The Mage Emperor

--- Seth’s POV ---

Did I scare her by any chance? Maybe I should have worded it differently.

“You don’t have to say anything, just accept it,” I laughed as I put my right arm around her waist and pulled her closer.

“By the way, we honestly look ridiculous, don’t you think?” I asked, eyeing the other students. Most of the girls were wearing bikini while the guys had nothing but shorts on, even though we were preparing to raid a cave filled with monsters. It made no sense to me, though I wasn’t any different. Maybe they were all strong enough to take it easy.

A few minutes later, we’ve arrived to the stone gate which hid a stair leading underground. It was visibly human made since the stone was a mix of reddish and brownish colours. This one was very smooth which meant that the one who made it had very good control. The better your control was the smoother and sturdier the stone would be. Obviously, the kind I created was as smooth as a brand new glasswall.

Maybe thanks to the oasis nearby and the heat outside, some water condensed on the cool steps which made them quite slippery. Since Lien came barefoot, she had no trouble walking straight down unlike some other students who kept slipping and holding onto each other. It was honestly starting to be hilarious, but the comic scene soon ended since we reached the bottom. There was barely enough light reaching so deep underground and even that was restricted by the narrow corridor.

“Let me deal with this!” a guy shouted and created a bulb of light above his head. He shot it towards the ceiling in the middle and increased its size at the same time. As the light bulb reached its destination, the whole cavern got illuminated, revealing a rather interesting sight to us. There were four walls almost reaching the ceiling and separating the chamber into four sections, leaving a circular chamber in the middle which you could enter from any of the sections.

What made things even more interesting was that the strongest monster wasn’t in the middle but in the section on the rear left side. I didn’t know exactly how powerful it was, but it was obviously a cut above the rest.

“Can you sense it?” I asked Lien out of curiosity. Unless she came in contact with the monster, it was impossible to find out anything about its mana, but when it came to souls, it was a different matter. Leo’s soul was definitely stronger mine than mine in the past since I couldn’t sense his true strength and maybe it was still stronger. But I was quite sure that we were on similar levels now.

“What do you mean? I can see their souls but even the engravings are hazy and barely visible,” she whispered into my ear, tickling my fantasies for a moment.

Shaking my head, I focused on the matter at hand, “Mhm, monsters have some soul protection and the stronger they are, the stronger their protection will be, though that’s obvious. I’ve hid my soul since last time so you probably can’t even sense mine, can you?”

“Uhm, I feel something weak but that must be because of Link, am I right?”

“Yeah,” I nodded.

“Whatever. I’ll catch up to you god incarnations in no time,” she carefully used Link to respond.

“That’s exactly what I want to achieve,” I couldn’t keep a small smile from forming on my face. The only real difference between god incarnations and common people was the knowledge they inherited and in Lien’s case, she was naturally more talented than them. She may have ‘wasted’ a few years, but with hard work, she could easily catch up to them.

“You forgot to tell me that somehow.”

“You’ve been working hard in your free time anyway, I had no reason to nag you and sex makes you advance much quicker than normal hard work,” I replied in a low voice.

“That’s pretty disturbing actually. I can get much more by doing much less and it’s even pleasurable…” she frowned.

“Of course, in case you have someone to do it with,” I grumbled.

“Well, I had enough to pick from if I wanted that,” she smirked, trying to provoke me. Even though I knew, I still felt provoked.  At least, I managed to keep my mouth shut and not say something rude.

“Aww, you seem to be irritated. You were wrinkling your forehead. Does it bother you so much? It’s kind of cute,” she started ridiculing me.

“Somebody is having a lot of fun,” I clicked my tongue.

“Alright, alright, I’ll stop,” she waved her hands.

While we were still standing there like idiots, chatting, the other students started battling the monsters. Since Leo was on the front right side, I grabbed Lien’s hand and pulled her towards the rear left side. There would be a wall separating us from him which would make me feel safer about Lien.

Since three other scorpions were about to attack a girl who was engaging with another two, Lien hurled a large fireball towards their backs. The scorpions made a wall raise out of the ground behind their backs and then turned around to take out the person who was threatening them.

I stood at the back and overlooked the whole cavern, amused by the colourful flashing lights of different spells. Despite being elites, the students were using nothing but elemental magic. That was the limit for most people since the more powerful spells relied more on physics, chemistry, and merged elements instead of common elemental magic. Although the latter was the weakest of the three, merging some of the elements could lead to rather powerful and devastating spells.

But true magic wasn’t cast, it was written. Writing words in the air consumed a huge amount of mana since we had to condense a lot of mana on the spot, but it’d grant us the ability to overwrite the state of the world. Of course, we needed perfect imagination during ‘writing’ if we wanted to use it. For example, if I wrote ‘healthy’ in the air without actually having a target and strongly imagining my target becoming healthy, it’d just consume a huge amount of mana with no result.

That was the main reason written magic was the most powerful type of magic but also the most dangerous. A single mistake and maybe you’d run out of mana instantly. Different words had different costs, but I believed we could omit words if we wanted to. Sadly, I didn’t have the necessary amount of mana to test that in the past, but now that Lien was by my side, I could start experimenting with Word Magic as well. That was how I called it.

My only problem was that Leo wasn’t fighting the monsters either and pointed towards the middle of the cavern instead. Looking at me from the corner of his eye, he started writing something in the air.

D

E

A

T

Seeing the upper half of the T, I appeared next to him before he could finish drawing the letters and grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?” I asked with a frown.

“My, you are still wet behind the ears and now you’re questioning me?” he asked with ridicule. To my surprise, the letters didn’t disappear or deform even while he was talking which meant that he had perfect control over it. He definitely practised it more than me… well, anyone with enough mana and knowledge must have practised it more than me.

I gripped his arm with even more strength as a reply, making him pull back his hand with a hiss. Although he had some muscle on him and could fight as a sort of battle mage, his strength didn’t match up to mine. Sex had way too good effects on me.

Either because of the pain or because he moved, he lost control over the black letters which broke into splinters like glass and dispersed before they could reach the ground.

Interesting, so he hasn’t seen through me either, actually. Considering his words from a moment ago, he probably thinks that I don’t know many spells either. That’s a good thing.

“Why would you want to use this against monsters of this level?” I asked.

“Haha, look who’s all high and mighty, a week ago you’d have had trouble dealing with fifty of these and now you’re saying ‘of this level’?” he smirked.

“I don’t get what your problem is. Why does it bother you so much? Why is it even bad that I’ve become stronger? It’s not like I’ve done anything against you or anyone else,” I clicked my tongue, starting to be annoyed by him. I couldn’t say that he was a true friend to me, but we got along quite well when we were together and now he turned into an entirely different person.

“You don’t understand anything,” he clicked his tongue and made his way towards the monsters.

“Then make me understand it!” I shouted after him, catching some unwanted attention.

“You’ll find out sooner or later anyway,” he replied as he created a gravity zone which pushed four scorpions to the ground. Since they had no way to move, Leo took out two short swords from a similar container as what Lien had and killed them off one by one. Looking back at me, he shooed me off. Knowing that he wouldn’t talk no matter how long I stood there, I got around the monsters and went back to Lien’s side.

I was a bit surprised to see six corpses lying around her and she added one more to it by the time I reached her. These scorpions didn’t have electric resistance so she could take it easy and destroy them with her electric field. Seeing that she was a threat, the scorpions probably wanted to take her out first and rushed into their deaths.

Opposite of that, the section where the Black Scorpion was, the students were being pushed back. Although I wanted to ask Lien if she was alright, she seemed to want to take out the ‘boss’ monster, so I didn’t interrupt her.

I kind of feel like ending the lives of these shitty things because I can’t talk to Lien all because of them. There are also a few students who have some ‘free time’, it seems. I guess they aren’t happy to see that I’m just standing around doing nothing, I thought, noticing a few pairs of glaring eyes.

Making up my mind, I put my finger on my right arm and changed two physical laws on my body. The first effect was that I no longer accelerated and reached my full speed instantly instead and the second was that my body weighed a hundred times as much as it should have.

