After the battle, Nick did not immediately begin meditating to recover his magic energy or try to move on from the area and so he stood in his spot while replaying the battle within his mind over over again, trying to figure out where he made mistakes, what he could have done better and also, what the green dog magic beast had done or did not do that ultimately led to its defeat. Eventually, Nick did arrive at a few conclusions:
(My attacks and counters were executed well enough, but that is not necessarily why I triumphed over the dog magic beast. The dog magic beast also executed its attacks and counters well and even injured me severely. It also moved very fast, appeared intelligent, and, like I had concluded the last time that I encountered it, I think that its combat standard was higher than what an average rank 3 initial stage Magician would be capable of. Despite all those advantages, my magic and maneuvers, however, were more effective in harming the magic beast's ability to battle over the length of our fight, that is, the fact that I used spells mostly belonging to multiple paths made them hard to for the dog magic beast to predict and/or resist; it clearly could not deduce how my spells worked exactly. Rank 3 magic beasts are intelligent, and so was the dog magic beast, but merely that could not substitute for the wisdom necessary to analyze my magic power meaningfully and act accordingly.)
In addition, the effects of my Soul Haze spell had probably weakened the dog magic beast's soul by a bit from the start, then my sword attacks on it using Stoic Grave also harmed its soul and one of the significant points of the battle was when I successfully cast Tyrant Specter on the dog magic beast, which had a disruptive effect on it going forward, basically creating opportunities for me to harm it unobstructed as a result of the false realities that it experienced. There was also the soul path effects of Sheer Force's ability, Sheer Hold, that worked against the magic beast's full speed movements without the help of its light magic. My use of the Cross Stream sword technique, along with my blade path methods, as well as the use of my space path methods, was also devastating. All in all, the dog magic beast lost because it could not keep up with and adapt to the complexity of my methods, and therefore, it could not kill me before all my accumulated advantages overwhelmed it.)
Nick ended up internalizing the reasons for the dog magic beast's failure and swore to himself:
(When I go after an opponent, I should attempt to understand their magic the best I can while I try to defeat them, and so I can't fight statically by just hitting my head against a wall that I don't really understand. For example, the dog magic beast would have been wise to have fled if it was capable of realizing that my attacks on its soul were not something that it could properly defend against or remedy using just its sheer power alone.)
Nick soon summoned a set of new clothes from his older space band, which included a red silk polo shirt, a pair of dark-blue jeans pants and a pair of brown combat boots. He then sat on the ground, cross-legged, to actively meditate. He was not afraid of magic beasts coming to attack him during the process because he had killed all the rank 2 magic beasts within the area, and he doubted that more rank 3 magic beasts inhabited the same area as the dog magic beast. Nick spent close to five minutes meditating before saturating his mindscape completely with black miasma magic energy.
Nick then cast Saturn and used the spell's effects to raise himself into the air by fifty meters before speeding off towards another destination, thinking:
(I'm done with Beast Land, for now. I have to shift my focus on resource collection and, naturally, that would probably be best done within one of Forgotten Peril's regions that is the most saturated with magic beasts, because that signifies a relative abundance of resources.)
Nick flew north of Beast Land without stopping, and according to the map of Forgotten Peril that he had memorized, over the course of three weeks, Nick crossed over two other major regions without stopping the entire time. Nick continuously recovered his magic energy while he flew, by processing black miasma magic energy outside his body and then drawing the resulting magic energy into his mindscape after nearly 20,000 magical units had been processed each time.
Every once in a while during his journey, Nick would summon a bag of butter bread from his space band and enjoy it mid-flight. Nick realized that since becoming a rank 3 Warlock, he no longer required a balanced diet to remain healthy and that his body was mostly nourished by magic energy, so all he really needed were fats and carbs to keep himself from wasting away; he only had the urge to obtain other nutrients and minerals occasionally. To that end, his almost obsessive consumption of butter bread helped him reduce his cravings for other kinds of food. Nick had muttered at one point while he ate a piece of butter bread in midair:
"Butter bread is life."
Since becoming rank 3, along with his change in dietary requirements, Nick hardly needed to urinate or defecate, so those were not problems. At the same time, he flew for a few weeks, but when he needed to perform the acts, it was easy for him to pull down his own pants mid-flight and manipulate the effects of Saturn to turn his waste and feces to dust. To keep his skin clean, Nick needed to manipulate the effect of Tyrant Armor to a fine enough degree that the spell cleansed him and his clothes of dirt and grime by letting the soul magic power destroy the latter two.
