How do thread views work? Average views don't really cut it for me. It gives me a false interpretation of a fic's popularity. Sometimes, I even wonder if bots or spiders (search engine web crawlers) count to the views. Do repeated views even count, or do they log the IP of the viewer? Another thing, does viewing one thread count towards the other threads?

I can average out 400~700 views on my threads so I refuse to believe the first chapters received 4000+ views.

Anyway, have a chapter.

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Present day.

The night has passed and Cavaron awoke from his sleep on the mana well within the ravine. Slowly opening his eyes, he was greeted by the small amount of sunlight that peeked through the crack in the earth. He stood up and checked his body while manipulating the mana he recovered, 'Hmm, still not enough.' and thought, 'I need more than this if I am to fight against Azrael.' With a wave of his hand, he tore open space and pulled out a myriad of items from his inventory.

Segregating the pile of items on the ground, there were bottles of unknown liquids, empty bottles, boxes of unknown contents, scrolls, pieces of paper, books, magazines, some sort of accessories, a bundle of sticks, a bag of gems, some crystals, some cubes that looked like the converter he introduced to Aimi, and a game console. Finally separating each item from one another, he went over the bottles of unknown liquids, 'Blood Poison... Blood Tonic... Spirit Salve... Mango Juice... Diluted Sapphire Worms... Harpy Saliva... Dragon Urine... Hmm, nothing useful.' From seemingly useful items to downright weird concoctions. He then took a box and opened it, "I still have this?" The contents of the first box he opened was a pill. A single green pill. "Better than nothing." He said as he put the pill in an empty bottle, and tossed it inside a rip in space.

Next, he opened another box and found a ring. The ring had engravings on it, and was glowing a soft blue light. "Been a while since I've seen this. I wonder..." He removed his left gauntlet and wore the ring on his index finger. The ring fit perfectly, and the previously soft glow became a bit brighter before disappearing. Cavaron produced a small ball of mana and played around with it for a while before reabsorbing it. Each time he manipulated the mana ball, the ring on his finger suddenly glowed before becoming dark once more. This repeated every time the mana ball moved. 'Good, at least the regeneration ring works as intended.' He thought as he dispersed the mana ball. This last action made the ring glow again. 'But... It won't be enough for large scale magic. What else do I have here? Been so long since I've used any of these.'

After the pill and the ring, he opened another eight boxes and found nothing too useful. Finished with the boxes, he moved onto the scrolls. He unfurled one and suddenly laughed, "Haha! Why the hell do I have this?" The scroll he unfurled was a wanted poster with his face on it. Looking at the number of zeroes printed onto it, he must have done something very bad to warrant nine zeroes on himself. He tossed the wanted poster back into his inventory with a smile. He unfurled another scroll and raised a brow, "Huh, Ice Wolf? How'd I get this?" Looking back at the pile of scrolls, he picked out the scrolls that looked similar to the Ice Wolf scroll. He found another 22 scrolls and laid them on the ground. "Ice Wolf, Thunder Lizard, Earth... Worm, Water Knight, Fire Cat... Huh, low level summons, familiars. I should give these to Aimi." The scrolls he found seem to allow the users to call for familiars to aid them. He ripped space again and threw the scrolls inside.

After the familiar scrolls, he went through the other scrolls, and further segregated them according to use. One pile of scrolls had magic circles and incantations, another had pile had bigger scrolls enough to fit a person when unfurled. Overall, the remaining scrolls were one time use items that covered attack magic, recovery magic, and support magic. Everything was useful, but not to him as he threw them all back into his inventory. He then looked through the pieces of paper and found them to be trash, so he threw them away. The books and magazines held information but not what he needed, and they were returned to the inventory.

Next, he arranged the pile of bracelets, necklaces, chokers, rings, bangles, earrings, and belts. One by one, he wore the accessories. The bracelets seem to give him a small boost in magic power but it wasn't what he wanted since he needed something to cover his mana. The necklaces generated a thin screen of light around him. He launched a mana ball into the air, and manipulated it to smash down onto the screen. When the mana ball hit, the screen shuddered before shattering and breaking the necklace. He frowned at the necklaces performance. "Aimi could use this, though." The chokers had different effects, one gave soothing relief to his throat, another gave turned up his voice to high frequencies that surprised the nearby fauna, and another gave him a feminine voice. "I should keep this last one." He murmured with a female voice. He returned the chokers into his inventory and checked the others. He found three more rings that gave the same mana regeneration effect as the first one, albeit a level lower, but still good enough as he realized that the effects stacked. The bangles gave him varying boosts in agility and dexterity, and the earrings made him look fashionable. The belts gave him a small boost in defense as he felt his skin harden a bit. He smashed his arm on a ravine wall, and felt little to no pain. So far, only the rings satisfied his needs as he wore all four on his left hand.

