"This amount of mana... There's no doubt about it. This is... Ryner's spirit form being released!" Jurgen stared in awe, holding tears in the corner of his eyes.

The red magic surrounding Ryner spread wide and descended to the skies, dying the clouds with red smoke.

Jurgen was left staring at his disciple surrounded by a menacing aura that he could hardly recognize. "Tsk, I told him not to, but did it anyways."

"Haaaaaaaaah!" Ryner screamed inside the mana surrounding him.

Then, in an instant, all the red aura in the atmosphere vanished and was sucked back by his body.

Ryner's eyes glowed red. And as he clenched his muscles and fist, red marking appeared all over his body, especially on both of his arms and on his face.

A halo of mana also appeared above his head and was quickly reshaped into a form that resembles a red crown levitating over his head.

The excalibur he was holding also changed its form. Appearing as a sword with thinner red blade that has red markings engraved on its surface, glowing menacingly.

Jurgen, the master of that man in front of him could clearly see the form that was chilling to behold. He regretfully clenched his fist and gritted his teeth. He couldn't stop him after all.

After the overwhelming aura had vanished, the atmosphere around them had lightened considerably and Ryner became even more frightening to look at as his eyes were glowing blood red, full of bloodlust.

Johan who's been distracting the monster has also stepped back to watch the battle, fearfully staring at Ryner in awe.

"This is... that man's power? His spirit's released form?" Johan silently whispered in the air. Even though how much he stared at him, he still couldn't believe that someone who's not in the royal military could carelessly release a very strong spirit form.

He looked from every angle and the man he's staring at was completely a different person from the one he's been with a couple of seconds ago. Ryner was almost unrecognized by his eyes.

On the other hand, the dragon has sensed the danger within Ryner and quickly headed his way with a fierce look. Its sharp mouth opened and spit a mouthful of flames, firing a fireball directly toward Ryner.

BOOM!

The ball of flame landed and hit Ryner. But didn't caused him any harm or whatsoever. He just rubbed the spot where it landed and did not took his eyes off the flying lizard.

The dragon showed a grin and accepted it as a challenge. Flying around Ryner, the dragon continuously spitted flames, fireball by fireball, blasting it towards his direction.

Seeing the fireballs coming at him, Ryner was quite pissed. The monster has been taking him too lightly and he did not like it.

"Do you think this cheap flames could harm me?" He shouted fiercely, pulling the monster's attention. "I'll kill you."

The scarlet dragon's eyes grew wider as Ryner instantly disappeared from its sight before the fireballs could even hit him.

The clever monster was dumbfounded and quickly took a sharp turn, just to see Ryner already behind its back, sword's up in the air and ready to swing.

The dragon's frustration grew even further as it turned its head with open mouth to try and eat the man alive.

But the dragon was a second late. Ryner already swung the excalibur, taking out one of the dragon's sharpest fang and instantly got away with his untraceable speed.

After loosing a tooth, the monster grew even furious as it threw a tantrum, breathing turrets of flames while throwing its head side by side, aimlessly trying to hit Ryner.

"You're a cry baby huh?" Ryner appeared above its head with a smirk, holding his excalibur up in the air.

The monster couldn't even react. And before its eyes could even look at the man, Ryner has already took another swing and landed a successful hit.

But to his surprise, the sound of the impact does not sounded like a blade piercing to a meat. Until he looked at the spot where he landed a hit, just to see his blade remained at the surface and did not sliced through the dragon's scale.

"Damn. Your skin is harder than your teeth?" Ryner sneered as he saw the dragon violently shaking its head and biting through the air, trying to catch him.

On the meantime, Jurgen felt a growing frustration inside his chest while his eyes are left staring at Ryner who's fighting equally against the dragon.

He landed at to side of the crater to rest his tired feet while also trying not to waste more mana by levitating.

"That form... that speed and power. It's the exactly as I could remember." The old man closed his eyes regretfully as memories flashed in front of his closed eyes.

