Topaz looked at a small spot in the forest near the mines. In this spot all the trees were either burnt up, like a wildfire came through the area, or ash that was scattered by the wind.

There was also a big stick stabbed into the ground, and the Ayuna identity token in front of that stick.

In front of these two objects was a patch of dirt showing signs of having been dug up, this was where Tornic's grave was.

"This... He was actually given a grave." Topaz kind of felt this was unbelievable, not from the fact that he was given a grave, but from the fact that it was most likely his killer who buried him.

There were signs of mental energy and magic being used all over this area, an obvious sign of foul play.

Topaz dug up Tornic's body using magic, and placed him inside his magic bag.

Was this a two on one fight? There are two mental energy signatures in this area, and there is no way this embarrassment could use mental energy.

Topaz frowned, "Where do I start looking?"

Topaz walked back to the forest trail he originally followed to get here, that's where he heard a young voice, "Man, I didn't make enough crystals to pay for another formation, Mr. Mott you gotta help me out."

Topaz's eyes lit up, he turned to look at the two men walking down the mountain, if Cronix was here he would've recognized both of them as Arthur Mott and Ryan.

"A formation, could I perhaps see this formation you guys are talking about?" Topaz asked, eyeing the two like a hungry wolf.

When Arthur saw this man, his face instantly turned pale and a sense of a deadly crisis came upon him, this was a feeling he felt very few times in his life, and not even Williams gave him this feeling.

"Sorry, but I don't have any more formations, Mr. Mott might have some more." Ryan said, gesturing at Arthur.

Arthur cursed at Ryan in his mind, but could do nothing but smile in reality. He reached into his magic bag, and took out an energy sensing array.

He handed it to the young man in front of him.

Topaz took the formation and looked it over,

This style is familiar, but this mental energy isn't... No, the mental energy is familiar, but not the way I was thinking of, this is the same mental energy as the place Tornic was murdered.

Topaz looked back at Ryan and Arthur, "Who's the creator and where do I find him?"

...

"I don't have any space for this earth beast!" Cronix complained as he tried finding any place to put the earth beast.

He ended up taking out the lightning beast and the water bird from his magic bag; they were merely three and four star Casters.

A more powerful aura started being emitted by the crow, and Cronix could see the blue star being formed.

"Three stars in the span of an hour, that's really something." Cronix couldn't help being amazed by the power of a star core.

I shouldn't fall behind, Cronix spread out his mental energy, and used it to swallow the water elements into his mental expanse, the mysterious energy inside was really useful to him.

Cronix entered the mental expanse, leaving some mental energy outside his body to warn him in case more magical beasts arrive, this time he extended it to thirty feet.

"The problem with Williams' copy of the ice wraith method was that the water elements would ravage the body.

"But when we used the extraction technique, the water elements were torn apart and turned into a mysterious energy that was absorbed by our mental expanse, which eliminates that problem, so I won't turn into a human icicle.

"So that means I could move on to the second step, but that's what's missing, we still don't know how to create the foundation of the wraith, only the stages after."

Cronix frowned,

"Whatever, let's just focus on absorbing the mysterious energy for now, if we have time when we leave Alktarsha we'll try to find the second step."

Cronix was just about to begin integrating the elements and his mental energy, when his external mental energy felt something enter its perimeters.

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Cronix immediately left the mental expanse, and looked over where he felt the presence.

His face instantly paled, about 8 meters away was a huge black bearlike animal three times the size of the earth beast, with curved large spikes coming from his back.

Red feathers circled around its arms and through its armpits. Its eyeballs were all black except for the irises which were crimson. "A Crimson Feather Bear."

Cronix cursed under his breath, because the worst part wasn't its horrifying look, but its magic power. It was at the Flawless Three Star Caster stage!

Cronix looked up at the crow, who was still refining their magic peacefully, and sighed. He was only a five star Caster, how could he fight a flawless three star Caster?

Soon enough the bear spotted Cronix, it was drawn here by the Crow's aura, but it also found another five Star Caster as a nice bonus.

It sped up and charged at Cronix ready to feast on his soon to be remains. But Cronix wasn't going to go down easy, a determined glint appeared in his eyes and he took out his most powerful formation.

This formation had 36 strokes, Cronix was a bit reluctant to explode this one, but there was nothing else he could do.

Of course he wasn't going to use it now, this would be one of the worst times. Cronix used one of his only advantages, and took to the skies.

