As Kairos went to look at the new shops he was given, a messenger went to Edgar’s place looking for him.

Unable to find him, a note was left behind instead.

Later that day when Kairos returned, his senior, Von Von, was waiting for him holding the message.

When others saw the elf waiting by the door, they felt as though their world is crushing down. Of all people, they had never seen her being nice to anyone before.

Kairos was also surprised, but for another reason. From his knowledge, the elf is the most senior of all Edgar’s students. Such a task should normally be passed to someone else.

Kairos stepped forward and thank Von Von, taking the letter from her. The moment he read the note, his face turned dark.

The elf looked at him carefully and waited. After a while, consumed by curiosity, she finally asked, “What did it say?”

Kairos, sensing no ill intentions from Von Von honestly replied, “I had won a bet against the human, elf, and gnome races. But now it looks like they intent to swindle me.”

The elf pursed her lips, creating such a seductive look that even Kairos looked twice, before saying, “Was it bound by a magic contract?”

Kairos nodded.

“Then, they played with the words. What was the catch?”

After a moment Kairos answered honestly, “I was allowed to study the elves’ magic, the gnomes’ herbalist, and humans’ aura books for ten days each totalling thirty days, but now they dumped all the books at the warehouse for my collection. It’s inevitable that I will have less than the full thirty days.”

On the magic contract, it is clearly stated that once Kairos received any of the materials he asked for, the ten days duration for him to study it will begin.

By dumping all the books and scrolls in a single warehouse, not only will he be forced to waste time collecting them, it will be unavoidable for him to come into contact with an elf’s spellbook, a human’s Aura Art scroll, and the gnomes’ herbalist manuscripts. At that time, the timer for all three research will start and overlap.

Of course, he can extend this by picking out the records from only one race before moving on to the next, but even without looking at the warehouse, Kairos already deduced that will be hardly possible.

It’s undoubtedly that the records will be stacked in a way that Kairos will be unable to progress without digging for the next volume underneath.

The elf had a look of concern on her face when she heard what Kairos said. She had approached Kairos to make friends, so when he encountered such a problem Von Von truly wanted to help, but the problem was more than she can help with.

In the first place, who with a sane mind will agree to a bet that wins a useless prize?

Aura Arts, Herbalism, and Spells, it is impossible to master any of them in ten days no matter how talented one is.

And if Kairos wanted a particular piece of knowledge, then he should’ve specified which book or scroll in the bet instead of asking for everything.

However, a smile appeared on Kairos’ face at this time. It was a genuine smile that made people feel as though the sun is raising.

Of course, Von Von had her curiosity piqued but Kairos quickly hid his smile and then excused himself.

Looking at him leaving towards the warehouse, the elf only felt even more interested at the mysterious young man.

A strange forging technique, unparalleled cooking skills, brews that are out of this world, and a confidence she couldn’t find on anyone else she had seen.

It will be stranger if she wasn’t fascinated by him.

Moments later, Kairos arrived at the designated warehouse where all the records for Aura Arts, Herbalism, and Spells were kept.

There are plenty of guards from the three races standing around the warehouse. Although the manuals are all mixed together, these are still secrets belonging to each race. There are plenty of clauses on the magical contract that Kairos had signed which is placed there to protect these books and scrolls.

In fact, not all the conditions are directed towards Kairos, many are to prevent the other races from perusing the items during the transportation and handover process.

Of course, there are similar terms made to Kairos so that he may not share what he learnt from the books to another person.

The only loophole here will be that he can create his own manuals according to what he learned, but no one expected Kairos to produce anything good given the short duration he was given to study the records. Granted, if the leaders of the three races had known what Kairos is doing to the five ancient scrolls of the dwarves they might not be as confident.

He walked into the warehouse after they checked his identity. Once inside, Kairos stared at the numerous wagon lots in this place. It is obvious they expected him to spend days to remove the books from this location. In fact, the guards had told him several times that the warehouse is rented only for three days. If Kairos cannot remove the items within this time, the guards will burn everything instead of throwing them out to the streets and risk being stolen.

Of course, these books and scrolls are all disposable copies in the first place, because if necessary it is better to destroy knowledge than to risk having them land into the wrong hands.

To keep the records confidential, it means Kairos cannot hire aid to help him transport them and if he touches any book the timer will start.

He walked past the wagon lots and entered the actual storage place and faced the giant pile of books and countless scrolls.