As I walked closer to a scorpion, it jumped towards me, but I punched forward, breaking its pincers and smashing its head with a single move. The true power of physics and chemistry magic was that you could change the laws so that nothing would make sense. For example, I could make it so that fire needed carbon-dioxide instead of oxygen to burn or even something entirely different. It would make zero sense and it’d render any normal person unable to use that element in my presence.

Of course, this type of magic had a range, but even if they fired it from far away, the given element would disperse upon entering my range because it’d need a different composition to keep going. Unless the opponent knew what I changed and had the ability to change the components of their spell instantly, they wouldn’t be able to use elemental magic, and doing something like that was pretty much impossible.

Common people still didn’t understand that mana was basically the laws of the world and that they had the ability to alter it to whatever they wanted. If they learned about it, monsters would be no threat to anyone who had some mana, but one needed a very vivid and strong imagination to make it work. I always found it funny that people with logical thinking and spellcasters like Lien had more trouble creating ‘strange’ spells, exactly because of their way of thinking. Alchemists, on the other hand, were often weird people believing all kinds of things which led them to creating many spells.

Thanks to Lien, I had way more mana to play with and needed even less of it than in the past, so I went ahead and mixed up every element except for light and lightning magic since my dear girlfriend was using that. The light bulb also came in handy so I didn’t want to dispel that one either. There weren’t many scorpions left anyway and since they couldn’t cast elemental spells anymore, the ones with physical traits finished the remaining monsters.

“What the fuck? I can’t use earth magic!”

“I can’t use nature magic either!” similar cries of surprise resounded in the cavern and about half of the group retreated in a hurry, fearing that the scorpions would attack them.

I preferred using magic as well, but all these ‘elite’ students were worth nothing if their shiny spells were taken away. Lien could keep fighting even if that was the case, which made me proud of her. In fact, she stopped using lightning magic after some time, even though she was supposed to fight with magic as a spellcaster. She really stood out from the crowd like a sore thumb. Seeing that she could use lightning magic, those who had the affinity for it quickly ganged up on the Black Scorpion in hopes of getting something good.

Unfortunately for them, its body was still as resistant as before and their attacks had no effect on it. When only the Black Scorpion was left alive, Lien ran up to me and questioned me, “Is this your doing? I tried using other type of magic but I couldn’t and the others seemed to be suffering from the same fate.”

“Shh, lower your voice,” I hushed her. “Yes, it’s my doing,” I replied when people stopped looking our way.

“You must teach me this,” she said with determination. For some reason it made me really happy when she asked something from me, it felt great when she relied on me and I could help her.

“Of course~ but if you want to finish the Black Scorpion, do it now. Keeping up this state is rather costly, though I could keep going for a few hours…” I mused.

“And you’re telling me it’s costly,” she rolled her eyes.

“It is costly, it’s just that-” leaning close to her ear, I whispered, “banging you has even stronger effects on me than on you.”

“You dirty pig,” she shook her head unable to hide that little bit of happiness she felt. She probably liked helping me just as much as I did helping her, even if the method was a bit perverted. And honestly, it wasn’t like we ever did it because we thought about its effects. I was simply lusting to be with her whenever I could, which often turned into physical affection.

“What were you expecting? I’m a pervert to the core, my inherited powers wouldn’t even work if I wasn’t,” I continued through Link since I didn’t want people to overhear us.

“What do you mean?” she frowned.

“Do you not mind that they’re going to steal your prey?” I asked, pointing at the Black Scorpion.

“Screw it, they can kill it, this is more important to me,” she waved her hand and pulled me to the side. Although we left it to the others, Leo wasn’t helping either and its armour was too resistant for the students to damage it seriously.

I’ll let them play with it until I explain things to her.

“Okay. Now then, where to start…  Basically, everyone has a ‘commandment’ of the sort and fulfilling that commandment makes them stronger. For someone who loves murdering, murdering people could make them stronger, however morbid that may sound. Let’s take Ares, the god of war as an example. He probably held the title ‘god of war’ because his commandment had to do with either killing or conflict between people. Maybe creating conflict made him stronger and people started calling him the god of war. He could have given himself that title as well, of course.”

“That’s the main reason I can’t be sure of Mary’s power either. It probably has to do with charming if she’s really the god of beauty. Or it could be something like… popularity. Maybe being loved and accepted by many people empowers her soul and with a stronger soul, you’ll also become stronger. If that was the case, I’d understand why she wants to get in control of these two countries through peaceful means. Do you get how it works now?”

“Commandments are like the manifestation of our desires, just like traits, and if you can fulfill your commandment, your soul will become stronger. That’s how it works. In my case, I’ve always regarded sex as something very important because of a strange reason, but I’ll tell you about that later, and doing it with you empowers me way more than it does normal people. You could say that sex is my commandment,” I explained.

“I get it now, but do I have a ‘commandment’ then? Can I have one and if I can, then how?”  she started bombarding me with questions.

“Yes, everyone can have one but you don’t have it yet because to have a commandment, you must advance your soul to a specific level, which isn’t easy. You can get there much easier with my help, though, especially now that you can sense souls,” I smiled at her.

“Great. When do we start?” she asked in a low voice.

“Hahaha, don’t be impatient,” I couldn’t help but laugh at her reaction. “I imagine you don’t want to do it in front of everyone else, do you?” I whispered into her ear.

Placing her hands on my chest, she gently pushed me back and turned her head to the side, “I’d like to avoid that.”

“Haha, I thought so.”

“Well, it’s lucky that the others are too occupied to listen to us,” I muttered.

“Aaaargh! I can’t wait to find out what is my commandment,” she clenched her fists.

Smiling at her, I replied, “You’re wrong if you think you’ll just learn about it at some point. I have to tell you, incarnations aren’t blood related to the gods of the old either. We just share the same viewpoints about a topic as they did in the past, which is the main reason we inherited their aspect and knowledge.”

“Numerous religions had numerous gods and there were gods with the same commandments, but their understanding and desire for that something was different. For example, I prefer one on one and faithful sexual relationships with actual love included while another god of sex could have different preferences,” I explained.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, maybe the god of sex from the Greek mythology would prefer huge harems and empty relationships which are all for pleasuring one another. Of course, this was just an example and I have no idea what makes up his or her commandment if they’re out there somewhere in the world and it’s probably way more complex than that. I could talk about mine for much longer as well than explain it in one sentence.”

“If you know yourself, you know what’s going to be your commandment because it’s probably something that interests you the most. It could be the attention of people, the lust for their love, it could be your love for alcohol, which is most likely the case for Bacchus’s incarnation. It could be things like possessing everything, or knowing everything, which could be the commandments of the gods of wisdom. It can be really anything.”

“In my opinion, yours would be either something related to wisdom since you seem to want to know more than anyone, or you took after me and sex will also empower you,” I said as a grin formed on my face, imagining the latter.

“Eh?” her face turned a bit red, which I haven’t seen happen for a long time now. Clearing her throat, she pushed the matter to the side and asked, “I’ve got a question. Is it possible that there are some vacant incarnation positions and if... theoretically, I fulfilled the conditions, I could inherit the knowledge? And one more thing, if that’s how you inherit knowledge, then why the hell did you inherit it in your childhood? You shouldn’t have known about sex at that age,” she asked.

“It is possible,” I nodded. “About your second question. Although I can’t say I like talking about it, I’ll tell you that the trigger for me was a time when I caught my parents,” I cleared my throat, “doing it…”

“I was very young at that time but instead of traumatising me and stuff like that, for some reason it made me consider that sort of relationship a bit ritualistic,” I laughed. I was sure there weren’t many guys who were pent up on having a girlfriend who never had sexual relationship with another guy. Well, there was much more to it, but I wouldn’t start telling her about it even if she asked me, probably.

“Eh? Are you kidding me?”

“No, I’m serious,” I replied. “Maybe one on one relationships also became important to me because it was between my parents and children would naturally want their parents to be together, no?”

“Erm, yeah, I guess. I’m not sure how would I have reacted if I had ever seen my father with my mother,” she shuddered.

“Ah, well, anyway, that was the main reason which formed my understanding of the matter so early on, which in turn, led me to inheriting my knowledge,” I said.

“Hmm, I’ll think about mine as well,” she muttered, falling deep into her thoughts. The students managed to take out the Black Scorpion in the meantime and found the red star as well, along with the scroll which explained what it meant. I had to admit, I was surprised to see that they used their brains to take it out in the end. They were really the best students of the year, after all.

