“What?”

  Ryan just shook his head at the lack of good material to work with. “You really are an idiot [Savant], huh?”

  “How are you here?”

  “This is my place, why would I not be here?”

  The mocking rhetorical question had One-Eyed Rick sputtering like mad. “This is the domain of the gods! Of the Trial System itself! You cannot be aware of it, anymore than a mortal can be aware in his class orbs!”

  “Because I was aware of my [Saboteur] orb too.”

  “A what?” The idiot [Savant] dumbly repeated.

  “A Rare class I was offered after my first Trial. You would know about it if you had asked questions or were at all curious about who you were dealing with.” Ryan laughed at Rick’s face. “It’s interesting, you still haven’t asked for my name.”

  There hadn’t been a moment where Rick had been wary of him as a person. Only the bare minimum amount of interest appeared when Ryan had talked about his apex title and the creation of his arm. Even then, the stupid [Arcane Seeker] dismissed it when it had little to do with magic.

  Just a fourther to exploit. That was all Ryan was to him.

  “What is this? What are you doing?”

  Rick’s head went flying into the concrete, his head bouncing and cracking the ground. The [Arcane Seeker] got up, dazed, holding his face in his hands, blood pouring down his hands.

  Ryan’s conceptual form was wearing a white porcelain mask, the black robes of the Obsidian Sect billowing behind him.

  Rick stared at the blood that splattered the concrete ground. “I–I can be injured here?”

  Ryan shook his head in disappointment. “You thought that you could take whatever you wanted from me and there’d be no consequences. You’re still not looking at me. Allow me to make that first step. My name is Artigan.

  "Wait!”

  

  The spell circle broke in Rick’s hand, and once again, Ryan’s fist collided with Rick’s face. The punch like it was breaking bones, but this wasn’t a physical space, something more was breaking apart, every time his fist made contact.

  Rick’s body smashed into the concrete ground once more, cratering the entire area.

  More of the [Arcane Seeker’s] blood splattered the area. The highly magical blood infecting the area and leaving a permanent mark. In a twisted fashion, Rick was getting what he wanted.

  Just not in the way he expected.

  The [Arcane Seeker] blasted away Ryan with telekinetic force and flung himself into the air. Before he could make it to the top, twenty thick threads crisscrossed the sky, making him stop so he could cast a modified [Shatterbolt] to break through.

  But before he could, a shadowy figure with a sword tackled Rick right into another building, smashing through the walls. He tried to get his hand up–then had it promptly sliced off as Rick screamed out in pain.

  No longer did Rick attempt to flee, he was trying to blast the shadowy figure with a [Manabolt Barrage]. The shadow with a sword started sending one colliding with another, Rick’s eyes bulged at such impossible craft with the blade, admiring it for a second before dashing away from the figure.

  [Mana Barrier]

  A [Firebolt] appeared where Rick least expected it, floating in the air, right at the corner of a hallway he had been flying down towards. It slammed onto the [Barrier] that he’d finally formed, blinding him more than hurting him.

  Twenty threads of shadows dug through the walls around them, all of them seeking him out, three threads hit his barrier and started wrapping themselves around it.

  Then Rick finally understood what was going on. [Mages] died when they were ambushed in enclosed spaces. He had been surrounded in an urban space and he didn’t even realize until it was too late.

  Rick finally lost his mind. “Do you think you are enough?! I who have survived ambushes, war and the Pioneers hunting me! This is not enough!”

  He cast magic into himself. More inefficient than qi or even aura perhaps, but more than enough for the likes of these mere shadows. Tiny circles formed over his fingers, too far from his body and the fourther would break it with his control over this domain.

  And multiple shards of broken mana started to spread, destroying both the space and the shadows around them. This was something he used in emergencies, he had even taken the Mage Pioneer's safety life before. It drew the shadows back and he flew forwards and out.

  Open space, that was the domain of Mages that could fly, he flew towards the window at the end of the hallway–

  Ryan dropped down into the window at the perfect timing. Rick tried to blast him with the shard of mana but the Aura Tyrant, swung.

  [Aura Slash]

  And everything turned red. The walls, the outside, the ground and Rick was overwhelmed in a tide of red aura. His defenses shattered under the weight as he was blown backwards.

