Chapter 4: Duel and The Elfs

Baris Von Donatis's POV…

I'm Baris Von Donatis the next lord of this territory, my teacher the disciple of the great court magician who can use magic up to advanced level for more than three attributes with shortened chants is coming back to the town today.

Rather than feeling happy about hem coming back I'm afraid instead, because of the humiliation that befell not only me but also my father the lord of this territory, all of this is the fault of that lowly adventurer daring to oppose us the nobles not known his place as a commoner.

…

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"Oi Baris what is the meaning of this mess!! …how dare you both bring shame to us the nobles?!"

"Poro-sama please forgive my shortcoming and weakness for losing against a commoner"

"That's not what I'm talking about that, you idiot!!"

*Slap*

"P-Poro-sa-sama…."

"what I'm talking about is why is such a prat is still alive?"

"Po-Poro-sama he is someone strong enough to kill 100 undead with a single attack, there is no one in the town strong enough to kill him!"

"that's not the case you idiot!!, killing a 100 undead with one attack is just a bluff to scare you away"

"But I saw him do that with my own eyes!"

"that's why it's to scare you, did you think about the amount of mana he used to pull that off?"

"w-what do you mean?"

"using an attack strong enough to kill that much of undead consume a huge amount of mana even for me and I'll not be able to use magic for at least two days after that, and I'll be so exhausted to be able to fight with a sword for more than ten minutes, and since I'm stronger than him he must have been so exhausted at the time to the point of if you were not such a coward and attacked him with your guards at the same time you would have killed him"

"you are right. Poro-sama!!"

"of course I am. I'm not an idiot like you"

"b-but Poro-sama how did you know that you are stronger than him?"

"you idiot!! Are you saying that I'm the disciple of the great court magician is weaker than a filthy commoner?!"

"absolutely not, Poro-sama!!"

"then leave that commoner to me, I'll deal with him by myself and make an example out of him for everyone in this town"

Now I feel sorry for that insolent commoner, his timing was bad, but he was the one who brought this to himself since he went against us the nobles.

But then…

"Poro-sama!! This is bad!! You have to come, Poro-sama!"

"What is wrong with you coming in without permission and causing such commotion?"

"your brother is…. Your brother is…"

…

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Ryo's POV…

After talking with the guild master for a bit, I left the guild building and started walking toward the inn, but I noticed that the people were looking at me for some reason, I didn't understand why at first but I remembered what has happened with the lord and remembered that rumours travel very fast in this town.

When I was near the inn I noticed a big decorated carriage barked in front of the inn and a man who appeared to be a noble came out of the carriage and entered the inn so I started walking faster towards the inn.

…

"Leave us alone already!!"

"you insolent prat!! This time I'll kill you using my magic alongside your parents for raising a prat like you"

"you think I'll let you do anything to my daughter you rotten noble!!"

"so the information I got are right after all, you who healed you?"

"that doesn't have anything to do with you!"

"well, it doesn't matter to me who healed you, since my brother Poro Claman will come back today I'll have to deal with you and your stupid family quickly and go to prepare a grand welcome for him"

"Hoh, why don't let me into this interesting conversation you are having?"

"Who are you?"

"Ryo-san!!"

"well, that makes me sad you know, already forgetting me I mean"

"T-The White Blaze?!.... what are you doing attack him all at once!!"

The fool tried to use his guards as a sacrifice to escape from me, this fool was one of the escorts who were with the idiot son daring the undead horde subjugation and he was the first to lash at me when I talked back to the idiot son.

I use {Shadow Manipulation} before anyone can move to attack me and approach the foolish noble and put my fingers on his face preparing to use iron claw.

"It seems you need to be punished"

"stop it!! You insolent fool, do you think you can go away unpunished for going against me a noble?!!"

"let me ask you the same question, do you think you can go away unpunished after hurting my friends?"

"remove your dirty hand from my face, you insolent commoner!!"

