I'm feeling only slightly shocked. I only heard a little about Demon Kings but they're apparently creatures of mass destruction. That's all I heard from the caretakers.

I once again shook myself of unnecessary thoughts and focused on the matter on hand. The message from the mana packet we opened was still playing. We could only hear the man's voice and nothing else. The voice was rough, but contained a hint of gentleness. You wouldn't expect that this man is responsible for the Demon Kings. It was a message comprised of feelings and intent and was stitched together with mana and packed neatly before being slammed into the wall.

"I don't regret the things I did. I only regret not being able to do more. Cough cough! I'm in a very critical shape. I don't think my disciples or ---------- will be able to complete this mission. And yet, I sent them on that ---- mission. Truthfully, they're ------ likely dead. If only - had ---- time to nurture my disciples, none -- this would've happened

Sigh, time is all we need. Listen, I'm betting all my hopes on you right now. The fact your reading this message is already a miracle. I cannot spread ---- information. A strange organization is keeping an eye on me.

I just hope this message reaches ------ in time. The more time passes, the more distorted the message becomes. Some ----- may be cut off, but I reinforced special important words with -- mana, so they'll stay coherent for - longer time.

I once discovered an ancient ruins in the Blemish Continent. I soon realized that ---- was a ruins dating back from the Heroic Era! You may not ---- this era, since lot's of time may have passed and even that era will soon be erased from the history books.

Upon stumbling -- these ruins I noticed a rune formation deep inside the ruins. It was very easy -- activate, just --- your ---- and --- activates. Soon, glowing light emerged ---- --- --- ----------, ----- ----------!

----, ------------ , ------------. --------- --- a --------.

After --- Goddess of Charity explained the Phase Plans, she activated Phase 1. This is very important. Upon activation, a strange blue window appeared --- all beings around the world. -- doing various actions, people could level up! Soon, terms like EXP and Attributes started ---------- common word.

I soon headed towards the location of Phase 2. Upon activating Phase 2, I must IMMEDIATELY activate Phase 3.

-------, -- - ------ ----- -------- causing ----- --- -----. The ------- -- ---- - -- -- --- ---- --------. ------ --- ---- -------- ----- -- - ----- ----- ------'- -----. -- --- ---- -- -- ------- ----- ---- - --- --- ----. ---- --- -- --- - ----------- --- ------ --- ------- -- --- ----.

And so, Phase 2 was activated. Phase 2: Demon Kings. I ----- don't understand how they work yet, but it seems one get's elected every 20-100 years. We're facing our 3rd Demon King right now. I hope we can stop this cycle before the 10th passes.

I quickly understood WHY Phase 3 needed to be activated immediately. However, it was supposed to be activated the moment the 1st Demon King descended. The fact ---- we're at our 3rd means something has gone wrong.

Phase 3 is a hell hole. You'll have to travel to the Courage Continent, or maybe you're already there, depends on where I put this message and how the environment changes over the years. You'll go to a ----- called "Heaven's Canyon" in which the most dangerous creatures spawn. There is even a faction of dragons living there.

However, I've devised a plan. This place could only be executed a 100 years from now. My disciples and friends have perished, and ---- I'll perish too. The organization is trying to get to Phase 3. They know. However, the methods they've used are inhumane. They must be stopped. They're like Demon Kings in a human form.

This is why I'm resorting to this unreliable method. So, here's what you need to do. The main goal is to activate Phase 3: ----- Kings.

First, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------. Once --- ----------- ------- ------------- - ---, ------------ --------------- ----------------."

Just like that, the entire mana message devolved into incoherent noises. Like screams from a wild animal. Looking at Ritz, he seemed to be calm. As for myself? Yeah, I didn't understand a single thing that guy said.

Then Ritz asked me a very important question, "Isaac, what's a Demon King?" Upon hearing that question, I was a little stunned myself. What IS a Demon King? A caretakers said it was a creature of mass destruction. Okay, how?

"I'm not exactly sure. However, the caretakers claimed it was a very dangerous beast."

"Very dangerous? Like to us?"

"I mean, I don't know if our skill [Immortality] overwrites the Demon King's skills."

We first had to establish the idea of 'Demon King' to fully understand the message. However, when we tried to replay it, we found that the message had broke. It was now fully consumed by random buzzing.

