The fog blocked Thea's view of her surroundings. It was thick enough to even block the huge figure of Karvaan.

Thea prepared to command wind to clear up the space around her. But a shadow from above her headed towards her location. Thea abandoned the thought and dodged to her left.

A successful dodge. But this dodge was too close for comfort. And it was not over yet.

As Thea dodged and the fist was heading down. A chain like sound could be heard. But the sound felt a bit off, it was not the sound of metal bumping into metal. It was more like stones dragging on other stones.

A hook appeared from the fog, heading towards Thea. The hook was transparent and red. It looked to be made of mana. It was some kind of magic spell.

The hook struck Thea's right arm and bounced off. Thea's simple magic barrier had blocked the magic attack.

The strength of the barrier faded a bit. A magic barrier can absorb a certain amount of damage before it needed to be recast.

Magic barrier is a three star magic spell. It's one of the more difficult spells to cast as it requires a lot of knowledge. It has to be able to block physical attacks, elemental attacks, and mental attacks.

Recasting it takes a few minutes at least for a seasoned mage. All types of magic depend on the knowledge or familiarity that a person has with the type of magic it is.

For example, a fire mage would be able to cast the spell flame burst significantly faster than a water mage. It is just how magic works.

Though Thea could use mana directly to form a barrier, that requires a significant amount of mana usage. And it is not efficient. By magnitudes of hundreds. As logic helps to guide mana and perform significantly better results.

The hook thrown by the female demon was bounced off and the attack from Karvaan landed on empty space once again.

Thea took the chance to chance to cast a simple fireball spell and threw it at the hand of Karvaan before he took his hand back up.

The attack hit and there was a scorch mark. The area where the attack hit was turned a little dark.

'Tssk. He has thick skin also?'

Karvaan was like a huge gorilla. He had a huge body, strong defense and strong power. Thankfully, he didn't have the speed that real gorillas had.

Well, it was like that at first.

'He's getting faster.'

Every time he attacked, the attack was faster. As if he was just warming up his body. Soon, it'll be impossible for Thea to dodge. It was time to go on the offensive.

Thea is a mage. But when you think of a mage, what do you imagine? Normally, you would imagine someone wearing a robe and holding a wand or staff. Looking quite intelligent and wise.

Thea did not fit the image of a mage. She wore things like pants, trousers and long skirts. Never has she worn anything like a robe. All her clothes were loose and easy to move in.

She didn't even own a wand or a staff, the significant tool of a mage. A mage was seen as a long range position in a battle, like an archer but they used magic instead. Wands and staves help to focus mana when casting spells, increasing the speed and accuracy of the user.

Most mages benefit from these tools, but not Thea as wands and staves explode when held in her hands. There was the chance that the top tier tools could be used by her but the problem with those was Thea's lack of money. The only thing that Thea had created that could make her money was the water making tool that fetched thirty thousand on it's first selling. But it's value quickly fell as people realized the output was too low to be useful.

It was only useable because Thea's mana supplying it. Thus, it was able to create water for a lot more people. But it was worthless for others.

In the end. she had to use magic without tools, and only rely on her mind and hands. But that made her excel at close ranged combat. She wasn't as good as people that solely focus on training their ability to fight hand to hand.

But she could hold her own against foes.

A moment after Thea decided to switch to being on the offensive, a red shine appeared on Thea's skin. Like a viscous layer of jelly about two centimeter thick.

This was a type of body strengthening magic. Specifically, it was only the type of magic that increased power. It was the most basic form of magic that fighters applied.

The logic behind it was simple in that it created fake muscles made of mana and increased the power output of the caster's muscles. The more someone trains their body, the better the effect of this spell. Of course, this was the lowest of the lowest body strengthening spell that even kids could learn.

It's weakness was it's simplicity. It just was not efficient and it's output was not good enough. Any kid who learned it would move on to learn better spells within days.

But it was good enough for Thea until now as her mana would fill in the holes of the spell, making it a useable spell.

Karvaan lifted his fist back up and prepared to attack another time. The sound of chains rattling once again rang out as a semi-transparent hook flew out from the fog.

This time however, Thea sent a punch towards the hook. The red jelly like layer of mana and the hook clashed. The hook bounced off and fell to the floor. Thea wasn't fast enough to catch the hook in mid-air.

As the hook fell to the floor, Karvaan launched another punch down. But this time, he was met with a counter attack. Thea punched directly towards the incoming fist. The forces cancelled out each other. The fake muscles absorbed most of the counter force and Thea was fine.

The back and forth continued. But Thea was at a disadvantage. The magic she had cast was very taxing on the caster's body. She only had a few minutes until her muscle fatigue would be too much and the magic would turn off.