“It’s mine!” the guy who held the red star and the scroll shouted and charged towards the exit.

Hahaha, they think that the red star is the treasure, this is awesome! I hope that they’re going to rush out after him and leave us here. We can take the real thing like that.

As expected, everyone rushed after him since they were still unable to use magic. I was doing that intentionally. There was only one person staying behind, Leo.

“My, if it isn’t you two. It seems you have your own red star already,” he smiled at Lien, looking at her little pouch as if he could see it through.

“What do you want?” she frowned, placing her hand on her pouch.

“I’m not interested in that, don’t worry about it,” he waved his hand and made his way towards the middle of the room. “By the way, I know that she knows about your origin, and I also know that you aren’t the incarnation of ‘Zagreus’. Considering that you’ve become stronger after her appearance, your commandment must have to do with either love or sex or trust or something like that,” he added, slightly surprising me.

“So you and Mary knew each other,” I said.

“Of course, there are more incarnations in the world, though you don’t know about them for a reason,” he replied.

“Why are you beating around the bush so much?” Lien asked. “You’re really annoying,” she added.

Placing his hands on the wall, he started tapping around while laughing, “Hahaha, I totally get you, Seth. She’s really an amusing one.”

“She’s more than just amusing,” I chuckled.

“Pardon me but I’m still here,” she pinched my arm. Finding a lever, Leo pulled it and looked at the ground which split apart in the middle, revealing a hidden grail.

“There we go,” he muttered, looking into it.

He picked up seven pills and after throwing three of them towards Lien, he stuffed the remaining into his pockets.

While Lien thanked him, I said, “Give one more to her.”

“Why? It was me who organised these idiots,” he replied.

“Come on, you don’t even need it and she took out like half of the group,” I rolled my eyes.

“I’ve got an idea! If you tell me what’s your commandment, I’m going to give all of the pills to her,” he smiled at me.

“No way,” Lien replied before I could utter a single word. Closing my mouth, I shrugged it off since I didn’t plan telling him anyway.

“Hmph, you will get no more in that case, but let me tell you that if you can gain power this easily, you’ll become a target. Some incarnations has been around for much longer than you and me and they don’t want somebody stronger than them to appear out of nowhere,” he said with a frown and then turned towards the exit.

“Thanks, but I have one question. Are you my enemy?” I asked.

“It depends on you,” he laughed loudly and turned into a black mist, disappearing into nothingness.

Before I could say or do anything, a group of students appeared at the bottom of the stairs and shouted, “What’s that!”

Following their eyes, I looked at the grail at first and then at the pills in Lien’s hand, which she suddenly stuffed it into her cleavage.

Holy fuck.

Realising what she did, she stood frozen for a few seconds and then slowly pulled out her hand. Seeing the guys staring at her like hungry wolves, she turned towards me and said apologetically, “I’m sorry, I had nowhere else to hide it and somehow I reflexively… shoved it in there.”

Shaking my head, I looked at the guys standing in the exit. They seemed to be entranced by the sight. “I bet they want to take it out now,” I whispered into her ear as I embraced her waist and looked at the other students threateningly.

Rushing over, they pushed the grail back underground and stopped in front of us. “The others are coming back as well, do you think you could get away if we told them about it?” one of them asked, staring into Lien’s cleavage.

Sticking my hand between her breasts, I grabbed the pills and pulled it out, “Do you want this? They’re mana strengthening pills. What do you think, can you take it from me?”

“Are you seriously going to start a chicken fight with them?” Lien stepped back and looked at me as if I was an idiot.

“What? They want to take something that’s yours, of course I wouldn’t let them. They’re also three so sharing fairly isn’t possible either and I imagine you wouldn’t give them all three and then get nothing in the end,” I replied.

“Well, I really don’t want that,” she muttered.

“But-” before I could finish my sentence, these bastards attacked us. One of them got behind Lien and wanted to restrain her while the remaining two ganged up against me. Since one of them was a bulky guy with a physical trait, he was in the lead while the other wanted to attack me with elemental magic.

Sure enough, I’ve lifted the restrictions already, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t activate it again. They were like snails compared to my perception speed, so I mixed up the laws once again and the fireball forming in the magician’s hand started disappearing. Now that I’ve become physically stronger and quicker as well, I was able to follow up my perception speed to some degree. After punching the guy in front of me in the face, I turned towards the other one behind Lien and caught his throat.

I stopped flooding my brain with mana and made my perception return to normal. The first guy fell on his back with blood flowing out of his nose, slowly covering his face, while the other one was surprised to find himself in my grasp. Raising him into the air, I said playfully, “You should never threaten me or my girlfriend because I’m not going to take a kick and I can be very, veeery cruel when the latter happens, you know?”

“Let go of me!” he shouted as he started hitting my arm, but I decreased the weight of his body to that of a feather. I could barely feel him touching me and his movements turned so slow that it actually hurt seeing.

“What? What happened? I didn’t see a thing! I was about to take out the guy behind me and now he’s in your hands?” Lien looked around confused.

“I’m sorry dear, but they pissed me off so I couldn’t let you have your fun with them,” I sighed.

“What’s with him?” she pointed at the guy in my grasp, seeing that he hit me every five seconds. Okay, he wasn’t that slow, but still… His arm was so slow that it was basically drifting towards me instead of flying.

“This is called Mass Destruction and it does what its name says,” I explained.

“Ah, cool, you’ve got to add this to the list as well,” she replied.

“What list?”

“What? The list of spells you’re going to teach me,” she mused.

“Okay,” I chuckled and looked at the magician guy in the back who was still trying hard to do something. “I’ll tell you it’s not going to work, no matter how you try,” I sighed, seeing that he was being really persistent. It hurt watching at this point, so I had to stop him before he made me laugh to the death.

“Screw it, what the fuck is this spell?” he yelled at me. Annoyed by his loud voice, I grabbed his head and attacked his brain with a tiny bit of my mana. Overburdened by the power of my mana, he instantly lost consciousness and fell to the ground as I let go of him. Grabbing the remaining guy’s head, I did the same to him and then threw him on the ground.

“You should sleep as well,” I muttered.

“The fuck?” Lien cried out.

“It’s nothing, dear. Let’s leave before the others ret- never mind, they’re here,” I sighed. In the next moment, they appeared on the stairs and started flooding the cavern. But at the same time, I made that light bulb disperse as well and mixed up every law so that none of them could cast magic.

“Damn, it’s so dark, I can’t see shit!”

“Can’t you do that light bulb again?”

“No, for some reason I can’t use magic here. Just what’s wrong with this place?”

“Maybe there is some good stuff and we have to find it in the dark,” one of them laughed and jumped towards the middle of the room. Covering Lien’s mouth, I pulled her into the corner and inched towards the steps next to the wall. Since I enhanced my eyes, I had no trouble seeing in the dark.

Unfortunately, there were a few others with the same ability, though they were all looking towards the middle of the room. “There seems to be something covered,” one of them muttered.

“Yeah, let’s check it out,” another one also ran towards the middle, slowly followed by the others.

Hmm? Can I actually get away without the need to beat everyone unconscious? It’d be a pain to set up another formation just to keep them safe, so I’d like to avoid another battle.

“Ah, what’s this?” one of them fell over the trio I’ve just beaten up. Tapping the ground, he started feeling up the guy, only to realise that he was touching a human.

“Hey, someone is here!” he cried out, catching everyone’s attention. Of course, the students who could see in the dark also turned around and spotted us next to the wall. Clicking my tongue, I picked Lien up and rushed towards the stairs.

“Stop!”

Paying no heed to their warning, I punched the wall when I reached the stairs, causing the exit to cave in. If I got a hundred meters away from them, they’d be able to use elemental magic once again and clear out the rubbish, but I’d be long gone by that time. As I reached the top of the stairs, I put all my strength into my legs and jumped as far as I could, landing only a few hundred meters away.

“Alright, we should be okay now,” I muttered, looking at Lien in my arms. She was so cute as she was clenching my shirt in her hands, I kind of wanted to cuddle her but I knew that we had to go even further. We were the bad guys here and I wouldn’t punish the students for something like trying to get what they actually deserved. It was just that Lien did better and I believed she was worthier of it than them.

