So this will be just a write up on this story and some thoughts I had on it. I really hate to leave things unfinished but after months of lying to myself about how i will get back into it I just couldn't keep doing it. I figured I owed it to everyone who read this and invested the time to give them an explaination.

The main reason I stopped writing this story is because I just had to admit one simple truth. It wasn't all that good. I could have kept it going and tried to make it better but as my first serious attempt I had to consider it a failure in epic story telling. There are a few things I liked about it but overall it had too many issues and i saw no way to bring it up to the quality I wanted it to be at.

I have spent this time reading a lot of the really good stories on here trying to understand what made them so interesting and how i could use what i learned from theirs to fix mine. I didn't see a way to do it and keep just about anything about this story the same. I wrote myself into a corner so to speak.

So with that being said I decided to move on from this one and start fresh taking what I have learned from this story and the things I think I did well in it and try something new. With all that being said I don't want to leave people hanging on the plot. I hate the whole 'just decide for yourself how it ends' saying so i figured I'd give a quick run down.

Lee and his friends would have won the tourny and gone on the the nationations. They would have lost in the final round to the sun house with Victoria narrowly beating Lee but it was really a 50/50 battle. Still it doesn't matter much as it gives their school the prestege it needs.

They find out there that Victoria is the desciple of one of the great wizards students and found the rest of them (4 in total... 1 died when the old wizard was betrayed by 2 of his other students. They were then sealed behind the barrier by that student who gave his life to use a forbidden technique.

It was also during that betrayel that Lee's teacher lost his arm.

You find out Star house has been working with wizards behind the veil. Actually directly with the disciple of the main antognist. It becomes clear thay have been manipulated by the disciple under orders of his master to do many of the things they've done.

Once they realized this, the disciple kills the patriarch of the house and a few other higher ups who didn't know what was going on. Some of them of course did, and are brought in under new management.

Eventually they find out about Lee being the disciple of the great wizard and set out to assassinate him in a bid to draw the old wizard out. Tom Sky dies during the fight to save Lee Sad [https://forum.royalroadl.com/images/smilies/sad.png]

The barrier is sealed again but it is revealed nothing can stop it from completely collapsing as it was never meant to last forever and many of the evil wizards hench men along with his disciple are on this side already. It will only hold up 3 more years no matter what they do.

They all go into training. Lee and Victoria go off for a bit (being the 2 characters already trained by the great wizard or one of his disciples) without much to learn at this point but to practice. The other 5 (Derrick, Mary, Alura, Amanda and David stay behind to be trained by the great wizard and his 4 original discples.

Overall it would have been mostly a time skip here but Victoria is pulled out of her shell a bit. No, she never falls for Lee but she comes to think of him as a friend which she didn't have any of growing up due to her position.

During this time the evil wizard's disciple works behind the scenes and even brings the demon continent in on his masters plan for a promise of getting part of the continent.

Then we have the time skip of about 2 years. During this time i would have wrote about 5 or so chapters in a flash back about how the old wizard was betrayed. While I would have fleshed out the other characters more the main twist here would revolve around 3 characters. The typical hero disciple, the sketchy genius disciple and the weak looking shy bookworm disciple.

The misdirection of course would (hopefully) lead the reader to believe it was the sketchy disciple as you see him fight and almost kill the 'hero' disciple but take an injury in turn. The next scene would be the hero disciple running in injured with the almost dead bookworm disciple claiming it was sketchy disciple.

The are both healed by the great wizard but it cost a lot of his mana, particularly for the practically dead bookworm disciple who lays passed out. Right as he finishes the hero disciple does a surprise attack attempting to take the old wizard's life but it is dodged at the last second.

However, the book worm disciple who he thought was passed out attacks him from behind as well and takes off his arm. Then the big reveal being that he was the mastermind of this set up all along (dun dun dun!) If you can't tell, this would have been my favorite part of the story to write.

It's revealed that basically all the great wizard's disciples were class A (except for hero and sketchy disciple who were class S); bookworm disciple was already entering class SS (the great wizard is at the top of class SSS btw during his peak btw) This would have been were the power levels were going in the end.

Sketchy disciple comes back and sacrifices himself to proform a technique the old wizard developed. It was suppose to seal a wizard away but the evil disciple is able to counter it to a degree and instead it is spread out to seal about 1/3rd of the continent.

During the 20+ years since, they were sealed, him and his cohort took over the 1/3rd of the continent behind the veil and installed a system giving them absolute control and sharing magical secrets to make their wizards stronger than those on the outside (of course they keep the best for themselves and their direct disciples).

The veil comes down and the war begins. The demons invade one side and these new wizards attack the other. Clearly they are too strong for the ruling houses or government and soon take over the whole continent.

The great wizard and all his disciples and the students are forced into hiding. (Peter Leaf is with them too, who gets pretty powerful in his own right). During the time Lee finally noticed Alura and she clearly makes her feelings known right before Mary was about to. Lee returns them and yes, eventually they do get busy Wink [https://forum.royalroadl.com/images/smilies/wink.png]

After the war is over, they betray the demons and overpower them easily.

