietly obeyed and put the pill in his mouth, swiftly swallowing it. As the pill fell in his stomach he immediately knew that Richard didn''t exaggerate at all, he felt his stomach swell as the massive amount of refined mana burst out from the pill.


    He immediately started running his refinement technique. As he circled his mana around his body in accordance with the technique, he noticed a new development happen. Instead of gathering world mana and refining it, every time his inner mana inside his meridians passed on his stomach region, several hundred wisps of pill mana would be attracted by his inner mana and would be pulled out from his stomach to join the great flow of mana inside his meridians.


    After about three hours, He felt that his circulation was gradually accelerating as the pain in his meridians and core diminished. Ventus carefully observed his inner condition using his inner mana and found out that the slight cracks in his meridians were greatly healed, that made his heart fill up with joy.


    On the outside, Richard observed Ventus''s training and a grin grew on his face. Ventus himself couldn''t feel it, but whilst he was training the wind around him gathered and revolved rapidly around him, far more noticeable than the previous time he trained. That alone, Richard mused, confirmed the boy''s excellent wind affinity.


    "Despite being only an entry-level technique, he can already cause such a disturbance in the element around him," he thought happily, "His father was indeed wise to name him with such a name, could it be the man knew his son would have such an excellent affinity from birth?" he mused.


    "In any case, I''ve got myself a disciple to be proud of indeed" he laughed in his mind.


    The four hours of training were about to be up and Ventus was still deeply immersed in his training and observation of his condition. His mana ran ever faster inside his meridians that were completely healed at this point, and now, were growing stronger under the nourishment of the pill mana.


    He was also pleasantly surprised that his core healed slightly and was filled to the brim with energy. One had to know that his happiness came from the fact that it took him about 24 hours to fill his core up to 50% on his own, whilst with the aid of the pill mana, in a portion of the time he filled up the remaining 50% completely.


    As Richard observed he knew that Ventus had reached the limit of what he could refine today, he then moved and crouched down near him. He then placed his hand close Ventus''s stomach and sent a wisp of his own mana inside the boy. Immediately all of that bursting pill mana was restricted and forced back to the pill''s shell. If one could look inside Ventus''s stomach one would see that the pill retained its original shape but had lost a portion of its glow, and around the green pill, there were black chains made of runes sealing it.


    Ventus noticed that the massive flow of mana was halted, he stopped circulating his mana and opened his eyes. He found himself face-to-face with Richard''s face and was given a scare as he jumped backward.


    "Old man! What the f*ck is wrong with you!?" He shouted angrily.


    "Manners kid! manners!" Richard replied annoyed as he stood up straight, "I was sealing the pill mana so you wouldn''t overdo the training and cripple yourself with the exaggerated amount"


    "At least be thankful I''m not letting you explode your meridians and core!" he snorted.


    "Oh...i see..." Ventus replied embarrassedly. "I''m sorry I overreacted"


    Richard waved it off and helped Ventus stand up. As he did he silently scanned Ventus''s inner condition with his mana and was happy with the results. Ventus had recovered significantly and even a bit faster than he expected. All that was left to recover was the core.


    "Now, kid, you mustn''t refine any mana until I say so, for the next few hours, you''re going to circle your mana through your body and quench your non-mana related parts with mana to strengthen your body, do that until your core is emptied out" he instructed as he sat back on the antler chair.


    Ventus proceeded to do that as instructed, he chose to do simple exercises whilst enhancing his every move with mana, that made his whole body glow with light. As his physical prowess wasn''t that high, he could only do so much with his body and as such, 3 hours later he collapsed on the ground panting heavily, his core was emptied.


    This time was much different from when he injured himself, that time he was unconsciously igniting his inner mana and that is why in mere minutes his core was almost emptied. This time he carefully controlled his expenditure and that is why it lasted as much as three hours.


    "You lasted longer than i expected" Richard praised, "Although a bit rough, your control over mana is impressive for a beginner like yourself"


    Ventus didn''t reply and turned his head to the window. The sun had already risen without his noticing. He felt tired, but satisfied with his progress, he grinned and then turned to Richard.


    "So, I remenber you told me something about entrance trials right?"

 Terra Control Technique

    "The magi association entry trials?" Richard blanked for a bit, "Oh yes!, of course, I did indeed mention them"


    "They are a must if we are to officially make you my apprentice in the association and to grant you access to your father''s technique now that it fully belongs to them" he replied.


    "So" Ventus continued "How do I participate in the trials?"


    "For one, you have to go to the nearest branch of the association to take the trials that are held monthly" Richard replied, "Secondly, I have to apply for your participation as my apprentice at said branch"


    "And then you may take the trials and its challenges" he concluded.


    "When can we go so that I can take the trials?" Ventus inquired.


    "Well, if my calculations are correct" Richard replied, "The last trial happened about a week ago, and as such, there are three weeks left for the next trial"


    "There is still time then for me to recover and train to prepare for the trials" Ventus grinned.


    "Hoho kid, calm down" Richard laughed, "You''re talented, but don''t get cocky"


    "Three weeks is barely enough time for you to learn and maybe master a single technique considering your talent" he spoke, "As for greatly raising your overall strength in three weeks?"


    "Impossible"


    "All you can do is try and raise your fighting capabilities, you are going to need them" he concluded.


    "But I know how to fight! with mana reinforcement, I should be able to at least get a decent score right?" Ventus replied indignantly.


    Although his father had only taught him the most basic magi art of the tornado policy, Ventus was not a weak practitioner of martial arts. From a very young age, he was taught the ways of combat and strategy, as well as how to use most metal weaponry, excluding firearms. His village had those, but only the guards and the village''s leadership had access to them. He was at least a decent combatant, even if he was a tad on the weaker side of physical strength.


    "Yes, if all the participants were only allowed to use simple martial arts and mana reinforcement, maybe with a strategy you could score a decent result" Richard replied, "But remember, this is the magi association we are talking about"


    "The place where magi all around the world gather to study and develop magi arts, as well as publicize them so that further knowledge may be developed in the future with the newer generations" he explained, "So, it''s obvious that the use of magi arts will not be restricted"


    "With combat training, you may last a bit longer in the competition, but without a single magi art to show aside from your refinement technique, you won''t get far"


    Ventus frowned. he had to agree that in combat he could hold his if it were only martial arts allowed, but the moment magi arts were involved, he would almost certainly be easily beaten.


    "But what do I do then?" He complained, " I can''t learn magi arts in the village because only the wealthy have access to those, and I can''t learn my father''s tornado policy due to the restrictions of the association"


    "If I can''t get a decent ranking on the trials, I won''t be able to become your apprentice, and as such, I can''t learn anything from the magi association at all!"


    At this moment Richard began laughing. At first, it was discreet, but slowly it grew in potency and became an uncontrollable cackle that could be heard all across the inn''s building. Ventus grew irritated at this and glared at the man.


    "What''s so funny old man!" he spoke angrily.


    After a few seconds of laughter, Richard finally calmed down and grinned.


    "You really are a kid! you even whine like a toddler" he laughed a bit more.


    "OLD MAN!" Ventus hissed.


    "Okay okay, calm down, calm down" he chuckled, "It is indeed true that you can''t learn from this village, or from the association"


    Richard then placed his thumb on his chest.


    "But, as I said before" he spoke slowly "If someone creates a technique at the association, as long as that author lives, he can distribute and teach that technique however he sees fit"Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "So you mean..." Ventus said expectantly.


    "Exactly kid" Richard grinned widely, "Yours truly will teach you a magi art!"


    "All right Old man!" He cheered, "That''s how a proper master is supposed to behave, about time no?"


    "Kid" Richard glared, "Say that again and you''ll see how many techniques I''ll teach you"


    Ventus abruptly kneeled and kowtowed to the man whilst saying.


    "Oh I''m sorry, oh so sorry revered master," he said as he kowtowed, "This disciple is foolish, have mercy"


    Richard glared at the boy but then burst out laughing.


    "hahaha, you truly are a kid all right" he chuckled, "Stop fooling around and stand up"


    Ventus stood up and Richard did the same. He walked towards the door and opened it.


    "I''ll be heading towards my room to pack my things up, get yourself ready"


    "Leave? what about my recovery?" Ventus inquired confused.


    "Don''t worry, I''ll make sure you recover to the utmost, but right now we''ll leave this place and go to a better terrain to train you, and after you master the technique I''ll teach you, we''ll go straight to the trials"


    Ventus nodded and silently sat down on the bed looking at the floor. He breathed in slowly and relaxed as Richard left the room. After but a few seconds, however, he returned and with a simple cloth bag tied around his waist.


    "Ready kid?" He asked.


    "Always" Ventus nodded.


    Ventus stood up from the bed. Richard walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Richard''s power blasted out and in an instant a bubble of mana formed around the both of them. At first, that bubble was pure white and didn''t allow them to see anything, but after a few moments the bubble became transparent and allowed full view of everything around them.


    The bubble trembled and slowly started to float in place. Ventus became anxious, he had never floated before, and the feeling of not being able to touch the ground was weird and made him uncomfortable.


    "Relax kid" Richard grinned, "The fun hasn''t started yet"


    The window was open and as such, it was pretty easy for them to fly out of it. The bubble trembled once more and slowly flew towards the window, at first it seemed that the bubble was too big and wouldn''t go through, but when the bubble arrived before the window it transformed and fit the window precisely going through it without making any sound or damage.


    They were out of the window and in mid-air. Ventus couldn''t help but look down, and when he did, he found out they were at least 10 meters in the air. He shivered and was about to complain when he felt a tug on his shoulder and calmed down. He knew that Richard would not let him fall and so he just waited to see the next move of the man.


    "Kid, witness with your own eyes" he grinned widely, "The might and possibilities of mana"


    The bubbled trembled and then everything around them became a blur. From Ventus''s perspective, they hadn''t moved at all as he couldn''t feel the pressure of the wind or the high speed. But if one were to look from the outside, they would only see that the transparent bubble looked light a shooting star due to its ridiculous speed.


    They travelled for about 10 minutes before stopping in mid-air. As they hovered they saw that below them was a barren flat rocky land. The land was dusty and had cracks all over it as the earth was truly dry. But it also had a very peculiar thing about it, the earth had a black colour to it.


    "Yeah" Richard spoke, "This should be a good spot"


    Ventus however ignored that. He finally recognized where this was and shock grew all over his face. They were in the Black Rock Plains. The place wasn''t special or anything besides its colouration. The thing that shocked Ventus was that this place was 400 kilometres away from the village, a distance that would take about a week to travel on a horse at full speed.


    Richard circulated his mana making them descend to the ground. As the bubble touched the ground it disintegrated into particles of light and in an instant, it completely vanished. Richard walked some distance away from Ventus and commanded.


    "Sit down and rest, in a few hours you''ll be refining the remaining portion of the pill to completely recover," He said, "This time, however, I''ll help you refine the pill so that you may refine it faster and more accurately, allowing you a to make a complete recovery"


    "But before we do that, I''m going to demonstrate the technique that I''ll be teaching you later so that you can have a grasp of what it is and what it can do before we start the actual training" he explained.


    Ventus nodded and sat down and waited for the man''s next instruction


    Richard''s mana erupted and released a flash of blinding light forcing Ventus to close his eyes and put his arms across his face to protect his retina from being damaged. The next moment he could see, Richard was wearing a clothing very similar to his own, he wore a set of dark blue clothing that was composed of a sleeveless shirt and comfortable pants.


    "This is a technique that I''ve created and perfected throughout my life, one of the most useful and versatile ones that can cover almost every aspect of a magi art"


    Richard''s mana erupted out of him once again, but different from the previous time, his body now had a brown-yellow aura around it that reminded Ventus of the very ground they stood on. It seemed as if the man had become one with the earth and could disappear at the next instant if he didn''t pay full attention to him.


    "I call it...." Richard spoke slowly.


    He then stomped the ground and a flash of his brown-yellow mana entered the earth making the ground beneath them to start trembling. The next instant a black rock spike the same size as the man rose to his left. Ventus was impressed, but what happened next left him so astounded he could not even speak. Four more spikes rose at the left of the first one, then five more spikes rose to Richard''s right, after that, nine spikes rose behind each one of the ten original ones. The ground stopped trembling


    The spikes themselves started cracking and after a few seconds, they were shattered, releasing a huge black cloud of dust. After the dust cloud cleared away Ventus saw something that he would remember for the rest of his days. The spikes had become identical statues of Richard, and they moved naturally as if they had life in them. Each statue was stretching and doing some light exercises, and every single one of them did so independently, without a single command from Richard.


    "The Terra Control Technique"

 Grasp the Earth, Mold the World

    As Richard said that, the statues began to move outwards and made a circle around him. The 100-man strong team stood there and emanated a strong aura similar to his.


    Richard stomped the ground once again directing another wisp of his yellow-brown aura into the dark earth beneath him. The ground cracked with the stomp.


    The earth began to tremble beneath them once more. Ventus suddenly shook as he felt his body being moved further away from the circle where Richard stood.


    The ground then began to harden and take the shape. At first, Ventus could not identify what exactly was going on, But, he soon understood what happened.


    The ground caved in and became a perfect square shaped holed that encompassed the 100 statues and Richard that was about a meter in depth and had a 100-meter area.


    The ground shook fiercely. The perfect square hole began to lessen in depth and before Ventus`s eyes it rose up and became a one-meter high platform. Everything then finally stopped trembling as the earth settled down after the man''s meddling with the black minerals beneath them.


    "The Terra Control Technique" Richard spoke, "Is a very practical technique that allows the user to affect minerals around them with their mana and control them at their leisure" he explained.


    "It is very easy to learn it, but a technique that requires immense training and skill to master and bring out its fullest potential" he instructed, "With enough mana, even building a whole city by yourself is not impossible" He grinned.


    Ventus was astonished. This whole time he had been observing not only the changes that were happening to the environment around him. But also the fluctuations in Richard''s aura, but to his surprise, even after making so many changes to the scenario the man''s aura hadn''t diminished whatsoever.


    "The keywords to this technique are" he spoke.


    Richard''s aura exploded and released massive amounts of energy towards the surroundings. As the aura shot out of his body it visibly became hundreds of threads that flew towards the earth around the square platform.


    At every spot a thread landed, the earth would shine slightly. Soon enough, a big circular area was shining around the platform. The hundreds of yellow-brown threads were connected to it and all of the gathered at Richard''s aura.


    "Grasp the earth, mold the world" he concluded.


    The aura on his body then contracted and congealed at his hands. Now, the threads were equally divided as half of them were being held by his right hand and the other half by his left.


    Richard spread his legs apart and lowered his stance. He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. He took an abrupt deep breath and cracks appeared beneath his feet as his toes had dug into the ground. His frail looking arms bulked up as mana began coursing through them massively.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    "HA!"


    As the shout rang across the silent shining dark plains Richard finally moved. His arms began moving upwards, but they moved slowly and strenuously as if he was making a big effort.


    Ventus at first was puzzled as to why his master was doing such a stupid looking gesture. But then his thoughts immediately changes as the earth once more trembled massively. The shining circular area shone even brighter as Richard''s hands moved upwards ever so slowly.


    The rumble became ever louder. Richard''s body seemed to be undergoing a massive effort as his veins bulged out and sweat beads began to form on his forehead. The hands were getting ever closer to each other and the trembling only intensified the closer they became.


    Richard''s eyes shot open and a fierce light shined on them.


    "Grasp the earth!"


    One final push to his efforts and his hands touched above his head.


    "MOLD THE WORLD!"


    He then moved his arms downwards rapidly and crossed them in front of his chest making an x-shaped movement and pulled the mana threads with his full strength. The circular area shined as if a star was rising from the ground as the earth trembled like an earthquake was going off.


    Ventus couldn''t stay still anymore and rose to his feet shouting barely being able to maintain his balance whilst standing.


    "OLD MAN STOP THIS! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME!?"


    The earth moved and massive rolls of perfectly shaped walls began to rise. Before Ventus could even react to the new development everything stopped.


    The shining had dimmed and died out. The trembling earth had stilled and went silent. the hundreds of mana threads disappeared and retracted back into Richard''s body. Ventus found himself stunned as he now noticed his new scenario.


    He was standing on top of one stone bench of a pitch black arena. Richard had used his technique to build in a few minutes from the ground up not only 100 statues, but a platform and even a whole arena so that Ventus would be comfortable to watch his demonstration.


    And as if that was not enough, not only was everything sturdy and quickly built, But also very well detailed. The benches were plain, but the rest was nothing but extraordinary. The arena was basically a mini-coliseum full of columns with a Greek style, on them, there were several carvings of beasts and fighters engaging in battle.


    "Calm down kid" Richard laughed as he saw him standing and gawking at everything.


    "If I don''t show my power you''ll think I''m not worthy to be your master"


    Richard stretched and then looked at his 100 clones.


    "Well, now that I''ve shown you the full potential of the technique overall" He spoke, "I''ll show you it''s applications to combat and how you can use it to strengthen your fighting capability"


    "You won''t be able to reveal it''s most intrinsic uses with just three weeks of training" He said,"But, with my guidance, you can certainly shine in the trials" he grinned.


    He then began drawing runes in the air that shone and flew off. The runes flashed and landed on the statues fusing with them. after a few instants, he stopped and looked at his works. The statues now had a fierce expression as their eyes glowed with ferocious intentions.


    "With this done, now they are out of my control" He explained, "They are on automatic mode and will attack me with the intent to kill" he chuckled, "That should provide a more precise demonstration"


    He cracked his knuckles and grinned widely.


    "All right kid, sit down and pay close attention," He instructed, "I will now show you how a master fights".

 Bring the World Into the Fight

    Richard stood in the middle of the arena. The statues glared at him but they didn''t move at all. Ventus looked at them intrigued.


    "Didn''t you say they would attack you to kill?" Ventus inquired.


    "I did" he chuckled, "But they will only attack me when I enter combat position, after all, they are still training puppets"


    "Then what are you waiting for? attack already!" Ventus shouted excitedly.


    "Okay,okay, killer" He laughed, "Watch closely"


    Richard finally raised his arms and entered a fighting stance. His stance was simple with his arms guarding his chest whilst he jumped lightly changing from one foot to the other.


    As if he had poked a hornet''s nest the statues finally moved and began their attack. Five statues dashed from the encirclement at an incredible speed, each step allowing them to cross 10 meters, and as such, in instants, they arrived before Richard.


    "First kid" Richard spoke leisurely, "You can use the earth to reinforce your body as an armor"


    His two feet now were on the ground, with his right foot forward. A yellow-brown aura glowed on his fists that rapidly attracted rock fragments towards them. In instants, a black set of gauntlets was formed. The statues jumped and fired punches and kicks towards him from different directions.


    He jumped and dodged the attacks with ease. As he was in mid-air his feet shone with the yellow-brown aura once more, earth fragments flew towards them and black boots formed around his bare feet.


    "And with said reinforcement" He grinned, "You can do things like this!"


    In mid-air, he spun his body and delivered an ax kick to the head of one of the statues making it explode, he then kicked the headless body and used it as a foothold to direct his body towards another statue. His body was with it''s back turned towards that statue leaving it wide open to receive a fist from that statue, the statue noticed this and punched out.


    "You can also use the technique to create weaponry and defensive gear" He laughed.


    On his back shone his aura once more. Instantly a great black earthen shield was formed that clashed against the oncoming fist. The fist was intact, but the shield was as well. The force had been completely nullified and made Richard stop.


    "You can also use some tricks"


    The shield shone with his aura and it transformed, it turned into a big spike that grew and pierced the statue''s body destroying it. Richard''s hand glowed making earth shards fly to it, in instants congealing a black sword. He spun his body and swung the blade decapitating the remaining three statues in an instant.


    Richard''s aura glowed around him, he grinned and raised his right hand to the height of his head. On it a black javelin formed ethereally, he gripped and the javelin solidified.