Thinking back, we are just amateur's in terms of mana manipulation. If we handled it too roughly and the message broke, they may be on us. Oops. Ah, well, the message wasn't that important anyways.

"Hey, at least we have another destination to go to. It could even be our main goal! To activate the 3rd Phase!" Ritz cheered. "After that, we'll activate all the Phases and complete that Phase Plan the guy was talking about."

Thinking about it for a moment, I realized that Ritz was right. Adventurers seek adventure. Going to this "Heaven's Canyon" filled with dangerous monsters is indeed an adventure. Maybe we could even go an slay the Demon King! Now, we just need to register as adventurers and dig for information about Heaven's Canyon.

"Ritz, our new goal is to activate all the phases! Complete the goal of that Lucifer Hadsen guy! Or whaetever his name is."

With this new and exciting goal we didn't bother exploring the rest of the cave. Something we would probably regret, but not now. We soon arrive back at the little house with paved pathways. There was a library in here, but we didn't understand the contents. However, after Ritz insisted on one more look around the place before we left, we found a few special things.

First, readable books. They contained words we could actually understand. I don't know how we can read, since we were never taught anything. And yet, we can understand the system and these books. The strange thing is that in my vision the system has the same curves and slicks like the books we found. Could someone have copied the handwriting of the system?

The books themselves contained martial arts techniques and sword techniques and even magic techniques. The martial art ones were hard to understand. First off, what is 'Qi' and how do we obtain it? Seeing this I put it off for later and learned about the magic techniques.

However, it seemed equally as complex as the martial art techniques. Luckily, I understood a few terms. Soon, I found that these magic books were mostly mana-shaping exercises or something of the sort. There was one talking about making a vortex in your Mana Tree. What does that even mean?

The Sword Techniques were extremely simple to understand. Ritz just took one look at it and immediately performed it. A gained a new skill called "Upward Circle Slash" which was used to deal heavy hits or commit to a finishing blow. When I tried to do it, I found that it was extremely hard. Much harder than I thought.

I called quits and we continued exploring this training grounds.

The second thing we found was a glowing amulet. Adventurer books advise that this is most likely a legendary ancient artifact left behind by some Saint Emperor of the Nine Suns or something like that. 9/10 times it is exactly as I described. And so, we immediately took the artifact with us. No use as of right now, but I believe it's use will shine in the future! Probably. I really hope it's actually not some crummy amulet.

The third and final item was an old watering can. However, written on it was called "Kronos Ignition Nascent God" or also known as K.I.NG. So this King Can which we were calling it, had magically generated water. I'm not sure of the effect of this water, but this King Can permanently solves thirst.

With these rare treasures, we darted off back into the surface. We half-remembered the way back, and we mostly used environment cues, like the ground sharply rising in elevation towards one direction. We had gone deep underground, so we should go up high to find the exit.

The caves were as jagged as always and dark too. It was hard to actually remember the distinct path due to it being so dark. I only remembered certain areas which were lighted up by my [Inferior Fireball]

We continued wandering around using some vague information and eventually we saw sunlight breaking through from the surface. Following that, we eventually found the entrance to the cave.

"Now, that wasn't so bad, now was it?" Ritz mumbled.

"You're right Ritz. I thought we would have to spend at least a day but it only took about 3 hours max."

Smiling cheerfully, I walked up the steps to exit the cave. The bright sun was blocking my vision so it was hard to see what was on the other side. And yet, even with that, I noticed a few silhouettes. They were short in stature and were about half my height and were many. I first thought Dwarves because of there short reputation. However, most Dwarves weren't that tiny. They started raising strange tools in which I couldn't quite make the form out of. They couldn't possibly be monsters, right? However, the silhouette in the front pulled something from the tool and let go. Then, I heard a familiar sound.

The sound of arrows being released from there bow and cutting through the air.

SHIING!

I instinctively closed my eyes in terror. The arrow was going to pierce me and it was too late to react. The sound of flesh being cut open resounded in my ear. Despite this, the pain which I was waiting for never arrived. I finally opened my eyes to see that Ritz had darted in front of me and took the arrow to his chest.

"A-are you-"

Ritz tried to talk despite having an arrow embedded into his chest before 3 more arrows hit his neck and one final arrow pierced his skull. He immediately died.