“And that’s where you’re wrong,” I heard a familiar female voice behind my back.

“Rebecca?” I turned around, raising a brow.

“Hyaa, I knew you weren’t as simple as you seemed to be, but that was really something,” she shook her head.

“My, thank you,” I smiled at her.

“But you forgot something, you’ve never met the other two nobles in the group, can you guess why?” she smiled back.

“Ah, I knew that you were nobles,” I replied.

“You did? I’m surprised because I always behave like commoners do,” she chuckled.

“Sis, you’re talking too much, the others are going to catch up,” Max reprimanded her.

“What? You got a problem?” she hissed, silencing her brother. She seemed to be the one wearing the pants…

“By the way, that was a nice jump,” Max remarked, turning towards the dune we’ve just left behind. “How far did you get even? There is almost a kilometer between the entrance and our location,” he muttered.

“This is all nice, but Seth, could you put me down?” Lien asked all of a sudden.

“I’m not sure, you were so cute as you were holding onto me, I kind of wanted to keep staring at you,” I mused.

Shaking her head, she used telekinesis to get out of my arms and land on the ground next to me, though she made it look like a simple jump. “Ah, shit, our things are still in the camp!” she caught to her head as she realised.

Looking at each other, Max and Rebecca started laughing, “Now that you mention it!”

Walking closer to them, I asked, “What do you want from us?”

“I don’t want anything from you, but I want my part from that,” Rebecca gently pushed me to the side and pointed at the three pills in Lien’s hand. Taking a long look at it, Lien sighed loudly and threw one towards Rebecca and another one towards Max.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked, catching them before Rebecca and Max could get their hands on them.

“I don’t care, they fought against the monsters as well and we can make things equal with this since you kept your mouth shut,” Lien winked at Rebecca. Nodding, I held the pills in front of them.

“What are you talking ab- Ah! That, haha. Okay, I’ll keep silent,” she smiled back as she took it from my hand and then waved it in front of me. “See? Women have much better understanding than guys!”

You just don’t get that I could crush both of you if I wanted, but whatever. We’ve got some ‘friendly’ nobles at least.

“Thanks! If you need my help, just call me, you can count on me anytime! Even if it’s late in the night,” Max winked at her, completely ignoring my presence. He was obviously talking only to Lien.

“You… I’ve told you to shut up!” Rebecca smacked the back of his head all of a sudden.

“What? What have I done?” Max cried out, rubbing his head.

“Haven’t I told you to leave her alone? Why are you trying then? Not to mention that you were being lame and you’ll age alone if you keep up this idiotic behaviour. Or don’t tell me you want to be like the others and force yourself on women?” she grabbed his ear and started pulling on it.

“Ou-Ouch, big Sis, I’m sorry and I wouldn’t do something like that!”

“Do you really?” she pulled on it even more.

“Yes! Yes, I swear! I’m terribly sorry!” Max shouted.

“Good then,” she let go of him and looked at us apologetically.

“Sheesh, I didn’t even say anything bad to her,” he grumbled, earning a baleful glare from his sister.

“Erm, thanks, I guess,” Lien replied awkwardly. Seeing Max’s eyes brighten up, filled with hope, she added, “I’ll be blunt with you, please look for another woman and leave me be.”

“Eh? But I didn’t even say that I wanted any sort of relationship!” he cried out.

“You’re an idiot, who wouldn’t realise your implications with a tone and demeanor like that? She also has a boyfriend already and you’re trying to pick her up in front of him, do you have no shame?” Rebecca shook her head.

“But I wasn’t trying to-” being met with her glare, he shut up and lowered his head.

Erm, I guess I have nothing to do here.

I knew that he was actually interested in Lien ever since we met, but they were really overreacting this, though that last part was really annoying. Of course, I could understand Lien since must have experienced way too many similar scenarios. Poor guy was shut down even before he tried, but considering Rebecca’s behaviour, I was quite sure that she wanted to please Lien for some reason. Or maybe she just took a liking to her.

“Do you have any idea where to go from here?” Rebecca asked.

“Originally, I wanted to check out the forest, but the others are most likely going to look for us in that area and it must have been cleared by now anyway, so I think that we should stay in the desert,” Lien replied.

“Do you want to tag along? We could help each other while the others could consume the pill, how about it?” Rebecca asked.

“I’m fine with it, and you?” Lien questioned me. Shrugging my shoulders, I left it to her. Although deep inside I didn’t want her to start spending time with others as well since I’d have less time with her, I knew that I couldn’t be so selfish. She’s never had a friend she could rely on which I found rather sad, even if I didn’t really require such people. I was a weirdo anyway.

“Alright, then you can come but…” leaning closer to Rebecca, she whispered into her ear while looking at Max, “keep him far away from me.”

“Mhm, your boyfriend is the silent type and I bet he’s the overprotective type anyway. I don’t want these stupid guys to start fighting,” she replied, making some sort of pact with Lien.

“I totally didn’t hear a thing,” I remarked, shaking my head. “By the way, was that dark magic? The thing you used to latch onto my shadow.”

Hearing my question, both Max and Rebecca looked at me with bloodshot eyes. I guess they weren’t happy to hear a question like that.

“How did you notice us?” Max frowned.

“I’m just much stronger than you,” I replied bluntly.

Rebecca kept eyeing me for a few seconds until finally breaking the silence with something surprising, “Hey, do you want to join our clan?”

“Hah? Where’d that come from?” I raised my brows.

“As I see it, you have a girlfriend who’s beautiful and talented. It must be annoying to deal with all the nobles since you aren’t one. But if you became part of a noble clan, the others wouldn’t bug you two anymore,” she smiled at me.

“And what should I do in case I accepted your invitation?”

“Ah, firstly, let me correct myself. I was inviting both of you, not just you. And to answer your question, your task would be to one, obey my father’s commands. Of course, he wouldn’t ask you to do anything ridiculous. Two, you’d have to perform well in every competition since bad performance could shame our clan. Seeing that you’re hiding more power than I thought, I imagine it won’t be hard to fetch a few more stars,” she chuckled.

Although their protection would be nice, I don’t have to rely on them anymore. I could level the whole city at this point so I have little to fear against normal humans. I also have to worry about greater things than some horny nobles, like the other god incarnations. Based on Leo’s words, there seems to be a god community which knows about my existence and yet I know nothing about them. I can’t be bothered to play along with whimsical nobles, they’d probably send me to all kinds of competitions anyway.

“Lien, are you interested?” I still asked my girlfriend since I wanted to take her opinion into consideration.

“It’s up to you,” she shrugged.

“Hey, you should tame him some more instead of leaving it all to him. You’ve got some fine weapons to control him, don’t you think?” Rebecca put her arm around Lien’s shoulder and started poking her breasts.

Pushing her hand away, Lien replied, “I don’t feel the need to control him and he isn’t that easy to deal with anyway.”

“You’re saying that, but I bet he’d do anything for you if you showed your cutest sides to him, am I right?” she looked at me.

“She doesn’t have to do stuff like that, I’d do anything for her even without that,” I said as I walked behind Lien and embraced her, slowly moving my hands down to her abdomen. As I used my power to fill her body with pleasure, her whole body stiffened up, “But it works mutually in our relationship,” I smiled at Rebecca.

“Seth, stop it,” Lien muttered, her voice sounding a bit hoarse. Biting on her finger, she looked up at me with half-closed eyes, trying to hold back her voice, “Please?”

The spell I used was called Pleasure Touch, which just filled the erogenous zones with as much as pleasure as they could ‘produce’ and sent it towards her brain. It was usable on both genders, naturally, though I’d never use it on a guy…

“Hey, hey, is she always like that? And here I wanted to say that she did a great job,” Rebecca shook her head.

“Why are you so pent up on controlling men?” I asked.

“Why not? You just want sex anyway and as long as you get it, you listen to women most of the time. Let’s be honest, in our clan, my father is the leader, but the one really pulling the strings is my mother,” she chuckled, saying something reasonable.