This amount, even without any tricks, it would take more than thirty days for a normal person to flip through everything.

Kairos look at the records piled up from ground to ceiling, filled up from end to end of the hundred metre square room.

Then, with a wave of his hand, a quarter of the records were kept into his Time-space ring.

Kairos sighed, disappointed at the result. The space in his ring had already been freed up before coming to this place. The wealth he had amassed before had been split up with Relestia and Leo. Most of the materials he gathered was given to the princess while the food ingredients were passed to his disciple.

Still, it was hardly enough.

Next he waved his hands again, and a-tenth of what was left disappeared. On his hand, a ring with many adorned gems shook violently, and suddenly all the gems but the large one in the middle shattered. One of the magical storage device he just bought is already damaged.

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“Were there too much items?”

Kairos knitted his eyebrows and took out a small slip of paper which he unfurled.

Yes, this is the instructions slip that he did not read.

Even though Kairos could look through everything within a second, he did not bother to take a look. Isn’t it a universally accepted fact that instruction slips and manuals are not to be read until absolutely necessary?

Looking through it quickly, a look of realisation appeared on Kairos’ face.

The mana gems shattered trying to contain these many items, only the spell-maintaining gem in the middle remained intact.

Still, the ring remained functional by leeching Kairos’ mana circuits.

Now that he found out the issue, he started adjusting the other magical storage devices.

One by one he removed all their mana gems, save the one needed to maintain the spell. The lad intends to sustain the multiple item storage spells with his own strength. Intending to overload all his storage devices, there is no reason to waste the mana crystals.

The magical storage device themselves are pretty easy to control, with just a few simple gestures made with the finger after tapping the gemstones, Kairos tuned them to reach their maximum containment capacity before keeping the rest of the books.

Soon, the entire warehouse was emptied.

Within Kairos, his mana circuits glowed hot blue straining from maintaining over two dozen spells with Circle 8 mana requisite.

Of course, such immense amount of mana usage will overwhelm even Circle 9 mages. Perhaps only Grand Mages could possibly pull this off.

Kairos felt his body burn from within like a million suns ran through his veins.

Cold sweat poured down his face as he struggled to stay conscious through immense pain. This is the first time he commanded this much magical power through his body.

The mage is the medium to make mana into spells, and if the energy channelled is too much for the spellcaster, only destruction awaits.

However, Kairos – as is his nature – was clear about the consequences before he attempted this stunt.

As his mana circuits became overloaded, he quickly channelled them deeper into himself.

A normal mage in this situation will do everything possible to unleash the mana before it explodes.

However, Kairos pressured it deeper into himself.

Wild magic flowed through the air into every pore on his skin, and penetrating into his muscles until reaching his mana circuits.

Then like an overflowing river, the magic was swept away.

The channels that carried these rampant mana can only remain intact if the pressure do not increase beyond their threshold. Whatever Kairos intends to do, he must do it within seconds.

Fortunately, the unnatural amount of mana in his body right now caused the magic to travel far faster than normal.

It quickly became double the usual speed, then four times, eight times, sixteen times and finally thirty two times.

This is only thanks to the large amount of natural mana circuits in his body and the fact that each channel is abnormally robust that he had yet to be leaking liquid magic from every orifice in his body.

Kairos silently thanked the Lifetaker he ate in the past. That poisonous mushroom that helped increased his life force did not only provided more Origin Energy for him to use, but also strengthened his body immensely.

But most of all, the increase of life force is directly linked to how he became a Circle 9 magus.

Mana is found everywhere in nature, it stems from the life energy of every grass, every tree, every animal and person in the land.

Ki is a product of Life Energy used to cultivate one from inside while Mana is a product Life Energy found in nature to be harnessed for its immense prowess.

In comparison, Origin Energy that is activated Life Energy can be considered superior to both Ki and Mana, as it retains all the original’s unique properties.

The main difference between these three types of energy is that Origin Energy can hardly increase in capacity as it is completely dependent on how much vitality one has, Ki can be increased as one’s cultivation increases, while Mana – which is the most abundant – is dependent on the environment.

Of course, there is also a commonly found exception to how mana can be used.

Magical beasts that are born from crystallised mana eggs will retain it within their body, to use it as a storage for the ambient mana they absorbed. These mana cores found in magical beasts are called Crystallised Essences. Back when Kairos and his friends had fought and slain the warlike Orcs, they collected plenty of Crystallised Essences from the creatures.