"It seems I need to increase the pressure a little"

"i-it h-hurt!! Stoop iiiittt!!"

"since you like using your magic so much, I'll punish you by taking that away from you"

"w-what do you mean?... what are you…Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!?"

I activated {Mana Manipulation} and {Soul Techniques} to send my mana into his body and destroy all the spiritual channels in his body making his body unable to hold any mana anymore thus making him unable to use anything related to mana and also making healing and support spells unusable on him and to cause damage related spells to deal more damage on him than before, but the side effect is that the victim of this treatment will feel like his body is being electrocuted accompanied with the feeling of all of his bones being crashed at the same time.

He kept on screaming for ten minutes until I finished his treatment and he fainted right away after I removed my hand from his face, and when I looked around I saw some of the customers looking at me with a satisfied expressions on their faces including Martha and her parents and the guards looking at me with faces full of fear and I noticed three people trying to escape the inn so I captured them and tied them with a rope.

"release us!! We didn't do anything wrong, release us!!"

"release us!!"x2

"you guys are the ones who told him about Barid's recovery, right?"

"i-i-it's that noble's fault, not ours!!"

"I'll see about that while I give you guys your punishment"

"Hiiii!!?"x3

After that I dragged the three to my room and started interrogating them, I could have used mind magic and make them talk but I choose to torture them as a punishment.

…

..

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"Welcome back, Ryo-san! You must be thirsty here drink this juice"

"thank you, what happened to the idiot noble and his guards?"

"The guards took the noble and escaped when they heard those three scream, so did you find anything"

I told the inn owner and his family and all the customers who were present at the time what I had found.

The three were part of a criminals guild that was funded by some of the nobles of this town including the lord and the idiot noble's family especially the idiot noble, Paro Claman's older brother Poro Claman the court magician of Donatis and the disciple of the royal court magician.

"what do you mean they are funding a criminals guild ?!!"

"kidnaping commoners, to sell them as slaves, stealing from the shops and homes of the commoners, raiding the caravans of the merchants, selling harmful drags to the thugs in town, these type of stuff, all of you guys know about what I'm talking about, right?"

"dame it!! Are you telling me that all of these things happened because of those rotten nobles?!!"

"but now thinking about it, it does make since"

"you are right, the kidnapped women and children never came back"

"but, Ryo-san what are you going to do about Poro Claman? I'm sure he'll come to take revenge for what you did to his brother"

"don't worry about it, I'll take care of that and I'll talk to the adventurer's guild master about the criminal guild so you don't have to worry about it"

"are you sure you want to go against the nobles of this town?"

"forget about me, the problem is with you guys, do you want to do against the nobles of your town?"

"We had suffered a lot because of those greedy nobles, some of us lost family members and some people had committed suicide because they lost their wives and husbands, and some of our promising youths died because of the drugs sold to them as a strength enhancement medicine, and some got their lives destroyed because of bandits and thieves, and after discovering the cause you can't expect us to stay silent, right everyone?!"

"that's right!!"

"We can't stay silent!"

"We must prevent such events from happening again!!"

"We have to tell the whole town about the information we got from the thugs"

"Okay, okay I understand your determination, but wait before telling the rest of the town"

"why is that!, shouldn't we tell everyone as fast as possible?"

"We must prevent the nobles from knowing that we have these informations, so I'll create the perfect chance for you guys to spread the information, and for that I'll need you guys to assemble more people for that, but try to keep the number as low as possible and only bring people you can completely trust into this, alright?"

"Leave that to us!!, but what about you? The head of the Claman family will not leave you alone after what you did to his brother, you know!"

"don't worry about that, I'll use him to create the chance for you guys to rail the people up, but there is another problem you have to deal with"

"what do you mean by that?"

"the church, what are you planning to do about the church?"

"what does the church have to do with all of this?"

"The drugs are made and sold by the church, and I don't think that the kidnapped people are chosen randomly, the church must have reported those that have good looks or some kind of talents to the corrupted nobles for a small share of the gained money from selling them"

"now that you mentioned it, it does make sense... dame it!! To think that even the church is taking part in this cruelty!"