    "It can also be used to produce ranged attacks" He smiledThe author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Richard threw the javelin making it fly towards one of the statues at the corner of the arena instantly killing it. His right arm was still stretched as he raised left hand to the side of his head. In the same fashion, he created another black javelin and gripped it, he threw it and instantly impaled another statue.


    "And if you''re strong enough, even beating firearms is not too much of a hassle" He grinned.


    His arms began to shine with aura as they bulked up. When they first were strengthened they were frail looking and became lean and strong, now they seemed like two tree logs stuck to the man''s somewhat thin chest.


    His hands became a blur as he began to repeatedly create and throw javelins so fast that all Ventus could capture from his moves were the statues being impaled and destroyed at the corners of the arena, and as they "died" dark dust clouds rose into the air, and soon enough the whole fighting space became impossible to discern.


    "You can also use this technique to alter the field to your advantage"


    Ventus hear a massive stomp and the earth began to tremble. In instants, the fighting platform shot up and raised itself above the dust cloud allowing Ventus to see once more, but since the platform was too high, Ventus had to change his position and choose a higher standing seat in the arena so that he could further accompany the demonstration.


    As he adjusted himself to his new position and sat down he saw just how much his master had destroyed with those javelins. The previous 93 remaining statues were now only 40. He was now standing in the middle of a far smaller encirclement.


    "And, if you''re so inclined to this spectrum, you can also use this technique to practice and develop the art of puppetry"


    Richard clapped his hand and then slowly spread them apart. As he did, dozens of mana threads began appearing between them, however, they didn''t stay connected and broke apart. He slapped his hands on the ground and the platform shook.


    As he stood there kneeling on the ground, 20 stone beasts sprouted out of the ground. They were roughly the size of wolves but were shaped like a plethora of different beasts.


    "Attack little buddies!" He commanded laughing.


    The beasts dashed out and the statues dashed out all at the same, the beasts jumped and attacked the statues and 20 of them were instantly eliminated as the beasts bit at their throats. But the statues were no pushovers as they in a final struggle took out the beasts by piercing their "hearts". both parties exploded into dust.


    Richard stood up and faced the remaining 20 statues with a grin plastered in his face.


    "And finally, when you reached a level were your attunement with the earth and skill in the use of the technique are high enough"


    The whole ground begins to shine around him and Ventus could visibly see that the aura coming from the ground didn''t belong to Richard. Rather, this time it seemed as if the world was feeding its power to the man and boosting his capabilities


    "You can tap into the power of the earth and bring the world itself into the fight" he concluded.


    The statues dashed towards Richard. He, however, didn''t dodge, instead, he dashed at their direction, and far faster than before. It seemed as if he had teleported and arrived in front of a group of statues.


    He punched out and the punch hit the air, But the statues were hit nonetheless. Ventus saw that when he punched, five columns of rock roughly the width of Richard''s arm grew from the ground and accurately pierced the statues in the chest exploding them.


    Them Richard spun his body and made a round-house kick that hit the air again. From the ground a massive pillar sprouted hit ten statues from the side, stacking them together, blasting them off the platform and making them hit the benches, exploding them.


    He dashed and arrived instantly in front of the five remaining statues. He fired off an uppercut into the air, five spikes the sprouted from the ground piercing the statues through the skull finishing then the demonstration. He stomped the ground and the platform then returned to its original position.


    Richard''s arms deflated as he exhaled heavily, his energy stopped circulating as he stretched and looked at Ventus.


    "So kid" he grinned widely, "Is this good enough for ya?"

 Worlds Pulse

    "Yeah" he replied smugly, "That should be good enough."


    "Oh is that so you brat?" He smiled coldly, "Then I want to see you come up with something better and practice by yourself."


    Ventus once more kneeled and kowtowed.


    "Revered master, forgive me!" he cried, " I''ve been so blind to your magnificence, forgive me, please!"


    Richard just snorted with an angry face, but it didn''t take him long to laugh and signal him to come closer. In his eyes, Ventus was just a kid, a mischievous and bratty one, but nonetheless a good kid. It wasn''t long since he lost basically his entire life to that evil fire, and yet, he moved forward and embarked on this trip with him. Maybe, he thought, it was one of the perks of being young.


    Ventus walked down the several rolls of stone benches of the arena and headed towards the square fighting space. As he arrived Richard instructed him to sit down beside him and prepare to execute his refinement technique.


    Richard moved around Ventus and sat down cross-legged behind him placing a hand on his shoulder whilst making a hand sign with his hand.


    "Release!"


    A shattering sound echoed in the depths of Ventus mind. The seal on the green pill crumbled and the massive pill mana burst off, gushing great amounts of energy into Ventus''s stomach making it bulge.


    Ventus executed his whirlwind revolution technique and began the refinement. As Richard''s senses were focused on the boy, he noticed that the technique by itself was of really high standards, even higher than what he estimated initially. Even though he knew the theory, he had never focused on analyzing its execution.


    He was a grandmaster magus after all, without hard work and talent he wouldn''t have reached where he got today. However, his most defining trait is that he was a research aficionado. Upon finding a new discovery, he would immediately head out and explore it to the fullest of his abilities. When the association reported that a countryside magus had achieved the grandmaster standard and had developed the groundbreaking tornado policy, he got himself a copy and travelled to see for himself how it was executed. Alas, his efforts were in vain as the man died before he had a chance to converse with him properly and discuss the technique.


    As Ventus executed the refinement technique Richard observed its effects. The technique was faster than most of the regular in terms of circulation and refinement. It had the special property of, instead of the regular urging of the mana to make it move inside the meridians and core, making the mana rotate just like a bullet would when fired out of a gun inside the meridians making it speed up tremendously. Richard estimated that the technique allowed Ventus to refine mana three or four times faster than the average magus.


    Even with that incredible speed, Richard estimated that it wasn''t enough. At Ventus current speed and efficiency, he would still take another two days to completely refine and fully recover his core. But if he wanted to implement his training regime to the maximum efficiency, he couldn''t afford to let Ventus waste such time.


    As the pill mana flowed through Ventus''s body he felt a weird phenomenon take place. A foreign energy entered his body and began to affect his refinement. At first, it made Ventus refine and absorb the pill mana more thoroughly, enhancing its healing effects. Then, it sped up his flow up to ten times its original speed.


    Normally, such speed in an unprepared body like Ventus would shred the meridians to pieces and break the core apart, essentially crippling the individual and causing internal damage to other organs non-related to mana. But due to Richard''s precise control, it did no damage whatsoever and instead, greatly accelerated his recovery.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    The core recovered at visible speed and in minutes it was completely restored and strengthened. The meridians and the rest of the body were also quenched in the overflowing pill mana received an upgrade as well. In ten minutes the recovery was complete and the pill was fully refined and converted into inner mana.


    Ventus now was full to the brim with mana. His body seemed to emit a faint glow around it as it contently vibrated with energy. He knew even without looking too cautiously that his body was healed and he was back to his prime, His core was filled to 100% and he felt as if he could shatter a mountain if he so wished.


    Richard ceased his actions and stood up releasing a light hot breath, Ventus followed promptly and stood up as well. Richard moved a few meters away from him and turned to face him, his hands were behind his back as he wore a serious semblance. Ventus knew that the time for him to learn had come.


    "First kid" He spoke, "Before you learn the technique, you must learn something that any earth magus has to learn if he truly strives for the top."


    His body glowed with aura. That aura at first was around all of his body, but then it started flowing towards the ground, eventually, only his feet glowed. At first, Ventus did not understand as no phenomenon manifested in front of him, but soon, the ground vibrated gently as if a heart was silently beating below them.


    "Old man, what''s going on? why do I feel like there is a heart beneath my feet?" Ventus questioned confused.


    "Oh," Richard spoke surprised, "You can actually feel that so quickly? I thought I would have to pour more mana into this!"


    "Truly talented, truly talented," He said smiling, "Well kid, what you feel beneath you is the world''s pulse."


    "World''s pulse?" he asked stunned "As in, the heartbeat of the planet?"


    "Precisely" he replied, "As every life has a pulse, so does the world that houses all lives"


    "If you pay enough attention, or if you stimulate it a bit, you can feel that the world itself is alive and has a pulse of its own," he explained, "If you ever wish to master any earth magi art to the fullest, you must communicate with the world."


    "Communicate with the world..." Ventus mused.


    Soon enough his eyes were closed and his focus was directed towards the earth. Seeing his apprentice''s proactiveness he retracted his mana from the ground, he would let him experiment on his own and if any doubts were raised he would guide him more directly.


    Ventus began circulating the mana inside himself. If flowed inside him like a liquid substance that would advance or retreat at his will. A portion of the mana first exited the core and spread throughout his meridians, then it reached his muscles, bone, veins and other tissues. His body began to glow with mana that formed a short white aura around himself. This was general mana reinforcement.


    He then retraced the excess energy from the rest of his body and began to guide all of it towards his feet, the aura likewise began to disappear and converge towards the ground. In instants, all the mana he had on his meridians was now focused on soles. He began to ram the mana towards the ground with all with will trying to make his mana connect to it.


    This problem arose some thoughts on his mind. At first, he thought that slowly guiding the mana wouldn''t work for him since he was new at this, so he tried the brute force approach. The energy on his feet went upwards towards his tights, and then fired back down at rapid speed and ram at his soles. To his disappointment, all that did was make his feet shine for an instant and then return to the regular reinforcement glow.


    Then he figured the quantity of mana he had urged was too little and as such he willed more mana and repeated the process using up to 50% of the mana on his core all at once. And once again, all he achieved was make his feet shine even brighter than before.


    "I refuse to believe I cannot do this!" He mumbled angrily as his calm face began to contort into an angry expression.


    The last thought was that he just wasn''t trying hard enough, and so, tried his best.


    He then mustered all the mana in his body towards this effort, he willed it all towards his head and made it glow like a lightbulb. He then willed it all down at the greatest speed he could and it crashed down at his feet making it look like he had two flashbangs for feet as they released a blinding light for an instant. But alas, his efforts were for nought.


    "Why is it that my mana won''t connect to the ground? Why can''t I make it leave my body?!" he grumbled.


    He stopped his efforts and opened his eyes as he stabilized his flow and returned his mana to his core. Not even 100% was enough to break through the ground and connect with the world, he did not understand how Richard did it so effortlessly. He turned to him.


    "How did you so easily connect with the world? what did you do old man?" he inquired frustrated.

 Mana Threads

    "The answer to that is quite obvious really." Richard laughed.


    "Every single being with the ability to use mana has a natural protection against invasion and leaking," He explained, " The core and meridians inside a living being are a closed system that does not allow one to just blast off mana at will as that would be dangerous to the body and could risk injuries and even death by reckless mana discharge,"


    "As the knowledge about this supernatural energy grew, the numerous beings throughout the world developed several ways to be able to utilize their inner energy to interact with the world and affect it to their wills."


    He then clapped his hands together and slowly separated them revealing think yellow-brown threads between them.


    "An example of that is the use of mana threads," He continued, "By congealing minuscule amounts of mana on the tip of the meridians in my hands I can, by touching my hands together, connect that mana in them and after that connection is established I can then reinforce the threads formed by using more mana,"


    "Thus giving these threads enough resilience to endure and interact with the world outside their natural space that is my body," he concluded.


    "Of course, these threads can be formed by connecting with the elements and the world mana directly, but that stuff is a really high-level skill and takes enormous practice, so, for now, don''t worry about it." he commented.


    Ventus memorized the explanation and began his training again. First, he tried to form the mana threads according to Richard''s explanation, it took him about two hours just to pull off making the initial connection, then it took him four more hours to be able to correctly enhance and stabilize said connection and correctly create the mana threads between his clasped hands.


    It was only after a full eight hours of training that he slowly separated his hands and showed between them thin white, almost transparent mana threads. Richards gawked at the scene as he watched the results of his apprentice.


    "You''re nothing short of a monster at this time kid, it even makes an old man like me jealous of your talent." he laughed self-deprecatingly.


    That comment made Ventus confused as he turned to look at him with an inquisitive look.


    "What do you mean? why would a powerful grandmaster like you be jealous of me?"


    "You basically pulled off in less than a day something I took a week to do when I first trained!" he said agitatedly "Many young magi would kill to have a comprehension and affinity like yours kid!"The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "Oh, so I''m that good huh?" Ventus grinned smugly.


    "Don''t get cocky kid, you just took your first step in the long road of magi arts," He warned, "You still have a long way before you can actually call yourself accomplished at something and have some pride in your abilities and achievements."


    "Okay okay old man," he grumbled, "can''t even let me enjoy some small success."


    At that time Ventus felt waves of exhaustion wash over him as he gradually felt himself get sleepy. Due to the minimized consumption of mana and the close to no physical effort, he managed to train for a full 14 hours straight. Now not only was he extremely tired but also bore a great hunger within him, the sign of that was the loud growl from his stomach demanding a decent meal.


    Richard heard that and chuckled. He then fetched from the pouch on his waist several things that absolutely couldn''t fit that small sized sack, he took out wood to make fire, perfectly preserved beast meat and even some jugs filled with fruit juice and wine so that they could drink with their meal.


    Ventus was shocked at how he produced all of that basically from thin air in his perspective and immediately inquired about it.


    "This?" Richard replied, "This is a spatial storage pouch or just space pouch for short."


    "It''s a very convenient way of taking huge amounts of things anywhere with little to no effort," he explained, "Inside this exist a pseudo dimension that can store any non-living material inside and keep it preserved for about one hundred years."


    "And this isn''t even such a high quality one," he continued, " There are various models that can contain even larger quantities and preserve for even more time, such as the expensive space belt, the rare space ring, and the extremely scarce space gem,"


    "The last one is something so rare that even with rivers of money you may not be able to buy one as it is just too precious." he concluded.


    After that, they proceeded to light up the fire and have a nice meal under the stars while joyfully chatting and drinking. After that, they slept for the whole night and woke up as soon as the first rays of sunlight crossed the sky.


    For the next 20 days, they repeated this process. After waking Ventus would train for about 10 to 14 hours and after that, they would eat and sleep. In that time Ventus managed to successfully perceive the world''s pulse on his own and communicate with the earth thus allowing for him to begin his practice in the technique Richard imparted to him.


    In that period he trained with the stone clones of Richard to enhance his combat capabilities and to more thoroughly infuse the Terra Control technique into his combat style and proficiently use it to fight.


    On the morning of the twenty-first day of their training, Richard dismantled the arena and restored the place into its original geography.


    "All right kid, you''ve done some great progress in there past weeks," he smiled, "Now its time to put all that work to the test!"


    He grabbed Ventus''s shoulder whilst summoning the transport bubble. Ventus was calm and had changed his white clothing into a dark blue one similar to his master, as well as wearing shoes this time.


    "We''re off to the trials!" He laughed as they blasted away in the sky.

 Grandmaster Rank Bully

    <Lumina Minor Kingdom - Nebula Stronghold>


    They flew for around four hours before arriving at the nearest settlement that contained a branch of the magi association. It was a bustling place that contained tens of thousands of citizens walking around, with at least a fifth of them wearing armor and wield either swords and spears or outright flintlock rifles and pistols.


    The place was called Nebula Stronghold, and as the name implied, it held strategic military position to the kingdom and its forces as it was situated somewhat near the eastern border. It served both as a defense point to protect the inner regions of the kingdom as well as a recruiting point to supply the border strongholds that directly face the foreign threats to the crown with able soldiers.


    Another very important characteristic of this stronghold was that it was positioned in the midst of two major trading routes. That allowed it to easily stock provisions, medicine and weapons through trade with travelling merchants, as well as having various sources of information provided by said merchants.


    And of course, here was stationed a branch of the magi association. Considering the high flux of people in this place, the association thought it was wise to build a branch here as this would allow them to, hopefully, scout out some talents and acquire provisions to train them via trading.


    Once a month the populace would be stirred as trials would be held in the magus tower to select a new batch of apprentices to work for the association. The magus tower was a 100-meter tall stone tower that would from time to time flash with magical runes, it had a single massive 10-meter tall metallic gate that was made of dark iron and gold. At this time it was open and several hundred walked in and out of the building.


    The tower was not only impressive in size but also oppressive in aura. Thanks to mana gathering arrays, the building had a huge concentration of mana on it that made any common person barely able to walk in its vicinity due to the atmospheric pressure caused by the high levels of mana in the air. Weaker magi would feel a discomfort in the tower, whilst stronger ones barely felt anything.


    However, to those that trained in magi arts, this place was a paradise since it allowed to achieve double the results with half the effort. The concentrated mana allowed the magi to better grasp the concepts of mana and more easily perceive the intricacies of their practice and techniques.


    The trials were about to start, due to that Richard wasted no time in the city and instead flew directly to the magus tower. As the soldiers saw a white light flashing through the sky they were prepared to attack, but when they saw that the light stopped right above the magus tower, they stopped their intent and stood down.


    The pair descended in instants right in front of the entrance gate, their descent caused quite a commotion as there weren''t many that would dare fly that close to the tower due to its powerful defensive arrays that would attack any non-authorized beings that flew near to it.


    The crowd had to make way as Richard''s transport bubble simply pushed them all aside when it landed in the midst of the crowd. The bubble disintegrated in instants and revealed the pair of travelers, making the crowd immediately fire curses of annoyance as well as gasps of shock and admiration.


    "So noisy," Richard complained, "Silence!"


    As he shouted his aura blasted out of his body and pressured everyone around them making them unable to utter a word. The crowd felt as if it was facing an enormous beast that would tear them to shreds at the minor sound they made. In an instant, Richard retracted his aura and resume to walk towards the tower.


    "Much better," he smiled, "Come, kid, let us go and handle business."


    Ventus nodded and followed quickly after him. A few instants later they were inside the tower, however, the inside was very different from what Ventus picture considering the external appearance of the tower. Instead of a dark dungeon-like space, what greeted him was more like a noble''s residence full of ornaments and precious stone filled decorations.


    There were several vases with exotic decorative plants and huge gold-rimmed portraits on the milky white walls. Not only that but there were also several mana stones on the wall and on the majestic candelabra that hanged on the ceiling. There were three receptionists behind a counter that lazily replied the people that applied for the trials, they gave information and instruction always wearing an arrogant expression on their faces. Two of them were males, whilst the remaining one was a female, and that one specifically seemed to be especially nasty to deal with. Beside the reception counter, there was a luminous oval portal that constantly fluctuated as people used it.


    "I don''t like their attitude," Ventus spoke, "They speak as if they were doing people a favor, when in fact they are paid to do this."


    "Precisely kid," Richard replied, "Quite often you will see that people that have even the slightest amount of power will most likely bully the powerless ones."


    "I despise that sort of behavior." he concluded.


    "Next!" a female voice sounded towards them.


    The pair approached the female attendant when they were called. As they walked towards her the female heavily judged them. They wore simple clothing and as such the female concluded that they were another pair of regular commoners trying to ascend to power by becoming members of the association.


    "100 mana crystal to register for the trials" the female spoke.


    "Excuse me?" Richard spoke confused, "Since when is there such a high fee to register?"


    "So you''re from out of town huh?" the woman spoke, "well, to join the association one has to participate in the trials and to participate one must pay a fee that serves to help with the maintenance costs of the tower."


    "Is that so?" Richard questioned with a strange smile on his face, "I think you''re lying."


    "what does a country hick like you know about the association?" she sneered indignantly, "Either you pay and shut up, or you scram before I get the guards to throw you out!"


    "Throw me out eh? I''d like to see that happening." He laughed.


    "Guards!" She screamed.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    As she did the crowd immediately circled around the pair and excitedly watched the commotion. Now and then there would be a stupid person that would end up provoking one of the attendants, and 9 times out of 10, said idiot would not have a decent ending.