At the end of the three weeks, Nick arrived at the border of a region, where constant roars, howls, screeches, and other harrowing sounds of magic beasts could be heard amidst clusters of tall trees, from behind hills, over mountain ranges, within dark valleys, and from the bottom of trenches. This region was called Reckless State and was one of Forgotten Peril's most avoided places, even exceeding Dying Mark in that regard. Nick thought:
(Then again, if people knew that a high-ranked mutant qi path dragon ruled over Dying Mark, the region would then become the realm's most avoided region in short order.)
Reckless State had varying terrains and was filled with all kinds of magical flora and fauna, but the environment was rife with the conflict of magic beasts due to the magic beasts that lived here having very high birth rates, and so they competed for limited resources, in terms of territory space and hunting grounds relative to their population and species segmentation. It was truly a place of death and struggle that made even the most violent and ruthless Magicians uncomfortable. There was one point that made Reckless State especially troublesome:
(Like Dying Mark, there are quite a few documented rank 3 magic beasts living here. A few of them are suspected to be mutants that instigate conflicts among the weaker magic beasts to reap benefits derived from the chaos. That situation was revealed by two rank 3 Magicians, who had sought to gain a foothold within Reckless Sate but gave up when they noticed how turbulent the waters here were.)
Nick was planning to mine the area for resources no matter what, and he was prepared to kill his way towards results. He resolved:
(If I don't succeed here sufficiently, I risk The Realm Exploration Company's failure. I have to be willing to take high enough risks to achieve above-average results. Now, I know that the risks on my part should be manageable, especially after defeating the rank 3, green dog magic beast. As long as I don't get surrounded by rank 3 magic beasts, I should be able to reasonably cope with the possible dangers within this realm.)
Nick raised his altitude to a little over eighty meters to decrease the chance of attracting the attention of the rank 3 magic beasts on the ground and the ones flying in the air that don't tend to fly that high.
(My goal is to extract resources, not to fight. If I have to challenge rank 3 magic beasts, it should be because I have no other choice, or they are in the way of my collecting resources. As for the rank 2 magic beasts, I should get rid of them once I decide on a specific area to begin searching for resources. Aggravating them all over the place might cause beast tides, which would eventually have the effect of attracting the rank 3 magic beasts' attention, anyway.)
At this point, Nick cast Tyrant Sense and used its effects to accurately judge what events were happening below him, magical and otherwise. Nick flew over Reckless State both during the day and during the night. During the night, the magic beasts seemed even more active and rowdy than during the day. Many tragic and enthusiastic cries were sounded in dark places, and using the power of Tyrant Sense, Nick was able to witness many of the scenes that brought about those cries.
Magic beasts of all kinds were torn apart, beheaded, violated, or crushed while other magic beasts gloried in the savagery, enjoying the torment of the weaker ones among them. Nick mused:
(It's survival of the fittest out here, but despite the large number of deaths that I've witnessed, there doesn't seem to be much caution exercised on the part of any of the magic beasts. They are unruly and caustic at all times. Weak magic beasts usually have strong survival instincts and often shrink back in the face of overwhelming violence that threatens their life, but these magic beasts are uniformly different. I wonder how they gained such a nature...)
While Nick pondered the reason for the magic beasts being so ruthless to the other magic beasts around them and even to themselves, he had ventured hundreds of kilometers through Reckless State over four months without getting involved in any significant conflicts. Nick felt bored by the constant flight, and because he didn't do much else but he had his reasons:
(The goal is to find high-quality resources, so I am trying to move deeper into the areas with increasingly higher qualities of magic energy or unpleasant auras. Both of those might indicate the presence of special resources, but to better increase my chances of success, I will travel further until something firmly grabs my attention.)
Nick did not want to lay a magic formation within Reckless State carelessly. His intuition suggested to him that doing so would result in him spending most of his time combating the harsh environment, which would not be ideal, and so he kept searching for prevailing circumstances that indicated the presence of special magic materials.
Nick's wonder lust carried him forward for four more months, and after having been within Reckless State for over eight months, Nick had seen so much wanton violence and experienced so many harsh magic auras and environments that his emotions were unavoidably soured over time; his expression now remained perpetually bitter.