It was a memory from 10 years ago. When Ryner was still training and traveling with him.

At that time, Ryner was in the midst of sparring with Jurgen, when the same red aura enveloped his body and accidentally released his spirit form.

The old man was completely overwhelmed by its power, to the point where his disciple's sword was able to struck through his chest.

Jurgen was aware of his disciples growing talent and his dream to once enter the royal military as a full fledged wizard. But he also knew the fact that his growing potential was capable of putting a huge strain on his body.

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He was stuck in the middle of wanting the child to get stronger to achieve his towering dream and also not wanting him to progress more in order to not end those dreams.

In the end, Jurgen forbidden Ryner from releasing it in battle. Even after all those years, he managed to survive without it. And Jurgen thought that he was close to saving the poor child's dream.

But now, once again, in front of his eyes, his disciple disobeyed him and released that terrifying form. His eyes watered as the scar it left on his chest began to ache once again.

'I'm sorry Grey.' Jurgen's eyes watered even further the more he stared at his disciple fighting. 'I couldn't stop him after all. I couldn't stop the monster that left a scar on my chest from appearing once again.' He pitifully looked at himself and frowned after looking upon the inevitable future his disciple would surely take.

"Seems like he's fighting really well against that magical beast." Johan landed swiftly a few feet near Jurgen. It seemed like he also did not want to interfere with the ongoing battle between the man and the dragon.

"Of course he is." Jurgen replied with blank expression as he stared at his own spirit mark slowly losing its color, indicating that he's finally reaching his limit after drinking so many potion just to prolong its activation.

Meanwhile, Ryner was still busy calculating and finding a way how to penetrate the monsters thick skin.

So far, he already tried targeting its mouth but failed after almost having his body burned alive even before he managed to slash through.

And it seemed like pinpointing its eyes wouldn't work either after knowing that its burning eyes are also as hard as its skin and could scorch even his metal sword.

"Guess I have no choice." Ryner desperately hovered upwards at full speed while staring down at the monster chasing him with open mouth.

He had already a plan in mind. And after reaching a specific altitude, he immediately stopped hovering up.

Looking at the monster below him, he quickly went and dove straight down, meeting its glance while preparing to take a swing.

It was a test of courage and the one who manage to land a strike first wins.

The furious dragon opened its mouth, accepting the man's challenge. Before Ryner could get closer to it, towering flames went straight up to the sky from the dragon's mouth.

At that moment, the beast roared with joy, it probably thought that Ryner was caught of guard and died by its flames. But its eyes widened when Ryner was seen hovering right above its back with a smile on his face.

Ryner raised his sword while running on its back. "Spirit art: Red fang!" His sword glowed red and his eyes became fiercer as he jumped and held the excalibur with both hands.

In one slash, two of the dragon's hard scales was sliced in half in an instant by the red energy that flew out of his sword's tip.

"I'm not done yet." Ryner swiftly moved right in front of the dragon's face and inhaled deeply. "Spirit art: Lunar blade!" He screamed a chant.

The marks on the surface of his sword's blade lit up menacingly as he swung the sword.

SWISH!

It carried a sharp sound on its way before it completely came in contact with the dragon's lower jaw. But all of a sudden, the beast threw its head backwards and flapped its wings, sending a strong wave of wind at him.

His sword left a small fissure on the surface of the dragon's lower jaw, barley cutting some of its skin.

'This is bad.' Ryner thought. 'It's reacting with my speed all of sudden.'

It wasn't quite surprising for Ryner, since based on legends, dragons were known to be S+-rank monsters capable of gaining intelligence because of their high adaptability. In short, their intellect grow as time goes on.

It was a bothersome ability when it comes to long combat and Ryner knew that he couldn't just sit there waiting for the monster to get even better than it is.

"I have to use my full arsenal." Ryner whispered. "A little more..." He held his arms as he glanced at the marks all over his body glowing even redder as seconds passed by. "I still need more time..."