  Gamielle had been wary of facing the Aura Tyrant in this conceptual space. That had been in a leveled zone, before Ryan had understood more about his class, before he had experienced the King’s skill orb. A Tyrant was a ruler, strong as he himself needed to be, he didn’t need to fight alone.

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  Valee’s shadowy tendrils wrapped around the downed figure, immobilizing him and his mana, the swordsman’s blade at his throat.

  Ryan stepped forward casually.

  The [Arcane Seeker] cowered in fear. “S-stop! Someone like you can never defeat the Witch Tyrant. You do not understand, she cannot be taken down with brute force. Her area of specialty is in scheming and plots, not magic. I have a better chance of defeating her then you ever could!”

  “You still don’t get it, do you? I figured out that you were a scheming rat the moment you showed me that stupid little orb of light. You think you can compete against her when you can’t even trick me? One-Eyed Rick, you who so casually dismiss those you deem beneath you, you fail.

  Rick tried to cast his spell again to escape and Ryan commanded the walls to repair themselves. One moment the [Arcane Seeker] was surrounded by rubble and outside, next he was back in an enclosed urban hellscape.

  It would be a mission and a half to even attempt to escape this with those surrounding him. Ryan continued to walk ahead. The [Arcane Seeker] finally giving up.

  Rick stared hatefully at Ryan. “You will succeed at making a core yourself without me.”

  “That’s fine. I have no need to compromise with scum like you. Now that you’ve given me the idea, I’ll do it myself.”

  –

  Rick screamed in pain clutching at his neck. He tried to form a spell circle to escape–but it fluttered out of existence, the Witch Tyrant’s ban on leaving this area was still in place. He tried to blast the monster that was in front of him with a reflexive [Light Bolt]. It came out significantly weaker than even what a fourther could manage.

  no, a blade of aura cut it down as the monster kept approaching. His eyes were still half in the conceptual space, rolling in his own head as he tried to get a grip on reality.

  He turned to physically run, all semblance of arrogance gone for panic. The [Arcane Seeker] [Seeker of Magic] scrambling out. He tried to grab at a spell and found that his levels had diminished and one of his great skills were gone! Gone! Rick stopped running away as he touched his own body. Horror overwhelmed him. A fear that surpassed the primal urgency of looming death.

  “My magic, my magic! What have you done to me?”

  “Blaming others for your own mistakes? This is what happens when you fuck around, Rick. You got found out.”

  Ryan took another step forward with a blade of aura. Suddenly the primal fear came flooding back to Rick. “Stop! You won’t succeed without my help!”

  “And what help would that be?” Ryan sneered. “One where you set traps in my own mana core? ”

  And in the physical world, the blade of aura cut straight through the [Magebolt] and sliced the [Seeker of Magic] in half. Rick screamed out in pain, his hands still moving to cast spells to deflect his attacker.

  He was stronger here, he could fight back! This was an open space–Rick flew out breaking the ambient mana in his hands. Warping the gray mana into a free-formed spell of death.

  “I’ve seen that one too.”

  [Aura Slash]

  And just like in the conceptual space, the physical space ended the same, overwhelmed in a tide of red as the [Seeker of Magic’s] barriers were shattered and broken apart.

  A [Volatile Antimagic Throw] hit the fleeing Rick, blowing up the ambient mana before it could form.

  It turned into a slaughter.

  –

  When it became clear that the memory of One-Eyed Rick would reform no matter what he tried. Ryan gave up and stopped chopping Rick into pieces. The [Seeker of Magic] was now huddled in a corner, the fight having been drained out of him, the seventh time that Ryan had completely ripped him apart.

  “Damn, that [Remembrance of the Fallen Skill] is even more overpowered than I expected.”

  Ryan felt almost no pity at all at having used Rick as a method to test the Witch Tyrant’s Legend. His sense of empathy didn’t extend to those he deemed his enemies. It was perhaps what Barry was missing from his understanding of Ryan. Tar’el and the other adventurers weren’t his enemies. They were his greatest allies.

  Those that passed, Ryan would never regret dying to keep them alive.

  Those that failed?

  One-Eyed Rick flinched as Ryan coldly glanced over him.

  At the very least the [Seeker of Magic] could no longer be used against him by the Witch Tyrant. Not only had Ryan neutered his class, but Rick would never be able to look at him without feeding his aura. The primal fear of a tenth realm was feeding him far, far more than he expected.

