His lean face turned slowly, revealing the deep blue, naturally cold eyes staring her down thoroughly. Even without doing anything, his presence exerted itself on her. That was the case of a being strong beyond human belief.

However, she wasn’t just a human, she was fully in the Grade A. Shaking off the feeling, she reaffirmed the gaze at her father before speaking up.

“What is it that you wanted, father?”

Emotionlessly, she asked. Even though she stared right at him, it was more of a formality rather than a gesture.

He glanced with his a serious look for a few seconds before continuing.

“I’ve met a colleague of yours at the commotion and we’ve come to an agreement.”

“What are you talking about?”

She suddenly felt that he had a funny idea, one which she instinctively dreaded. Not to mention, she still had no clue who he was talking about.

“Although you need some achievements for that to happen, I will give you one of my tokens for the upcoming Mountains of Atrophy. You will be teaming up with professor Vilathe.”

Her eyes widened. She didn’t expect it, but nothing could have prepared her for the next few lines.

“I’m not going there. It’s nothing but a place to sacrifice people to the mountain guardian.”

“Why are you so ungrateful? I’m giving you a chance you could never earn with that talent of yours. There are countless treasures there awaiting you and the others.”

“I already told you specifically why I don’t want to go!”

She burst out at him, but his face remained stoic, unimpressed.

“You don’t have a choice. I already assigned you to the role. You will have to join Vilathe’s party, whether you like it or not. You have been without one for far too long now.”

Her face dropped as she heard him. He was able to so casually give her the worst nightmare she could think of.

“Please, don’t do this to me. Father, please.”

Tears filled her eyes as she begged him, her body shaking slightly. Looking at the silver-haired daughter of his, he slowly walked up to her before caressing her neck and leaning to her ear.

“You should be happy I haven’t sold you off yet. You will listen to me and go to the mountains, without any more questions or complaints.”

The tears dripped from her face heavily as she shivered beside his body. Slowly nodding her head, she complied with him.

“Good, leave now that you understand.”

Quickly leaving the office, she ran through the hallways back to her room, not caring if anyone woke up.

Sitting beside her bed, on the floor, she sobbed while hugging her knees. The rain had already started again.

While Juliette cried along with the rain, the academy breathed life. Well, at least a certain classroom of the academy.

The doors to Silvana’s lab shone with countless lights while sounds of explosions could be heard coming from inside. It was as though people were having a festival inside.

“May the goddess strike this damn cauldron!”

The dean shouted in anger, boiling from within. The bystanders watched with somewhat perplexed expressions, not knowing how to react. The witch, along with a tall, pink-haired lady watched as the man battled with the recipe for a certain potion.

“Dad, maybe you should let Silvie do this.”

“No. I will do it myself. You know I’m a good alchemist.”

Lurius wiped off the sweat gathered on top of his forehead before throwing out the messed up ingredients and starting from the beginning for the umpteenth try.

“Can you show me the recipe?”

“Hmm? Ah, it’s an ancient text, I don’t if you will be able to read it.”

“Just give it to me.”

After a second of silence, he complied, to which the lady with wooden clutches smiled slightly.

Taking the ancient scroll from him, Silvana quickly exerted mana around her to form a complicated magic circle above it.

The circle, having turned clear, allowed her to easily catch the meaning of the text.

Then, she looked at the dean and the ingredients next to him.

All of them the cream of the crop, costing fortunes. Some of the items that were so plainly discarded could cover full mansions and top skill scrolls.

However, there was a simple issue.

“Are you sure you can do this? This is almost at the level of an elixir. Maybe we should bring one of the alchemist elders here. No, actually, they’re way too greedy.”

She made a suggestion, even though she knew of their true nature. If they had learned of a near-elixir level recipe, they would kill on sight to get their hands on it.

To her remark, the father-daughter duo nodded.

“I translated the text myself, so there might be errors. Can you show me what you unraveled?”

“Here, take a look.”

The scroll, along with the magic circle, floated through the lab to land directly into the dean’s hands. Reading through it scrupulously, something finally lit inside him.

“Such a stupid mistake.”

Muttering under his nose, he quickly tossed away any of the ingredients inside the cauldron before taking the phoenix bones and grinding them together with the troll blood.

Creating a red paste, he put it inside the cauldron before cooking off all of the waste and transferring the paste into a closed off flask, together with some mana solution and a salamander’s liquid fire.

Immediately reacting, the paste turned slight purple before releasing its gasses, travelling through the glass and condensing. Collecting the purple liquid that gathered at the small tube next to the equipment, the dean took it to the next station.

Chilling the tube to a specific temperature, he poured it into a clean iron cauldron before setting the flame to low.

From the table beside him, he took a cleaned out beast crystal of a troll before putting it inside. Then, he carefully controlled the crystal with his mana.

If he failed this step, he would have to do this all over. Using his mana to extract a specific, healing element mana from the crystal, Lurius concentrated on the task.