"But Ryo-dono!, what made you think about the church?"

"I started the doubt the church when I heard that they refused to heal Barid even though he was protecting his daughter, so after that, I went to investigate the church and actually found some people imprisoned underground the church and after more investigation, I found out that they were kidnapped when they came to the church to get treatment"

I discovered that when I was mapping the town and searching for kidnapped elfs and secret passages in the nobles area and the lord's castle.

"How were you able to infiltrate the church without being noticed?"

" that's because I'm used to fighting monsters with strong senses, at first it was hard to fight them since they were (A) rank, but after I learned how to mask my presence it became easy to surprise attack them"

"well, that is an (A) rank adventurer for you"

After exchanging information with the people at the inn I headed to the guild to talk to the guild master about the information I gained from the thugs, but the guild master got mad and slammed his fist on his desk and the desk was crushed under his strength.

*Craaaaash*

"…calm down, you crushed the desk, you know"

"How can I calm down after hearing about such information!!"

"but, getting angry and breaking your desk will not help accomplish anything you know"

"...you are right, sorry I lost my head a little"

"now then, I have an idea on how to deal with the criminals guild, how about me and you infiltrate their hideout tonight and apprehend them and search for evidence about what they did and who was dealing with them from the nobles side"

"that's a good plan but will only the two of us be enough to do that?"

"I alone am enough for this, but I want you to come with me because I want to make use of your position as the guild master"

"if so, no problem I'll come with you!"

Later that night after the lights of the town were put out and the town gates were closed I met with the guild master and went toward the criminals guild hideout.

"now how do we do this? You didn't tell me how are we gonna infiltrate the hideout without being noticed"

"we'll do this…..{Shadow Manipulation} with this everyone inside can't move or talk or use magic, so we can enter and knock them out and rescue the kidnapped people and search for the evidence we need"

"it's my first time seeing you use this skill and man… this is so scary to think about but I'm really glad that you are not my enemy"

After that, we entered the building and we were welcomed by the scene of people being covered from their toes to under their noses by their own shadows with expressions full of fear.

"wow, this is really terrifying!!"

"Let us hurry up and knock them out and tie them up, keeping the shadows consumes a lot of mana"

"got it!"

After that, we went around the hideout knocking the criminals and freeing the kidnapped people who were surprised to see the guild master, after that, we collected the knocked out criminals in a wide room inside the hideout and started searching for the evidence we needed and found more than what we expected to find.

"so what now? How do you intend to deal with all of those criminals? Kill them?"

"no, we can get more informations from them if we interrogate them"

"But we can't do that in here and we can't transfer this number of people without attracting attention"

"guild master, can you use earth magic?"

"yes, I can"

"then, I have a plan"

After that, I used {Teleport} and took the guild master and the criminals and the kidnapped people to the forest where I hunted the goblins before.

"w-what was that?!"

"where are we?!"

"How?!!"

"I used space-time magic to teleport us to the Southern forest"

"space-time magic?!! Ryo you can use such a rare magic?"

"yes, but for now I want you to use earth magic to create a hole in the ground big enough for us to keep all the criminals imprisoned until we deal with the corrupt nobles"

"Leave it to me"

"h-hay, why did you bring us with you to the forest? We want to go back to our families"

"Sorry but we can't return you guys to your families just yet, because if you returned now and the corrupt nobles discovered you it'll put your families in danger"

"Ryo is right, but don't worry you'll stay in the guild with me for a couple of days till we deal with the corrupt nobles"

After that, we interrogated the criminals got more informations we can use against the nobles and the church, and when we finished interrogating them we tied them with magic sealing rope and dropped them inside the hole and covered the hole with earth magic leaving small holes so they don't suffocate, after that, I returned the guild master to his room in the guild with the kidnapped people and I teleported to my room in the inn.