Nick experienced heavy flooding rains, climates of absolute drought, where there was no moisture within the atmosphere, wetlands that had mudfloors that threatened to consume whatever stepped into them, and even magic fields that poisoned whatever interacted with them using extremely concentrated magic energy. Nick now really wanted to leave Reckless State at this point after racking his brains in order to bypass and overcome all these conditions. In addition to the latter stress, he was truly worried that if he did not look harder for great magic materials, his company might go bankrupt the very next moment.
Like this, four more months passed by, and Nick had traveled through Reckless State by over fourteen hundred kilometers. By this time, Nick had sensed the presence of a few rank 3 magic beasts both on the ground and within the air, but he adeptly avoided them by casting Neptune and Pluto at appropriate times to escape their detection and pursuit.
Sometimes, he could not avoid being seen by some rank 3 magic beasts, and they chased after him, but usually, after casting Pluto to completely enter its adjacent space, Nick was able to examine the adjacent space's void using his resulting red-blue eyes to always find a great route to escape the magic beast's pursuit back within his original space.
Nick could not tell exactly how strong the magic beasts were without fighting them, but with many of them, the magic power that they exuded made him feel nervous, clearly being above the standard of an ordinary rank 3 initial stage Magician. Many of the rank 3 magic beasts had the appearances of large but malformed animals, and many could only be described as humongous, being up to twenty times the size of their similar-in-appearance animal counterparts.
After over twelve months of traveling in this harsh environment, Nick's spirit was on the brink of breaking down. He had only managed to get about three good sessions of sleep during the entire twelve-month period, and despite Soul Cradle's regenerative effects on his soul, Nick's traveling had taken an obvious toll on him. He now had dark circles around his eyes perpetually and had the urge to sleep for a long time, but he ignored the urge and kept moving.
One day, when he was flying over a large trench that stretched from horizon to horizon, in that area of Reckless State, a strong gale of pale-gold winds blew up from within the trench before receding into the trench a few seconds later. Nick, upon feeling the blast of pale-gold wind, stopped flying immediately. The wind was neither imposing nor weak, but it was peculiar enough to get his attention. Nick muttered:
"Is this luck path?"
Nick recognized the magical signature of luck path because a few years ago, within Never Ending Battlefield, he met a luck path magic beast called noisy rooster. The noisy rooster's luck path magic power had the same magical signature as this pale-gold wind. Nick mused at this time:
(The pale-gold wind only blew upwards for a few seconds and hasn't blown upwards again since then. Anything related to luck path is probably considered a special occurrence because of the nature of that kind of magic power. I should at least investigate what is going on within that trench.)
After deciding that, Nick manipulated Saturn's power to descend into the trench. Following that, he lowered himself farther and farther into the darkness while using the power of Tyrant Sense to guide him so that he did not rub against the rough walls of the trench's interior. Nick lowered himself for a seemingly long time, realizing that the trench was about one kilometer deep.
When Nick reached and landed onto the ground at the bottom, he found clusters of pale-gold colored flowers that were growing out of the ground; these flowers had rose-like petals and half-a-meter-long stalks. To Nick's surprise, these flowers grew amidst a strange-smelling, pale-gold substance that, upon closer inspection, Nick realized was actually feces, a lot of feces...that seemed to act as fertilizer for the pale-gold flowers for as far as he could perceive them. Nick asked himself internally:
(What is all this shit doing down here? Rather, since so much of the feces appear to be relatively fresh, what magic beast produced it?)
Nick manipulated Saturn's effects to raise himself two feet above the feces and floated forward in one direction to traverse the bottom of the trench. Nick traveled over five kilometers for a period of a little over one hour before finding traces of magic beast footprints in a small area that was absent of pale-gold colored flowers and feces.
(I can't determine the kind of magic beast that made these footprints, but I can tell that the footprints are all heading towards the direction from where I came. I suppose that means that I will likely have to backtrack to find the magic beast.)
Nick did exactly that by spending an hour or so flying towards where he had come from and going further in that direction. After moving along for another two hours, Nick happened upon two sleeping magic beasts that slept side by side within a section of the trench that was not covered by the pale-gold flowers or feces. The magic beasts actually looked like dogs, similar to mastiffs, but had the size of Trojan horses.