Despite the fact that he was the strongest didn’t mean that this was easy for him. No, he had to inspect every corner of the crystal for the mana and then extract it specifically by detaching it from the other, countless types of mana stuck inside.

No only that, if any of the other types got inside, the potion would have been altered already.

After a solid half an hour of constant precision and concentration, the round crystal lost its bright green outshine, turning somewhat lackluster.

The dark gray solution in the cauldron started to boil all of a sudden, to which the dean reacted quickly. Because of such a high amount of healing mana, the liquid wanted to evaporate. Swiftly adding in the branch of a dead ghoul tree.

Acting as a stabilizer, the substance returned to its normal composition after being stirred a couple of times.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Huu, now, we have to wait.”

Breathing out heavy air, he told the girls, to which they lightly nodded their heads.

After a while, having added a few more ingredients, the solution was finally ready to be added into the blood.

Giving the dean a large bag of chilled blood from Conall, he inspected it for a few moments before doing the further procedure.

‘It has a weirdly golden shine to it.’

Despite noticing the fact, he simply told himself that was the result of having a giant’s blood flowing through one’s body.

Pouring the three liters of blood into the cauldron before boiling off the harmful parts of the blood with his mana control and the heat from the cauldron, he cooled the blood before pouring in five drops of the solution for every two hundred milliliters of the reduced blood.

On the very last of the drop, as it entered the bright red blood, like an explosion, the liquid quickly turned magnificent pink, with golden particles swirling around constantly.

“That’s weird, it should be just pink.”

Saying under his nose, he still poured it into ten different flasks before splashing some of the potion on his palm. Drinking it, he silently inspected the effects.

Normally, healing potions wouldn’t work on a Grade Ex like him. The energy inside his body was far too vast for a weak potion to even stir the mana whatsoever. At most, he could feel that the potion tried to work, but eventually stopped.

However, as he drank the small sip of this one, his insides churned, in a good sense of the word. The mana inside him that was almost as dense as a liquid began moving, recovering his body from within. Although it stopped working quickly, the potency was far beyond what he could imagine.

At the very beginning of his mana veins, he saw as the scars of the past slowly healed themselves. The constant overusing of the mana that caused his veins to stretch and expand unnaturally in the past started to quietly mend into their original, intended form.

“Incredible.”

As though struck by lightning, he couldn’t believe it. On the side, having witnessed her father’s reactions, the lady with long, light-pink hair flowing down to her waist, moved weakly while biting her lower lip.

Any motion of her body hurt as the lack of proper mana ate away at her from inside. The limbs shook incredulously, fighting the strain that she put on by moving.

Despite the horrendous pain she felt, she moved with tears in her eyes. She wanted to drink the potion immediately. Over the last twenty five years, all she could do was watch in agony as everything elapsed in front of her, drifting away.

Suddenly, however, she was stopped. Beside her, the beautiful witch, one she could even call her sister from all the help she received, patted her shoulders.

“Don’t be so hasty, Einna. You’re putting too much strain on your body.”

Just like that, using the magic circles in the air, the tall lady in a light blue dress flew through the air, her eyes bewildered.

“Hey! Put me down already!”

She shouted in embarrassment, but the action quickly ended with her being laid on the matters in the corner of the room. It had already been cleared off any blood stains, so Silvana didn’t hesitate in putting her there.

Taking one of the flasks, Lurius came up to his daughter with a smile on his face before kneeling down. Sliding his hand under the soft back of his daughter’s head, the dean raised it slightly before putting the flask near her lips.

“Drink it slowly, Einna.”

Complying with her light orange eyes, she opened her mouth before taking small sips of the potion. Immediately, a burning sensation spread deep in her stomach as the liquid was almost immediately dissolved and the mana was extracted into the next organ.

Purifying any remaining parts to be left behind in the small intestine, the mana quickly traveled towards her mana veins, all in a few seconds.

Having already drunk the potion after a few moments, she convulsed inside the bed, squirming from the pain she felt.

On the side, the dean held her thin arm with a worried expression. Although he did so tightly, he controlled his strength to not hurt her further.

‘Maybe it’s too much for her?’

With many thoughts that clouded his vision, he stared at his daughter, who grimaced in pain.

Einna thought she was accustomed to pain already. After all, it was accompanying her all of her life. However, the one she was experiencing right was heavens above the usual.

As though someone was cutting her up with a sharp knife along all of her body at all times, she felt the gruesome feeling only intensify with time.

After five hellish minutes, she could only stare at the ceiling with her eyes dripping with tears. Seeing the reactions, the dean couldn’t help but glance with nervous eyes at the witch standing closeby.

She, however, didn’t take any of it to heart. Being as calm as an undisturbed lake, she simply pointed at his daughter, to which he quickly turned back.

Taken aback by the sudden look of calmness on Einna’s face, he could see that she was peacefully falling asleep. Checking on her vitals, he saw that her heart was beating loud and clear, something he hadn’t seen in all of her life.