  Which was, naturally, useful for what came next.

  Ryan sat in the front of the Trial entrance, holding a tiny orb of volatile mana encased in solidified aura. Thinking.

  He had a few plans on to do things but there was no framework he could reference. No instance of someone forging this kind of mana core by themselves. There were a few Antimagic [Warrior] and [Rogue] classes but none had truly attempted to forge one themselves.

  That was the thing. With all the concepts surrounding Ryan, he was almost definitely going to be offered some form of a Mage-killer Saboteur class. The Trial System would forge for him the perfect circulation system anyway.

  But if so, why not go for it anyway?

  He had nothing to lose, and if he succeeded, then he’d be able to have both an antimagic core a class that wasn’t so specialized.

  No compromises and all greed.

  Ryan focused his mind on the orb of solid red with a white core. It felt like a glass marble in his left hand, solid and stiff with nothing able to penetrate through. Carefully he poked at the orb with his right hand. The [Arm of the Aura Tyrant] had no trouble entering the solid piece of aura as if it was nothing but air.

  When the finger touched the white mana core it shot straight through his aura channels in his right arm. The explosive spike of mana was quickly snuffed out by his own aura.

  It was as expected, he couldn’t really realign the energy channels in his arm to utilize mana that well. His right arm was all about aura and nothing would change that.

  Experiment two was attempting to hold [Volatile Antimagic Throw] in his left hand. He held the skill without adding too much energy into it. Just watching how the backlash happened. The volatile energy shot backwards and ripped at the energy channels in his left hand. It slowly spread halfway into his arm before the energy ran out.

  “So, this was what happened in Lazhen.” Ryan murmured. “Can I control it enough to make it work?”

  There were far too many issues that were underneath the hood. Too many possibilities with nothing else to guide him.

  What had Gamielle said? Trust his own intuition to lead him?

  But again, he had no framework. Back in the Obsidian Sect, he had been given a bunch of different visualization techniques to use as reference, things he knew worked. This time there was nothing he could use…

  Nothing but the natural pattern that formed when he held [Volatile Antimagic Throw] for too long…

  Perhaps he did have a framework after all.

  And so, Ryan began the arduous, painful task of burning all of the mana channels in his left arm.

  –

  One-Eyed Rick lay in despair at the bottom of the cavern, next to the decaying monster corpses that smelled worse than shit, wishing he had spent more time on curses so he could hex death and destruction on the fourther working above him.

  He was not someone that normally thought these things. Even when the Witch Pioneer had entrapped him he did not begrudge her. At least she had then gone and used his death to reach greater heights.

  That he could respect, for that was how he lived himself.

  But this fourther had just ripped apart what he was. The only thing that he truly had left. It was torn apart, just because the fourther disapproved of his methods. Just as petty revenge. What was the Witch doing raising someone like this?

  Rick bore witness to what this monster was. This fourther was someone that would bend the world or bring it to ruin.

  Was the Witch out of her mind? Or had she truly fallen to her class? The one person he could have believed would resist the constant pressure brought upon by the very concepts of the world?

  Rick lay there, for once just wallowing in self pity and hopelessness. Above him were continuous flecks of inefficient mana and explosions.

  As time dragged on he could not help but have his eyes drawn to the fourther recklessly experimenting away.

  But his eyes weren’t drawn to the amateurish mana shaping and combinations. It was at the evolving creativity by which Artigan was experimenting. One step forward with using natural mana structures, two steps back trying to burn in his mana veins, two more steps forward in trying to reinforce them with aura, another step back when he pushed too hard and accidentally started conditioning them to aura instead.

  Rick watched with spite and hate. Then he saw Artigan’s eyes, complete and clear focus on the task at hand, enjoying the challenge and creativity that was needed for the task at hand.

  There was a flash of blue arcane that flickered past Artigan’s eyes, remnants of Rick’s class showing itself. But the opportunity there wasn’t what drew his attention. It was the delight at which Artigan had when he made progress.

  For he too know what it was like. Groping around in the dark, trying to find a way forward. Uncertain when the next failed experiment would take more than his eye.

  Entranced, and at the pit of despair, with nothing to do, the [Seeker of Magic] simply watched.

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