Nick had identified the dog-like magic beasts at the very edge of Tyrant Sense's one-hundred-meter area of effect. The two dog magic beasts, however, did not respond to Nick's powers. In addition to being very large, the two dog magic beasts had pale-gold fur covering their entire bodies. Nick quickly jumped to an uncomfortable conclusion:
(So, all these feces are basically dog shit.)
Soon, after having been quiet for a long time, the two sleeping dog magic beasts snored simultaneously, and great, pale-gold wind currents appeared to spread from their mouths, saturating the trench and flowing around Nick in a seemingly harmless manner before quickly rising out of the trench.
Nick mused at this time:
(They are clearly luck path magic beasts and are the cause of the pale-gold winds that I first witnessed. The pale-gold flowers probably grow as a result of the pale-gold feces reacting with the soil. The magic beasts are evidently rank 3 but haven't reacted to my presence whatsoever.)
Now that he knew where the feces originated from, Nick focused on the flowers because he did not consider the feces useful resources. The flowers, however, were clearly rank 2 luck path materials. Nick was overjoyed that he may have finally found his opportunity, since almost the entire trench floor was covered with the flowers, and he naturally assumed that they would have a high price attached to them for being associated with the relatively rare luck path.
(The problems now are these rank 3, luck path dog magic beasts. Do I fight them? They have been ignoring me thus far...so I should try to pick the flowers and see if they react.)
But Nick then soon realized another problem:
(Unlike magic metals and other minerals, magic plants should be somewhat trickier to properly extract without knowing anything about them. For all I know, removing the flowers from this soil and from among the feces could ruin their value, but I cannot allow them to remain here.)
Nick thought for a bit before coming up with a possible method of preserving the flowers until he gained more details about them:
(I just have to contain the flowers in the same soil that they are already planted in, and so I will retrieve the trench soil as well as the rank 3 magic beasts' feces to not disrupt the luck path flowers' growth.)
Nick knew that his earth path and space path masteries would come in handy here. He also knew that creating a new magic formation was the next necessary step if he wanted to successfully extract the luck path flowers while maintaining the least chance of damaging them. Nick quickly raised himself two feet off the ground using the effects of Saturn and proceeded to fly to the other side of the trench to be as far away from the rank 3, luck path dog magic beasts as soon as possible.
When Nick reached over five kilometers away from the luck path dog magic beasts. He returned to the small area that was spared from the presence of the flowers and feces and where only the dog magic beasts' footprints could be seen. Nick sat in the soft earth cross-legged and summoned his tablet computer from his space band. He began designing an earth path, rule path, and space path magic formation that had the sole purpose of holding and preserving an environment in which the luck path flowers could survive.
The smell of the magic beasts' feces all around him was not pleasant and did not aid in the creative process, but Nick was able to put up with the discomfort to do his work. He mused during this time:
(The magic formation will likely be basic apprentice grade and will feature a compact space and the ability to maintain soil nutrients. A rule path principle of 'Preservation' should be sufficient to accomplish my aims if integrated into the magic formation. Without inspiration from my Limitless Path talent, I'll have to codify the latter principles from scratch, though.)
Nick worked on the magic formation, keeping in mind the rank 2 materials that he had with him, which he assumed would be sufficient to properly lay the new magic formation. After ten days of working on the magic formation, Nick's Limitless Path talent finally produced inspiration for the rule path principles of 'Preservation', and so Nick just had to corroborate the portions that he had already figured out himself and study the new information that he received.
Nick noticed that, unlike when he was still rank 2, Limitless Path no longer affected the animated figure within his mind, which had now become the vague likeness of a dragon. This time, the inspiration just mystically manifested within his mind, and so Nick did not understand clearly what the root cause of the behavior change was, but he had his suspicions:
(Before I became rank 3, my mindscape accommodated rule magic to an extreme. Now it accommodates rule, soul, space, blade, and formation magic. I can assume that the draconic figure made of black miasma within my mindscape somehow now represents my deepseeker dragon warlock bloodline; in that case, it is a space path manifestation and has nothing to do with rule path. Maybe that is why the figure that walks on the endless road is no longer visibly affected by Limitless Path, which is clearly a rule path talent. Hmmm...but despite the figure's change from a rule path manifestation to a space path manifestation, the endless road remains the same. Was the endless road the important manifestation of my rule path talent, and not the previous golden figure? What does that imply exactly?)