The Star, Cloud and Sun houses are destroyed. The evil wizards heads the once thought lost Moon house (but only using the name for political reasons as it is one of the former big 4 houses).

Eventually the old wizard needs to give his life after they are found to let the others get away. He is killed by the evil wizard along with his disciple and right hand man (hero disciple) Sad [https://forum.royalroadl.com/images/smilies/sad.png]

After this we see Lee take more of a leadership role in the group.

They fight back with gorilla tactics and using the underground resistance that has sprung up. (at this point River is low SS class, along with the 4 other of the old wizards disciples who while talented where never up to the same level as the other 3. Lee's friends are all high S class and Peter is low SS class just below Lee and the 4 original disciples)

They survive a few close calls but make some headway. In the end they figure out that while the other side has a lot more A class wizards than their own did (about 300 vs 80) The S class are only about 50 individuals.

Now that the demons have been pushed back they realize they can perhaps swing things back into their favor targetting the elites in the evil wizard's army. That is just what they decide to do and they make good headway.

They know that once it's figured out what they are doing this will be much harder so they split into teams and try to time their attacks to get as many as possible before they evil wizard gets word and changes tactics to match. They split into 4 teams with Lee, Alura and Peter forming 1 of them.

They start their spree of counter attacks and in the span of a few days get ride of over half the enemy S class wizards.

The evil wizard acts faster than they think and sets up ambushes for them.  He was able to predict the move just as it's about to happen and speeds up the response time more than they predicted.

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Lee is able to kill another targeted S class wizards but is soon surrounded by a number of A class and the direct disciple of the evil wizard. The numbers and skill of the disciple makes it difficult to fight their way out. Lee takes him on directly but he's stronger than Lee.

Before Peter and Alura can deal with all the other A ranks, Lee is put on his back, wounded and lacking mana. Alura takes a fatal hit to save Lee and knocks the disciple away temporarily. Peter is low on mana as well and he knows him and Lee can't win. He heals Lee to stop him from bleeding to death and runs away after being forced to knock Lee out. Sad [https://forum.royalroadl.com/images/smilies/sad.png]

Once they all regroup the news is all the other parties were ambushed as well. 2 of the other great wizard's disciples died so Derrick and Victoria could escape (they become a couple btw).

Overall they managed to kill nearly all the S class wizards not directly working under the antongist but that still leaves about 10 left which includes the main protagnist, his disciple and right hand man. The ones working directly under him are all at least in the SS tier.

In the end they realize their current strength is not enough to deal with what they have yet to face, not to mention Lee is not in the right frame of mind blaming himself for Alura's death.

It is talked of between Peter and the 2 older disciples that in the end they have no other options than to try to train up Lee, Victoria, Mary, Derrick, David and Amanda to see if any of them are able to reach SSS tier.

Peter decides to supervise the training of them and the other 2 disciples plan to go all over the continent to try to weed out any A ranks they can find. This is made a bit easier for them to do by themselves now as the power dynamic has changed a bit. Without S enemy class supervising every major city it's possible to move more freely and the resistance is more bold. During this time David and Amanda finally get together.

The evil wizard has a tentative rule of the area. If they get too many bad reports for a town he has decided the best thing is to have his top wizards move out in force and destroy the entire town to make an example.

Eventually he discovers Lee's hometown and decides to try to pull the group out from their hiding place by sending his men off to destory it. He announces the intention to do so before hand and usings his forces to keep anyone in the area from leaving.

Lee and his friends have been training for about a year between all this and go out to try to save his home town even though they know it's a trap.

It's worth noting that several of the enemy SS class wizards have been flushed out by this time and some others in the group have developed thier own personal reasons to fight those people in particular.

Some of them killed their teachers (the disciples of the great wizard) as well as 2 of the other wizards who took the task of destorying the Cloud and Sun houses respectively. So as not to have other politically opposing powers.

David, Amanda, Mary, Victoria and Derrick would all get their moments to shine in their own battles.

The evil wizard and his right hand man along with a few others are delayed by arriving due to the 2 remaining original disciples of the old wizard. They use a the same forbidden spell they learned after studing this past year that was originally used to create the veil. It is only strong enough to keep them in place but also makes it impossible to attack them.

It drains there life force but they hold it none the less.

While this goes on we see the other group getting ready to destroy the town when Lee and his group arrive. He faces off vs the disciple of the the evil wizard who killed Alura while the others fight their own battles.

Lee loses in terms of magic power but only barely. Both are now in the low SSS tier. Just as the finishing blow is about to land when both are tired. Lee has no Mana left and is more injured with the evil disciple having just a little mana left but enough for a few more spells.

Lee at the last moment remembers Alura and then remembers a cheap trick Alura used the last time she was able to beat him in a sparring match. He realizes his back is against a bent branch and lets it go. It whips the disciple in the head and causes his spell to miss. Lee takes out a knife from his boot and stabs him in the heart killing him.

The others are still alive but the fighting has clearly come to a halt. A few others got their vengence but not all of them. During all this time the town people have run away including Lee and Alura's families.

The evil wizard seeing his disciple killed goes berserk and starts to try to break through the veil with more ferver. He wasn't fully giving it his all as he never believed these rift raft could possible beat this group led by his disciple.