It was true that guys were often yielding in relationships, but that was the case only for those who were afraid of losing their girlfriend and other similar things. It wasn’t like I understood their reasons since I didn’t have to mind stuff like that. Maybe it was simply because they were afraid of something nice ending all of a sudden.

In our case, we were both yielding towards one another which made things really simple. We always considered what was the best for the other, not just our own happiness.

“I can’t really disagree with that, but it’s not like that for us,” I laughed.

“Whatever, it’s not like I have anything to do with your private life. So? Will you join?” she pressed on.

“I’m sorry but I’ll have to refuse,” I replied as I let go of Lien and stopped using Pleasure Touch.

Heaving out a sigh of relief, Lien did as if nothing happened and laughed, “I was totally expecting that answer.” She was trying her best to cover her shame, though it just made her even cuter in my eyes.

“Can I ask you why?” Rebecca raised her brows.

“I can deal with nobles myself and we may leave in the near future anyway,” I replied.

“Leave? What do you mean?”

“I mean that we’re going to leave Ushua and Eglon behind for some time,” I smiled at her.

“Are you crazy or do you want to commit suicide?” she tilted her head to the side.

“Come on, he’s neither,” Lien rolled her eyes. “It’s something we decided together, though we haven’t talked about the time yet. Our dream is to explore the world!”

“Haah, it can’t be helped then. I can only wish you good luck,” she shook her head.

After returning to the camp, we had to sneak in and out to get our stuff, though thanks to some ‘godly luck’, nobody looked our way and I even packed up our tent before leaving. Rebecca and Max kept questioning me if it was my doing but since they didn’t get an answer, they left it be.

We decided to go far away from the camp to decrease the chances of trouble coming our way. Neither of us was sure that the students would keep their word because of that pact. Considering all our options, we moved southwest in the end, believing that it’d be the safest. On our way, we also found quite a lot of monsters since nobody had gone so far yet, but none of us worried these low class things.

“Ah, look, there is a cavern!” Rebecca pointed at a rocky mountain not too far away and ran towards it. Following her, we entered the cavern and took a quick look around. Although it looked like a cavern from far away, it was nothing but a hollowed part of the rocky mountain wall. Either way, it would provide us with a shelter from the strong sunlight and I'd have to defend only one direction.

“You should all consume it, I don't want to stay on guard thrice when I could protect you all alone,” I remarked, seeing Rebecca eyeing the pill in her hand.

“What? That would be dangerous, what if a group of students stumbled into us?” Max voiced his concerns.

“I could deal with them,” I replied.

“Look, even if it's you-” before he could continue, Lien cut into his words.

“You don't have to worry about it, just do as he said,” she sat down and put her pill in her mouth.

“Sis?” he looked at Rebecca for confirmation.

Shrugging her shoulders, she sat down as well, “If she is so sure of it, I don't see why we shouldn't consume them now. It’d be indeed a waste of time to consume them one by one, but there's something that has been bugging me for a while now.”

“Why are you not interested in these pills? You could have fought to keep it and you don't seem to be afraid of losing against us either,” she asked.

“Oh, it's because my mana is stronger than the one in the pills,” I said bluntly.

When I met the second tamed monster with the red star, I checked it and there was a person observing everything through the monster’s eyes which meant that I was seen at the first time. Since my 'cover’ was blown anyway, I saw no reason to hide anything. Of course, I didn't plan telling them about my origin.

“That's impossible, the one making these was Jonathan White. Not even my father could match up to him,” she shook her head.

“Believe what you want,” I shrugged my shoulders. As long as she got the point and consumed that pill so that I wouldn't have to stay in one place for three days, I was happy.

She seemed to be a bit out of it after hearing my answer, but she consumed the pill anyway. Seeing that his sister took Lien’s advice, Max naturally followed after. I found it quite funny how she didn't even consider that Lien could finish before them and that we could rob them while they were still unable to respond. She probably thought that a commoner wouldn’t be able to overcome her and that we wouldn’t dare to do that.

Well, I really wouldn’t anger a noble clan for something that I had no use for. Three hours passed by peacefully, except for a few monsters that stumbled into us. But a bit to my surprise, our luck was even worse than I thought since I soon spotted a group of five coming our way. Although we were in the shady cover of the mountain, they seemed to have noticed us anyway.

It should be fine, right? They have no reason to attack us and there are nobles in the group as well, I don’t think commoners would be daring enough to try to rob us.

I wanted to believe in my thoughts, but their scarred bodies and thug-like fashion made me feel otherwise. Three of them also had brown hair and for whatever reason, brown and black haired people often had a dark side to them. I also happened to be an example of that since I’ve always been curious about killing a human. Of course, I wouldn’t do it unless I had no other way, I was a law-obeying person! Okay, that wasn’t true…

Maybe it’s because black and brown hair colours are the most common and people with that colour are often average in everything. Since they don’t receive as much attention as popular people, they become bittersweet over life and then their bittersweetness turns into hate for humanity or some other thing. Wait, what the fuck am I even thinking about? But it still makes sense, or no? Maybe I should stop thinking about bullshit.

Ceasing my foolish thinking, I stood up from the ground to welcome our dear visitors. “What can I help you with?” I asked.

They all had a few yellow stars tied to their shorts, but neither of them had enough to pass the trial, which I found a bit weird. With a group of five, they should have been able to kill thirty-five monsters by now since they had the possibility to hunt them in a team, making it much easier. In fact, grouping up with other students was the best option if you wanted to finish the exam with flying colours.

They seemed to be looking for something both on me and the others behind me but since they failed to find it, one of them asked, “We’ve just spotted you guys so we came to check on you. How are you doing with the trial?”

“We’re doing good, though I imagine you had no trouble finishing it with a group of five, right?” I raised my brows.

“Are you saying you’ve finished the task already?” he asked.

I’m sorry, I want to have fun! I know where this is going, I laughed in my mind upon seeing their reaction to my statement. “Of course, it was quite easy.”

“Oh? It was indeed easy on the first and the second day but if I have to be honest, now we’re having trouble finding monsters. We went to the forest when the trial started and most of the monsters were killed by the time we got there since there were too many students. Although we relocated and came here to the desert, we had to find out that the monsters had gone missing here as well,” he replied.

“That’s really unfortunate, though I expected as much. There are a thousand some students and only eight thousand monsters, it’s easy to run out of targets. You should hurry up else you’ll have a hard time finishing the trial. I mean, it’ll be hard to find monsters with stars since their numbers will be low and the area is huge,” I shook my head, faking some empathy.

“Yes, yes, that’s true. We should have come to the desert on the first day as well. We noticed a few groups changing directions, but we didn’t want to follow them. It was a big mistake on our part,” he sighed.

Raising his head, he asked, “By the way, which school are you from? Do you know each other?” he leaned to the side to look at the others behind me.

“I’ve got to know Rebecca and Max just today” - I pointed at them - “while the girl over there is my girlfriend,” I added, pointing at Lien. “Lien and I are from the fourth school.” I wanted to continue, but he started ogling Lien in such a conspicuous way that I had to consider punching him in the face. Even though I was looking at him, he couldn’t hide his dirty desires upon looking at her. Maybe not even he noticed how he bit his dirty lips for a moment and then ran his eyes up and down on her, making sure that he had a good look at all her assets.

He soon caught to his head and turned to look back at me, slightly nodding his head, “Lucky.”

“I know,” I chuckled, barely able to contain my bloodlust. I knew that they’d try something sooner or later and I couldn’t wait to beat them up. Even their presence was pissing me off at this point. Getting ahead of the problem, I rudely asked, “Now then, could you leave?”

“Huh?”

“Did you not hear me? Could you leave? I have to defend them while they’re cultivating and you’re a bit threatening with a group of this size. If you get my point,” I said, furrowing my brows.

Looking at his friends, he seemed to look for confirmation. I intentionally didn’t tell them that Rebecca and Max were nobles, I wanted to play around with them a little bit. I didn’t like showing off my power, but cases like these were exceptions. They obviously came here to rob us while we were sleeping or straight out attack us. Considering that they’ve been secretly moving their mana to use a spell, it was definitely the latter and yet here they were pretending to be friendly people.