    Ten guards appeared and circled them with a fierce expression, they pointed their spears towards them with a malignant grin on their faces. The guards led a very boring job as the stronghold rarely had any trouble, and when it happened, it would never reach the tower as there were almost no forces that were willing to offend the behemoth that was the magi association. As such, when they had a chance to relax and bully someone, they would enjoy it to the max, often leaving the victim severely wounded or even crippled depending on their mood.


    "I''d like to see you continue to arrogantly talk trash now!" the woman laughed.


    "Oh, so I am the arrogant one eh?" He chuckled.


    The woman was incensed and was about to command the guards to attack when Richard turned his face to Ventus and spoke.


    "Should I use the badge or the muscle to subdue them kid?" he asked with a naughty expression.


    "I think you fighting against them would truly be overkill!" Ventus laughed.


    "I see," Richard nodded, "Then I will teach you today how to bully someone with prestige."


    The two of them completely ignored the crowd, the guards and especially, the woman. That made her completely furious! How dare a commoner to disregard her like that? she was a member of the magi association, even if she was just an attendant, she was still leagues above commoners like them!


    "Guards, break their limbs and throw them out!"


    "Yes ma''am!"


    The guards were about to dash and strike, but before they even had the chance to move a single step they saw that Richard had turned to face them and didn''t seem scared at all. He was, in fact, grinning widely at them like one would when looking at fools. He pointed a single finger to his chest, on it, there was a black crow-shaped badge with fine gold details and writing on it that said "Grandmaster".


    The guards stood petrified in their positions. Their once malignant and naughty expressions had turned into horrified masks of fear. They had just intended to attack a grandmaster magus and even worse, they intended to do that inside the magus tower! they were truly courting disaster upon themselves this time!.


    "So..." Richard spoke grinning, "Why did you raise your weapons at me? did I perhaps do something wrong?"


    The next actions shocked the crowd as the ten guards immediately withdrew their weapons with fearful expressions.


    "Never!" they spoke, "this was just a misunderstanding, how could you ever make a mistake sir!"


    "That''s more like it!" He replied satisfied.


    He then put a finger on his lip and signalled them to return to their posts and stay silent, they nodded and went back to their positions.


    "Hey! were are you going?" The woman shouted irritated, "Throw them out or lose your jobs!"


    The guards however completely ignored her and simply continued their duties.


    Richard then turned to face the attendant that had a confused expression on her face, his grandmaster badge had disappeared.


    "So..." he spoke slowly, "You said something about the guards breaking me and my dear apprentice''s limbs huh? I think the guards aren''t willing to do that."


    The woman was furious, however, she was just an attendant. She didn''t have any combat strength and couldn''t face a magus in combat, as such, she could only resign to calling for help.


    "I''ll call the manager and we''ll see if you can continue to behave so arrogantly in here!"


    She pressed a button on the counter and spoke on the phone with someone. She relayed how there was a student-master pair causing trouble and offending the association. Of course, as one would expect, she added a couple more of crimes to her story to worsen their situation.


    The oval portal shook after a few moments as an elderly man walked out of it emanating an oppressive aura. That man had a head full of white hair and a wrinkly face, his eyes were green and radiated an azure light equal to his aura that represented his affinity with the water element. He wore luxurious golden robes and although his whole being emanated the dignity of a powerful magus, he had a fat body with a big round belly to match that made people look down on him slightly.


    He arrived in front of Richard and Ventus and glared at them, his aura skyrocketing making the crowd tremble.


    "So you are the ones causing a ruckus in my magus association!?" he spoke angrily.


    "Yes, what are you going to do about it?" Richard chuckled.


    "I''ll show you just what I''ll do!" He bellowed.


    The old man raised his hand to attack. However, he stopped as he saw Richard grinning and looking at him as if he looked at a fool. His fury only grew higher, but it didn''t last long as he looked Richard''s finger pointing to the grandmaster badge on his chest. His face turned grim as he looked from the badge to his face several times unbelievingly.


    The fat manager furiously rumbled his brain to find a solution. He had just raised a hand to attack a grandmaster of the association! Not only was the man in front of him a rank higher than his, but he was also immensely stronger than himself, he had truly courted death today. What god had he enraged to get such bad luck?.


    His expression hower lightened in instants and suddenly grew into a wide grin as he stared at Richard as a desperate last hope appeared in his mind. What if that badge was a fake? he had never seen a grandmaster of the association at this stronghold before, and also, why would a grandmaster even come to this place anyway? there was no way a grandmaster would bring his disciple to a minor kingdom''s branch to take the entrance trials right?


    "Impudent!" he roared madly, "Faking a grandmaster credential and presenting it to me! such insolence and disrespect towards the association are deserving of death!"


    "Fake you say?" Richard laughed, "Then maybe you''ll believe in this credential."


    Richard''s earthen aura flared and crushed the manager''s aura completely making him kneel as the ground beneath him cracked. The crowd around them couldn''t bear the pressure and fled the building to preserve their lives. Ventus, however, stood motionless as Richard controlled his pressure so that it did not affect him.


    "G-g-grandmaster!" The manager stuttered fearfully.


    "Forgive me! it was all just a misunderstanding, have mercy!" he begged as he struggled to withstand the massive pressure.


    "Oh, but moments ago you were saying I deserved death," he chuckled, "Do I still deserve it now?"


    "N-n-no! never! This old man was just joking, I would never dare say such words!" he replied desperately.


    "I see," He smiled, "Okay then, I''ll let you go, but I hope you hire more competent help to manage this place to prevent such things to happen a second time."


    "Y-yes, of course! I will take more care in the future!"


    He retracted his aura finally allowing the fat manager to stand and breathe. The man felt aggrieved as he had unknowingly kicked a steel board this time, he had offended a grandmaster! as his mind calmed down he turned to the attendant and his rage grew once more, this trouble had all happened because of her!.


    "Wench!" He bellowed furiously, "How dare you to mistreat the grandmaster!"


    "Guards!" he commanded, "Get her out of my sight, she''s fired and is never allowed to step into this building ever again!"


    He then pointed to the other two attendants.


    "Also," he continued, "Get these two idiots out as well, they''re fired!"


    The three attendants were shocked and instantly they began to plead.


    "please, don''t do this, we don''t deserve to be treated this way!"


    "SHUT UP!" the manager roared, "Guards! what are you taking so long? do you want to lose your jobs as well?"


    The guards came and took the trio away rapidly. They struggled and screamed as they were dragged out, cursing at the manager and at Richard and Ventus before being thrown out the tower and crash landing on the street.


    Richard stood serenely while looking at the commotion, he then turned to Ventus with a grin on his face, Ventus laughed.


    "You''re such a bully!" he laughed.


    "I''m no ordinary bully, I''m a grandmaster rank bully!" Richard replied laughing loudly.

 The Trials

    After the commotion died down three new attendants were immediately assigned to the reception counter, this time they were far more sensible and good-natured than the previous lazy trio. Nonetheless, the manager closed off the registration period due to Richard''s presence allowing Ventus to register as the last participant.


    Both master and student stood somewhat near the oval portal talking with the manager, and the latter was far more restrained and polite than when they first met. They spent a few minutes doing introductions, by this time they discovered that the old manager was named Yago Yherssion and he was a master rank magus with the water element as his mastery focus. They also spent some time exchanging a few bits of information about the rest of the kingdom before getting on to the most important topic.


    "I can sense that your apprentice is at least at the junior magus level in combat strength" the manager spoke, "but, just to be sure, what rank is he applying to take the trials for?"


    "He is applying for the apprentice magus trials" Richard chuckled, "Although he''s got the battle strength of a junior magus due to my special combat training, officially, he is not even an apprentice magus since this is his first time being introduced to the association"


    "What!?" the manager spoke shocked, "He is just 14 and has the battle strength of a junior magus? preposterous! what would us old men feel when taking a look at this little monster!? what kind of talent is that!?"


    "He''s got the potential all right," Richard replied smugly, "But his current battle strength is mostly due to his training."


    "Oh, I understand," the magus nodded, "He must have started a few years ago right?"


    "Nope," Ventus interrupted, "I just started my training this past month."


    "Exactly," Richard chimed in, "After three weeks of intensive training, he has reached his current strength from basically nothing."


    "Hey! not nothing! my father did give me formal training before!" Ventus complained.


    "Yes, but were you this strong before our one month training?" Richard retorted smugly.


    "No..."Ventus acquiesced.


    The old manager went silent as he looked at the pair in shock, one was a middle-aged grandmaster that already demanded respect on his own since it was immensely difficult to achieve such a rank with that age, the other was a young teen that could already fight at the junior magus level. He could barely believe his eyes, if he wasn''t seeing for himself he would definitely say that it was a lie.


    But the most shocking fact was that with three weeks of training, they managed to improve the teen''s strength from nothing to junior magus level! what kind of training had the boy gone through in this period to raise his fighting capabilities so much? Most aspiring magus would beg to have such a master that could improve them so much.


    "But as for the rest of a junior magus''s competencies and knowledge," Richard continued, "He''s got none of that."


    "He''s just a very strong apprentice magus in the combat aspect, the rest of his skills are barely enough to pass the apprentice trials." he explained.


    "I see.." the magus nodded


    The manager sighed in relief. It would be too revolting for the other contestants to face a junior magus in the apprentice trials, there would be no end to the complaints he would hear if that were to happen.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    "Very well," the manager continued, "let''s head to the trial grounds."


    The old fat magus turned and walked towards the portal. When in front of it he made drew a rune in the air and sent it towards the portal. As the rune was absorbed, a holographic menu popped up in front him that displayed the following contents:


    *Trial Translocation Management Menu*


    *Trial Level Selection:


    ->Apprentice Magus Rank Trial


    ->Junior Magus Rank Trial


    ->Senior Magus Rank Trial


    ->Master Magus Rank Trial


    ->Grandmaster Magus Rank Trial


    ->Magus King Rank Trial


    ->Magus Emperor Rank Trial


    ->Mana Deity Rank Trial


    *Warning! Your clearance level allows you to preside over trials up to the "Master Magus Rank", any trial held above that level will be managed by a more adequate magus or by the tower system itself*


    The manager pressed the first option in the menu and the oval portal changed in color. Originally it was just a colorless distortion of space, but after the option selection, it fluctuated and became green-colored space vortex.


    "Follow me." the magus signalled.


    The manager entered walked to the portal and in instants, his whole being was sucked in disappearing from sight, Richard and Ventus followed promptly after and were sucked in as well. As Ventus was sucked he felt his whole body being stretched and became desperate, he closed his eyes and braced himself as he thought he was going to be torn apart.


    "Kid, open your eyes," Richard spoke laughing, "Don''t worry, your body is completely fine."


    Ventus obeyed and checked his body. He sighed in relief as he verified he was completely fine and the proceeded to examine his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was that in front of him were ninety-nine other youths ranging from the ages of fourteen to eighteen, about seventy of them wore commoner clothing just like himself though theirs was far more ragged than his.


    The rest ranged from training outfits to luxurious clothing symbolizing their wealth. As he analyzed them, they noticed his arrival and immediately began to scan him, they knew that if he came accompanied by the manager and by another man, he at least had some status worthy of such treatment.


    The ambience made Ventus curious as he felt he was in a space totally separated from reality, it looked like a small auditorium with lots of ornate red chairs and a stage in front of it and three mana stone filled candelabras that constantly fluctuated with energy, in fact, the whole place was velvet red in color.


    Richard had hidden away his badge so the participants wouldn''t have any special behavior towards Ventus, and also, doing this enabled him to stand as someone special but not a threatening weight on the minds of the youngster that could face his apprentice in the oncoming challenges.


    "Everyone," the manager spoke, "The registration has closed, and as such, the trials will begin shortly."


    "Please prepare yourselves as soon the scenario will change to better suit the trials," he explained, "Some of you may experience dizziness and even an urge to vomit but don''t worry, that is perfectly normal, you''ll get used to it."


    The old magus spoke nothing about Richard''s existence and left that to the participant''s imaginations, he figured that if he had not introduced himself, he did not wish for his identity to be revealed.


    Ventus walked forth silently and sat on a red chair somewhat isolated from the rest of the crowd and closed his eyes on meditation, he was adjusting his mana and calming himself down whilst constantly practising his mana threads so that he could communicate with the world''s pulse at any time and tap into the earth element should he need to fight.


    The other contestants looked at his actions and for instants blanked, before following suit and preparing themselves in their own ways for the incoming challenges. Richard nodded approvingly when he saw Ventus''s actions, he saw that he showed no interest at all in making any connections and that could be somewhat troublesome in the future, but his focus towards the challenge at hand was a quality that would help him forge his path and power in the future.


    The manager drew several runes in the air and fired them in different directions inducing fluctuations upon the room. Space itself shook before twisting and transforming completely, the previous somewhat small auditorium was now expanded by several times. The red auditorium and its chairs and stage were replaced by a white floor with a hundred glowing blue circles, the red colored space became pure white.


    Those changes took a few minutes and when concluded the manager spoke once more.


    "Attention all of you!"


    All the contestants stood up and looked at him, some were slightly dizzy, but nonetheless, all of them were focused on the old magus''s figure.


    "I now announce that the Apprentice Magus Rank Trials will begin!"

 Ashen World

    The contestants were excited by the announcement and eagerly awaited more instructions. They figured that the glowing circles in the ground had something to do with the first test and that they would have to stand on them, but since they knew that if they disobeyed instructions they would be disqualified, they didn''t dare to act out and try their ideas.


    "The first test will be of the mind" the manager announced, "It will challenge your willpower and your mental prowess by pitting you against one of the most troublesome enemies of every magus, or rather, of every intelligent and emotion-possessing being..."


    "The Inner Demon!"


    The crowd immediately began to murmur and discuss the challenge. The richer and more well-dressed participants had confident smiles on their faces due to their knowledge of the subject that allowed them to prepare to face the challenge, they also carried disdainful expressions as they watched the poorer common folk discuss their lack of knowledge of the subject.


    "What exactly is the inner demon?"


    To everyone''s surprise, a voice sounded out from the crowd and asked the question that many of them wished to inquire about but were ashamed to ask. When they looked at who exactly asked that, they found out that it was Ventus that asked such a question. The poorer folk admired his boldness and the richer sneered at his lack of knowledge, though they didn''t dare say that out loud as the figure that was most likely his master that even the manager seemed to have some reservations to was close by and they didn''t want to risk provoking such an existence.


    "He REALLY doesn''t have the knowledge of junior magus level nor the other skills besides combat strength huh?" the manager thought to himself


    "The inner demon is a condensation and mental manifestation of all your fears and traumas that haunt your mind," he explained, "it has all of your strengths and knows all of your skills, it can take the shape of things that strike fear on you and will use every ounce of knowledge it has of your weaknesses against you in order to cause chaos and cripple your mind,"


    "It is essentially a dark, despicable version of yourself." he concluded.


    "And why do we have to face such a thing at the apprentice level? isn''t it dangerous to face it now when we are this weak?" Ventus inquired further.


    "It is precisely due to this that you must face it now!" the old magus replied, "The weaker you are the weaker it is, and as such, the sooner you fight it, the easier it is to defeat it."


    "I understand." Ventus nodded.


    As that was explained, everyone had a mostly equal ground of knowledge and thus could prepare to face the challenge more adequately. The common folk looked at Ventus for a bit in gratitude and then began to steel themselves for the oncoming mental battle. After a few minutes, the manager spoke again.


    "You will now choose a circle and stand on it," he instructed, " Those circles are called Mental World Formations that will allow you to easily project your consciousness into your mind space and once you''re there, face your inner demon."


    "The rules to pass this test are simple," he explained, "Whoever can defeat their inner demon in the time limit of sixty minutes can continue on to the next trial, the ones who can''t or lose against their inner demon are disqualified."This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    "And don''t worry," he assured, "the mind space formation will protect your mind and suppress your inner demon should you lose the fight so that it does not consume you and cripple your mind turning you into a raging idiot."


    The crowd nodded as the instructions were finished and orderly chose their circles. In a few moments, every contestant was in place and awaited further instructions.


    The manager drew a rune in the air and sent it forwards, the rune then multiplied as it flew and became a hundred copies of the original one. The runes flew and fused with the circles releasing a fluctuation followed by the circles beginning to shine.


    "The trial starts now," The magus smiled, "Good luck!"


    The participants began to float in the circles and slowly their eyes closed and fell into the unconscious world of the mind.


    ...


    Ventus felt his head get light as the mental world formation''s light took effect and enveloped him, his eyelids got heavier by the second and he couldn''t suppress the sweet embrace of the unconsciousness.


    Everything grew blurry and for a period that seemed like years, he could only feel the nothingness and the darkness that surrounded him as his consciousness was magically separated from his mind and converted into a foreign being that would soon get to meet the true landscape that was his mental world.


    For an immense amount of time, he felt his body floating. But eventually, he felt himself gently land on a hard surface which he immediately tried to link his mana threads to and easily managed to connect, however, he couldn''t feel a pulse at all. He could connect to that surface and had the ability to manipulate it, but he couldn''t feel a pulse on it, that was a dead land he could not tap into to its "life" to seek for a possible aid or hints.


    His body felt somewhat light, and as such, he felt somewhat dizzy and his vision was blurred when he opened his eyes as he got up. He took a deep breath and blinked hard before he could finally stabilize his conciousness and perception of reality. When he could finally recognize his surroundings he saw that the world around him was an ashen one, everything on it seemed as if it had just recently been the victim of an immense blaze.


    There were no buildings and the scenario only housed a cracked, flat, dry, gray-earth and some gray and withered trees. Above that land, high in the sky, floated a red fiery counter that decreased by the second and currently informed Ventus that he had fifty-seven minutes remaining to face and pass the first test of the trial.


    "Well well well"


    A voice much like his own but somewhat hoarse sounded out. Ventus reacted fast and immediately congealed a rock javelin and fired at the general direction of the voice.


    "Ugh!"


    The voice groaned in pain before puking sounds were heard.


    "Not even going to give me enough respect to wait for me to speak?" the voice complained.


    "No" Ventus replied coldly.


    He gazed at the direction of the voice and saw that the javelin he had thrown found its way into the stomach of a figure precisely like his own, but with dark scarlet eyes, gray skin, white hair and dark-colored clothing. It was puking a dark blood and wearing a cold smile on its face whilst glaring at him.


    Ventus congealed four more javelins and fired them. He could not give it any chance to speak as he knew that it would only try to destabilize him and use his loss to beat him.


    "Oh no no no" The voice spoke.


    The figure moved and shattered the javelin that impaled it, the wound on his stomach closed instantly and his ripped clothes were restored. It dashed forth and conjured four ash-colored rock shields that collided with the javelins and exploded firing rock shards everywhere.


    Ventus dodged the shards and dashed towards his dark counterpart. On the way, his mana threads constantly connected to the ground and gathered material to construct two ash-colored gauntlets around his clenched fists. They clashed hard as Ventus threw a fist aimed at it but the figure instantly conjured a small buckler shied on its arm before raising it and successfully defending himself.


    "You''re not going to instakill me!" The figure snarled.

 A World of Flames

    The two struggled for a while trying to beat the other and gain the upper hand in momentum. Their fight had entered the close range as they fired punches, kicks, knees, elbows and even headbutts to beat down the opponent.


    The fight was quite hard for Ventus as he was facing basically himself, his whole repertoire of training and skills was read like a book by his dark self and was countered blow for blow. That left Ventus feeling quite vexed as he could not think of a way out of that deadlock so easily.


    "You''re quite stubborn," said the inner demon "You know that everything you know, so do i."


    "So why insist on trying to fight me?" he mocked, "Give up, you can''t actually believe that you can beat me right?"


    "Shut up!" Ventus roared.


    Ventus kneed the inner demon on the stomach and use the little breather he got to jump back so that he could get some ground between them and try to think of a way out of this. He then stomped the ground making an earthen pillar shot up from the ground and hit the demon square on the chest making him fly backwards for a few meters.