And her mana barrier was on the verge of shattering. She couldn't block anymore attacks from the two.

She needed Janna to arrive fast. But for some reason, she was taking longer than Thea had expected.

'Could something have happened?'

A thought occurred in in Thea's mind. She was too caught up in the possibility of Janna and the kids encountering a dangerous situation that she failed to block the hook heading towards her.

Her magic barrier broke.

The hook was finally able to land on her body. It stuck to her back and pulled her. The female demon laughed as she pull in the chain. Thea was now directly in Karvaan's attack. Up until now, she had been deflecting the attack to the side while punching back. But now she was right in the center of the fist and there was no time for her to block.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

The attack hit Thea and she took the full force of the attack. There was a loud bang as the fist struck down. It immediately came to a halt.

The ground was destroyed and clouds of dust flew up.

"Is she dead?"

The demon with the triangular face reappeared and asked the brute demon.

"No, Karch. It felt like I hit a rock."

Karvaan waved his arm and the wind moved along with the motion. He cleared the dust away and revealed what had happened.

Moments before the attack struck, Thea moved the ground and formed a wall of rocks to block the impact. It had worked but there were serious repercussions to her actions.

Thea stood there with her arm bleeding. It was red and a bit bloated. What had happened was Thea is not supposed to be able to move the ground like that.

First, she didn't have any earth elemental mana. Her mana was primarily fire and water as second. A three star mage is not able to use mana of a different type because there are restrictions in place.

Of course there are ways to pass this restriction. One is to become a higher rank mage where the vessel of mana goes through an awakening. The second is to pay a big price.

The price can be two things. The body or mana. Normally, Thea uses her mana to pay the price. For example, when she uses wind to fly around. But that method is very slow and thus only useable in some cases. Like when she lifting herself and flying around takes a dozen seconds.

The other method is fast but not practical. The mana rushes out in a fraction of a second and does what the mage wants. But that destroys the body in the process. The damage can be limited by the pushing mana from the arms or legs, so that the heart or vital organs are not damaged.

Thea stood there with her bloody left arm. She had pushed her mana to the left arm, thus only limiting the damage to that area. But now she couldn't use her left arm.

'Shit. Four star demons are such a pain.'

Thea was really struggling to fight two four star demons by herself. Her life was in danger.

"Still alive, huh?"

Karch, the triangle faced demon, sneered at Thea.

"...don't worry..."

Thea slowly voiced out.

"What?"

"You won't be seeing me for long."

As Thea said that, she raised her functional right arm and launched herself towards Karch.

"HAHA! What do you think you are doing?"

Karch laughed at the attempt of Thea. She jumped back to dodge Thea's fist.

"What?!"

The ground moved and locked her lower body down. She couldn't jump back. Just now, when Thea used earth magic to make a wall. She also cast a spell of earth binding. She had hoped that Karch would reappear.

With Karch locked down for the moment, it was the opportunity Thea needed. She put all the magic she could to her right fist. The red muscles from the body strengthening magic all gathered at her fist. And her fire mana also gathered at her fist.

The fist lit up from the fire mana. It was a powerful fire fist attack. Karch couldn't dodge and was hit directly to her chest.

"Karch!"

The brute, Karvaan, shouted.

He threw a punch towards Thea. But his attention wasn't at Thea so he was slow and Thea was able to jump away.

"Karch! Are you okay?"

"K...k..."

Half of Karch's chest had been blown up by Thea's full power punch. But she was still grinning and laughing even though her laugh was barely audible.

Thea was able to take care of at least one demon by herself. But now her hand was injured. It was scorched from the fire. It wasn't serious as the body strengthening magic had absorbed most of the heat. But it still was affected and would be hard to move it until it was healed.

Something unexpected happened as Thea was catching her breath.

Karvaan moved his arm and held Karch in his hand. He then picked her up.

'What is he doing?'

Thea was flabbergasted as she watched Karvaan open his mouth and swallow Karch whole.

A gulp sound reverberated.

Karvaan's body changed color. Karvaan's blue color combined with Karch's red color and his skin turned purple. He grew smaller and became almost human like. Before, he had a weird curve in his back, but now he stood straight and tall.

"Thea!"

From faraway, Janna finally arrived. Karvaan didn't react.

"What happened?"

She asked Thea.

"I think he absorbed the other demon's energy."

"Sorry for being late. There was a third demon."

Janna looked at Thea's injuries and felt apologetic.

"Are the kids okay?"

"Yes, no harm was done to them."

"Good. Are you ready for the fight?"

"Are you kidding? I'm always ready."

A burst of fog spewed out from Karvaan's body. He opened his eyes to look at Thea and Janna.