Nick creased his brows in response to his own questions because he could not derive concrete answers. He was alarmed:
(This is dangerous! Not knowing enough about my own mindscape puts me at an increased risk of 'clear skies', which is just a poetic way of describing a crippled mindscape. Sigh, I have so much research to do regarding myself...)
Although Nick internally sighed, his indifferent expression broke into a smile. Working on himself turned out to be what he loved to do most of all. Nick specifically put those latter thoughts onto the back burner of his mind while he continued to develop the new magic formation. Nick worked on the magic formation for another three months before he finished creating a viable initial version. Nick was a little frustrated about the time developing the magic formation took after the process was over:
(The magic formation is basic grade and is less complex than the Absorb Life Battle Formation, but the process of creating it was hampered by my lack of understanding of luck path. I essentially had to waste time making the magic formation capable of housing luck path materials using indirect solutions. That is a lesson that I need to work on filling my knowledge gaps regarding the other paths.)
Nick named the new magic formation, Compact Garden Formation. He explained its details to himself internally:
(The Compact Garden Formation is a basic apprentice grade, earth path, space path, and rule path magic formation; it is like a greenhouse in principle. It creates an isolated environment that supports the growth of plant materials by storing and preserving the essential parts of their environment that allowed them to flourish in the first place. The space within the formation is special, compact, and isolated from the space around it, resulting in its own environmental conditions that best accommodate and preserve the magic materials and the resources within it. Now that I think about it, space bands are created with a mechanism to preserve organic materials indefinitely, but that mechanism is of the space path. I've already deduced that using rule path to achieve the same thing would be more efficient and effective, so that's exactly what I did.)
Nick had several good theoretical reasons to justify why the Compact Garden Formation would work, but he had to put it into practice to be sure that it would be effective in storing the pale-gold flowers and their environment, after all, he knew next to nothing about the pale gold-flowers. To that end, Nick pointed his right index finger in front of his body and cast Big Copy. Following that, the base for the Compact Garden Formation appeared in midair, facing Nick.
The formation was designed using a red pigment, was about two feet in radius, and consisted of over seven hundred thousand symbols belonging to either the Valteese or Nickel mystical languages. Nick then summoned formation path, earth path, and space path materials one by one and had them assimilated into the magic formation amid a pure white light.
After Nick invested all the required magic materials, the Compact Garden Formation completely adopted a light-brown color. About one minute later, the magic formation then morphed from a small, circular design to a light brown sphere that seemed similar to one of Nick's space bubbles. Nick willed, and the formation activated fully, moving some distance from him and spreading out rays of brown light towards the pale-gold flowers.
The pale-gold flowers, as well as the soil covering their roots and pieces of pale-old magic beast feces, were strangely drawn into the magic formation's space like reverse streams of flowing, colorful gas. After a patch of the pale-gold flowers vanished, Nick walked up to the magic formation and stared at it, waiting to witness what he half-expected to happen as it occurred.
After two minutes of squarely looking at the magic formation, the spirals within Nick's blue eyes sped up in their movements, and a hint of red hue appeared within them, existing in addition to their already blue hue. Following that, Nick became able to view the special space within the magic formation without using the magic formation's own method, which would allow an observer to see beyond the boundaries of its space magic.
What Nick saw within the Compact Garden Formation was a clump of the soft, brown soil that had enveloped all the pale-gold flowers' roots. The pieces of pale-gold feces and the pale-gold flowers themselves were present and had no abnormal conditions. The pale-gold flowers appeared completely erect and healthy, while the soil occupied three feet of length below where the flower's roots began spreading downwards; the pale-gold feces lay atop the soil just as it had outside of the magic formation. All three kinds of objects were suspended and kept together firmly within a light-brown colored void of space.
The pale-gold flowers and the pale-gold feces still strongly radiated the signature of luck path. After seeing the success of the magic formation, first-hand, Nick nodded his head once and proceeded to gather more of the pale-gold flowers, feces, and the surrounding soil using the Compact Garden Formation. Within half a day, Nick had uprooted kilometers of soft, brown soil, pale-gold flowers, and had drawn in hundreds of pounds of pale-gold feces.
Soon, Nick noticed that the luck path dog magic beasts still did nothing while he uprooted their territory. This was such a strange outcome that Nick's face remained solemn the whole time, even though his magic formation was exemplary. He felt that the situation was just too fantastical and easy, even though he knew that it shouldn't have been.