But this advantage soon turned into a disaster, as the bear opened its mouth and spat out a fireball sending it straight at him.

While this fireball lacked the technique that Tornic's fireballs had, it made up for it with raw power.

Cronix barely managed to dodge the flame, and it hit the trees behind him instead. However this brought him no relief as one of the trees behind him held the crow.

Cronix used his mental energy to check on the bird and thankfully it was fine, the fire landed on another tree.

But that wasn't going to be the end of Cronix's problems, the trees did catch on fire, and at the rate it was spreading, it was going to turn into a wildfire.

This wildfire was no doubt going to affect the crow if it wasn't put out.

Cronix was now caught in two, he couldn't just ignore the bear, but if a wildfire disturbed the crow, it might mess things up, when focusing on the power of a star core, who knew what could happen.

The boy let out a groan, he decided to ignore the bear for the time being, until the fire was extinguished, it wasn't like he could deal with the bear anyways.

He ditched the bear flying towards the flames, casting water magic to extinguish it. These flames' temperature wasn't like normal fire that could be created with any random spark, no, these were way more intense in terms of heat.

What may have been a causal attack from the bear, turned into a big hassle to extinguish for Cronix. Of course it wasn't impossible.

As for the bear, it was actually very enraged. In its mind, Cronix was akin to an ant, so defenseless and so easy to kill.

But not only has this ant dodged its attack, but also chose to ignore its existence entirely. The enraged bear shot out three more fireballs at Cronix.

Cronix had an easier time dodging these attacks since he had already been moving before, but dodging these fireballs resulted in more trees catching aflame.

Cronix groaned again, how could he put all the flames out if there is going to be more constantly arriving.

He looked back at the bird still refining its magic, he vaguely sensed that its magic power surpassed the fifth star, but he didn't have the time to pay too much attention.

If you would just hurry up and finish so maybe we could leave this place and forget about this bear!

Cronix knew the crow couldn't hear his thoughts, but that didn't stop him from voicing out his complaints in his mind.

Cronix used all the water elements he could to put out those flames, and it was just barely enough.

But right when he finished he felt a deadly sensation appear in his heart, and he felt intense heat against his back. He turned around and his pupils dilated as he saw a huge fireball approaching from behind.

Cronix quickly poured all his mental energy and all the elements he could into creating any type of defense, but against the fireball of a flawless three star Caster, it quickly showed signs of collapsing.

Cronix's mind went into overdrive quickly trying to find any way to survive this encounter. That's when an idea hit him like a truck.

The two shields of different energies didn't last long against the attack of the fireball. The first shield to collapse was the one made by the water elements, but the mental energy shield didn't last long either.

But when the shields broke, Cronix didn't panic, instead his eyes seemed to glittered as he reached into his magic bag, and took out a beast the size of a boulder with thick armor.

The fireball that quickly took care of the mental energy barrier and the water element shield, had a harder time breaking open the armor of the earth beast.

However, that didn't mean it was unbreakable, the armor was able to withstand most of the blast, but before the blast was out of power the armor started to break apart.

This was the moment Cronix started preparing to go full speed with his wings, this was his best shot for survival.

The armor exploded at the same time the fireball dispersed. Cronix instantly sprang into action, flapping his wings to bring his speed to as fast as he could possibly go, he gathered every bit of mental energy he could gather into his right hand, which held the formation.

Cronix's fastest speed was only average to the bear, who shot out more fireballs. Cronix flew up, dodging the fireballs, and threw the 36 stroke formation towards the bear with all the mental energy he had.

The formation hit the bear in the nose which only served to irritate it even more, but there was still some of Cronix's mental energy lingering on the formation.

This mental energy seeped into the formation activating it.

The bear roared, it felt a deadly crisis coming from the formation, but it couldn't get away from the formation.

All the feathers on its arm lifted up, and the fire elements in the area gathered inside its body, this was the defense it was preparing.

The formation's explosion was bigger than the one that killed Tornic, this was an attack capable of killing a flawless two star Caster.

Unfortunately Cronix didn't have any time to move far enough from the range of the explosion, so he did the only thing he could do.

He surrounded his body with what little mental energy he had, gathered the magic elements and also surrounded his body with it. He then brought his knees to his chest, and his wings shielded the rest of his body.

He ended up being shot out of the sky, landing more than 100 meters away. Of course some of his bones were crushed, muscles sprained and his internals were all beat up.

But the one bright side was that Cronix has been making constant breakthroughs over the years and was able to survive, although barely.