In the end one of the wizards stays behind to keep the veil up a bit longer and the other uses magic to travel on the wind to get the others away before the veil breaks knowing as exhausted as they are now they have no chance to win.

In the end they escape and another disciple of the old man dies giving her life to let them get away.

In a rage after seeing his disciple killed the evil wizard announces Lee and his group have 3 days to give themselves up or he will destroy every town in the continent until they are surrender or are handed over.

After recoving the final disciple tell Lee of a way in which he can grow a bit stronger in a short amount of time. Lee being the strongest currently in the party and only having time to do this technique once he agrees to do it.

The drawback is after the technique is used it only works for a short while and the cost may be his own life or his ability to do magic ever again. He agrees to take the risk and the old man's disciple sits across from him as Lee meditates. He forcefully rearranges Lee's Mana center not unlike what was done to Peter but in this case instead of fixing the issue he is causing a build up with the potential to explode but emite a lot of power.

It is rather painful obviously.

After 3 days they are done and Lee can feel magic ready to blow him apart from within him. He and his group go off to fight but the other disciple must stay behind having used all his mana to do this.

Lee faces off with the evil wizard and releases his power. He feels like his body is about to blow apart but he is able to bring it under control. They begin the battle. Lee is stronger than he was but he still has a disadvantage.

The others fight their own battles but it is clear they are inferior in strength. In the end in turns into a group battle of 6v6 with the right hand of the evil wizard being a strong SSS wizard in his own right tipping the scales.

Derrick directs the fight as much as he can with Amanda/David working as a well oiled tandem (they get together finally by the way). Peter faces off with the wizard who killed his dear student David (Killing his students is his greatest dislike of all).

Mary and Victoria (They are both low SSS at this point and tied for the next strongest are mainly fighting with the 2 wizards who destroyed their houses as well as trying to contain the right hand.

In the end the group wins but it cost them. Peter loses a foot to save Derrick and Amanda gets his back burnt to save David which will leave her entire back scarred. In the end healing is done but they are completely out of mana.

Lee fights well vs the evil wizard but he feels his mana center starting the clog and break down. Seeing the rest of the group unable to fight anymore he knows his lose means all their deaths.

He fights on in a losing battle until his head is chopped off. The End.

(Just kidding obviously)

With no other option he goes for a suicide attack. He knows he will die but so will the evil wizard. The evil wizard seeing it wizard counter to kill Lee and avoid the attack. Lee adjust and changes the angle still intent on a suicide attack.

The evil wizard tries evade and counter only to see Lee adjust again. A suicide attack against him with a lesser wizard would not have worked but he realizes Lee's as he is now could kill him.

Being too prideful to flee but to afraid to truly risk his life in a situation he didn't have the advantage in (something he realizes now he has never done as he was always the most talented and brillant) he can't fully commit to the counter in which he could also be killed or dodging completely and running away.

Stuck between those 2 options Lee is able to land his blow and the wizard counter fails to instantly kill Lee.

Even though Lee comes off a bit worse in the exchange Lee doesn't hesitate and leaves himself wide open aiming to take his life in the next attack at the cost of his own. If the evil wizard attacked at the same time he probably would have killed him first but in fear he pulls away and to have the attack hit him without landing another on Lee.

As the wizard dies Lee attempts to heal himself but his magic shuts down before he is even half way done and still bleeding out. He is healed but with a scar on where the attack landed as it had to heal naturally as no one had any mana left.

Peter is now the headmaster of the school.

Victoria and Derrick end up together and rebuilding the Sun house. Victoria is no longer standoffish and Derrick has found a place to put his stratedgic mind to use as the Sun house once again is the most powerful force in the continent soon after. They no longer have a policy of trying to control the other houses but work with them.

Amanda and David retired to a small village and David finds the simple life treats him very well and doesn't miss being a noble in the slightest. Amanda is still a bit shy but not nearly as much as she was.

Lee's magic center was completely destroyed but with the help of the last disciple of the old man it was able to be rebuilt (The disciple stayed on as a councillor in the house of Cloud). Lee has to start entirely over again and being so late in his life he will never reach the heights he did before he is happy as a mere B rank. He was able to fulfill his master's wish and give his family the life he always wanted them to have. He saw to it Alura's family and siblings were taken care of mostly due to the influence of Mary and the Cloud house.

With the Cloud house being rebuilt many pressured Mary to wed someone with a stronger magic center as they believed it could effect the potential of any heirs. Mary informed them she appreciated their opinion but they could piss off. As head of the Cloud house she could do as she wanted. She finally managed to confess her feeling to Lee but not until nearly the end of their journal (Alura's death complicated that). He doesn't return her feelings at first as he is unsure about how he feels.

Eventually when he sees how far she is willing to go for him he agrees to go out with her and ends up asking her to marry him no longer fearing it means he is somehow betraying Alura.

The Cloud and Sun house go on to lead the continent to a lasting peace. The End.

So there was my summed up outline. I hope that answers any questions you have and for fans of the story I'm sorry I couldn't finish it for you. Thanks for reading though!