    He clapped his hands and slowly separated them showing dozens of mana threads between his palms. He slapped his hands on the ground and inserted all the mana threads on it making the land tremble. Instants later several rock hands shot up from the ground and flew towards the demon.


    "If I can''t beat you down," Ventus said coldly, "I''ll crush you!"


    The demon finally reacted as he saw the rock hands heading his way and, just like Ventus, created threads of his own and slapped the ground making similar rock hands shot up from it and collide with his opponent''s technique.


    "Two can play that game!" The demon laughed.


    The inner demon then got up and dashed towards Ventus using the several rock hands as platforms to reach him faster. Ventus reacted quickly and also dashed to clash with the demon, as he jumped on the rock hands he conjured twin one-handed rock sabers and gripped tight. The demon, however, chose to fight differently and created a one-hand rock sword and a rock shield.


    Ventus swung his sabers and hit the demon''s shield hard, enough to crack it but still not able to break through and harm his opponent. The demon took this chance and stabbed at him, Ventus reacted fast but still received a cut on his waist. He kicked hard at the shield and opened some distance between them.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    He stepped hard on the ground and conjured rock boots around his feet that went up to the height just below his knees. Ventus then fired multiple kicks at the shield and quickly shattered it before dashing and swinging his sabers once more.


    "You really don''t know how to stop!" The demon laughed, "Just like your pathetic father and his obsession with magic!"


    That threw Ventus off guard as he got angry, The demon used that chance to block the attack with his blade and stomp the ground making four rock shards explode out and hit Ventus square in the chest perforating him and making him cough blood. The inner demon swoop kicked Ventus making him fall on his back.


    "Not only that," The demon continued, "You''re weak, and somehow you still have delusions about revenge."


    "You''re a failure that couldn''t save your family from those flames, how do you expect to beat me? give up!"


    He walked to Ventus and summoned rocks to lock his limbs and neck down. The world around them began to twist and no more was it a world of ashes, but, as if a spark ignited the past of that place, everything burned once more.


    The ground began to turn red and melt with the heat of the dark and red flames, the withered trees blazed and shot fire to the sky becoming blazing pillars of corruption as shortly after, even the ash-grey sky began to burn and turned scarlet as the heat twisted even the air itself.


    The once dark figure flared up and began a humanoid flame, everything about him changed and he became a personification of the flame world. His features became blazing as everything on his figure transformed into dark-red flames.


    "And now," He chuckled, "You''re going to join them in their burning suffering!"


    The rocks that bound Ventus began to heat up tremendously as easily burned through his clothes, reaching his skin and burning it. Ventus screamed in pain as his flesh boiled and burned under the intense heat of the bindings.


    A cackle reached his ears that shook his mind from the intense pain. The demon was laughing loudly at his suffering, so much so that he was holding his belly in seeming pain due to the laughter.


    "Relax kid," he laughed, "We''ve still got lots of time to enjoy."


    He proceeded to stomp one by one the rock shards stuck on Ventus''s chest. Ventus roared in pain as the shards traversed his flesh and torn his insides, but soon after the pain rose to unsurmountable levels as the heat from the demon''s body traversed the shards and burned his insides.


    At this point, Ventus''s throat was so badly burned that he could barely breathe, and no matter how much he opened his mouth and how much air traversed his throat no screams came out and he just trembled with his mouth opened as wheezes came out.


    "Still not broken?" The demon inquired surprised, "I thought that after this much you would certainly give up."


    "I mean, your daddy, mommy, and sister didn''t resist as much as you did, they died muuuuuch faster," he laughed, "But then again, their whole bodies were in flames HAHAHAHA!"


    "I will break your will," He spoke slowly with a growling voice that seemed to originate from a demon or from hell itself, "I will break your mind and soul. No matter how much you struggle, no matter how much you scream and beg, I will not stop. Nothing you can do will ever defeat me!"


    "In this mental world of yours, I, the manifestation of all your fears and pains, am unstoppable!"

 I Am King!

    "In this mental world of yours, I, the manifestation of all your fears and pains, am unstoppable!"


    That phrase echoed in his ears for an untold amount of time. Ventus felt truly defeated and he was slowly beginning to realize that he had no choice but to give up and avoid further torture. He could do nothing but just keep hearing over and over the demon''s taunts slowly breaking his will as his physical pain had surpassed what he could withstand and made his consciousness flicker and fail from time to time.


    At that moment Ventus, in between his foe''s mockery, he heard something that brought him back to the reality he was facing. All along he had been fighting as if this was a normal combat, like the ones he had when facing against his master''s earth clones where he had no advantages at all and could only rely on his power to win.


    However, this was HIS mind and HIS mental world! No matter how fierce the opponent could be, it was still all inside his head. It was all a fruit of his brain''s processing of information, even if it was a terrible memory and feeling. that still meant that it was all built by HIM.


    A grin slowly and painfully began to creep on his face and soon enough all the pain he felt was completely ignored as he began to laugh. It was a weird scene as he laughed with his mouth wide open but only wheezing noises came out. The demon noticed the gesture and curiously looked at Ventus.


    "Oh, finally gotten insane have we?" He mocked, "Too much pain to bear?"


    "Told you I would break you," He laughed, "You are just a weak little kid!"


    Ventus, however, kept laughing. That only intrigued the demon even further because he noticed that it wasn''t an insane laughter, but rather, he saw that Ventus looked straight at him and kept laughing. The demon finally noticed that actually, that laughter was a pure mockery as Ventus was only looking down on him with disdain.


    The inner demon grew enraged and began to attack Ventus. He constructed javelins, swords, spears, spikes, and all sorts of weaponry imbued with flames and pierced Ventus all over making blood spurt and sizzle as his flesh got burned. The scene scared the demon as he saw Ventus looking like he had been brutally tortured by an army and still laughing his head off. It was as if nothing affected him at all! And if that was true, matters would become really troublesome.


    Ventus finally stopped laughing after being continuously pierced for thirty straight minutes. It seemed as if he had died as his eyes were wide open and his breathing halted, he had completely stopped moving. On the sky, the ethereal fiery clock had changed colors and now was made of blue flames so that it could be properly viewed amidst the red sky. It clearly displayed that Ventus only had 10 minutes remaining.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    "Oh sh*t!" Ventus screamed in his mind.


    The demon grinned widely as he figured that he had finally broken his opponent. Now, this mind was his and he would go on a rampage with his new body. But at that moment he saw Ventus looking at him and beckoning him to come closer with his finger. The demons thought that it was a final struggle or the boy''s last words before breaking, so he happily bent down and positioned his ear next to Ventus''s mouth.


    "Hey demon," Ventus spoke slowly in his wheezing voice "This is my mind."


    The ground began to tremble as if an earthquake was hitting the world. The flames that burned the world began to die down and slowly dissipate as the red hue that covered the world disappeared. The ashen coloration of the world returned and even the inner demon''s form reversed and became the dark Ventus appearance once more.


    "Oh no!" The demon screamed.


    "Oh Yes! Ventus roared.


    The shackles that bound Ventus broke and everything that had impaled him disintegrated as his wounds healed instantly and his health and voice returned to full potency as his clothes were restored to their former appearance. Ventus began to float as he rose from the ground as he grinned and stared at the demon.


    "This is my mental world!" He spoke slowly, "You have no power here unless I let you!"


    "Everything inside this place is of my creation, even if I did not create it willingly," he grinned, "Everything here was created by and belongs to me! this world is mine!"


    "And here..." he spoke fiercely "I AM KING!"


    Ventus rose into the sky as the wind howled. He moved his hands and willed the world to move as he wished. The wind began to rotate around the demon and in instants, a ferocious tornado swept him off his feet and made him float in mid-air paralyzed by the sheer power of the ferocious winds.


    "How about my father''s magic now huh? good enough for ya?" Ventus laughed.


    "I could spend a lot of time torturing you like you did me, and could even diminish you to a bug and just basically crush you, but unfortunately, I have no further time to waste on you."


    The sky rumbled as lightning crackled amidst the dark clouds that speedily covered it. The massive tornado that swept the land continuously sucked all the air around it and tunneled into the clouds, absorbing them as well and their lightning.


    The speed of the winds rose further and further as they crackled with lightning. The demon being held a prisoner in the middle of the vortex would constantly receive bolts of electricity as his body was spun like a supersonic top in mid-air.


    "DIE!" Ventus roared.


    He clenched his hand commanding great amounts of energy to congeal on the clouds right above the inner demon. He then swiped his hand down, and in a similar fashion, a massive lightning dragon flew down and swallowed the demon with an earth-shaking roar.


    "AAAAAARRRRGGHHHH!" The demon screamed.


    That was his last breath as the lightning burned and completely disintegrated him.


    Ventus sighed loudly and looked at the fiery clock. It displayed that he had five minutes remaining.


    "Phew," he exhaled exhausted, "Just in time."

 Conqueror, Saint, Warrior

    As Ventus finished his fight the fiery clock above chimed with a pleasant sound that announced the end of the challenge as well as his victory. The clock flashed with a blinding white light that made him feel dizzy, soon after that, he felt his body become light and his consciousness blurry. Finally, the ashen world slowly disappeared from his view as he fell to the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.


    After an untold amount of time, Ventus opened his eyes once more found himself back in the white circle-filled trial room with everyone looking at him with shocked expressions. He grew confused as well as slightly panicky and immediately darted his eyes around to look for his master. After a few seconds, he found his master standing beside the manager with an immense grin plastered on his face, quite different from the expression of the fat old manager that had, like all the other contestants, a shock-filled expression. He also perceived he was the last to finish his test, as such, he was kind of worried.


    "Can someone explain why are you all looking at me?" he said out loud annoyed by the stares.


    When his voice rung out everyone woke from their shock and realized they were behaving like kids. The commoners and the manager cough dryly and turned their faces away whilst the rich contestants snorted and avoided looking at him. At this time the manager clapped his hands and every circle underneath disappeared.


    "And thus, the first test in the apprentice rank trials has ended," he announced.


    "Much to my surprise, even with the prior knowledge that you would be facing your inner demon that is the compilation of your fears and pains, many of you have failed," he continued.


    "In fact, there were only ten of you who managed to clear the test, and some of you managed to do so exceedingly well!" He exclaimed happily.


    At this time many looked at Ventus, especially Richard and the old manager. This only made him more unsettled as he wondered if his victory was disgraceful, a frown grew on his face in response to his nervousness. Richard noticed this and chuckled as he saw once more just how much of a kid his apprentice was.


    "Now," the manager spoke once more, "The results and evaluations of those who managed to clear the test will be displayed by order of clearance."


    "But first," He clapped his hands, "those who failed will be expelled from the tower."


    "Try again next time and reflect on your failure, maybe then you''ll succeed." He said kindly to the losers.


    As he clapped his hands light shone on the disqualified candidates and instants later they were teleported out of the tower landing right outside the closed gates. The old magus then drew a rune in the air and fired at the ceiling of the white room, in the blink of an eye the room shrunk so that it wasn''t as spacious as before.


    Everything transformed in the room as now they were in a reduced version of the red auditorium. The difference was that now there were only ten seats and the old manager as well as Richard was standing in the stage overlooking the candidates.


    This time Richard took action and drew several runes in the air at lightning speed, his hands moving so fast their image blurred. The runes flew to the ceiling of the room and moments later a holographic screen was formed displaying the test''s results in it.


    --> Apprentice Magus Rank Trial


    -> First Trial Results:


    1)Igni Strong | Age: 17| Clearing Time: 30 minutes | Method: Warrior''s Fist


    2)Suzanne Lionesse | Age: 16| Clearing Time: 34 minutes | Method: Warrior''s Fist


    3)Marcus Nightfall | Age: 18| Clearing Time: 37 minutes | Method: Warrior''s Fist


    4)Lucio Pendragon | Age: 16| Clearing Time: 40 minutes | Method: Warrior''s Fist


    5)Jonh Finnegan | Age: 15| Clearing Time: 42 minutes | Method: Saint''s Heart


    6)Tidus Acqua | Age: 17| Clearing Time: 46 minutes | Method: Warrior''s Fist


    7)Anthony Tempesta | Age: 15| Clearing Time: 47 minutes | Method: Warrior''s FistEnjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    8)Mara Fiore | Age: 18| Clearing Time: 49 minutes | Method: Warrior''s Fist


    9)Luna Ziegler | Age: 14| Clearing Time: 51 minutes | Method: Saint''s Heart


    10)Ventus Astriss | Age: 14| Clearing Time: 55 minutes | Method: Conqueror''s Will


    "There you go." Richard spoke.


    The ten teens looked at the results and immediately cheered, some silently commemorated their success while others were more explicit and talked loudly in celebration. Some of them sighed as they had barely managed to clear the test whilst others were serene as if they knew full well they''d win in the end, like their position was nothing but expected to them.


    "Mister, can you please explain what does the method section mean?"


    At this moment a girl''s voice rung out from the group. She was the youngest amongst the girl''s and wore a simple emerald dress. Her skin was lightly tanned, her eyes were a deep green and her hair was wavy and copper-colored. She looked at Richard with expectancy as she asked for the information.


    "Of course," He replied, "You must be the Luna, the youngest daughter of Grandmaster Sol Ziegler correct?"


    "Yes, you know my father?" She inquired.


    "Far more than you imagine," He chuckled, "He and I have history."


    He then produced a golden letter from his spatial sack and used a bit of mana to make it land gently in the girl''s lap.


    "Give him this when you see him," he said, "He''ll know who sent it."


    "Okay." She nodded.


    "Well," he continued, "As for your question...."


    "There are three ways to clear this test and they have been named as they did due to the nature of the methods applied,"


    "The warrior''s fist implies that the candidate beat the inner demon into submission with sheer strength and knowledge of oneself,"


    "The saint''s heart implies that the candidate beat the inner demon with compassion and acceptance, making the inner demon submit of their own accord,"


    "The conqueror''s will implies that the candidate gained awareness and control of their power in their mental world and became its king, and through their kingly will beat the inner demon,"


    "Among these methods, the most common to find is the warrior''s fist, the saint''s heart is rare and the conqueror''s will is almost a legend as it is truly difficult to grasp the power of oneself in one''s mental world. Most of those who do manage to achieve the conqueror''s will mind state are usually destined for greatness."


    As this was said everyone began looking at Ventus once more. Obviously, most of them disdained and envied him for getting such a result, but there were some that genuinely admired him for it as well. Seeing the reaction of the other candidates Richard''s pride grew as he knew he made a good choice to scout Ventus as an apprentice.


    Ventus was silent as he took in the information. He thought that if he cleared the challenge, it would only be the most mediocre of results, but him getting a great score was beyond his imagination. Only he knew how much he suffered just to perceive that slight hope that he could control everything there, as such, he figured that doing so would only be natural to the others that seemed much more prepared than himself.


    He turned his gaze to the girl named Luna. She was one of the two that managed to clear through compassion and achieve the method of the saint''s heart. Kindness was one thing he wasn''t too fond of after he lost his family, he was, in fact, afraid of it, afraid that if he got attached to someone again, fate would come and kick him in the nuts once more by taking away whatever he cherishes.


    "Now, why don''t we change this scenario?" Richard spoke.


    "Very well." replied the manager.


    He drew a few runes in the air a shot them at the ceiling and the ground. The room fluctuated a bit before transforming into the white room again, this time it had five colored oval portals standing on it, each with a floating holographic sign above them that said as such.


    *Scarlet Portal*


    -->Doom Fireland


    ->Mission: Collect a Crimson Blaze Lotus and Acquire a Flame Drake''s Fang.


    *Green Portal*


    -->Eternal Peace Forest


    ->Mission: Collect a Dark Sap Root and Acquire an Ironhide Bear''s Plate.


    *Golden Portal*


    -->Golden Wind Desert


    ->Mission: Collect a Corona Cactus''s Flower and Acquire a King Viper''s Poison Sack.


    *Azure Portal*


    -->Heaven''s Peak


    -> Collect a Heavenly Summit''s Jeweled Apple and Acquire a Silver Wing King Sparrow''s Egg.


    *Black Portal*


    -->Death''s Ruins


    ->Collect a Deadman''s Sacred Bone and Acquire a Doom Wolf''s Core Crystal.


    "The second test will be a test of your survival skills," He explained.


    "In front of you are five portals to five distinct hazard dimensions linked to them, inside the one you choose you will find yourself tasked with a mission,"


    "You will have to find a specific natural treasure and acquire a specific beast treasure, do both and return to the portal  under the time limit and you pass, if not, you will be disqualified immediately."


    "Also, inside each dimension, there will be a hidden treasure. Should you find said treasure, it will be yours to keep even if you are disqualified."


    When the mention of treasure was made, the group''s eyes shone with a greedy light on them as they began to plan and imagine what they could do to snatch the treasure and what kind of treasure it would be.


    "But I should warn you, any one of these dimensions are extremely dangerous and you could lose your life should you take the task!"


    "So if anyone wishes to give up, now''s the time!" the manager warned.

 Choosing Begrudgingly

    Even with threats to their lives, all of the ten candidates stood their ground and shook off the possibility of giving up. they declared their intentions to the old manager and waited for their next instructions.


    "Excellent!" He said cheerfully, "It''s so great to meet courageous magus such as yourselves!"


    "Since you have decided, we shall proceed to the second trial."


    "Each of you will choose a hazard dimension starting from the first to clear the first trial to the last, then, after declaring out loud your intention you will step into the trial and proceed to challenge your hazard dimension of choice."


    "To guarantee some degree of fairness between the candidates, after someone steps into the portal, the next person to go has to wait five minutes before they can go into a portal."


    "This test will last for seven days and each of you will receive a tracking device so that you can find your way back to the entrance portal."


    "Any questions?"


    None of the ten spoke, seeing that he nodded in satisfaction. The old magus did not wish to bother himself with further questions as he thought he had explained thoroughly, so when he saw that no one had questions for him, he was quite happy.


    "Now, I will say the contestant''s name, you will reply and speak which dimension you choose before going into it."


    "Igni Strong!" He called.


    A young man stepped out of the group. He stood at 1.85 meters tall and had a strong and burly body, his skin was strongly tanned as if he had worked countless hours near a forge, he had tattoos that resembled a Chinese dragon on each of his arms. His hair was short with a black coloration and his eyes were dark-brown in color. He wore a worn out sleeveless brown shirt, leathery black pants and black leather boots with metallic tips on them.


    "Yes sir!" he replied loudly, "I choose Doom Fireland!"


    "Good choice!" replied the old magus, "You may go."


    Igni dashed and stepped into the scarlet portal, it fluctuated and sucked him in and gone was the young man. After five minutes the manager called once more.


    "Suzanne Lionesse!"


    A rich looking girl stepped out of the group. She wore a fancy purple silk dress and simple purple sneakers, Her hair was tied into a ponytail and was deep scarlet in coloration, her eyes were icy blue and she had a fair white skin. She had an especially arrogant air to her as she stepped and heaved her chest and held her breasts with her arms crossed underneath her, her eyes displayed her annoyance at having to wait her turn.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "I''m here!" she replied, "I choose Heaven''s Peak!"


    "Interesting!" the manager spoke, "Good luck!"


    Suzanne moved and stepped into the Azure portal, instants later she was gone. Five minutes later the manager continued.


    "Marcus Nightfall!"


    A figure fully dressed in dark robes and wearing a dark mask that covered his face up to his nose, revealing only his eyes, ears and hair stepped out of the group. He had pale white skin as if he had some kind of disease or lacked vitamins in him, His eyes were scarlet and his hair was shaved making him look like an assassin monk when combined with his dressing choices.


    "Yes..." he replied with a hoarse voice, "I choose Death''s Ruins."


    "Grim!" The manager laughed, "Proceed!"