The moment I saw Ritz in front of me I had already started casting [Inferior Fireball]. Two seconds had passed since the death of Ritz. I quickly snatched his body and started running before the arrows could hit me again.

I heard two arrows whizz above me just barely cutting through my hair. By that time, I had finished casting [Inferior Fireball] and sent it flying towards them. Unfortunately, the speed was slow. I mostly used this skill in close-combat because I could just bash it towards my enemy. When I tried to throw it, the speed turned out to be laughable. Most enemies would've just dodged out of the way.

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This is exactly what happened with the enemies here. Once they saw this ball of fire approaching them, they side slid to the side and let it pass by. Surprisingly, some of them got hit. There must've been more than I thought. Since, I didn't see anyone in the front get hit, the ones in the back must've not seen it coming. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten this message.

Skill [Inferior Fireball], has leveled up!

Seeing this, I felt slightly more confident with dealing with the enemies. It seemed they weren't all that strong if they were caught by that fireball. It wasn't even meant to be a killing move, I only meant to delay them.

With the enemies in dismay, I pulled out the arrows stabbed into Ritz. There was about five in total. It about 10 seconds to take all of them out. During this time, I had casted another [Inferior Fireball].

By the time I took out the last arrow, Ritz woke up in a fright. However, in the next second, he quickly adjusted to where he was. I quickly let him down from my grasp and we both retreated further into the cave. Once in the dark, the enemies couldn't see us. However, as the sunlight reached the perfect amount where it wasn't too dark that we couldn't see and it wasn't too bright that it was blinding, we saw the faces of our hunters. It was goblins.

Goblins!? I thought it was some intelligent humanoid chasing us down! Seeing this, I was about to rush up to them and beat them for making me worry so much. However, I realized that all of these goblins had blue skin. The bestiary which us immortals had stolen from the caretakers had contained a lot of information. We had to pass it around so everyone who wanted to see it could see.

When it got to my turn, I read about forest monsters and monsters in the surroundings of Melkin. That was my destination, it was best to know about it. In there, it contained multiple types of goblins. There were different ranks and different subspecies. The blue goblin, was known for it's intelligence and it's weak strength out of all the goblin subspecies.

So, with intelligence, naturally came... magic.

The moment my brain processed that thought, a purple ball of light shot through the caverns and went straight at me. It was many times faster than my [Inferior Fireball], this is what my skill aspired to be. Despite being many times faster than my skill, I quickly moved out of the way with ease since the purple ball was casted from quite the distance.

Ritz had two blue arrows aimed at him, they were extremely fast, I doubted I could evade them. However, Ritz was the man with top-tier sword talent, he just dodged them and rushed towards the enemy.

[Isaac, can you hear me? Im using [Immortal Telepathy] to talk with you. Our thoughts are being broadcasted at light speed. I'm going to rush towards the enemy and slash through them. Most of them are melee but some of them are archers, take care of the archers in the back.]

This message was comprehended by me in less than a second. It seemed [Immortal Telepathy] had great potential. Once I completely understood the message, I started casting my skill ahead so by the time Ritz had reached the enemy, my skill would be done.

I watched as Ritz dashed and closed the distance between us and the goblins. He must've had high attributes. I haven't even asked him what his level is.

By the time he made it to the first goblin, I had finished casting my spell. It was slightly dark, but thanks to the literal ball of fire in my hand, I could see far ahead. I saw some goblins with bows aiming at Ritz. They seemed notably more thinner and shorter than the goblins in the front. The moment they raised there bows slightly, I had thrusted the [Inferior Fireball] straight towards them.

Ritz in the meantime, used a skill which I could only assume to be [Strong Slash]. It felt as if the earth itself would crack apart. However, that was merely an illusion. It deserved the name of strong, but it wasn't an earth-shattering attack. It's just the most powerful attack I've seen ever.

Well, unless those purple creatures counted. Each strike of those things really did seem to end the world.

The moment Ritz had cut through the 1st goblin, my [Inferior Fireball] had reached the forefront of the archers. I saw from a distance as they hurriedly tried to dodge the ball of fire. It was still surprisingly when I saw some of them unable to dodge. Were their attributes that low?