"Another human? You think just two of you can stop me?"

His voice had changed. It felt more feminine than before. But also more human.

"Well, it doesn't matter. You're both dying here today."

Karvaan's new body had a few features. First, it was much smaller than before. Second, there was a red aura around him. And lastly, his hands had turned into the hooks that Karch was throwing at Thea earlier.

He crouched a bit and jumped at Thea. His speed was much faster than before. He expected to kill Thea in one hit. Even though he was a demon, he also felt sadness for losing Karch in battle.

However, as his hook was heading for Thea's head, it was deflected. Janna had swung her sword at the same time and the direction of the attack was changed.

"Don't forget me."

Janna said to Karvaan.

"Hmph, so you blocked once. But how many times can you block? I'm only starting."

Karvaan attacked once again. And was blocked by Janna once more.

While the only thing Thea had was her mana, Janna excelled at multiple things. Her speed, attack, and defensive capabilities were all the best. But she lacked mana.

The human body can only reach a certain level, Janna already reached that level at a very young age and couldn't go beyond. All fighters afterwards learn to incorporate mana into their bodies to become even stronger. This type of technique was entirely different from mages' magic and was separately called aura.

But Janna was born without mana. Rather, her mana had no elemental affinity. It was a weird situation that no one doctor or mage could solve. She couldn't use it to train Aura because there are no techniques in the world based on elemental-less mana.

That was until she met Janna and they used a different technique. She was able to train her aura even though she had no mana. And at the age of sixteen, she was already a three star swordswoman.

"You can attack us all you want, but can you block my attack?"

Janna had only been defending until now. She swung her sword at Karvaan. It was fast and aiming for his torso.

"Hmph, you think your sword can hurt me?"

Janna's sword struck his torso and the sound of hitting a board rang out. But there was only a small sword mark.

"Your sword won't cut my skin!"

"What is that?"

Janna was taken aback. Her sword had never failed to strike down her foe before. This was a first.

"Janna, he already had strong skin before but now it's even stronger."

"Does he have any weakness?"

"Haha, come up with a plan all you want. You'll fail in the end."

With his growth in power, Karvaan also became arrogant.

"Let's stop holding back, Thea."

"Alright."

"What are you two doing?"

Karvaan was standing to the side, watching. He didn't think Thea and Janna were any trouble to him so he let them be.

"Hehe, struggle all you want. After you're dead, the vessel will be ours once again."

"The vessel?"

Thea's ears perked up at the words of Karvaan.

"No use telling someone who I'm going to kill."

Although Karvaan wanted to act like he was lazy to share, but the truth was that he didn't know the details himself. He was only sent to complete the ritual.

"Whatever, thanks for giving us a clue. Now die."

At Thea's words, Janna ran towards Karvaan. But this time, it was different.

There was a red glow around Janna. The same glow as what Thea had before. The body strengthening magic. But it was much more compact and it was a different type of technique. This was the real body strengthening technique used by fighters. It's effect was directly on the muscles and the body unlike creating the fake muscles like Thea.

But Janna shouldn't be able to use mana since she was born without the ability to do so. However, the special magic spell that Thea and Janna had come up with was that when Janna was close by to Thea, she can use Thea's mana as her own.

Janna's sword was also covered in the red glow. She attacked Karvaan again.

"Hmph, tricks!"

Karvaan used his hook hands to take on the sword strike. There was a sound of metal hitting and a spark in the air.

"You're stronger now. But it's not enough!"

Karvaan pushed away Janna's sword with a burst of strength.

"Did you forget me?"

Thea took the chance and was already within an arms distance to Karvaan.

It wasn't only Janna that received benefits from the special spell, Thea could similarly use Janna's physical attributes. Her speed was significantly raised.

Her fist held a ball of red hot fire and she pushed it into Karvaan's face. Earlier, Karvaan's skin was damaged by Thea's haphazard fireball. This fireball was a much stronger one than that.

There was a explosion as Karvaan's head was engulfed in flames rising two meter high. Thea tried to control her mana input as much as she could, but the result was a huge out of control fire.

Karvaan screamed in pain.

"When will you be able to control your power, Thea?"

"Who knows? Maybe it's tomorrow."

"You wish."

"Haha. At least you have some control."

The magic spell also shared the ability to control mana from Janna. But since Janna wasn't born with mana that she could use, she wasn't good at it either.

"You should train more."

"I already train the sword. And I already reached the limit of what little mana control I could train."

"Ha...why is life so difficult..."

Thea complained about the difficulty of their lives.

"We were just born unlucky."

Janna said as she nodded her head in agreement to Thea.

"Hehe."

But suddenly, Karvaan's laugh sounded out again.