    Marcus nodded and dashed off into the Black portal, in seconds he was gone. At this point, Ventus finally stopped paying attention and only slightly remembered the order of the contestants and their choices, not exactly paying attention to their appearances anymore.


    "Lucio Pendragon!"


    "I choose Eternal Peace Forest!"


    "John Finnegan!"


    "I choose Heaven''s Peak!"


    "Tidus Acqua!"


    "I choose Eternal Peace Forest!"


    "Anthony Tempesta!"


    "I choose Doom Fireland!"


    "Mara Fiore!"


    "I choose Death''s Ruins!"


    "Luna Ziegler!"


    "I choose Golden Wind Desert!"


    As the figure of the young girl somewhat acquainted with his master disappeared into the golden portal Ventus prepared himself. He concluded after much deliberation that the best choice for him was to face the Eternal Peace Forest dimension as he would have abundant ground to use and could use the forest''s environment to manoeuvre and strike at the Ironhide bear with a relative ease, guaranteeing him a somewhat easy victory. After five minutes his name was called.


    "I Choose E...."


    He was about to speak when he heard a voice in his ear.


    "Kid, go to the Golden Wind Desert!" Richard transmitted his voice.


    Ventus turned to face Richard with an inquisitive look as if he was saying "Why the f*ck would I do that?" and awaited further instructions.


    "Because.." He continued, "Building up relations with someone that is so closely related to a grandmaster can prove to be quite useful, plus, if you end up protecting the young lady, her father will view you in good light and maybe even owe you a favor."


    "Ugh, fine" Ventus grumbled.


    "Your choice young Ventus?" The old magus questioned.


    "I choose Golden Wind Desert..." he spoke in a sigh.


    "Nice choice kid, good luck!" The manager chuckled.


    Ventus begrudgingly dragged himself to the golden portal and stepped on it. The portal fluctuated and he was sucked into it. His vision grew blurry and dark for a few instants before a yellow light shone on his eyes.


    When his vision finally cleared up he saw an incredible sight. As far as his view could reach there were only massive dunes of golden sand, above that there was only a cloudless azure sky with a shining flaming golden sun above that ruled unopposed in the endless blue dome of the heavens.


    Before he could settle in and prepare to proceed he heard a scream from a familiar sounding voice not far from him across a dune.


    "Really!? barely five minutes have passed and you already managed to screw up?" He shouted annoyed.


    He dashed towards the direction of the scream and quickly traversed the slippery golden sand to reach the other side of the dune only to find a distressed young lady being held hostage by a massive twenty meters long silver colored viper.


    He immediately clapped his hands and formed several mana threads between them, he slapped the ground with his hands.


    "Hey king cobra! why don''t you fight someone your own size!"

 Silver Sand Poison Dragon

    He urged at least half of his mana and plunged it into the massive desert beneath him, but to his dismay, it did not act as he wished, rather, the desert didn''t respond at all and instead attracted his energy further, sucking it in. He was rapidly being drained and before long, eighty percent of his energy was consumed before it stopped draining him, but he could not disconnect his hands from the ground.


    "What''s wrong with this place!?" he complained as he tried to shirk his hands off the ground.


    Even though he had spent all that energy to try and manipulate the sand beneath, he had not succeeded and instead, got trapped to the ground.


    The silver viper, on the other hand, heard his challenge and stopped assaulting the young lady and turned it''s massive head to look at him instead. It''s red and yellow eyes glaring at Ventus, and he froze in his spot.


    "Such pressure!" he groaned.


    The silver viper that looked like an armored monster emitted a viciously oppressive aura that put a huge load of pressure on Ventus''s consciousness that made him barely able to move at all. Taking the full brunt of the mental attack Ventus noticed that its scales were not perfectly smooth and round like a normal snake would be, instead, they slightly pointed as if they had small spikes on them.


    "HIIIISSSSSS...."


    The viper hissed loudly and let go of the young girl, instead choosing to attack him. His body could not move as he wished, his response time was massively reduced.


    "Sh*t!" he cursed loudly.


    He urged his limbs to move but they only trembled in response and obeyed him agonizingly slow. The massive body of the silver viper crossed the distance between them in a single jump and was about to hit Ventus. The girl screamed in fear and his her eyes as she did not want to look at his death.


    Time seemed to slow down to a halt and Ventus exhaled loudly.


    "So this is my death huh?" he sighed in his mind, "Stupid master sending me to save the girl, and now when I die saving her butt, she doesn''t even look at me straight!"


    That was when he finally felt a connection to the ground. Instead of the usual solid and dense clusters of earth he could mold, shape and control at his will using little to no effort, now he felt instead, hundreds of millions of perfectly round beads of sand connecting to his threads. This discovery revealed to him the problem.


    Controlling dense clusters of earth was far easier as he just had to influence a single piece of earth and will it to move, at max he would control a dozen or so pieces at a time. But now, he was having a hard time using the terra control technique as what he had to control now was far smaller in size, but had its numbers multiplied far beyond he had ever controlled before. It was impossible for him to control this amount the same way he controlled rocks and made complex and fluid use of the earth, at most, he was only going to be able to give simple commands since his mana had been used to such a dangerously low level and had been spread so thin between the sand beads.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    "Well, it''s now or never, I refuse to die like this!" he shouted in his heart, "CONDENSE!"


    He willed his threads to contract and forcibly pull the beads together to try and make a solid structure he could safely step on and control. In less time than it took to blink he felt something take shape beneath him, he couldn''t care less what it was and was happy enough to know that it was under his full control. His thoughts stormed with the theme of survival as a priority.


    "DODGE!!!!" He roared in his mind.


    The structure tilted slightly to the left as it moved slid on the smooth golden sand. The viper''s attack had arrived, It''s gaping maw wanting to swallow him whole. The time finally moved in normal speed once more as he successfully evaded certain death by a hair''s breadth.


    Even though he escaped death, he was still wounded. He escaped the viper''s maw but could not fully dodge its spiked scales and that resulted in his right arm receiving a big cut slightly under his shoulder that luckily was not deep enough to hit an artery. Blood flowed along his wounded limb and fell onto the golden sand below, fusing with it and leaving behind black spots on the otherwise spotless desert.


    He stood up on the structure and had time to see that he had constructed a golden sand board, he stood on it with only his to feet as he held his wounded right arm with his left hand to try and stop the bleeding. Fortunately, adrenaline was rushing through his body and as such did not allow him to feel any pain, but, he had his head clear enough now to know that he was still in danger of blood loss, and so, he circulated his little mana left to try and stimulate his natural healing factor to kick in faster to at least close off the bleeding.


    He willed the board to slide forward in the direction of the young lady using the opportunity that the massive snake had given him when it was recoiling itself and preparing to attack again.


    "Luna Ziegler right!? Quickly hop in and hold on to me!" he shouted.


    He was fastly almost approaching and his shout woke her from her petrified state of fear. When the girl heard his voice he looked at the direction he was coming from and saw that he was sliding on a golden board, was alive and, despite the wound on his arm, was relatively well. She struggled to stand straight and as soon as he passed nearby she jumped on his board and held on to his waist.


    The board was barely two meters in length, so she had to stick her body to his to avoid falling, her delicate small hands tightly holding his waist to the point of becoming pure white with the effort. Ventus felt slightly strange as a red shade crept on to his face, he had never had any sort of interaction with any girls his age before, or any girls at all for that matter besides his own sister, so such a proximity made him feel weird as he did not know how to react. He did, however, kept his face looking forwards as he tried to avoid letting her see he was embarrassed about this. He quickly refocused himself by changing his attention to the more pressing matters at hand.


    "Can you tell me exactly what are we facing?" he inquired nervously.


    The young girl frowned a bit and spoke, her voice slightly trembling as she still had not fully recovered psychologically from the previous attack.


    "F-F-From what I learned from my father," She replied, "That should be a Silver Sand Poison Dragon."


    "Wait.." He said concerned, "Did you say the word "poison" and the word "dragon" ?"


    "Yes...why?" she inquired.


    "Oh f*ck me!" he cursed in his mind.

 Desperate Measures

    "Just to be clear," Ventus inquired, "That silver beast chasing us right now has POISON in its name right?"


    "Yes..." she replied quietly.


    "And that thing that has over 20 meters in length and has a humongous big mouth that could swallow us both in a single go also had DRAGON in its name right?" he said as his voice trembled slightly.


    "That''s correct, why are you asking the obvious?" she replied somewhat annoyed.


    "Because the first thing that comes to mind when I hear DRAGON in the name of something," he replied shouting, "Is something that can spew flames and is very strong"


    "But since that thing has POISON in its name..." He complained, "The only thing I can infer is that the beast chasing us either has a very potent poison with flame-like properties in its composition that can make the victim feel as if it is on fire,"


    "Or that it can hurl poison at us like a dragon spews flames." he explained.


    "Actually...." she sighed, "both assumptions are correct."


    "WHAT!?"


    "Yes...." she explained, "the silver sand poison dragon has a terrifyingly strong body that boasts a high defense and laceration power thanks to its scales, but also, it produces a strong poison in its body that has flame-like attributes in its effects as well as its ability to spew it like a dragon would in the form of gigantic clouds of poison gas or liquid poison shots that it can accurately fire on and reach a distance of about a hundred meters."


    "We''re actually even more screwed than I thought huh?" he whined.


    At this time they could no longer focus on conversing as the distance between them and the beast was decreasing by the minute. The sandboard was quite fast as it was in its strongest ambient when on top of the golden desert sand it had its body built of, that quality helped Ventus reduce the amount of mana he spent controlling the board after he had painstakingly constructed it as well as having a speed boosting attributes to it.


    Nonetheless, he still was expending mana even if at minute amounts. His core already had dangerously low levels of mana within it to begin with, and as such, he was in danger of running out of mana at any moment as his current mana level was about 7%.


    "We have a more immediate danger to deal with than the beasts to deal with" Ventus warned.


    "Really? what could be more dangerous than the twenty-meter long poison spewing scaled beast chasing us?" she inquired with a bad feeling.


    "I''m running out of mana and really soon we are going to fall on our faces in this sand and most likely die." he spoke indifferently.


    "I thought I could outrun this beast with my sandboard, but with my mana reserves at such a low-level, it was really a foolish hope."


    "Who would''ve thought that a beast would be so persistent?"


    At this moment he heard a loud hiss and then a liquid like noise. Luna looked behind to verify and instantly her grip on his body tightened even more.


    "Hey!! Are you trying to break me in half!?"


    "Shut up and dodge to the right!" she replied.


    "What the? you don''t order me!"


    "JUST DO WHAT I SAID ALREADY!" she screamed.


    Sensing the urgency in her voice as well as the loud ringing in his ears from the shout he obeyed and willed his board to slide to his right. A second later a splash was heard in the sand and sizzling noises rose in the air in the place they had just been. He turned his head to look and saw the sand being corroded by a green substance, it obviously was the poison projectile he heard of earlier. He looked to the beasts and saw that it fired several of those projectiles aiming at them, its chasing speed diminished slightly every time it fired, but the range of the projectiles more than made up for that speed.


    "Keep tracking the attacks and tell me when to dodge," Ventus spoke.


    "Okay, but what about you mana expenditure?" Luna inquired.


    "I will try to refine world mana whilst controlling the board."


    " But won''t that interfere with your control over the board?"


    "That is a possibility, but unless you can control the board yourself or supply me with mana, we do not exactly have any other choices do we?"


    "...."


    Ventus then left the navigating to Luna whilst he started executing the whirlwind revolution refinement. World mana flew in his direction in the shape of dim glowing white particles and the wind started slightly rotating around him as he did his best to refine mana as fast as he could.


    His meridians looked like they were in a storm as the world mana raced through them in the shape of rotating wind arrows. As the seconds passed, the world mana was condensed into the liquid like inner mana and stored drop by drop at his core.


    As mana was slowly refilled in his core he felt a refreshing feeling wash over him. It was like his body was a cracked dry land that was being watered by the rain, recovering its previous optimal state, but although he felt good as his mind was cooled by the refreshing feeling, he did not let his focus slip. He knew that if he relaxed he could die, and as such, did his best to use that more stable mental state to increase his focus on controlling the sandboard.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Thanks to his minute expenditure in controlling the sandboard and the speedy refinement of the whirlwind revolution he was able to actually refill his core. His expense was lower than his refinement speed and that made him even more impressed by his father''s work, making him wonder what the following levels and other techniques from the tornado policy would be like once he was able to practice them.


    The poison shots bombarded them and constantly Luna''s guidance helped them avoid it even though Ventus''s reaction time had slowed down as he had to split his attention between refining mana and controlling the sand board. But even though they could dodge, all of the dodges required a high prediction and calculation effort of Luna, and as such, their dodges were always close calls.


    "Ugh, we can''t continue doing this for long." Luna complained.


    "We don''t really have a choice right? I can''t refine any faster than I already am and that damned viper won''t give up!" Ventus grumbled.


    "I know I know..." Luna sighed, "Its just that this constant pressure is taking a real toll on both of us, if only there was a way that we could make refining mana was more automatic or perhaps enable a way to double your refinement speed so that you could promptly refill your mana to a sufficient level and let you fully focus your attention on getting us out of here."


    "yeah..."


    Refining mana took a great deal of concentration as it had to be carefully controlled or the core and especially the meridians could get damaged. In Ventus''s case, it was even more so as his refinement technique was unique, it was far faster than ordinary refinement techniques of the entry-tier due to its feature of rotating mana at high speeds so that the overall mana flow sped up, and by consequence, the refinement speed rose as well.


    But any carelessness in executing the refinement could make the high-speed rotating mana inside his meridians crash and cause him harm in the process. As the saying goes, "high-risk beget high-rewards". that could perfectly describe Ventus''s situation.


    "Wait a second....double refinement?" he murmured.


    At this moment, as if a light went on inside his brain Ventus a crazy idea sprouted that brought him hope.


    "Luna, you''re a genius!" he exclaimed pleased.


    "I am? What did I do?" she inquired confused.


    "Double refinement!" he explained, "My technique relies on rotating the mana inside my meridians so that the mana flow is sped up and as such the speed of my refinement is explosively increased."


    "So?"


    "So...that I only rotate the mana inside my meridians!" he laughed crazily, "What if I rotated the mana inside my core as well to increase the absorption speed?"


    "What!? did you go crazy from the danger!?" she shouted.


    "What do you mean?" he inquired confused.


    "Executing techniques inside the core is extremely dangerous!" she replied, "If they work, they grant an explosive boost, but if they fail the core could crack or even break from the damage!"


    "And considering the nature of your technique, if you fail, you''ll immediately become a cripple or die! and you will also take me along with you!"


    Ventus frowned. His idea was indeed a dangerous one, if he succeeded, he would be able to save them, but the chances of his failure were so high even in a stable environment, let alone in a crisis-like situation he found himself in.


    "Well, we don''t really have any other options..." he lamented, "At most, if I fail you could drop me and run by yourself, perhaps you could even survive this."


    "..."


    Luna could not find any words to reply. Taking everything into consideration, she knew that he was right. The situation was truly THAT precarious. After managing to dodge another round of poison shots and gaining some breathing room as the viper seemed to have spent some strength firing all of those poison blasts, she exhaled loudly and finally spoke.


    "Very well, let''s try your idea"


    Ventus simply nodded and turned 90% of his attention to his body making his reaction speed to outside events sharply fall. He noticed as soon as he attention reached his core that he only had managed to fill his core back to 20%.


    "So slow" he complained.


    As he thought he knew that his statement was outrageously offensive to the magi around the world. It was already a miracle he managed to refine so much mana whilst being in the situation he was in and at the speed he managed to do so. He shook his head and refocused on the task at hand.


    He tried to will the mana to move inside his core and found the task surprisingly difficult as he met with the core''s surprisingly huge resistance to movements inside of it. It was as if he tried to violate the law''s of a sacred space, and as such, he was met with its response.


    But he did not give up, he kept trying and commanding the mana to move, and sure enough, after a few dozens of tries, he managed to make it do a simple rotation. When he did he noticed that a huge mass of world mana was pulled inside the meridians and all the way to the core in an instant before being refined at a speed never experienced by him before that allowed his core to fill by 5% In seconds.


    Luna, on the other hand, noticed the changes in Ventus as the surrounding wind around them explosively converged at him when he successfully rotated his mana inside the core a single time. She smiled lightly as she knew he had somewhat succeeded in his crazy plan.


    Ventus cheered in his heart and tried to rotate his mana once more. It took him several tries and once more he succeeded, this time it took fewer tries than the first time he managed to rotate his mana, the mana in his core managed to refill by another 5%.


    He kept trying for several minutes and the following tries reduced time and the effort it took to rotate the mana. Luna noticed the increasing success as each time Ventus managed to rotate the mana a disturbance would occur as the surrounding wind converged and rotated around him.


    His core had filled to the 75% mark when he was finally forced to stop. He failed in completing a full rotation correctly and actually crashed his mana at core''s walls sending an electrifying pain through his whole body. The core wasn''t actually wounded thanks to Richard''s pill that reinforced his core''s structure, but the pain scared him so much he was forced to stop.


    Luna noticed his body trembling as his face paled and his face exposed an ugly frown as it contorted in pain. She knew something had gone wrong and immediately got worried. The silver viper had finally recovered its speed and was rapidly closing the distance between them intent on eating them for lunch.


    "Ventus, are you all right?" She shook him trying to drag his attention back to the outside.


    It took a few moments but he returned and was fully focused on steering the sand board now.


    "Yes, my idea somewhat worked and I managed to recover my mana a sufficient level." He reassured her.


    "Did you wound yourself?" she asked still somewhat scared.


    "No, I accidentally crashed the mana inside my core, but luckily, I managed to avoid disaster." he sighed in relief.


    "Now, let''s get out of here!" He roared loudly.


    He increased the mana infusion on the sand board making it somewhat glow with an almost transparent light. Instants later they shot forwards at four times their former speed leaving a massive trail of sand clouds behind them and two huge sand waves at each side of the board as they sped up across the golden dunes of the desert as they rapidly left the silvery beast behind them with the humming tune of the powered sand board to give them a soundtrack.

 Separation

    The pair kept dashing at full speed for two hours before Ventus''s mana reserves almost emptied out. They stopped on the top of an especially high sand dune where the wind was blowing strong and had the surprising aspect of being cold and refreshing despite its existence being created in the midst of a desert beneath a cloudless azure sky. They stopped right before his mana reserves went out so that he could still maintain the sand board and meditate to recover since if he let the sand board fall apart, it would take too much mana to build another one if an emergency arose.


    As they had long fleed safely from the silver sand poison dragon they sat down on the smooth sand and began to rest. Ventus, now not having to risk breaking his core to recover his mana, executed his technique normally and took his time refining mana whilst Luna inspected a silver ring carved with runes that faintly glowed from time to time.


    She would swipe from time to time as if she was selecting an item on a menu as well as smiling satisfied when she found something she wanted. Luna produced a few dry fruit flavored biscuits and cold drinks as well as a huge white-red checkered towel and placed it on the ground, sat up on it and took some bites and sips from time to time while watching their surroundings.


    After four hours Ventus''s mana was completely refilled, he looked at Luna with crumbled packages and small boxes beside her and searched for a sack or something similar hanging around her body, seeing she had none tied to her he figured that she was wearing another spatial item. She stood up and grabbed the towel and the trash, she pointed the ring at everything and after a flash, everything disappeared, that confirmed Ventus''s hypothesis as well as identifying what kind of spatial object she was using.


    "A space ring huh?" he mocked, "Must be nice having a grandmaster for a father."


    "You know this?" she said pointing to her ring.


    "Yeah, my master told me about it." he replied.


    "Then your master must either be at the master or above rank right?" she continued.


    "How do you know?" he inquired with suspicion.