I quickly brushed myself out of my daze and realized I should probably cast another [Inferior Fireball]. However, I got unlucky and it took about 10 seconds to form.

Battles move very quick, in that time three arrows shot towards me. I only dodged two but one hit my left leg. I had to limp towards a safer location. It wasn't just these archers targeting me. Others also shot at Ritz who I was supposed to be protecting.

I quickly threw the fireball at the ones shooting at Ritz. I suddenly felt something resonate within my fireball. My leaves in my Mana Tree shook and blueish liquid started to drain out. It very quickly exited out my palms and had entered my fireball.

Skill [Mana Sense], has leveled up!

Seeing this, I suddenly felt that my control over mana became clearer. The fireball I just threw was infused with extra mana. The cost was steep, but when I saw the fireball crush into the goblins, I knew it was worth the price.

It was faster, harder, and had scorching hot flames radiating out of it. Even though it hadn't exploded, the blazing fire was enough to burn almost ten goblins to ashes. The goblins looked at me in fear. However, a group of goblins wearing light armor and shields made out of various materials appeared. They seemed to be much tougher than the other goblins. However, they weren't able to do a lot of damage.

I casted another [Inferior Fireball] and infused it with about 2 Leaf Units of mana. I just made up a system involving how many leaves I had to drain. The last fireball was only 1 Leaf Unit worth. I was excited to see what power it would hold. However, I felt myself getting increasingly weaker. My vision blurred, and my body ached.

Mana Deprivation. When we immortals first tried to learn how to use skills, we learned about mana. The skills couldn't be used endlessly and could only be casted with mana. However, the system never said anything about a cost or how much mana you have. You just had to guess.

A common way to tell if your running out are symptoms like headaches and blurry vision. Once you reach that level, stop using your skills and sleep. We few books we managed to salvage said this was Mana Deprivation. If we continued to use our skills, we would soon be knocked out for at least a day. And for weeks after that our body would feel weak. Then there would be a -50% EXP effect on our statuses for the next month.

And according to appraisers, there is an additional -100% Mana Regeneration debuff too.

What was weird was how scary the book made -50% EXP sound like. Most of us have about 10x of that debuff and it's permanent too. However, the status hints on curing it, but it seems to be out of our means.

"Isaac, shoot now!"

Hearing Ritz suddenly shout made me hurry with the spell and shoot it towards the group of armored goblins and goblin archers. I realized that Ritz had made it to the armored goblins and killed all of the melee goblins. That was fast, as expected of his skills.

I shot out the [Inferior Fireball] which immediately made me doozy upon launch. My knees felt weak and I had to kneel down. I only barely managed to look at the carnage caused by my fireball.

It shoot at a speed faster than any of those arrows. The fire which was usually light orange, was now a deeper shade of orange with red streaks around the rim. It really looked mesmerizing. The other goblins in the back did not have time to react. I could see there flesh melting away even before the fireball made contact.

The fireball soon landed in the middle of the group of goblins. Then something incredible happened.

The fireball exploded.

All my other fireballs had never exploded. It more like a ball of fire being smashed into you instead of exploding into you. This one was different. It completely exploded and covered all of the goblins in it's radius. The flames grew stronger and burned them to a crisp. Only a few armored ones survived the explosion.

I closed my eyes as I saw Ritz approaching the last goblins.

I was about to sleep when all of a sudden all the hairs on my body stood up. It reminded me of the time when Ritz cut my fireball in half despite not being on guard for it. This was obviously some kind of danger aler-

Danger.

I quickly forced my body to move to the right. It took all the strength within me just to do complete this action. I narrowly missed a bolt of magic shot at my previous location. This bolt was fast, even faster than my 2 Leaf Unit fireball. The area around where the bolt shot was scorched and had some static hopping around.

I looked towards the source of the attack, only to see two goblins standing beside each other.

One of the goblins was a blue one which had a dirty robe and was wielding a staff. The staff was decorated with flowers and there was an animal skull on the tip. The goblin itself had a skull for a helmet. It must've been one of those shaman. They were goblins which specialized with magic. Specifically curse magic, but I guess they can do other stuff too.

The other goblin was surprising. It was red. I believe a red goblin was a subspecies of goblin born with greater strength. There physical attributes were much higher than other goblins. The only drawback was that there intelligence was very much reduced. They were also known to be unlucky. But that was just a speculation.