(I had already learnt a lesson from the qi path dragon within Dying Mark. If the situation is too good to be true, it probably is, but unfortunately, I cannot just shoot myself in the foot by stopping what I am doing. I will have to keep my eyes open and remain frosty while I collect the pale-gold flowers.)
Eventually, Nick collected pale-gold flowers, earth, and the magic beast feces all the way towards the location around the two sleeping luck path magic beasts and then even past them to reach the end of that side of the trench, which consisted of a rough vertical rock wall. Nick nodded his head once after collecting all the pale gold flowers that he could. He did one more check on them, but this time he simply touched the magic formation using his right hand's fingers, and the scene within the formation was revealed to him.
What Nick saw was a large, almost circular island of dirt floating amid a void that consisted of brown-colored space; the dirt island had a radius of a few kilometers, but under the influence of the magic formation's power, the size of its space was not directly observable from the magic formation's exterior. The dirt within the magic formation bundled together tightly and formed a proper place for the pale-gold flowers to be rooted and for the pale-gold magic beasts' feces to rest on. Nick used the powers of Tyrant Sense in order to check on his environment that he superficially changed, and ultimately, it simply looked like he had taken away its topsoil, so other than the fact that most of the area had lost a few inches of topsoil, the environment did not appear harmed.
Nick backtracked towards the two luck path dog magic beasts, and they were still sleeping, no...hibernating would be a more accurate term. During the process of collecting the magic materials, they had snored simultaneously a few times, causing pale-gold winds to rise out of the trench, but that did not result in much disturbance. Nick shook his head a few times because he could not understand how he had gotten through this period so easily, but he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
He did not plan on exploring any more of Reckless State for now, and so he stored the Compact Garden Formation into his newer space band. Nick then summoned a crystal-blue projection stone from his older space band into his right grip, following which, he threw it onto the floor, and a crystal-blue space path formation appeared at his feet that had a radius of less than one meter. Nick immediately spoke the magic formation's trigger phrase in Valteese:
"Begin."
The magic formation adopted a bright, silver color in response to Nick's phrase and then radiated an intense silver light that enveloped his vision. When the silver light abated about one minute later, Nick appeared within his house in Sidon, standing over his main transportation magic formation. After using the powers of Tyrant Sense to check on the house, Nick moved to stand over his other space path magic formation that was connected to his workspace on the third basement floor of The Realm Exploration Company's building.
Nick spoke this magic formation's identical trigger phrase, and after being enveloped by silver light, when the silver light abated two minutes later, he found himself within his company workspace. The formation silently deactivated, following which Nick moved to sit at his work table. Nick was very tired, but he was worried about the company's financial situation; after all, its funds should be quite low following the purchases that Nick made in addition to its normal operating costs.
Before Nick had left for Forgotten Peril a little over half a month ago, he deposited all the money within his personal bank account into the corporate account to bolster the company's capital position. Nick logged onto Absolute Reserves Bank's online platform and, true to his expectations, after all the expenses had been paid for using the corporate account, the company only had a relatively shoestring amount of £2,496,000,000 remaining. Nick felt uncomfortable looking at that figure:
(Over 10 vatas went up in smoke during one month. I am especially annoyed because I was the direct cause of that. If money isn't injected into this company within the next couple of weeks, I will probably have to borrow money to support its continued operation.)
Nick gritted his teeth; his company had too short a track record, and unlike normal businesses, businesses that involved inter-realm risks were not readily lent money if they did not have the right connections or history. Nick did not have time to build such relationships, and in fact, he only knew the latter point because the last time that he was at the Richter Order Academy's branch of Great Appraisals, the Magician who attended to him mentioned it in passing.
Nick rubbed his temples and stored the laptop back into his older space band before taking the elevator to the fifth floor, where he took a shower in his office and slept on the carpet for a few hours. Nick planned to sleep longer, but had no choice but to get up after hearing a harrowing sound:
BOOM!
An explosive sound echoed from the lower floors, and the building's foundation seemed to shake violently. Nick quickly cast Saturn and used its effects to raise himself off the floor, following which, he called James, his head of security. When James accepted the call, Nick immediately asked:
"What the hell is going on, James?"
James answered with a nervous tone:
"Sir, there is currently a hostile Magician at the entrance of the building, and the loud sound and shaking just now was a result of him destroying the front entrance as well as damaging the surrounding walls, as well as a portion of the ground floor."