When he was done looking over the accessories, he picked up the bundle of sticks. He pulled out one stick and carefully inspected it. He raised a brow as he can't remember where and how he got this, 'The hell is this?' Out of curiosity, he sniffed the stick and his eyes went wide. "Mana incense!? Shit!" Cavaron broke the stick in his hand, "Ah! Dammit. Should have looked for this last night." He rubbed his temple as he returned the bundle of mana incense sticks back to his inventory. "Now, what else?" He looked over to the bag of gems, and poured out its contents. The contents were different from the Luminites and Pyrocites he previously sold for money, "Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, no magic." but were ordinary gems instead, and were thrown back to his inventory.

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Next, he went over the crystals. For all of them, he used Mana Sight to see if there was anything inside, "Hmm, empty, empty, empty, nearly empty, empty, cursed, cursed, empty, full!" He exclaimed when he looked at the last crystal. It was fist sized, and had a soft blue glow. He immediately placed it together with the pill from earlier. "Good, that crystal should be enough for three summons." Finally, he took a look at the cubes, his converters that could convert electricity to mana and vice versa. He picked up a small fist sized cube, "Hmm, electricity..." and placed his chin on his fist, 'Thunder magic... Should work but... Should I summon Bronte? Yeah, let's get him but first...'

Cavaron decided to call on a contract that uses thunder magic, but first, he looked towards the game console. "This thing should give me some ideas." He turned the game console on and loaded a program installed in it. He opened a roleplaying game that followed a group of heroes tasked to, as usual, save the world. 'Would be nice if I had something similar to Megal***r.' The item he thought of would completely recover his health and mana when used. Sadly, 'But with my mana capacities, I doubt anything could have my mana recover back to the limit.' nothing that could recover his mana 100% crossed his path, and as such, he was left with sleeping on mana wells or anything similar, aside from taking bites out of large mana crystals.

He closed the game console and returned it to his inventory before taking a stance. He raised his arms forward, parallel to the ground, and concentrated a large amount of mana between his palms, "Rolling thunder, roaring bolts! Your heavenly spears shake the very foundation of the earth! Brother of flames, brother of gales, brother of storms and calamities! I call upon you in my time of need, Thunder God, Bronte!"

As he chanted, yellow bolts of electricity were generated by his fingertips. What was once a sunny morning became a dark sky a clouds gathered high above. Thunder roared and lightning struck down before him, shattering many of the rocks that were hit by the impact. Dust filled the ravine, and as it settled, a small boy could be seen. "Papa! Bronte came to papa!" The little boy shouted enthusiastically. Cavaron held his breath in order not to breathe in the dust, 'Should not have done it in here, too tight. Eh, well.' Cavaron still held his arms forward, "Well, how about a hug?" The contract, Bronte, his eyes lit up and leapt forward to Cavaron, and embraced him, "I missed you, papa!"

Bronte was a meter tall, had fuzzy red hair, a pair of yellow eyes, and a round face. He wore a yellow tunic with black lightning bolt designs, and a pair of slippers. Cavaron ruffled the little boy's hair, "Haha, I'm glad to see you." Bronte went back down, looked around, "Papa, this place?" and asked with a worried face. Cavaron smiled as he crouched down before the little boy, "Don't worry, the past won't happen again, I swear it." It would seem that the little boy was there a hundred years ago as he felt something familiar even from the mere ravine the two of them were in.

Cavaron brought out the converters before Bronte, "Bronte, you know what this is, right?" Bronte nodded enthusiastically, "Uh huh! Uh huh! It's a converter! It turns electricity into mana!" Cavaron smiled and ruffled Bronte's hair. "Good boy. I called you here to help me out. I need you to feed your thunder into these to help me recover more mana, okay?"

Bronte looked at the cubes before looking back at Cavaron with tears, "Are you fighting someone strong again in this place? You swore!" and pounded on his armor like a frustrated child would. Cavaron held the boy close to him, "Hush now, I am always fighting, but this time, I want to be prepared. Back then, I nearly killed myself. Back then, I wasn't prepared. The gods of fate must have both cursed and blessed me. Cursed because I have to keep fighting. Blessed because I have people, friends, and comrades like you who worry about me. This time, I plan to fight with all of you. Time for us to put the past where it belongs: in the past."

A sniffle escaped Bronte. The small contract should truly love Cavaron to the point of calling him his father. Whatever Cavaron did back then for his contracts, as with Culverin, Avani, Tirta, Burkhard, and Halrimaw, they were enough to warrant absolute love and loyalty. The small Thunder God stepped back, "Okay, papa. I'll help you." and said with arms stretched out to receive the converters. The converters, in total, numbered to 19 cubes. Originally, he had 20 but gave one to Aimi.

Cavaron peeked out of the ravine, and saw the location of the sun. Turning back to Bronte, "Come on, I need to get back." and lifted the boy onto his shoulders. Bronte placed the 19 converters inside his.tunic where it passively collected power for Cavaron.

He leapt out of the ravine, and ran back towards Asora with the small Thunder God sitting on his shoulders. After running while boosted with mana, the two finally arrived at the gates, and were allowed entry after Cavaron 'persuaded' the guards to let Bronte enter with him. After that, he ran towards the Sky Tower and nearly tripped because,

"KYAAHHH!!!"

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Speaking of papa,

Spoiler :

Bronte isn't the only one to call him 'papa'. There's another one.