    "If he wasn''t he wouldn''t have the knowledge about spatial rings," she explained, "Spatial technology is special. Due to its unique status and rarity, only certain ranks among warriors and magi have access to it and information about it. If you don''t have that level of power, even if you have ten times the required amount of money, you won''t be able to find out about its existence or be able to buy one."


    "for an example, the manager of this tower has a space pouch tied underneath that big round belly of his. The other man that is accompanying him has a space pouch as well and most likely has another space item as he is for sure a grandmaster rank."


    "heeeh...having a lion for a father, the daughter can''t be a dog!" he chuckled.


    "What does that mean?" she inquired puzzled.


    Ventus didn''t reply and instead went on to do some exercises, Luna didn''t press on nor get angry as she found his attitude quite amusing. Plus, considering the fact he risked his life to save her and even went on to endanger his core just for that same chance when he could''ve easily saved himself, or even better, never interfered in the silver sand poison dragon''s attack on her in the first place and prioritize his safety, all those events combined made her heart warm up to this unusual boy.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    "So...what next?" Ventus asked.


    "I don''t know, I was about to ask you the same thing." Luna replied.


    "Well, the contents of the mission for this dimension are 1) Find a Corona Cactus''s flower and 2)Acquire a King Viper''s poison sack," Ventus spoke, "We have been here for about three hours now and we are nowhere near getting close to any of those objectives."


    "Actually, we have." Luna spoke hesitantly.


    "What do you mean?" Ventus inquired.


    "Well...the silver sand poison dragon is also known as Viper Prince."


    "So you mean...?"


    "Yes, the silver sand poison dragon is the underling of a more powerful beast known as Golden Sand Venom Dragon....or just King Viper for short. Usually, these beasts live in groups with a king viper leading up to ten Viper Princes" Luna explained.


    "So, to sum our mission up," Ventus complained, "We have to KILL the bigger badder version of a beast we just had to flee for our lives from!?"


    "I guess that''s reality for ya" Luna sighed.


    "Tell me girl, are you an idiot or something?"


    "Why do you say that?" Luna questioned slightly angry.


    "Why did you have to choose this specific portal? Why the golden wind desert where we have to face a huge poison spitting snake, and even worse, its evolved form that can command ten of such snakes and is even more powerful!"


    "Oh shut up! it''s not like I made you come after me!" Luna fired back, "You chose this mission on your own!"


    "No I didn''t! It was my master that made me come after you!"


    "Then maybe you shouldn''t have listened to him and just made your own choice, MAYBE, leaving me for dead would''ve caused you less trouble!"


    "IT MOST CERTAINLY WOULD" Ventus shouted annoyed.


    "THEN LEAVE ME AND GO COMPLETE YOUR OWN MISSION! I DIDN''T ASK FOR YOUR PROTECTION!" Luna retorted shouting angrily.


    "FINE! YOU''RE ON YOUR OWN" Ventus roared.


    He grabbed his sandboard and threw it to the ground as it landed Ventus jumped on it and infused his mana into the construct rapidly sliding away. As the distance between them grew, so did their mood worsen to the point were they simultaneously shouted.


    "UGH, YOU''RE SUCH A BRAT!"


    Luna, on the other hand, chose a different direction and produced an emerald with seven runes carved, it would from time to time pulsate as if it was a beating heart. She infused about 60% of her mana and rapidly the runes lit one by one until the whole gem began to shine.


    "Emerald Golem Activate!" She commanded, "Mount Style: Emerald Thunder Rhinoceros"


    A flash of green light filled the place for a moment and after the light faded Luna saw standing before here a life-sized replica of a Thunder Rhinoceros made completely from emerald. It was a mighty beast standing three meters tall with lightning markings on its four legs and horn that would crackle with lightning. The golem roared as if declaring its might, Luna smiled slightly and hoped onto to it, rapidly mounting the emerald beast.


    "If that stupid snake didn''t catch me before I could summon you, all of this would''ve never happened." Luna grumbled as she gazed at the green rhino.


    Luna the tapped the rhino''s head and willed it to move, and so, It dashed off, not through the golden sand, but instead, took to the sky. As it ran a cloud was generated beneath its feet that crackled and rumbled with thunder and lightning that helped it levitate and had a footing on the sky. minutes later the only thing that could be seen was a solitary thunder cloud rapidly flying amidst the azure sunny sky.

 Corona Cactuss Flower Field

    Ventus powered the sandboard to go as fast as it could, while also executing his technique to maintain his mana level at its highest at all times, of course, he only did so because there was no danger at the moment, and as such, he could afford dual tasking.


    As he travelled and left waves of sand and clouds of golden clouds rising behind him, he took the opportunity to improve his control over the board as well as practising how to better ride the board with less effort and with the ability to better manoeuvre amidst the sand.


    He would jump, twist, turn, rotate, flip and sway whilst riding the board. As the minutes passed he got better and more fluid at controlling the board, his control over it rose in the same ratio that his mana usage was reduced even further as his finesse and practice improved.


    In the end, he even stopped executing the whirlwind revolution and rode the board till he mana was almost completely emptied again. Thanks to the optimization of his mana usage as well as his reduction in the size of the board from the previous 2 meters to 1.5 meters, he was able to ride the board at full speed for twelve full hours. His understanding of the earth element and its applications increased as well, and somehow, he felt as if his affinity with the earth had improved as he felt himself closer to the earth.


    Apparently, he rode for so long that and so far that when he finally stopped to actually rest the sun had moved in the sky and dusk arrived. The sun was setting down and the moon was already in the sight in the azure heavenly dome above. The sky looked ever so beautiful as it darkened, the stars covered the sky as the deep blue filled the scenery. Strangely, even as the night came, the golden sand that he thought was just regular sand being brightly illuminated by the sun continued glowing with golden light, retaining their metallic sheen.


    Ventus had stopped at a flatter land than the rest of the desert and so he decided that it was a good spot for him to rest and recover. He laid down on the golden sand and used the sandboard he earlier reduced in size as a makeshift pillow, and to maintain the constant mana flow he connected mana threads on his hands to the board to guarantee it wouldn''t be unmade whilst he slept. The tracking device he was given before he entered the portal also had the function of showing time, and before he fell asleep, he saw that it was around 9:00 PM.


    As he was accustomed to waking up early with little rest he ended up sleeping up until the clock showed 3:00 AM. He yawned and stretch as he was still laid down on the soft sand, he noticed that he didn''t feel cold at all and attributed that to the desert''s never-ending heat and the sands absorption of said energy.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    He stood up and watched the still dark sky. It was still as beautiful as it was before he fell asleep, he admired the sky for a bit and after that, he contracted his mana strings pulling the sandboard to him before jumping on it and riding away.


    He decided he wouldn''t search for the king viper just yet as he knew he would need extensive planning to face it and its underlings. So, he would first undertake the easier task, finding the Corona Cactus and acquire Its flower. But as his plans crossed his mind, he immediately found himself stumped. How was he to find a cactus in the midst of this endless desert? he had no idea what it looked like as he had never seen a cactus in his life before.


    He kept riding straight for three hours at full speed before he finally found a change in scenery, surprisingly, he discovered a totally sandless spot surrounded by dunes. It had a dark brown color and it seemed very fertile as it had dozens of tiny green plants filled with spikes and beautiful white, purple and/or red flowers above them.


    This place emitted a pleasant fragrant smell that made Ventus feel relaxed, renewed, reenergized and also made him experience a sort of renewal within him. He felt as if his very cells began to breathe fast just so that they could absorb more of the sweet and vigorous aroma emitted by these strange plants.


    Since he had not seen any sort of plant life forms in the desert beside the ones before him, he figured that these had to be specimens of the cactus plant he was supposed to find. He used his mana threads to stick the board to his back as he stepped on to the new land, Immediately he was astounded as the land felt soft and slightly caved in when he stepped on it.


    "Now, how do I find the flower of the corona cactus?" he murmured, "Apparently, considering its name, the corona cactus has to be the "crown" cactus, the "king" amongst these plants."


    "There must be some kind of specific trait or perhaps an aura or even some distinct fragrance or characteristic that must discern the "king" from the "commoners" right?"


    He began to walk to slowly walk amongst the plants and carefully felt their scent, but, he found no difference between the smell of any of them. He then began to look carefully at every single one of the exactly 74 cactus plants on the dark brown patch of earth, and to his dismay, he found no discernible characteristics amongst them.


    "Ah damn, even though the sun has risen allowing me to fully see this place, I still can''t find anything that shows me exactly which one of them is the one I should take the flower from! And to make it all worse, these bloody things have only a single flower on then, so when I find the corona cactus, sure enough I''ll probably face Luna in combat since she''ll want to pass as well and she''ll need to take the flower from me to do so!"


    "Ugh what a pain!" he whined as he held his head between his hands.

 Cactus Minefield

    After lamenting his current predicament for about ten straight minutes, Ventus finally stopped and stepped back towards the sand. He figured that if up close he couldn''t figure out an answer, then maybe if he changed his perspective and looked from another angle, with a calmer mindset, then perhaps he might discover something to aid him in his quest to find the true corona cactus flower amidst these plants.


    He stepped onto the sand and started distancing himself from the cactus''s flower field. He climbed out and stared at the patch from atop a dune, and yet, nothing. Then he decided to move, He threw the board on the ground, stepped on it and willed it to move around the earthen patch.


    He tried moving at high speed, he tried moving slowly, he tried moving in swaying motions and tried moving whilst doing a handstand on the board, and once more, nothing. He was genuinely annoyed as he tried different views for hours until the clock struck noon, and no matter what he did, nothing!


    "AH GOD! What a stupid task!" he shouted in frustration, "At least they could have given a hint of how to find the damn thing!"


    He willed the board to come closer to the patch and laid in the sand right outside it, the sand board held in front of him whilst hitting his head against the construct.


    Thud...Thud...Thud¡­.Thud...Thud¡­


    The sound lasted for several minutes as he kept banging his forehead with the board.


    "WHY!"


    Thud!


    "CAN''T!"


    Thud!


    "I!"


    Thud!


    "FIND!"


    Thud!


    "THE!"


    Thud!


    "STUPID!"


    Thud!


    "FLOWER!"


    THUD!


    His rage taking over Ventus stood up and shouted in frustration. He picked his he golden sand board and hurled it at the earthen patch whilst still maintaining it connected to himself so that he could pick it back up.


    Swoooooosh¡­..Clang!


    "Wait, what was that?"


    Ventus ran towards the direction the board had landed and retrieve it. He placed it on his back and started digging the ground where it had struck till the depth the board''s tip had clashed against the metallic sounding object. After excavating for about sixty centimeters he found a copper-colored root underneath the earth.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    "What the heck is this thing?"


    He saw that the root had not ended, as such, he decided to keep digging and follow the root to its source. After a few minutes he found that the copper root was connected to one of the plants. He grinned as his brain quickly fired a truly hopeful idea to the top of his mind. He figured that it the roots were metallic and this one had a copper coloration, then maybe, there would be a different coloration in the other roots, and if there was, then maybe that would indicate where was and which cactus was the right one for him to take the flower from.


    He did not have the patience and his excitement in finding a possible answer could not be contained, this made him walk towards the periphery of the earthen patch and stomp the ground heavily. He fired a blast off mana inside the ground and connected himself to the upper, softer layer of earth. He spun his feet making the soft earth fly outwards and land on the sand.


    When he saw the result of his tactic, his earlier grin grew even wider almost making him look like a creepy madman smiling from ear to ear. The ground was filled with many metallic-colored roots, many of them being copper colored as the original one he found. He also observed that some were silver-colored, golden-colored and even white-colored.


    He began counting the roots to have a ratio, there were a total of 74 cactus plants, each of them was connected to a single root that burrowed further into the ground. From these 74, 37 of them were connected to copper-colored roots, 19 of them were silver-colored, 17 of them were golden in color and lastly, a single, unique and massive white root that was connected to every single one of the other roots existed.


    "hahahahaha Gotcha!!" he laughed loudly.


    "Took me a while but my hard work paid off." he sighed whilst excitedly grinning.


    He followed the thick white metallic root to its source and found a regular cactus, but with this, he knew it was the corona strain of the bunch. He approached it and gently placed his hands on the flower before attempting to remove it.


    Shiiuuu....


    "What''s this...AAAARRRGGGHHH!?!?!?"


    He felt a sharp pain on the side of his left thigh, he looked at it and saw a needle-like thin black spike protruding out of his wound. He circled his mana to the area to prevent poison from possibly spreading if there was any and quickly pulled the spike out. He threw it away and it hit a root with a clang.


    Shiiiu...Shiiiu..Shiiiuu..


    He grabbed the sand board and moulded it to wrap around his legs to protect them. But to his dismay, the sharp pain now came from both his arms and one of his shoulders.


    "AAAARGHHH!!!"


    He circled mana into the wounds and pulled the spikes out throwing them away, another three clangs were heard.


    Shiiiu.....Shiiiu.....Shiiiu.....Shiiiu.....Shiiiu.....Shiiiu.....Shiiiu.....Shiiiu.....Shiiiu....


    "Oh damn!!"


    He boosted his legs with mana and jumped high enough to leave the "crater" that was formed from the sand dunes around the cactus flower field. However, he soon discovered that desperate move was an idiotic one as the spikes came flying straight at him. He molded the board again and made a sand shield underneath him.


    Thud..Thud..Thud..Thud..Thud..Thud..Thud..Thud..Thud..


    The shield received nine impacts and cracked somewhat. Ventus infused more mana into it and repaired the damage as well as expelling the spikes, the spikes fell from the skill and nine metallic noises were heard. Once more he heard the pressurized firing noise, this time, however, he heard twenty-seven noises and before his feet could touch the ground, twenty-seven black spikes almost broke through the sand shield.


    He repaired the shield yet again. This time he chose to keep the black spikes and test an idea, he touched the ground carefully avoiding the roots, and his idea was immediately proved correct.


    "If I try to harm the corona cactus in any way, it will fire a warning shot. if I ignore the shot and don''t retreat, its companions will start to fire increasing numbers of spikes to defend it on an exponential factor of three," He analyzed, "And apparently what triggers the consecutive firing is the impact on the roots or the attempt at theft of the Corona Cactus''s flower."


    "I''m literally surrounded by a cactus minefield!" He grumbled, "Damn plants!"

 Dirt Dragons Charge

    Ventus''s face was ugly as he frowned with a grim expression in his face.


    "If I carelessly try to take the flower by force I will be turned into cheese by those spikes," he sighed, "A hands-on approach won''t work since that will put me in danger and most likely I won''t survive if I am attacked like I just was."


    He retreated into the periphery of the cactus field and began to brainstorm. The first idea he had was to make an armor completely built of the same golden sand he constructed, but he immediately discarded that. Pulling off that feat would take too much mana, so much in fact that he calculated to make a solid set of armor simply of that golden sand would require at least five times the mana his body could currently hold.


    And also, there was a second issue. Even if he did successfully construct the armor, he could not maintain it for long, at best, with his current mana levels, he could withstand maintaining the sand armor for only one minute. That time frame would never be enough to get the flower and get out of the flower field safely.


    He then pondered over a second idea, grabbing the flower using a ranged attack. That could, in theory, allow him to grab the flower and retreat safely without sustaining any more damage to himself. But how would he do something that could resist the spike attack without crumbling and last long enough to safely bring him the flower back? He thought of throwing his board towards the flower and mold it in mid-air, but, he immediately threw off that idea as he wasn''t proficient enough in the practice of the terra control technique to manipulate the earth at a distance, at his current level he absolutely had to have contact with whatever he was manipulating or a previously established mana thread connection just like he had done with the sandboard.


    As his thought raced he unconsciously started walking in circles around the flower field and after several minutes his shoes were thoroughly covered in the soft earth he had removed earlier to reveal the metallic roots making them somewhat slippery as he kept walking in the medium. And, as physics and fate would have it, Ventus didn''t take too long after that to slip and fall.


    "WHAT THE!?"


    Before he could finish his phrase he crashed face first in the dark brown soft earth and filled his mouth with the thing. He stood up instantly and started coughing, spitting and cursing.


    "Just what I needed! Not only am I stuck here unable to take the damn flower, but now I fall and almost swallow this damned dirt!"


    As he kept spitting and trying to get the dirt taste off his mouth an idea took over his mind.


    "This dirt! Of course!"


    He grinned widely and began to run around the flower field gathering all the dirt into a single spot so that he could manipulate it with ease. After he finished he saw that he had collected a ten-meter tall mound of earth. He figured that he could use this dirt as material to build an armor for himself, but since it was too soft he discarded the idea since this would not allow him to move properly, If he increased the thickness of the armor he wouldn''t be able to move properly, so he instead decided to make a massive external armor for himself since he had so much material to work with, and to his luck, this dirt required little mana to work with and was especially malleable. That way he could move, grab the flower and return all whilst being protected by many layers of earth that he planned to build into his dirt external armor.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    He then created several dozens of mana threads and connected in various spots of the dirt pile, the connection with the material once finished, Ventus began to work. He pumped massive amounts of mana into the dirt, so much so that at some point the earth began to faintly glow with a semi-transparent white aura. Ventus ended spending 80% of his total mana in the infusion process.


    One had to know that previously he had used the roughly the same amount to condense his sandboard, though merely two meters of it. That spoke loads about the value of the golden sand, being at least five times more valuable and demanding than the dirt. But that didn''t mean the brown earth was worthless, rather, it was extremely useful to Ventus at the moment, and thus, held an extremely high value in his mind.


    He molded and manipulated for several minutes. The result was astounding, Ventus had made a complete five-meter long exact replica of the silver sand poison dragon he had seen earlier, it looked resilient and mighty, though not as impressive as the real deal. Perhaps if he had made it out of the golden sand, that would certainly even more astonishing than the real beast.


    He then climbed onto the earth beast fusing with it in the process. Right now he was inside the beast''s body and could see using the mouth hole he had especially created.


    "hehe..I wanna see now how you''ll stop me!" he grinned cheerfully.


    "Dirt Dragon..." He commanded, "CHARGE!!!!"


    The beast moved its body and shot rapidly towards the corona cactus. Since it was such a massive body Ventus couldn''t avoid hitting other plants in the way and damaging them, and as if he had triggered the ire of the plants, they fired their spikes at him. He heard several pressurized firing noises, but none of that mattered as the dirt dragon armor was holding it all perfectly fine.


    Ventus laughed loudly without a care in the world as he rapidly advanced through the field.


    "I''m INVINCIBLE!!"


    At that moment a thought of absolute power and what it could be was born in his mind, maybe, he figured, having an absolute defense would be best, after all, if he couldn''t be harmed, he could win battles by tiring his opponents to death. He grinned maliciously at this thought.


    A few moments and thousands of spikes fired later, Ventus finally arrived before the flower. He molded his sandboard and created a thick golden pair of sand gauntlets for his arms, he wouldn''t commit the same mistake of leaving them exposed to a surprise spike attack. He stretched his arms out of the snakes mouth and gently placed them around the flower.


    As he did the fire rating increased massively and the dirt armor showed signs of cracking, Ventus got worried but resolutely pressed on. He pulled his arms back swiftly with a firm hold on the flower and pulled it out completely unscathed.


    At this point, the plants seemed to be furious as they began to fire tens of thousands of spikes in seconds.


    "Not Good!" He grimaced.


    He willed the dirt dragon to turn around and slither away. The fire only increased and Ventus began to feel that the entire structure was collapsing, the dirt dragon was cracking and some external pieces began to fall off as he desperately pumped mana into it so that he could escape death. His heart was beating madly whilst his brain raced and his mana almost ignited.


    "Come on, just a bit longer, please, hold on!" he begged.


    Sweat covered his body as he madly dashed, in a few instants that felt like an eternity he crossed the whole flower field and escaped the spike trap. The second he left the radius of the flower field the firing stopped. Ventus exhaled heavily as not even a second had passed after the attacks had stopped, the dirt dragon broke apart and collapsed. Ventus sat down in the golden sand gasping for air.