Nck was alarmed; he glanced at the time on his smartphone and could hardly believe what he had just heard. He did not expect that someone would be so bold as to attack his company during the middle of the day.
(Are they crazy? Then again, if I had stayed within Fogotten Peril for longer, my people would probably be in real danger, and I would have been blindsided upon my return.)
Nick asked:
"Did anyone get hurt?"
James answered:
"No. The perpetrator did not seem to have any interest in hurting the security guards, who were forced to run away from him due to his obvious ill intentions."
Nick was instantly relieved when he heard James' words. If his people got killed while he slept, his business would have taken a political hit that would not have been good for its long-term development. Nick urgently ordered James:
"Do not physically engage with the Magician, I am on my way!"
Nick hung up his smartphone and cast Neptune to suddenly appear outside of his building amidst a flash of blue magic power, at the same altitude as the fifth floor. Nick manipulated Saturn's power to rapidly descend towards the ground. His expression was currently indifferent, and a visceral coldness emanated from him at this time.
****************************************************************
"Who owns this place?"
Standing at the entrance that had been blown apart using magic, a man wearing a tan colored magician's robe stood in place and stared at the present Joyce McLean, the current head of human resources, Riley, and James. The Magician was a white man who had low, well-trimmed, black hair, a high nose bridge, sharp eyebrows, dark eyes, and wore a smug expression.
James stepped forward and spoke to the Magician:
"Sir, the owner of the company will soon arrive to meet you. Please do not do any more damage before he arrives."
The tan-robed Magician scoffed in response to James' words and then replied:
"How can a commoner like you give me, Monty Grappler, instructions? Look, I actually came here looking for a job. I heard that this was a new company being headed by a recent graduate, in passing. You can consider my forceful entrance as a sort of self-directed interview, and that is exactly what you will tell the police when they get here. When the owner arrives, I will discuss with him my £1,000,000 salary package."
When Joyce heard the man's words, she thought:
(This man must be a crazed fool. Attacking a company owned by a Magician that you do not know is reckless. He seems to believe that because Nick is a relatively recent graduate from a magical academy, the latter must be weak and easily swayed by threats. Sigh, I actually don't know how strong Nick is, and depending on that, this man might be able to have his way, at least that will be the case if the police do not send over a Magician of equal strength. I've seen a few situations like this during my career, and I know that giving in to an unstable Magician never ends well for the people cowering.)
Joyce gulped while her eyes steeled with resolve. She stepped forward to stand at James' immediate right side and made her stance clear:
"Leave this place before you embarrass yourself any further. I know what you are doing, and it will not work. I am the person in charge of human resources, and let me tell you, you will never be hired at The Realm Exploration Company!"
James' right eyebrow raised in response to Joyce's bravery. He at first thought that she was an ordinary, middle-aged woman, but she now seemed more lively than he thought possible. Riley's knees slightly shook as she witnessed Joyce's outburst, but although she was scared of the Magician in front of them, she came from a good home and knew the value of standing in solidarity when confronted by a bully. Her entire body began trembling as she stepped forward to stand at James' left side and shouted nervously:
"Get...get lost!"
James was surprised once again, not thinking that Riley had the nerve to stand up to the Magician as well. He then glanced at Riley's obviously nervous state and thought:
(Well...it looks like Nick lucked into hiring some good people. That's...great, but what does it matter if we won't even live to have lunch today or at least until the police arrive?)
James was about to try to diffuse the situation, but before he could, the tan-robed Magician stretched out his right hand while glaring at the three people in front of him coldly, making gripping gestures towards them using his right hand, and then spoke without a hint of emotion in his tone:
"Just go die, useless commoners."
A cluster of dark magic power enveloped Monty's right grip, and it quickly spread out towards Nick's three managers like a living curse. Monty mused while he made his move:
(I came here to make some trouble so that I could score some cultivation resources, but who would have thought that these regular people would be so stupid? What are they relying on? The owner of this company? I've already looked up Nick Capitol, and he's no great shakes. He has a common background and had no backing when he even started this company; I've dealt with many greenhorns like him before. When the police get here, all I have to do is spin a story and grease some palms. Unfortunately for Nick Capitol, I do happen to have some backing, and the police prefer not to get involved too closely in the matters of rank 3 Magicians if they can find an excuse not to do so. Will the police care that I murdered three regular people? Sure, they will, but not enough to look into it if Nick Capitol doesn't seem strong enough to push the issue. After all, they should be able to figure out my identity real quick.)