It was pissing me off so much! And worst of all, this bastard even dared to check out Lien in front of me. I knew that everyone else did it, but this time pissed me off much more for some reason. Maybe it was because I was looking at his face while he was doing it and he didn’t even bother with me, though Max did the same.

I should have broken his hand as well when we shook hands…

While being at it, I couldn’t help but turn around and look at Max with a frown. Not much to my surprise, as soon as I turned around, I felt the wind moving and giving way to the guy’s fist in front of me. Catching his punch, I smiled at him, “Now, that’s really not something you should do with a fellow participant, is it?”

“Bullshit! Guys, let’s get him!” he shouted, trying to pull back his fist, but he didn’t have enough strength to free his hand.

“Before you get into it, I’d suggest you to reconsider it and just so you know, I’m being really, really, reeeaaaallly nice to you right now,” I said, expecting them to rush at me nonetheless. Of course, they didn’t wait for me to finish what I had to say and another one in the front punched towards me. Three of them stepped back, probably planning to use magic. Catching his fist as well, I said, “You should take my advice because I’m not too kind to my enemies. This is the last time I warn you.”

“What are you waiting for, you idiots? Help me!” the guys I caught shouted one after the other, trying to free their hands from my grasp. They must have been ones with physical trait while the other three in the back probably preferred magic. Both of them kicked towards my side, but I let go of their fists and caught their legs instead. They must have been caught by surprise when I flung them into the air and then smashed them into the ground.

Placing my palms on their back, I increased the gravity on their bodies, but hearing their bones popping, I quickly weakened my spell. I didn’t want to accidentally kill them by crushing their bodies. It wasn’t like I’d let myself being taken to jail if anything of the sort happened, but why would I screw up my life for no reason? And just because I was curious about killing, it didn’t mean I was a cold hearted murderer. I was even nice enough to warn them!

“My, I really wasn’t expecting this,” I shook my head, seeing the other three in the back checking with each other. “You’re not only trying to gang up on us and rob us, you’re even cowardly enough to consider running away after seeing that your friends have no chance against me. Maybe if you helped them from the beginning, they could have hit me, but now they have no chance to move and run away. You don’t even deserve passing this trial, I guess it’s true that the weak gangs up.”

“F-Fuck you, we aren’t cowards!” one of them shouted and raised his hand to use elemental magic. Considering his reaction to the ‘coward’ word, he probably had some sort of trauma related to being called a coward. Or he was just too stupid to realise that I was provoking him… Looking at his own hands in confusion, he pointed his palm at me once again, but still nothing happened.

“It’s not going to work, you know?” I mused. I’ve long ago mixed up the laws, so they had no way to use elemental magic, but they didn’t even try using it before.

“Argh, screw this!” unable to do anything, he rushed towards me and wanted to punch my face but since I was much quicker, I punched him in the face instead. His fist was still only halfway, even though he made a move long before me. As my fist connected, he fell backwards and hit his head into the ground, though sand wasn’t the most dangerous material to fall on…

“That was quick,” I mused, seeing him losing consciousness with a bleeding nose. I didn’t get why was everyone going for my face, it wasn’t like I was some super handsome guy who needed a fix to his pretty face.

I didn’t go overboard, right? I frowned as I used Push on the remaining two in front of me to blast them to the side and squatted down next to the fallen one. After checking him, I was glad to find out that he was fine, though I broke his nose.

Well, it’s going to hurt for a while but it’ll heal. I kind of feel sorry for him now, he was the bravest of the three and he didn’t ogle Lien either, still receiving the biggest injury. Haah, whatever, it’s not like I’d heal him since it’d take a lot of time and mana. I guess I should explore healing magic in-depth in the future else I won’t be able to help Lien if anything serious happened. If only I could heal others as well as myself… Hahaha, that’d be ridiculous. I guess it doesn’t even count as healing, though. It’s more like regeneration.

While I was thinking about all kinds of things, the remaining two were looking at me like a group of idiots, not daring to attack me. “You are so disappointing. What kind of people are you even? You wanted to gang up on me to steal our stars, the results of our own hard work, but when you realised you picked a fight with the wrong person, you became so cowardly that you didn’t even dare to help your friends. Tell me, doesn’t that sound ridiculous?” I shook my head as I stood up.

“If you’ve made up your mind then come at me, at least,” I added, but nothing happened. As soon as I turned towards them and took a step forward, they both turned their backs on me and started running as fast as they could, leaving their ‘friends’ to their fate.

“Ah~ the quirks of friendship, aren’t they great?” I asked as I squatted down next to the two guys with physical traits. Patting their shoulders, I added, “You know, I hate cowards like them and now you probably hate them as well, so here is my present.”

As I pointed towards their receding silhouette, the sand blew up under their feet, throwing them into the air, most likely breaking their legs as well. They both landed a few meters away, groaning and shouting in pain. “Ahh, tell me, isn’t this justified?” I asked as I lessened the gravity on his head so that he’d regain his ability to speak and stop eating sand.

Unfortunately, for a moment I forgot that his blood would rush to another place because of it, so I quickly cancelled my whole spell instead and pulled him to his feet. I didn’t want his head to explode or something. I haven’t had many real battles with other people and this little ‘battle’ or more like bullying, made me realise that I had to be careful with what and how I used. People were fragile and a single mistake of mine could cost them their lives. Well, I wouldn’t shed tears for them but it wasn’t like they’ve done anything that made them worthy of death.

“Thank you!” much to my surprise, my other captive shouted happily, seeing his friends being punished. I guess they weren’t his friends anymore. With the help of wind magic, I carried the other two back to us and took a quick look at them. They were both conscious but their legs were broken just as I thought. As expected, their bodies were enhanced so the explosion didn’t hurt their flesh other than a few smaller wounds here and there. It wasn’t like I made it strong to begin with.

“That much should be enough. Now then, I’ll call a tamed monster with your tracker and make you fail this exam. It’s not like your wounds would heal in a day and you have no chance to finish the task at this point. Especially not in a state like this,” I explained. I didn’t want to take their stars since it’d make me the same as them. We’ve long ago finished the task anyway and Lien had thirty stars so she could get all the rewards even without these. We had no need for it, basically.

A minute later, a Desert Hound arrived and stopped in front of the group of five. It took a long look at me for some reason. My, I’m being watched by the one who’s controlling it, let’s send him a message.

Walking up to the three meters tall hound, I grabbed its sides and jumped up into the air, making it look towards the ground where I drew three words. ‘They attacked us’. Once I landed, I put the five of them on the hound’s back and then tied them to it with a few vines. Since it was created using my mana, it was very sturdy and wouldn’t tear easily. The hound took one last look at me and then bolted off towards the city. The desert hound was a C ranked monster, one rank above the Black Scorpion bosses we killed. Despite being a dog-like monster, its body was covered in crystallized sand coloured scales, giving it a lot of protection.

Haah- well, I won’t have to worry about being revealed, at least. Now everyone important knows about me anyway, I shook my head.

Lien finished consuming the pill about half an hour later and stood up with a big smile on her face. “Mhhhm, finally I’m done with it! My mana has become much stronger now!” After coming closer, she whispered into my ear, “But it didn’t strengthen me as much as before.”

“It means that your mana has come closer to be as strong as Jonathan’s,” I said in a low voice. I didn’t want Max and Rebecca to accidentally hear stuff like that.

“Can you do pills like these?” she asked through Link.

“Forget it,” I warned her. “I’m not saying it because I wouldn’t do it for you, I’m saying it because of your own safety. If I made a pill like that and you tried to consume it with your current power, your mana veins would be torn to shreds.”

“That doesn’t sound that good, but you’re wrong about something. I wouldn’t have asked you to do one even if you could. I just wanted to find out whether you knew how to do it or not, but I’ve got my answer anyway,” she replied.

“Oh, I know how to do them but I can’t give you them just yet. I’ll naturally do some for you when your mana becomes strong enough,” I said.

“I’m sure I’ve told you already, but receiving everything without having to do anything doesn’t make me happy. I’ve told you, I don’t want to be ‘kept’ and ‘fed’ by you,”  she shook her head.

“Haha, do you want me to restrict your lessons as well? No, you’d be happier if I set a few conditions for you instead, am I right?” I mused.

“Yes, but don’t make it something like ‘have sex with me’ or I’ll kick you,”  she started laughing, still making sure that we wouldn’t be heard.