    "Damn...I...did it...I got....the flower!" He laughed, "Stupid...task....F*cking stupid...rules...why give us...such a hard challenge..."


    He grumbled for a bit, but very soon a satisfied smile bloomed on his face as he celebrated his victory whilst curiously looking at the flower he had just obtained.


    "What precisely is so precious about this thing? Why make me face certain death to obtain just a stupid flower?"

 The Tiny Golden Orb

    "Well, it doesn''t really matter why they sent me to fetch this thing. What really matters is that I''ve managed to succeed and now I have to find a way to acquire the King Viper''s poison sack and somehow make it out alive whilst also facing together with the giant snake its ten giant snake underlings," He sighed."Fun times...."


    Ventus then controlled a bit of the golden sand of the desert to make a small globe to store the flower and attach it to his body so that he wouldn''t have to carry it on his hands all the time. He then threw his board on the sand and stepped on it ready to leave, but as he was about to get out he heard cracking sounds behind him.


    He looked backward and saw that the once lively flower garden rapidly withered the metallic roots oxidized and the plants with their flowers slowly decayed and fell to pieces. He then saw that everything that was mysteriously decomposed was sucked into a small golden orb leaving behind a crater with the orb in the midst of it.


    "huh? What''s this?" Ventus wondered.


    He put the flower orb and the sandboard on his back and slowly walked towards the tiny golden sphere the size of a newborn''s fist. He approached it with care as he could not be sure of the nature of the thing, so exercising caution was the wisest path to take.


    Before he touched the orb he decided to take an even wiser decision. His mana was running low, and so he began to refine world mana so that he could recover, he figured that if he had no mana to summon an emergency when facing this probably dangerous item, he would certainly pay the price later.


    He sat down in front of the orb and refined mana for about two hours refilling his mana completely. He stood up and condensed ten mana threads between his hands, he then approached the tiny orb and enveloped it with his threads before lifting himself up. His hands were slightly separated as the tiny orb completely trapped by the threads seemed to float between them.


    Before he could even react his mana that was connected to the orb started being sucked in, so much so that his full to the brim mana lost about 1% of it in an instant. He was shocked and immediately tried to break off the connection, but no matter his efforts, he was not able to retrieve his mana threads.


    His mind grew frantic as he was helpless against this mysterious orb. He feared that if he did not break the connection he would be sucked dry, and that could absolutely not happen! if he fell unconscious due to mana exhaustion here, who knows if the orb would not do something else to harm him or even kill him.


    As these thoughts flew through his mind and the time flowed, his mana also rapidly vanished from his core and was forcibly infused into the golden sphere. Ventus desperately tried breaking the connection as he attempted to pull his hands apart, but his arms didn''t budge at all no matter how much strength he used.


    "I''m going to die at this rate!!"


    He lost 1% of his mana per second and, around a minute had passed since he "grabbed" the golden orb from the ground, he wouldn''t last another full minute if things proceeded at this rate. He quickly began to refine mana, he figured that since the orb was holding him hostage and forcing him to keep the connection, then maybe if he stopped struggling and focused in refining mana to stabilize his mana level, he could actually keep his little life!


    His mana circulated furiously as he tried to keep up with the absorption ratio. His mana was now being constantly absorbed but he was no longer in danger, and even better, every ten minutes he managed to refill 1% of his mana without letting it fall back down.Stolen novel; please report.


    As the mana was forcibly poured into the golden orb Ventus began to have a strange sensation. At first, it was just a nagging thought at the back of his mind, but as the time passed, the sensation grew and eventually became a strong urge that he could not press down. He felt as if that golden orb was becoming part of himself and not only that, that the orb hid something inside of it, strangely, he felt even that the orb didn''t hide only something, but also someone.


    He spent a whole ten hours having his mana drained from him whilst he executed his refining technique, he had sitten down so that he wouldn''t increase his burden any further. The stars had already filled the dark blanket that was the night sky and the cold, refreshing wind of the night helped him cool down after a long day under the mighty sun''s eternal heat waves. He looked at his guiding device and found out that it was already 11:00 PM.


    "Hoh...It''s already this late huh?" he sighed as sleepiness began to affect him.


    "Yup, it already is so late..." A voice sounded straight in his mind.


    "I guess I should sleep," he yawned, "But I can''t, otherwise this stupid orb will drain me to death!"


    "Hey, no need to call names!" The voice complained.


    "Oh, my bad, sorry,"Ventus replied, "wait....sorry? what!?"


    "Took you long enough!" the voice chuckled.


    Ventus shot up alarmed and began to look all around, his mana circulating in preparation for battle. He then molded the golden sand-board into a sword and gripped it tight, his nerves tense and his blood pumping rapidly.


    "Come out! Face me like a man!" Ventus yelled.


    "Why would I face a brat like you as a man?" the voice laughed.


    "You''re a coward!"


    "No, I am just practical," the voice retorted, "plus, you can''t fight me!"


    "Oh yeah? are you calling me weak now?" Ventus roared, "I''ll have you know I''ve faced the silver sand poison dragon and survived!"


    "And you''re proud of that why?" the voice mocked, "Oh right, with your meager strength it''s obvious you would find something like that impressive."


    "I ate those for snacks when I was just a newborn!" the voice laughed," and you think you''re impressive? please, kid, don''t make me laugh so hard or I just might break my ribs from the effort!"


    Ventus rage was constantly boiling. The voice kept mocking, teasing and provoking him all whilst maintaining itself hidden from his perception.


    "Where are you! face me!" Ventus yelled angrily once more as he swung his sand blade in frustration.


    "I already told you, you can''t fight me!" the voice replied slightly annoyed.


    "Why?" Ventus replied angrily.


    "Look at your hands, do you notice anything missing?"


    "Huh?"


    At this moment Ventus finally noticed that he had reacted so fast and violently that he totally forgot about the golden orb. His arms could move freely and the orb was nowhere in sight.


    "The golden orb? where is it?" Ventus asked confused.


    "That''s my point, you can''t fight ME!" The voice explained, "I AM the golden orb!"


    "What!? how is that possible? how can an orb talk?" Ventus inquired disbelievingly.


    "Its because I''m not an orb idiot!" the voice mocked, " I am a beast soul, and the golden orb is my core."


    "Yeah right!" Ventus snorted, "As far as I know, you could just be a beast that can transmit its voice."


    "Oh you doubt me?" The voice laughed, "Then I''ll prove my identity to you."


    Ventus suddenly felt a strange pulsation inside his body, near the region of his core which affects his mana rendering Ventus unable to control it, making both the sand sword and the sand orb that contained the corona cactus flower disintegrate and fall in the ground. Or that''s what he thought for the first instant, but then he noticed that it was not the mana he could not control, rather, he was unable to control the golden sand.


    "What is going on, what did you do? and why did I feel that something is inside my body?


    "Are you really that stupid or is your current status of starvation making you grow idiotic by the second?" the voice mocked.


    "Oh shut up!" Ventus complained.


    "Well, to answer your question. I''ve locked your control over my body and also, I am inside your body, when I exert my strength it is obvious you would feel it." the voice chuckled.


    "Inside my body? wait.. you said you are the golden orb, and now you say that you''re inside my body..."


    "yes?"


    "Do you mean to say that somehow that tiny golden sphere ended up inside me!?" Ventus inquired shocked.

 Memories

    "Yes, the tiny golden sphere, or as I said before, MY BEAST CORE is now residing right below your mana core due to your lucky success in actually refining my core at your meager level."


    "What exactly do you mean with that?" Ventus inquired angrily.


    "It means that if weren''t for the humongous amount of coincidences you just luckily found yourself into, you would never have been able to refine my core." the voice replied.


    "It is actually quite the feat you just pulled off ya know?"


    "I mean...who would''ve had ever imagined that the one who would free me and coincidentally refine me when my soul is at its weakest ever without having the power to rebuild my body due to it being sealed and oppressed for millennia under this despicable seventy-four restriction corona formation would be a little apprentice magus as yourself?" the voice laughed in self-deprecation.


    "I, the once hailed as the Eternal Sand Dragon, would become a tool for an apprentice magus ant. That would definitely make me a great joke amongst the five divine beasts!" the voice sighed.


    "Wait a little okay? first, I could use some respect since you''re living in my body. Second, it would be nice if you could actually explain things first before mumbling numerous references into my brain that I could not possibly understand, and third, what exactly are your plans now? take my body or something? and how does that refinement stuff work anyway?" Ventus grumbled in annoyance.


    "All right kid, fine, I''ll explain...I guess I owe you that much since you''ve freed me, even though you''ve trapped me a few hours later." the voice chuckled.


    Ventus now attentively listened to the voice, he felt as if he was about to learn some very important information about the world.


    "First, let''s start with a few introductions. I am known to you humans as the "Eternal Sand Dragon" one of the five supreme leaders of the Beast Clan, my name is Ragnar Heremos."


    "The five supreme leaders each govern a faction inside the Beast Clan and due to our proximity in bloodline with the Ancient Titan Beasts, we were deemed as the Five Divine Beasts,"


    "Thousands of years ago, the world was at war. All kinds of living beings fought amongst themselves for supremacy of resources and land. Back then, there was no Kingun that dominated the world and subdued the masses with his power,"


    "In those chaotic years blood flowed as rivers and corpses became mountains on a daily basis, in those cruel times were born the brightest and strongest combatants, be it human, beast, elf, demon, lune, solem, dwarf, giant or fey."


    "Countless powerhouses were produced by all the races and shook the world with their might. Those times were truly splendid."


    As the voice told the stories, golden threads of energy flowed from the golden core into his and then travelled to his brain. As the information was told, the memories of the ancient dragon were played in Ventus''s mind.


    Massive battles that wrecked the earth, rainbow-colored lights and explosive energies flew all over as the various warriors of the nine races fought. Any casual sneeze of any of those existences could wipe the whole Lumina Kingdom out of existence. Even though it was just a memory, the mere aura contained in that remembrance was enough to shake Ventus to his core, plus, Ventus had never seen anything like it before, he never had even imagined something so powerful could ever exist, except for maybe Kingun.


    "In that time, a grand battle took place between the nine races. All fought bravely and did the very best they could, but not even the joint effort of all of those monstrous powerhouses could stop the First Kingun from dominating and uniting the nine races under the might of his fist,"


    "He was a Human that rose in power rapidly and defeated everyone in his path. Though he was human, he did not favor his race and dealt with every single being with cold and hard fairness."


    The memory flow then changed and the image of a humanoid silhouette appeared in Ventus''s mind, his features were blurred, but his very existence made Ventus feel like it was only right to bow before him.


    "He was named Nikolai Kaiser before he became Kingun, how he achieved that insane amount of power was a mystery, some speculated he had some sort of treasure or god legacy. Others, however, thought he had received the recognition and support of the Will of the World that powered him to an extreme invincible state."


    The humanoid being radiated a majestic aura as that felt as wide as the world itself, he seemed to be like he was one with the world and sometimes he even felt like could fuse with it. If one did not pay attention, one would quickly lose sight of him. Around him tornadoes rose as the lands quaked and the seas churned and waved, the world seemed to be suffering the apocalypse as he exerted his might.


    "After that grand battle that forced every race to back down in defeat, he became known as the "Conqueror of The Nine Races" or simply as the "Supreme King", Kingun."


    The old dragon''s voice ringed emotionally in Ventus''s mind before the memories continued.


    "Of course, no one opposed his rule, but that didn''t stop the nine races to have wars between them, though none dared to ever do such a grand battle again. In one such war, in a very peculiar battle, the humans allied themselves with the elves, the lune, and the solem race to fight against the beast clan over a certain treasure."


    At this point, the alliance appeared in his mind. Several hundreds of thousands of humanoid warriors appeared on one side of a massive stretch of cracked dry land, whilst on the other side, the beast clan stood with its monstrous sized combatants with the gigantic behemoth that was their leader, the ancient golden dragon.


    His scales seemed like impenetrable shields, His wings covered the sky above and created mighty winds as they moved giving the world below a golden hue as the sun shone upon them. His fangs were white and hundredfold in number as they looked like sharp swords in that gargantuan-sized maw, whilst his claws were black and looked like invincible scythes of death when he swiped cutting even air itself apart. On his back were black spikes protruding along his spine all the way to his tail that would from time to time hit the earth and make the whole battlefield vibrate with the sheer power of the impact. His eyes seemed like scarlet-golden entrances to the abyss as he silently glanced the foes he was about to face with his ten thousand meter long body.


    Such a mighty image struck at Ventus''s soul, creating shockwaves as he gasped for breath. Without warning, the form of such a monstrous dragon had formed within him, forcing it''s way through his very subconscious. Manifesting even a hint of power seemed enough to rip him apart. That beast was the embodiment of Armageddon itself. It''s golden luster shined so bright as if to give the sun itself a moment to hesitate. That sort of power, domineering and absolute, demanded respect and Ventus gave it willingly, without a second thought.


    "In that battle, the beast clan''s golden faction under my command was massacred, and it was also in that same battle that I fell,"


    "Where you stand now was once a massive stretch of dry land, but when I was defeated by the human alliance, my body was disintegrated. It became this massive metallic golden sand desert, and thankfully, my core and soul were powerful enough to resist the human''s skills, allowing me to preserve my life."The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "Seeing that they could not completely destroy me, they sealed me away in hopes of one day weakening me enough to completely destroy me,"


    "But it seemed that either they forgot me or the ones that made this plan had long since died," The old dragon sighed, "Well, but those are matters of the past, if they ever come to haunt me, I''ll deal with them as they come."


    Ventus''s mind could not stay still for a long time, those events in the memory of the old dragon were far too impressive for him to process rapidly. At this moment he realized how much of a frog in a well he was, he knew basically nothing about the wide world he was stepping into and was proud of the little achievements he had, when in reality, he was truly nothing more than an ant in front of the true behemoths. As if feeling the distress in Ventus''s mind, Ragnar spoke.


    "But don''t feel down because of it. That battle occurred millennia ago. All of the combatants were hundreds of years old and had spent most of their lives training to achieve that power, there is no need whatsoever to compare yourself to them," He spoke gently, "If you had the time to train they had, even if you were retarded you could achieve their power, so relax, you still got a long way to go!"


    Ventus''s mood improved slightly as the dragon consoled him and drove away his inferiority-filled thoughts. At this point, he relaxed his body and laid down on the golden sand.


    "Answering your following questions," Ragnar continued, "Refinement is a procedure when you use your mana, your blood or your soul in a procedure to assimilate and "brand" as your own something that was not originally yours to begin with."


    "It is similar to how you convert world mana into inner mana and make it your own power. Due to the nature of mana being neutral and having no consciousness, it is far easier to refine it than it would be to refine something that has a consciousness and can actively resist the process." he explained.


    "But if your core has your soul, and consequently, your consciousness inside," Ventus questioned, "Why didn''t you resist the refinement?"


    "Good question kid!" the dragon laughed, "Simple, I had no energy to resist. When you took me out of the sealing formation, my consciousness was hazy and my soul needed nourishment, and thus, when the energy came pouring in, I greedily absorbed, but little did I know that it was your energy, and thus actually ended up being refined,"


    "Luckily, you had no knowledge of a proper refinement technique and as such, I was able to retain my consciousness. But, even though really rough, you still ended up refining me" he laughed," If for an example, you tried to do that when my soul was at its peak strength I could totally resist the process and you would either die of old age trying, or I could just instantly drain you to death."


    At this point, Ventus felt a chill crawl up his spine. He had unknowingly shaken hands with death for ten hours when refining this thing! cold beads of sweat appeared all over his body as he trembled slightly.


    "Scared now huh? relax kid, I mean no harm," Ragnar sighed gently, "All these long years trapped in this formation changed my mindset, I''m no longer the imposing dragon you saw in my memories, now I''m more of a wise old sage that saw through the curtains of time."


    "As for your last question" he proceeded, "no, I have no plans on taking your body, even if I did, I can''t take control of your body unless you let me do so."


    "Why is that? your soul is far stronger than mine!" Ventus chuckled self-deprecatingly.


    "Yes and no, it''s not that simple," Ragnar replied, "The intrinsic nature of souls and refinement is a complex matter, once something is refined, even if crudely so, it has no power whatsoever over its master unless he allows so."


    "But even then, something like you said, or "possession" as the world knows it, is only possible when the refinement process is ongoing, but not when it is completed. Once refined, possession is only allowed but can be reversed at any second should the master will it to happen."


    Ventus nodded silently. He entered this trial just to pass the test and officially become an apprentice magus, but who would''ve imagined he''d have such a lucky encounter. At this moment he remembered something, The manager did say that there was a hidden treasure on this trial that if successfully obtained, could be kept even if he failed the trial, was this beast core it? perhaps they thought that the soul inside had long since died and as such, figured that it would be a good treasure?


    As Ventus''s mind speculated and his thoughts raced, he grew increasingly excited. He had now the core piece of the massive desert, with its aid, couldn''t he basically walk around this place like it was his own house? A wide grin surfaced on his face as his mood improved massively.


    "You said before that this desert was once your body right?" Ventus asked excitedly.


    "Yes, why do you ask?" Ragnar inquired curiously.


    "If it is so, can''t you rebuild it? if you did, I would basically be invincible!"


    The dragon''s voice echoed in his mind as a hearty laughter burst out.


    "So that was your plan you rascal!" Ragnar laughed, "I indeed could rebuild my body, but not with my present strength."


    "Why?" Ventus asked as his excitement faded.


    "Because right now, my strength is your strength. Basically, I can only exert as much strength as you can, and should I force my power on you, your body wouldn''t be able to handle the burden and would be crippled if not directly killed" he explained.


    "Do you think you could rebuild my body with your current strength?" Ragnard asked already knowing the answer.


    "no.."Ventus replied as his mood clearly deflated.


    "The most I could do now is undo the desert." Ragnar spoke.


    "WHAT!? you''re complaining you''re too weak and now you''re saying you will undo this desert, how could you possibly pull that off with my power!?" Ventus exclaimed.


    "Well, this desert was originally my body and it originated from my core. As such, storing it inside my core is no problem at all, but I would indeed need a massive amount of energy," Ragnar replied frowning, "You already shown the ability of refining mana whilst executing another task before, if you can steadily supply me with mana, I can definitely regather my body and store it inside my core."


    "At that point, you would have a near endless amount of material to execute your earth magi art, and to make it even better, the control would be further fine-tuned by my core inside your body. Not to say that my "sand" is of a far greater quality than most minerals on the planet!"


    "But if I supplied you with mana constantly so that you could store the desert, how much time would you take to do that?" Ventus inquired.


    "If your supplying speed was as fast as the speed you refined your mana, it would take approximately a full month of non-stop mana supply" Ragnar replied.


    Ventus quickly checked his tracking device and discovered he only had four days remaining.


    "Damn¡­. that''s not fast enough, I only have four days before the trial ends and the portal is most likely closed!"


    Ventus was becoming increasingly annoyed with his weakness. After watching the memories of the old dragon he noticed how small and powerless he was right now, but as if fate was toying with him, constantly he was being reminded of how actually minute was his power.


    "IF, for an example, you could supply mana at ten times that speed, and somehow recover mana just as fast as the increased demand, I could store the whole desert in three days" Ragnar mumbled.


    "Well¡­"Ventus said slightly troubled, "It''s not like it''s impossible to achieve that ratio, but it is ridiculously dangerous to do so..."


    "Oh, you have a way to pull off that speed? how?" Ragnar inquired curiously.


    "Well, executing my refinement technique at my core instead of my meridians, the speed is dozens of times faster than my usual refinement speed, but it also has the risk of crippling me since its truly hard to control the mana inside my core as precisely as I desire," Ventus replied.


    "OH! you can actually do that!?" Ragnar exclaimed incredulously.