The red goblin was wearing a set of armor, that seemed very wrong for it's size. It was wielding a short sword, but it seemed like a long sword when it was in its hand. I guessed that this equipment must've been stolen. Otherwise, but wear such unnatural equipment which was obviously unfit for a goblin.

I was too weak and too tired to even cast a normal [Inferior Fireball]. I could only look in fear for Ritz. I watched as Ritz dashed towards and tried to slash at the red goblin. He unfortunately missed his attack. The red goblin pounced on Ritz and stabbed him a few times. The shaman casted this weird spell with black circles coming out of the staff.

The staff suddenly shot out a dart full of darkness and it entered Ritz immediately. His movements slowed, and his attacks became stiffer. The red goblin came in for the finishing hit and decapitated Ritz. His head rolled down to my position. The two other goblins also saw me, and the shaman casually casted another bolt of magic and struck me down.

Searing pain overcame me and everything went black, but only for an instant. By the time I got up Ritz had surprised attacked them. The red goblin was limping and stabbed a dagger into the thigh of Ritz. Before Ritz could take it off, the magic bolt struck him as well.

I realized that if Ritz died here, he wouldn't be able to revive. I tried to sense for my mana reserves, and found something surprising. My mana had regenerated really fast. The rate of regeneration was still extremely slow, but for some reason I had gained a bunch of mana.

I couldn't think of anything. The only time I could think of when it rose, was when I died. However, immortality doesn't correlate to mana. If I die, I don't instantly refill on mana. However, the situation right now is that my mana recovered crazy quick, but it still hasn't returned to full.

The only conclusion I could come up with is that it for some reason my mana regenerated crazily while I was in my 'dead state' and returned back to normal pace.

Seeing this, I grinned a began to cast [Inferior Fireball]. I could now risk using 3 Leaf Units on my fireball now that I have this information. Of course, it wasn't confirmed. That was the only thing stopping me.

However, I'm immortal. I should take risks because of this.

I really didn't care about my Mana Deprivation anymore and casted a fireball with 3 Leaf Units. During this time, I noticed it actually went past the 10 second mark in casting. So with more Leaf Units, the longer it takes to cast. However, the base spell would always cap at 10 seconds. Using mana is just modifying the spell.

Ritz was now covered in cuts and had cut off the arm of the red goblin. Meanwhile, the shaman was completely fine, with only a small cut on it's forearm. The shaman was casting curses and some bolts of magic from there to there. It was only when it looked around that it saw me. Immediately the shaman casted a bolt of magic to throw me off from my spell. However, it had been around 15 seconds by then and I had already fully formed the fireball.

I launched it straight towards the duo of goblins. The bolt of magic was released from the tip of the shamans staff but when put against my fireball the bolt was completely swallowed up.

The [Inferior Fireball] was moving at speeds almost rivalling the bolt of magic, and it's flames had heated up the cave. It's size for some reason had become smaller. It was more orange-like and there were streaks of red everywhere. Even the outside rim of the fireball was now covered in red.

The fireball traveled from my location to the enemies location in just a matter of seconds. The red goblin was too busy fighting to realize early. By the time it saw the fireball, the flames had already descended upon him.

BOOM!

The whole cave shook and I stumbled to the ground feeling extremely weak. I would probably faint in a few seconds.

Immortalian has leveled up to level 5!

Immortalian has leveled up to level 6!

The skill [Inferior Fireball], has leveled up!

Seeing this torrent of notifications, I almost blacked out. I looked at the melted entrance of the cave. I found that Ritz had been caught in the flames and had burned to death. But he quickly revived in an instant,

"So-Sorry about the friendly fire..." I apologized weakly.

"It's fine, don't overexert yourself right now." Ritz replied with vigor.

After hearing that short sentence from Ritz, I had completely blacked out. I probably should've asked him to kill me first so I can regenerate mana really fast and avoid Mana Deprivation. Unfortunately, I missed my chance. I don't know how long I'll be asleep for. I hope this crazy fast regeneration applies to being in a 'knocked-out state'.

Spoiler, it didn't.

Due to overexerting your limits, and breaking past them, you have gained 1 point in the [Endurance] attribute.