Monty's dark magic power was about to reach the three managers, but when it approached within one meter of them, the space all along the ground floor developed a slightly grey hue, and Monty's magic began moving forward at a snail's pace. James, Joyce, and Riley used the opportunity to run away from Monty's magic power, fleeing to the storage area of the ground floor without looking back at Monty. Monty raised his right eyebrow in response to this and partially turned his body around to properly greet the presence that had just descended from the sky and appeared five meters behind him:
"I take it that you are Nick Capitol? Listen, I don't want too much trouble. Just give me..."
When Monty got a good look at Nick's appearance, he stopped speaking. What he saw was a twenty-something-year-old man who had snow white hair and spiraling eyes. Not only was the young man's appearance strange, but Monty quickly realized that the space magic that was enveloping them both was not ordinary. At least, it was not just space magic. Monty thought:
(This spell is of the space path, blade path, and...another path that isn't familiar to me. A multiple-natured spell? Where did this noob get such high-quality goods? Well, it doesn't matter. My goal now is to make a sweet deal with Nick. Who would not want to limit their losses when faced with an equally strong, if not stronger opponent? There are no foolish Magicians that live long, so either Nick Capitol agrees to my demands or...)
Before Monty finished his thoughts, however, Nick had already cast an additional spell while Hard Marvel instantly appeared within his right grip:
(Tyrant Form.)
Black miasma magic energy exhaust exuded from Nick's body in a flurry before dissipating within two seconds. Monty creased his eyebrows in response to Nick's actions, but before he could react to Nick by even intimidating him using his own dark path power, Nick suddenly crossed five meters to instantly appear at Monty's immediate front.
(Dreadful Aura.)
A dark, fear-inducing aura was immediately spread out into the surroundings like a common gale and caused Monty to frown intensely, but his thoughts and actions froze up for a split second due to the intense discomfort that the dreadful aura made him feel. The dark path power that still emanated from Monty's right hand stopped moving completely at this time, but Monty could not think clearly enough to direct his magic further.
Following that, Monty witnessed a winged magic beast that was a few heads taller than him, appear in front of him and stare down at him using its red-blue eyes. Monty screamed internally:
(What the hell is that?)
Unfortunately for Monty, Nick was not interested in having any discussions. He simply thought:
(This bastard! My funds are already low, and now I have to pay to have this building repaired, as well as the property gates that you destroyed while intruding. Just die!)
Nick swung Hard Marvel using his right arm at a speed that made it appear like a faint blur within Monty's vision. A split second was all that Nick needed to end a mediocre Magician, rank 3 or not; he did not practise blade path for show. The very fact that Monty wasted time doing this made him worse than dog shit in Nick's eyes.
(Cross Stream Sword Technique.)
Because Tyrant Domain's magic power fully saturated the space around Nick and Monty, Tyrant Form's own abilities were on full display, resulting in Nick's movement speed being at a level that Monty could not keep up with without a scouting method, but the dreadful aura had already caused the latter to have a brain fart. When would he have had the time to cast a scouting spell? Hard Marvel's current cutting power was also not something that the bare body would be able to withstand, and Nick knew it
Almost all sword placements of one iteration of Nick's sword technique were used on Monty's unguarded head until Nick could no longer have it as a possible target. At that point, less than one second had passed since Nick began the use of Cross Stream, and splatters of blood, sliced bone, and brain matter decorated the floor at Monty's and Nick's feet. Nick had withdrawn Hard Marvel as soon as he no longer felt his sword cutting into Monty's head and now simply watched as the neck stump of Monty's corpse in front of him poured out blood like a fountain.
Blood even occasionally poured onto Nick's clothes, but the latter didn't mind it for some reason. Two seconds later, Nick watched the corpse tragically fall backward like a puppet with its strings cut. Nick then stored Hard Marvel into his older space band again and also canceled Tyrant Form. Following that, he spat on Monty's corpse, following which, he gave instructions, his voice reverberating throughout Tyrant Domain's magical field and reaching the three managers, who were still hiding within the ground floor's storage area:
"You three can return here! I have dealt with the blind fool! Have someone dispose of his corpse before it starts to stink up the place!"