    "Yes...why?"Ventus asked somewhat suspicious.


    "executing any technique inside one''s core is an extremely dangerous ordeal and can only be safely done once one reaches the equivalent of a magus king rank. You doing that at the apprentice rank means either Kingun himself protects your little life, you have the devil''s luck or you are an unprecedented genius!"


    "Well..I don''t think I ever encountered Kingun, so it must be I''m a genius, after all, I''m no devil!" Ventus laughed.


    "I tried and managed to do a few circulations whilst fleeing from the silver sand poison dragon, but once I failed, I felt an immense pain spread through my body, luckily, my core wasn''t destroyed in the process!"


    At this point the dragon grew silent as he pondered his options, a few moments later he spoke.


    "So you were fleeing for your life and you pulled off a core refinement? not only that but you also managed to do it a few more times?" He said in a mysterious tone.


    "Yes, I was fleeing for my life. It was actually kinda surprised I managed to do it without getting myself crippled." Ventus chuckled.


    "Then if you were in no danger whatsoever and could completely focus on refining mana through your core whilst I made the effort of taking mana and gathering the desert, do you think you can successfully refine mana in your core again?"

 Mysteries of the Wind

    "no¡­"Ventus hesitated,"It''s too dangerous even if I dedicate all of my attention too it, you said it yourself that only a magus king will be able to safely execute techniques at his core,"


    "What''s that to say about me who is only at the apprentice rank?"


    "Well, from what I''ve gathered according to your information, this is an isolated dimension that you won''t have the chance of coming back so soon right? Do you really want to lose the chance of getting such a great weapon as my indestructible body that you can manipulate to do any attack your imagination and mana may allow with far greater strength than the usual minerals found on the common earth you have access to?" Ragnar tempted.


    "I don''t...but¡­"


    "No buts kid! how do you expect to ever grow and achieve the power you saw in my memories without taking any risks? you think that any of those powerhouses didn''t have their own fair share of trials and tribulations they had to face before achieving that sort of monumental power?"


    "I know¡­"


    "Then what exactly are you still afraid of?" Ragnar sighed gently, "To grow into a powerhouse you''ll need resources, weapons and lots of training...but the most important thing that you must have is the heart kid!"


    "Without the heart of a powerhouse you may grow and actually achieve their power, but you''ll never be a match to any powerhouse you may encounter as you will forever remain lacking in comparison". The dragon explained.


    "The heart of a powerhouse¡­" Ventus mumbled


    Ventus took a deep breath and exhaled hard as his emotions raged in disorder. On one side stood the massive potential of the dragon''s golden sand but with the price of possibly losing his ability to use mana whilst on the other side there was safety, but a massive impact on his mind, forever lacking the powerhouse''s heart and resolve. After several moments he clenched his fist as his eyes glowed with a new resolve inside them.


    "Oh what the heck! my father developed a whole policy on his own and became a grandmaster without resources or financial aid on his research, if I''m ever to honor his resolve and avenge my family''s death, I can''t possibly allow myself to retreat in the first difficulty!" He exclaimed.


    "Very well dragon, let''s make a bet on fate!" He grinned confidently.


    "That''s the spirit kid! I''ll help you to the best of my ability, just worry about refining the mana and leave the rest to me." The dragon roared.


    Ventus chose to sit in the midst of the formation''s crater cross-legged and adjust his breathing before executing his refinement technique. At first, he just ran it on his meridians to get the feeling of the rotating mana circling through, after a few moments he stopped and focused on his core. Once again he found himself face-to-face with the condensed liquid energy that powered his technique and strengthened his body. His will permeated the liquid and struggling he attempted to move it and execute just a single revolution, but just like the first time, he encountered immense resistance from his core.


    "This thing again!" Ventus grumbled with difficulty.


    Whilst Ventus struggled to control the mana inside his core Ragnar had other tasks to work on. The golden core slowly released golden threads that connected to the bottom of Ventus''s core and quickly established a connection between them, making a golden link that constantly drained mana. In instants, the mana level was dropping close to depletion, as he noticed this Ventus got desperate.


    "I don''t believe I can''t do this!" Ventus roared.


    Beads of cold sweat accumulated in his body as his muscles tensed up to an incredible level.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    "Come on¡­.MOVE!"


    As if listening to his command the mana finally obeyed and moved in accordance to the refinement technique. Outside, a massive whirlwind formed around Ventus''s body whilst millions of wisps of mana dashed through the air and fused his body. The following rotations became easier as they happened and soon enough a whirlwind of mana was formed inside Ventus''s core that constantly refined and condensed mana to replenish the non-stop drain of its resources. The dragon''s roar echoed in Ventus''s mind as he cheered.


    "That''s it kid! Leave the rest to me!"


    Just below the region where Ventus''s core was held shone a golden light that pulsated as mana was infused into it. The light at first was just a gentle glow, but as time flowed and mana filled the beast core the light gradually grew in brilliance to the point where it shined brightly with a golden radiance that resembled the light released by the fabled gates of heaven.


    "Now, my body! return to me!" Ragnar roared in command.


    A bright golden light illuminated the skies for an instant as the dragon''s seal shone brightly below Ventus''s body. The earth trembled as a thunderous sound rung out in the form of a shockwave that woke every beast in the reach of the blast and scared them to the depths of their souls making them flee or bury themselves deep into the earth to flee the monstrous presence that arose from the desert.


    Radiant lights filled the sky whilst the air itself seemed to twist and converge at the draconic seal. The winds rotated at high speeds as the dragon''s core emitted more and more aura by the second threatening to outshine the evening sun amidst the rapid winds that almost formed tornadoes. Suddenly everything stopped.


    The light faded and the winds stopped, the trembling earth grew still and for an instant, the hearts of the myriad creatures hidden in the earth or fleeing towards other regions had hope that the apparent armageddon had ceased. That land seemed to have died as the silence took over, every beast or intelligent being held their breath as their hearts clenched in preparation for any possible following calamitous event whilst their instincts told them that if at that moment they moved they would be instantly annihilated.


    The seal expanded rapidly below the meditating Ventus and as its core provided a seemingly endless amount of mana to it, it finally stopped its movements when it reached a thousand meters radius. Light burst out from the seal and once again disaster struck the land as once more the winds converge towards the seal and became a disastrous tornado that sucked in pulled towards it the sand surrounding the corona formation''s remaining crater.


    If one were to look at Ventus''s body from the outside they would immediately that there were billions of golden threads shooting out from the golden core and constantly dragging the golden "sand" towards it, storing and the shooting out once more in a blinding speed that made those threads seem more like a blurred cloud composed of rapid moving golden sparks as they continuously repeated the cycle of collection.


    "That''s it kid!" Ragnar exclaimed cheerfully, "At the rate your refining mana we could even manage to store my body even faster than I thought!"


    Ventus, on the other hand, could not spare any attention to the dragon''s cheerful mood as his focus was entirely on his core and the immense speed that it gathered mana and was emptied over and over as if it had a hole on it. Whilst He endlessly urged his mana and executed the whirlwind revolution a mysterious feeling arose in his soul.


    Time flowed and as it did Ventus felt his body become closer and closer to the wind element that spun around him. In the beginning, he could only feel its pressure, but as the hours flowed he started to perceive more intrinsic and hidden characteristics of the element. He perceived its speed, its weight, its formlessness and especially the fierceness it could achieve with the right conditions and applications.


    WIth his senses shut out, focused on gathering the mana as his soul learned the mysteries of the wind Ventus did not perceive the flow of time, but the dragon that had spare energy did. By now they had already collected 60% of the desert''s sand and the process only sped up to the point that the old dragon got worried. Ventus was refining mana faster than he could have ever imagined, and to make matters even more shocking, he somehow had managed to connect with the wind elemental mana and refine it instead of the neutral world mana.


    The difference from the refinement of world mana to the elemental mana was the compatibility of the refinement technique. If a person used a fire refinement on the world mana they could only refine so much so fast, but if they used the fire refinement on the fire elemental mana, they could employ the technique to its maximum potential.


    And in Ventus''s case, that rule clearly applied and to great effect. Not only was Ventus refining far more mana than previously thought possible, due to the wind element''s nature, he was also doing it at a ridiculous speed. At this point, the dragon was having a hard time draining the mana fast enough to prevent Ventus from exploding. He was about to warn the boy to slow down when he noticed that Ventus was experiencing an unexpected phenomenon.


    "This kid is a monster!" He exclaimed, "He''s having an enlightenment now!?"

 Sand No More

    Wind.


    Formless, shapeless, odorless and tasteless. Able to fit in any space and able to go anywhere. Its speed is limitless and its power broad and endless like its own nature. Its reach is infinite and even space itself is pervaded by it as its might travels through the infinite cosmos. Ventus''s mind was elated as he no longer worried about refining mana, the process was happening naturally and with a speed even faster than he had initially planned for, as such, he could freely enjoy this marvellous development that took place in his body, mind and, strangely, at his soul.


    His cells vibrated in joy with overflowing energy that looked like it might blow him up, but strangely, Ventus did not worry about that. Something about the element brought him peace and comfort he could not understand and made him feel so well he might as well believe this is all a dream. Every change occurring on his body and around him brought for a profound and mysterious feeling of belonging like he was originally part of the wind but had been taken away and was finally reuniting with his "Family". All of this made his body relax as the overwhelming wind power flowed through him and etched in his very genes its mystery and its might, his breathing was calm and relaxed, each breath he took brought him closer to the element and slowly swept away every worry in his mind and any impurity or flaw in his body.


    Outside Ventus''s perception, the dragon could not be any happier. With sufficient mana to power his body''s recall seal to its maximum potential, the previous three days he had calculated they would take had become one and a half days at most, but judging from Ventus''s state, the time they would take should be lowered even further the longer the enlightenment lasted.


    "Such luck!" The dragon grumbled, "When I trained it took me thousands of years to achieve the mastery of the earth element and I only had an enlightenment when I was at the Beast Warlord level!"


    Although the sudden development had brought immense benefit upon him as he could recover his body even faster, it was still quite strenuous to handle all that mana. Since it was an enlightenment that took place, he was sure that Ventus was in no danger, however, the fact remained that now, there was an absurd amount of mana pouring into the golden core through the golden connection. That by itself was no problem as it was too little of an amount to actually risk the integrity of the core, but it was a problem for him to handle all that mana with his weakened soul, and since he had an earthen attribute soul, he could not use it to regain his soul''s former power and all he could do with it was use it to power the golden threads to collect the small golden pieces of his body.


    ¡­


    In another place far away from all the commotion stood an emerald rhino with a young girl on top of it. The rhino was in tatters as it missed a leg and had deep cracks and scratch marks all over its body, the once fearsome lightning that crackled on its body was no more and its jewel eyes would flicker from time to time with a weak light to them that signalled that his power was fading, and fast.


    Before the pair was a very familiar beast. It was roughly twenty-five meters in length and had a golden scaled body full of small protruding spikes growing on them, it''s massive maw was dislocated and its white fangs were shattered in combat. Along with its body, there were several burnt holes and cracked scales as well as many burnt marks that would release a bit of electricity every minute or so.


    On the girl''s hands hanged a purple-colored sack-like organ the size of a human''s head that oozed with red and yellow liquids, her hand glowed with a blue light that repelled the liquids and prevented their contact with her milky white skin. She pointed her hand that had a mysterious carved ring on it at the organ, and with a flash of light, it disappeared.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    "Ugh..so disgusting!" she complained "Why does every beast have to be so gross!?"


    "Well, at least I had luck this time..." she said as he looked at the beast''s corpse.


    "If it was a full-grown King Viper I would have died trying to face it with my golem," she sighed, "At least now half the mission is complete..."


    The girl retrieved the emerald rhino and put it back on her ring. Her body was sore and had several scratches and cuts all over, her clothing was somewhat damaged, but could still be used and her emerald golem was almost destroyed in the battle with the young golden sand venom dragon.


    It was a hard fought battle that cost her many treasures and many hours of death-and-life struggle. Whilst she fought she would curse herself for being so hot-headed and sending Ventus off, he could have been a great aid in her battle taking in consideration his ability to manipulate the golden sand. After complaining and pondering about her battle for a few more moments, the girl decided it was about time she departed this area and searched for the corona flower as well, maybe she could find it before him and avoid having to fight with him for the flower. She sat down and had a few snacks and drinks before getting up and walk.


    At this time the winds were stirred massively and the golden sand beneath her feet started moving. At first, she was curious, but that curiosity turned rapidly into fear as a massive shockwave flew her way and knocked her down making her fall on her back making her lungs empty by force. The sound that came after didn''t even give her the time to breathe as it instilled despair on her very soul.


    The sound was loud and tempestuous. Her body trembled as she gasped for breath, her muscles before sore from battle now were so tense they hurt with greater intensity sending waves of pain to her brain making her almost faint, her all of that coupled with here pitifully low mana reserves and her cracked will that made her freeze. If a beast came before her at this moment, she would certainly die as she found herself unable to move. Long after the apocalyptic sound had passed, she was still on the ground paralyzed, her heart beating fast as her chest heaved so rapidly it resembled a scared chipmunk. For a long time, she had no idea what to do, this sound had shaken her to the core, at the moment she heard the sound she felt as if she was in front of a demon from the pits of hell, it''s mere breathing could suck her soul and end her.


    The sand beneath her started to move silently whilst her body was still in a dazed state, it took a few hours, but when she finally snapped out of her stiff state she realized she was no longer atop an endless golden desert, instead, she was atop a cold and somewhat moist red flat land that stained her white clothes slightly with a faint tinge of red.


    She stood up in a blink and slapped her clothes trying to get the dirt off, she even used her mana and tried to remove the stains, but no matter how hard her efforts, it was very clear that those clothes wouldn''t ever again be used by her.


    "First that gross beast, then that¡­"She blanked out for a moment,"t.t..that thunderous r...roar, and now this!? what god have I angered today!?"


    Her move was only worsening by the second as her senses returned to her, everywhere she could see was the same flat red flat land with moist ground, except for a certain direction where she could still see the golden sand been dragged into an enormous tornado kilometers away from her. She got worried at first, but when she saw that the tornado was absolutely still and only sucking in the sand, she decided to focus and explored the "new" land that appeared before her.


    From what her eyes told her this land could bear no life whatsoever. Although the ground was moist and seemed very fertile, the land grew no flowers and no animals roamed around. From what her ears told her, there were no life forms present as all she could hear was the death-like silence that permeated the land. Her nose told her that this place was a battlefield many years ago, although she could no longer feel the blood in the ground, it was certainly drenched by it as the smell of blood had become permanent in this land.


    "What is this place?" she murmured.

 Heart of All Winds

    As her senses grew accustomed to the place and her perception of the land improved she started noticing many more details than her initial analysis. The ground was not only red and moist with a bloody smell attached to it, but it also had minuscule white particles attached to it, and those, she discovered after picking them up, were extremely hard and durable, at least as resilient as the golden sand that covered this macabre stretch of land previously.


    Knowing full well that heading towards the enormous tornado sucking all the golden sand was the most stupid course of action she could take, she promptly began exploring the region with the hopes of maybe finding anything that could aid in the completion of her mission or perhaps, she excitedly thought after remembering the manager''s word right before the second trial started, find the hidden treasure buried in this hazard dimension. The thought only motivated her further due to it being something provided by the association, after all, something provided by the behemoth that was the magi association could not possibly be trash right? it had to be a massively valued treasure!


    After disposing of the beast''s carcass she walked in the direct opposite direction of the huge tornado, she figured that going anywhere near that thing in any direction possible would just be throwing her life away so it was best to move as further away from it as possible.


    ...


    Amidst the raging winds of the tornado that swallowed the golden desert, right in the very core of the spinning monstrously mighty winds that people would often call "eye" sat a young man, peacefully meditating whilst slightly floating a couple of centimeters above the ground. His abdominal region glowed with a bright golden radiance whilst billions of golden threads shot out of it and collected the golden sand particles around the teen at a blinding speed, at the same time, below the young man spun furiously a massive gold-colored draconic seal that constantly attracted the sand as if it was a massive magnet pulling the golden particles ever closer to itself, aiding in the collection of the golden sand.


    Ventus''s consciousness grew blurred as the sudden epiphany struck him, ever so slightly he felt his grasp on reality fading and only the familiar sensation of the wind remained to still make him remember he existed. The moments grew longer whilst the silence grew louder in his mind to the point his focus was almost giving in to the extremely pleasant sensation of being truly one with the wind that threatened to swallow his mind if he was not careful.


    "Do not resist child..." A voice spoke softly.


    Ventus''s mind was instantly alarmed and he managed to considerably push back the pleasant comfort of the element and focus on the newcomer''s voice.


    "Who are you?" Ventus replied sceptical and cautious.


    "Don''t resist and let yourself reach a place where many want but cannot reach, many dream but cannot touch, many desire but cannot ever in their lives even imagine its true essence..." the voice continued.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    The voice was melodious and sweet to the ears as it offered, its tempting powers were so strong that Ventus consciously struggled even more to resist its call. However, unbeknownst to even himself, in the deep corners of his subconscious, he was already giving in. His will was growing ever weaker and his mental fortitude was waning no matter how much he roared in his heart against the foreign influence. It was as if he was facing the sweet voice of his mother, a sound that transmitted deep care for him and would never do him any harm.


    "Come child..." the voice spoke once more, "come and meet us, learn of what you can actually achieve..."


    Despite his best efforts and strongest resistance against the voice''s influence, his will failed and he could not resist. His mind turned fully blank for an uncountable time that escaped his perception and when he finally came to he no longer felt the struggle and pressure from the world around him and the landscape no longer existed, the new scenario, in fact, did not exist either.


    His eyes were fully open, but besides his own body, he could not see anything whatsoever. Rather, even his own body did not seem to exist, after all, from what he could gather, his body only had a faint outline that helped define its figure, but aside from that, it did not possess any features or details of its own. It was truly what one could call an actual blank slate, or perhaps, a mere avatar of his existence in this pure white space that was, at the same time, completely strange and awfully familiar to himself.


    He did not feel pain or struggle, effort or any sort of hardship upon himself. Aside from his strangely woke consciousness that made him feel somewhat overly aware of everything, he found himself unable to feel anything other than comfort and absolute peace in this space. The flow of time was non-existent in this space, or atleast, Ventus thought, he could not sense or keep track of it whatsoever, at the same pace that it felt like he''d just arrived there, it also felt like he had spent the eternal age of the cosmos inside this space.


    "Hello there young one..." the voice spoke once more.


    Ventus''s attention was then greeted with the sight of a single hand outline that greeted him, he found the phantom-like limb quite amusing, but his amused lasted little as right after the rest of the body began materializing and formed the figure of a genderless humanoid being that smiled at him.


    "It has been long since we had another one who could tap and connect to this place," the voice spoke cheerfully, "it is always amazing to find one such blessed child such as yourself that can visit this place, and from what I can gather, you''re especially talented since you can stay connected to this place for quite sometime!"


    "It was a bit foolish to resist the connection to this marvellous space, but I cannot blame you, after all, who could actually trust a strange voice and the infinite comfortable feeling this space and others similar to it give to those who can access them? from the land you come from where the world''s will has granted its full authority to a single being, it is quite common that the blessed ones that can tap into the universal element hearts will have such constant worry and distrust against strangers!" The figure chuckled.


    The figure moved closer to Ventus and inspected him curiously.


    "Say...what is your name young one?" it asked.


    "Ventus Astriss." he replied.


    "Ventus huh?" the figure pondered, "quite an excellent naming! it seems one such as yourself that managed to connect to this place did quite an effort to twist fate and reserve a spot for you in this space so you could come and learn here about the essence of the wind!" he laughed excitedly, "I feel this visit is going to be especially interesting!"


    The figure opened his arms wide and grinned.


    "Welcome young Ventus, to the Heart of all WInds!"