Then, using the slightest amount of mana, he wanted to inspect her mana veins. Nonetheless, before he could do that, something startled him.

Moving back, he saw as large, pink flowers made from mana surrounded all of her as she fell asleep.

…

Conall slashed his sword through the air. A large gust of wind followed after the attack, cutting at the numerous monsters ahead of him. He spent the last three weeks battling the monsters, day and night, though he soon realized that there were no cycles here. At least yet.

Still, after the weeks of constant fighting and the little rest he needed to sustain himself, he was already on the hundredth wave.

Three hundred worms, two hundred scorpions, one hundred and twenty salamanders, sixty rocs, and twenty undead sand ghouls. This was the number of enemies that had gathered over time.

All of them had evolved with time. The worms no longer came out of the ground as they used to, sending underground rock spells instead. The scorpions turned deadly on impact, as they learned to explode themselves from within.

The salamanders learned how to throw out fire tornados while the rocs negated his winds. At the end, the mummy-like monster came and terrorized the battlegrounds.

Using their bandages as limbs, it was like fighting a monster with a tens of arms. Not to mention, the rocs along with the undead were already Grade B when he started fighting them.

Yet, despite all the dangerous enemies, when Conall sent out the attacks, he looked bored, as though it had become a mundane job for him. His sword had benefited a lot during the previous waves, however, it had long since stagnated.

And it couldn’t be excused. He had simply become too strong for the current monsters.

Amassing a whopping 1,3 million fragments, he upgraded most of his runes to the max, except for the challenger rune because he still needed the last part of the rune and it cost over one million fragments to fully enhance.

Nonetheless, just four stages in, all of his stats except Spirit earned themselves four additional points while he was sixty four percent stronger while fighting stronger than him enemies. Conall’s strength was currently well above the middle stages of the Grade B.

The monsters seemed awfully slow, while he himself was too fast for them to be able to catch him off guard. His rune of Clairvoyance allowed him to see through every speck of sand beneath this place, knowing the position of all of the worms and ores stuck below him.

He could also see countless treasures buried deep underground.

Sending a wind tornado filled with wind slashes, he watched as the scorpions, salamanders, and the rocs were sucked in, being cut up into countless pieces.

The mummies, on the other hand, withheld the attack, however, his sword slashes easily cut through them.

In less than a few minutes, the wave had already been cleared and Conall sucked in all of the rune fragments. Truthfully, the only reason he took so long to fight all the waves was because he was also trying to find the Rune of Luck in the chests underground.

Yet, even after two hundred tries, there was no sign of it.

‘Well, it isn’t a one in a thousand chance for nothing.’

“This will be the last rune part, right?”

Farra asked on the side. Although he didn’t want to do it, she nagged him to explain the circumstances of her world. She wanted to know why a human like him was able to thrive in this world that had no weather elements, be it water or air.

Despite the fact that she was somwhat bummed to find out her world and she herself had become a dungeon, she was still happy that it wasn’t forgotten by the world.

“Yes, though it drops a much more important rune as a reward.”

“Hmm? What is it?"

"You will find out in a second.”

He said as the largest so far mana cluster caught his foot, and the world darkened. A red hue soon enlightened the empty skies, coloring the world in an ominous shade of blood.

The sun turned from bright white into a dark red circle while bones rose from the sand ahead of him. Soon, dark red mana collided with the bones, merging them together into a large, tall figure. As soon as the skeleton raised itself from the ground, glowing red circles emerged in its eye sockets, deadly intent filling out its surroundings.

After a moment, dark, glistening armor began to adorn the gruesome skeleton knight, while beside it, another row of bones began to move.

Just like the boss, a horse filled with demonic mana was constructed, dark armor protecting the already hard and mana-enhanced bones of the duo.

An ominous presence descended upon the world, ready to reap through the meager life left in the world. As soon as a great sword spanning for a few meters appeared in its large hands, the death knight swung it and the energy full of demise followed him.

Charging like a sandworm, the nefarious mana slash easily cut through the sand, quickly reaching the indifferent human standing on top of a sand dune. Covering his head with a hooded robe, Conall finally began to move, almost disappearing from the place as he took a step.

Dodging the incoming strike as though it was nothing, he moved meters at once with every step he took. Seeing this, the skull with crimson flames for eyes stretched out his hand towards the red-haired boy.

Conall saw as dark skulls started to manifest around his dark gauntlet, but he didn’t care. They were mental attacks. Slicing them apart with his sword, he moved on with his approach. Using his clairvoyance, he quickly skimmed through the death knight’s body, trying to find where the last part of his Challenger Rune was.

‘There you are.’

Looking at the inner part of the back of his skull, he saw the rune engraved there. With a smile, he sped up, boosting himself with the wind under his feet. His control had gotten quite good over the last few weeks. He could even fight somewhat in the air, though that was still not very efficient.