“Why are you making that face?” she frowned.

“Don’t tell me you were thinking along that line,” she raised her fist to my face.

“N-No, I really wasn’t,” I forced a smile. Seeing her cracking her fingers, I raised my hands defensively, “I’m sorry, I love you too much to not spoil you. But I’ll think of something that’s harder to fulfill and isn’t sex related, okay? Are you happy with that?”

Shaking her head, she sighed loudly, “Fine. Honestly, you’re such a pervert.”

“What? Are you really the one saying that?” I raised my brows.

“What are you implying?” she frowned.

“I wonder about that,” I mused.

“Can… Can I hit you?” she raised her fist again.

Taking hold of her hand, I stepped closer and embraced her, saying in a low voice, “Why’d you turn to violence so easily? Don’t you love me?”

Looking back into my eyes, she showed me a gentle smile as she put her left arm around my back and her right hand on my chest. “How could you ask something so silly? I was just fooling around, you know?”

“Of course, I do,” I replied, pressing my lips against hers. Afraid that the desert would become even hotter than it was, I pulled back soon and then took a step back. Clearing my throat, I peered at the other two in the shade as I said, “We should control ourselves.”

“Hmm~ are you telling me you don’t want this” - she fondled her own breasts - “and this” - and then turned around, groping her own round bottom. Throwing her hair over her shoulders, she shook her head, “My, my, what a waste.” A sudden breeze which was completely natural also blew her fragrance straight towards my nose, slightly intoxicating my mind.

And the worst was that she knew that she was hot and that she knew how to use her body to be truly erotic and not just a nice and beautiful woman. Sometimes I couldn’t help but think that she learned how to do it so well.

The way she stood showing her side to me brought emphasis both on her breasts and her bottom, and adding to that, the sight of her necklace hanging down into her cleavage emphasises her valley and her plentiful breasts. The light was also reflected on her shoulder and her thigh, while the sharp lines of her collarbone made the whole picture even more erotic. That was no accident!

Winking at me, she slowly turned her back on me and pulled her hair to the side, revealing her nape and her left ear. I couldn’t help but run my eyes down on her arching back and stop my eyes on her round ass.

Honestly, butts had no relation to child making unlike breasts and wide hips, which were related to fertility, but it still aroused me. Basically, there should have been no psychological reason to love asses, but most people did it anyway. I for one, loved a fine round ass!

“AAAARGH! Why are you doing this to me? And here you were being ‘offended’ because I referred to you as if you were pervert. I’ll go and meditate to calm my mind, see you later,” I said holding my head and then quickly made my way towards Max and Rebecca. It was for the best if I started meditating else I’d do something I shouldn’t in front of others…

“Hahaha, but it’s so much fun to tease you. You should’ve seen your face, you ero lover,” she mused.

Gritting my teeth, I covered my eyes, “Now I don’t see you so you can’t tempt me, heh!”

“Oh? What are you a kid?” I heard her walking closer and stopping in front of me. In the next moment, I felt her placing her hand on my chest and slowly moving down towards my abdomen. “Aah~ look at these lines of muscles, I love them.” Raising to her toes, she pressed her body against me and whispered into my ear, “It was so arousing as it was hitting against me last night. I wonder if we could repeat that anytime soon.”

Shit, shit, shiiiiitt! My heart is beating in my cock already…

“Can we?” she blew into my ear and then stepped back laughing. She must have had a lot of fun toying with me. If only Max and Rebecca weren’t here, I wouldn’t have cared about the time! The worst was that she was cruel enough to use this time to toy with me.

“Mhhh, I’m done!” Rebecca sprung up from the ground all of a sudden. Turning towards Lien, I started grinning.

“What is it?” she forced a smile.

“Rebecca, I hope that you can watch over your brother until he finishes,” I asked as I put my arm around Lien’s back.

“Huh? Why? Are you going somewhere?” she asked confused. “Right, what was it that with the other students? I heard they made a ruckus but I couldn’t quite listen to what you were saying,” she added.

“Everything is fine, we’ll be back- soon,” I continued after thinking about it for a moment and then jumped towards the south. I had to say, I had a few quick and wild rounds with Lien, but it was wonderful!

During the rest of the trial, we ran into more and more groups who fought each other for the stars and there were even some who were stupid enough to attack us. I made sure to punish all of them. On the seventh day, we returned to the city early in the morning since we didn’t have to stay out all day unlike some who were still trying their best to find the remaining monsters with stars. If there were any…

I’ve met those kinds of people during the trial and even though I felt a bit sorry for them, I couldn’t be bothered enough to share my stars with them. Honestly, they were better off failing if they didn’t have enough strength and brain to finish this simple task because they’d probably die in a more dangerous area. After all, the area of the trial was cleaned up and every strong monster was killed or tamed.

In reality, we could have run into that same C ranked desert hound any time and if we didn’t have the ability to run away or kill it, we’d die. The areas outside the city were that sort of places. There was no ‘safe area’ and monsters to save you, obviously.

Once we finished registering in one of the booths, we wanted to go home but we were stopped by a familiar person. “Hi, are you done with the task?” Upon spotting us, our teacher ran up to us.

“Hi, and yes,” I replied since Lien didn’t.

“You two are the first from my class, as expected,” Tim smiled at us. “So? How many did you get?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course, I’ll ask all of my students. I want to know how they performed during the trial!” he beat his chest proudly.

“Why? Won’t they make the results public anyway?” I raised my brows.

“They will, but I want to hear it from you,” he replied, seemingly a bit annoyed by all the questions. I guess I was supposed to just shut up and answer what I was asked, but I wasn’t one to follow the commands of my seniors that easily. Well, if I knew that they were better than me in something, I’d be willing to listen to them more easily, but I knew more than TIm and I was also stronger, so I didn’t feel inclined to follow his words like a puppy.

“We both have thirty stars,” I replied, scratching the back of my head. For some reason, she didn’t want to go past thirty and gave the remaining to me, no matter how much I tried to give it to her. When I asked her why, she told me she didn’t want to rely on the White clan too much so thirty was enough.

During the exam, we also ran into James, Arnold, and Mark, who followed us on the first day. Unlike the others, they tagged along for some time and wanted to rob us during the night, though I quickly sent them back to the city with a few broken limbs. I hated vicious people like them more than anyone. Only rapists were above them on my hate list.

“That’s amazing! I congratulate you!” he shouted happily. He’d probably earn some bonus because of us or he was just really happy for us. Honestly, I didn’t believe in people enough to believe that kind of shit. I was quite sure that teachers would get some sort of bonus for students from their class if they performed well.

“Be sure to attend the closing ceremony at six in the evening. Also, you’ll have the whole next week free, but everything will be explained during the ceremony anyway,” he said and after patting my shoulder, he turned around and left whistling. I couldn’t help but enchant my ears and listen to him for a while.

He got about two hundred meters away when he couldn’t hold in his happiness anymore and muttered, “Bonus, bonus, I’ll get a lot for them! I knew I could count on you two, hehe. I’ll be able to buy a that new TV and sofa pack and then go on a holiday! Woohoo!”

“Hahaha,” I started laughing, earning a few stares from the other incoming students and their parents. This was a big event and many parents came to take their children back home, obviously.

“What is it?” Lien looked at me weirdly.

“It’s nothing, I’ve just heard something funny,” I mused.

“Oh. Tell me about it later, but for now,” she pointed towards my parents who were rushing towards us. Once they were done with all the questioning and then praising because of our performance, they started telling us how bright our future could be if we were this talented. My mother also thanked Lien for whatever reason. I guess she also agreed that I’ve become strong because of Lien. True enough, if it wasn’t for her, I’d have had to be really careful with my mana and I wouldn’t have become physically so strong either.

The only thing they were wrong about was that Lien taught me, but I’d have to reveal my origin to them if I wanted prove anything and I didn’t care about it anyway. I’ve thought about it already and if they ever got under some sort of mind control, it was best if they knew nothing about me. I didn’t know if mind control was possible, but maybe another incarnation had that sort of ability, which was why I had to be careful who I told about my secret.