***

"What?!" Johan exclaimed with obviously shocked expression.

He and Jurgen have been talking for awhile about Ryner's ability and he was shock to find out something about it.

"That's right. Ryner's mana spirit have the ability to endlessly increase the piercing power of his sword as seconds passes." Jurgen repeated his explanation, looking at the man with a serious face.

"That was such an overpowered ability." Johan was amused and surprised at the same time.

"However... that power has a really heavy downside." Jurgen got a bit emotional while telling Johan. "He couldn't use his elemental attribute in that form. And because of his ability to endlessly increase the power of his sword, that also means that he would be endlessly drawing mana from the spirit domain."

"Then that means..." Johan paused for a second to look at the old man with anxious face. "... his body will get exposed to high magic frequency and it will get even higher every second. Wait does that mean—"

BOOM!

An explosion of mass flames occured just right behind Jurgen, located near the edge of the volcano's vent.

"What the fuck?!" They shouted in unison.

Jurgen turned his head and saw Ryner slowly standing up while rubbing his butt. He concluded that Ryner was probably hit by the dragon's breath and harshly fell to the surface. The old man could still see the spherical dent left by the strong impact on the ground and the few burnt areas on his clothings.

"This is just pissing me off." Ryner muttered angrily, glaring at the monster with furious eyes.

On the other hand, the culprit behind the rough landing was just flying around while showing its teeth to him, as if smiling. And then, spitting another fireball, blasting it just a couple of feet away from Ryner to provoke him.

"That's it, I'm gonna go for a kill!" Ryner's face twitched with anger. All of sudden, he was surrounded by a dense aura of red mana.

All of sudden, Jurgen stepped in front of him, facing the monster. "Mana art: Piercing beam!" he chanted.

Even when his body was hurting like hell, he shot a thin blue mana beam from his fingertip towards the dragons just to give enough time for Johan to strike.

In a mere second, there comes Johan, flying directly towards the beast, his sword in thrusting position. "Fuck it." He channeled a great amount of mana into his sword.

BOOOOM!

A large explosion like a giga bomb caused the monster to lose its balance and be blasted several meters downwards.

"What are you doing?!" Ryner raged. "Don't get in my way."

"Idiot. That dragon was obviously downplaying it. Don't fall for it." Jurgen screamed to his ears. "Those flames that comes out of its mouth. It wasn't focused as it should be. Its obviously saving up mana for something."

"We could stop that 'something' by simply killing it." Ryner insisted, also screaming.

"Well not in that state, you stubborn brat." Jurgen harshly yelled at the man.

"You know what? You're stubborn too. We're all kind of stubborn." Ryner argued, yelling.

"Well, I'm not stubborn." Johan interrupted, shouting from his position.

"Shut up!" Ryner yelled back, pointing a sword at Johan as he stopped and panted after all the talking.

When Ryner glanced back at Johan, he saw the flying beast, already flying behind him, with mouthful of flames in its large mouth.

"Behind you!" Ryner warned before jumping from the surface.

Johan was a little too late to react. The dragon has already exhaled a huge amount of flames and engulfed him in an instance.

This time, the flames that came from its mouth was oddly colored red and was extremely hotter. Its eye pupils became a narrow slits that resembles a wild beast.

Johan was spared. But his body suffered too many burns on his arms and chest. His eyes watered from the pain as he moved out of the way.

Ryner quickly got in front of Jurgen and caught all the flames that came at him with his own body.

"Hey, old man." Ryner uttered, looking at Jurgen through the corner of his eyes without turning his head.

Jurgen stared in awe to see his disciple defending him from the flames.

"I've been thinking about it lately." Ryner said as the red flames coming at him never stopped and he continuously took everything. "I trained hard to achieve my dream to be part of the royal military. But still... I ended up in this village and in a small guild. So I've been thinking..."

Ryner turned around and faced Jurgen with a smile. "... if this place is really the place where I should be... then I'll gladly die here."

"Spirit art: Final blood moon!"