However, Crystallised Essences is not unique to magical beasts. The mages of Gaia used this idea, copied the concepts of how cultivators refine Ki in their Dantian, and created a similar thing called the Mana Core.

With the Mana Core, a mage can alleviate the burden on their Mana Circuits when casting a spell normally beyond their means.

Compared to Gaia where mana is abundant, Axis Mundi that has less of that means that mages don’t typically require Mana Cores.

But Kairos has.

In the whiteness that is his conscious, a gigantic blue crystal floated in the centre – the Mana Core.

Kairos stood there in spirit observing things like a third party.

Suddenly, the endless boundary of white seemed to tremble, as though something foreign wants to enter into his consciousness.

Kairos waved his hand with no trace of fear in his eyes and this once-sealed domain seemed to allow what was trying to barge in enter freely.

At once, all kinds of colourful rays of light burst through as though they are bore through the whiteness to enter this place.

A strange energy like a mixture of gas and liquid came through the places where the rays had shone and flooded this place. Kairos could tell immediately that this is the mana he absorbed from the surrounding to help him maintain the two dozen item box spells.

Seemingly responding to the presence of this foreign energy, blue strands shot out from the immobile floating crystal. The strands gave off a similar feeling as the foreign energy but was far more solid. Yet, when those threads of energy met with the immaterial vapours, the expected clash did not come.

Instead, the blue strings caressed the colourful cloud, coddling it, coaxing it to follow. A small misty puff followed the wheedling threads and soon touched the floating crystal. It happened so quickly Kairos who was carefully observing did not see anything and the smoky cloud already disappeared.

As though it ate something scrumptious, the crystal vibrated sprightly and a hundred more blue strands shot out from it to grab at the vapours around.

At the same time, more and more colourful foreign mana entered his consciousness but they were all absorbed by his Mana Core.

The blue strands started to thicken visibly, until they became small blue streams that moved powerfully around his conscious.

In the same way that the foreign mana entered his conscious, the blue streams exited and flowed through Kairos’ body along his mana circuits.

His spirit returned as his eyes reopened.

Kairos had managed to withstand the mana overload, somehow. He wiped off the cold sweat from his brows, shuddering at the thought of what will happen if he didn’t.

The Mana Core proved to be invaluable this time by turning the wildly rampaging mana to become controlled.

The gas and liquid mixture had also become solidified into something like moving sand coursing around his mana circuits.

Without comparing his knowledge of spells and the ability to use them, Kairos had already stepped into the realms of a Grand Mage by the amount of mana he can harness.

When he walk away from the warehouse, the guards posted outside looked incredulous at his leaving figure. Shouldn’t Kairos be panicking?

Surely the lad would have figured out that the leaders of those three races were merely playing with him?

After all, no one accounted for Kairos to move the books and scroll so quickly.

A guard ran in to check and moments later everyone heard a scream, “I-it’s all gone!”

Kairos did not return to Edgar’s place nor go to the inn. As per the magical contract states, he must not show any of the material to another person or else the other parties will instantly notice.

In a cave unknown to even the dwarves, a figure sat alone in the dark.

With a wave of his hand, a group of illuminating crystals flew outwards and covered every nook and cranny with light.

Kairos looked around, pleased at the gigantic hole he made in the wall.

Crashing a couples of spell crystals, magic started enveloping this place, shielding it from attacks, hiding it from detection, and most importantly, isolating all sounds in and out of this place.

Now he gained the peace and quiet he wanted, it is time for him to study. Even with the brain capacity he has, Kairos knew he had to hurry.

The problem lies with the vast amount of books and scrolls he had to go through. To really succeed in what he needs to do, this time he must risk his life.

In an instant, all the books he took from the warehouse had been scattered around him.

Throughout this, he did not even touched a single piece of paper and avoided the timer from starting.

Unfortunately, the books are still in the unfavourable placement he found them in. Doing a quick calculation, he have at most eleven days to spend with them.

Crushing a couple of levitation spell crystals, everything started raising into the air including himself. Each item hovered freely without touching each other thanks to another spell: ‘Order’.

Then every book and scroll started displaying their contents to him.

Grinding his teeth, Kairos activated his Veritable Sight and Soul Perception at the same time despite the unfortunate amount of Ki left in his body. The next ten to eleven days will be hell.