Although I tried telling them in the past, they considered it as nothing but a joke. Now that I’ve grown older, I also had enough brain to consider the cons and pros of telling them my secret. It’d be nice if they knew about it and I wanted it to happen, but there was too much danger. The main difference between Lien and my parents was that Lien was by my side almost all the time unlike them. I’d never be able to protect them as well as Lien.

After going home, we lazed around and took it easy for the rest of the day and then went back to the closing ceremony to hear the results. Since we separated from Max and Rebecca on the fifth day, we also looked for another treasure spot and got another red star. If we ever felt like it, we wouldn’t have to take the entrance exam to the university and could just start attending it instead. Of course, neither of us planned going to the university since we had no reason to.

I could teach Lien much more than any of the teachers and I wasn’t in need of tutoring either, while combat experience was something I could earn on my own. If not for the laws, I would stop attending secondary school as well. I had no reason to go there, after all. By the time we got to the closing ceremony, there was a stage prepared and thousands of people were awaiting the results, filled with anticipation.

The sky was already greying out, but there were large reflectors on the walls and on the stage, illuminating the whole square.

“What a crowd, I should blow it up,” I grumbled.

“Hush, you shouldn’t say stuff like that!” my mother raised her hand threateningly.

…

“Haha, you should see your face. The god incarnation is being reprimanded,” Lien chuckled through Link.

“What? I’m a normal person as well. It’s just that I know more than most,” I replied.

“Fine, fine, let’s get closer to the stage,” I waved my hand. Although she tried to hide it, my mother was bursting with happiness ever since she heard our results.

Luckily, this Jonathan guy didn’t seem to like wasting his time so instead of all kinds of fancy speeches and appearances, he walked up to the stage and raised his hands. Once the crowd turned silent, he got straight to the point.

“Good evening, dear parents, students, and teachers. I’m sure most of you’ve heard the results of your loved ones during the exam, but now it’s time to make everything official. First off, let’s start with the bad news. I’m sad to tell you that there were students who failed the trial, but don’t get down. Everyone gets a second chance and next year they’ll definitely succeed. It’s not the end of the world!”

“Luckily, ninety-five percent of the students succeeded, which shows that the teachers are doing their best to guide the next generation! I’m sure everyone gained a lot of experience during this trial, which is the reason we organise it every year. You’ve come to see what life is like outside the city and how dangerous it would be to leave, but sometimes you must take that step to protect your home. For that, we need to raise capable descendants who can protect this place, even if old folks like us are no more.”

“Please group up with your class and stand behind your teacher before I continue,” he waved his hand, pointing at the teachers in front of the stage. Seeing Tim, I grabbed Lien’s hand and quickly ran over to our place. It took a few minutes for everyone to get to their position, but we were done with it quite quickly.

Seeing that everyone was at their place, Jonathan cleared his throat and then continued, “Some of you were told to stand in the front,” he looked at the front line of students behind every teacher. Lien and I were such people.

“Those who succeeded can receive the proof of this trial from their teacher, while the ones in the front line are all students with exceeding performance during the trial. I’ll personally hand out your rewards, so please come up to the stage when I call your name!”

He started listing three to five names per class who all collected more than seven stars. Upon reaching our class, both Lien and I were called to the stage, along with Leo, Elena, James, who I sparred against, and another girl called Liz. I was a bit surprised to see that there were six of us from our class.

I guess it’s a pretty good class, though two of us know more than the teachers and three of us are definitely stronger than them. Lien was stronger than Tim, but she still had a lot to learn.

“Leo Enfield gathered twenty-five stars during the exam and showed great leadership in one of the secret treasure locations. The Enfield clan can be proud of their child!” After giving him his rewards, he moved on to Liz, then Elena, and then I came in the line.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but he seemed to react a bit differently to me. I soon found out why. “Seth Clearfall gathered thirty stars during the exam, and took out a D ranked monster all alone. Although some students gathered more stars than him, his control over mana and the incredible power he showed during the trial exceeded his peers. He may be second only to one person during this trial. He also got a red star, making him eligible to graduate from his school and attend university.”

Placing his hand on my shoulder, he turned towards the crowd and added, “One thing I’d like to mention, though. You should be kinder to your peers since you sent eighteen students back to the city. Thankfully, you didn’t take their stars so most of them passed the trial nonetheless. Anything to say in your defense?” he asked ‘kindly’. How nice of him… I intentionally took all the stars and gave seven to the better kind of our attackers.

For example, when that group of five attacked us, I took all the stars from the two who tried to run away and distributed it among the other three, making them pass the exam. Seeing the microphone in front of my mouth, I couldn’t help but defend myself. “They attacked first,” I replied bluntly, earning a few laughs, though not in a bad way. I was sure that I’d get a few jealous noble clans coming after me because of his statement. He basically said that I was the strongest or the second strongest in the year, even though I had fewer stars. I had a few ideas as to why was he provoking the other clans, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Certainly, that was the case,” he nodded, and then gave me my rewards. I had one more pill to give to Lien, at least. Finally moving on, he continued with Lien.

“Lien Newin gathered thirty stars, placing second among the girls. She also got a red star, making her eligible to graduate from her school and start attending university. While I’m at it, I’d like to invite the two of you to join my clan, but you don’t have to answer immediately,” he said, surprising me.

I was happy to hear that he didn’t want an answer instantly since I didn’t want to refuse him in public. Maybe Mary told him that I could refuse it and he gave us some time because of that. Unlike me, Lien earned a few cheers and whistles from some of the guys and my sharp ears picked up on some really rude conversations.

I should raise that number from eighteen and make it like… fifty, I quickly counted them. Probably even more kept their thoughts to themselves. She had a white blouse on with black stockings, high heels, and a tight skirt. I kind of wanted to tear it off of her once we got back home, but who would blame me? I bet everyone wanted to do that, but only I’d get the chance!

Smiling at me in front of the crowd, she took hold of my hand, obscurely telling everyone that we were going out. Well, she was my fiancée, actually. Seeing all those doomed and dissatisfied faces, I felt like bursting out laughing. Schadenfreude was really the best kind of rejoicing, no matter how people wanted to deny it. It wasn’t a nice thing, but humanity wasn’t kind and nice anyway.

“AAARGH! You’re the best, Lien. I’m so fucking happy right now,” I laughed like a maniac through Link.

“Haha, you’re so silly sometimes.”

“More like all the time,” I replied.

“Hmm, could be,” she chuckled.

Jonathan quickly continued with the ceremony, finally reaching his dear daughter.

“Mary White, my daughter, ranked first during this trial, surpassing everyone with a shocking number of three hundred stars! During the trial, she also helped many of her peers in finishing their task, also saving some of them from failing. It may be a nice gesture it but I must reprimand her for doing something like that,” he said playfully, earning a few laughs.

“Since she ranked first during the trial, as much as I’d like to invite her to join my clan, I guess I won’t have to,” he laughed. Certainly, it’d have been laughable if he invited his own daughter to join his clan. Nonetheless, he handed over her rewards like to everyone else and then walked back to the middle of the stage.

As expected, Mary earned a lot of cheering since she not only ranked first, she was also a beauty of Lien’s class. Although Lien didn’t seem to bother with any of what was going on, I was a bit sad for a simple reason. I knew that if this was a trial with nothing but common people and common nobles, she’d have surpassed everyone. She could have gotten a hundred stars if not more, but she chose not to and Mary’s performance was once again because of her origin.

It felt as if Mary and I took her chance to get what she deserved. In fact, during the rest of the exam, I didn’t kill a single monster since she wanted to train. The people observing the trial could see what happened only around the treasure locations, so they didn’t know that most of my stars came from Lien. Well, I could have killed them myself, but that was beside the point. Although she didn’t try her hand at it, I believed that she could have finished D ranked monsters by herself, just like I did.

“Lien…”

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to beat a god incarnation?” I asked.

“Huh? Who? Why?” she thought, pulling her hair to the side.

“Because I feel like proving people that you’re better than her. The name is Mary White.”

Tilting her head to the side, she raised her brows and started thinking about it.

“I don’t see why should I compete with her, but… why not?” she smiled at me.

“Good, I’m going to make you win then. Next week we’re going to explore the area outside the city a bit, okay?”

“Oh? I’m looking forward to it,” she grinned.