"Ryo-san, here is your breakfast"

"good morning Ryo-dono, what did the guild master say to you yesterday? Did he agree to help us?"

And then I told everyone about what happened yesterday with the guild master and the criminals guild.

"you guys are monsters to be able to do all of this in one night"

"but to think that the informations about the church are real"

"Yeah, I get what you mean, even if not all the commoners believe in the holy light religion there are some who do, that's going to shock them"

"what about you guys? did you collect a trustworthy people?"

"Yeah we did, we have a total of 57 people from the families who lost their loved ones because of the corrupt nobles"

"that's good to hear, then relay to them the new informations and warn them not to act without my or the guild master's instructions"

"got it!"

We continued to talk about what should we do to deal with the corrupt nobles for some time, but before long a noble wearing a long white robe entered the inn with his guards and started shouting.

"you filthy commoners!!, where is the bastard who attacked my brother?!!"

"that would be me you dirty-mouthed incompetent!"

"How dare you talk like that to the head of Claman family!! I'll behead you for that!"

"shut up!"

I moved using {Flash Step} and hit the guard who unsheathed his sword on his solar plexus through his armour by covering my fist with mana and he fell unconscious with a dent the shape of my fist on his armour, the other guards were looking at me with fear in their eyes.

"wha-?!"

"how? He broke through the armour with his bare hands!!"

"-"

"Hoh, you seem to know how to use your mana well"

"so?, is there anyone else who want a taste of my fist?"

"don't be hasty you filthy commoner, me, the great Poro-sama challenge you to a duel in the town arena tomorrow, what do you say?"

"fine by me, and as an act of mercy toward the incompetent noble who challenged me you can decide the rules of the duel"

"tsk, fine by me, but you'll regret that decision tomorrow"

"so? What are the rules? Or does your small brain need more time to think?"

"you little….*Sigh* fine, the rules are, you have to kill your opponent to win, we are allowed to use anything and everything in order to win, the winner will get his wish granted by the lord, the duel will be broadcasted to the whole town using {Magic Screens} supplied with mana by both of us, what do you say? If you want to go back on your earlier words you better do that now"

"fine by me"

"then, see you tomorrow but that will not last because I'm going to kill you with my grand magic, humph"

After that, Poro left the inn with his guards.

"Ryo-dono!! Are you really sure about accepting the rules he proposed? No matter how much you think about it, it's clear that he is plotting something!!"

"I know that he is plotting something, I accepted the rules he proposed to create the perfect chance for you guys to rail the people up using the informations we got during the duel, and since I accepted his rules without thinking about it he must be thinking that I'm just an arrogant fool and will lit his guard down and when that happen you guys will be free from prying eyes and will be able to act without any danger of being exposed"

"but if you end up losing the duel, all of this will be for nothing!!"

"don't worry about that, and if by any chance you guys are exposed just place the blame on me, and if I lost the duel the guild master will continue the plan in my stead"

After that, I went to the guild and informed the guild master about the duel and we both decided about what I'm going to ask for when I win the duel.

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In the next morning, I woke up and when I exited my room Martha and her parents were waiting for me at the staircase.

"good morning, Ryo-san!"

"did you sleep properly last night?"

"are you ready for the duel?, how is your condition?"

"calm down you three!"

"impossible!!"x3

After that, we headed to the arena together, as we advanced toward the arena the town people started coming out of their houses and followed us, and so we arrived at the arena after a couple of minutes of walking.

"I commend you for not escaping the town and actually showing up in the arena, filthy commoner"

"Keep that to yourself, incompetent fool"

Poro started talking to me right after we finished activating the magic screens all over the town using an artifact the lord had.

"so are you ready to announce what is it that you want form the lord in case you got lucky and won"

"that's simple, I have something to ask from all the nobles of this town using the Artifact Of Truth that the lord have"

"well, isn't that request worth more than your life, filthy commoner? But I don't mind, what do you say my lord?"

"I shall permit that request!!"

"as for me—"

"I don't care enough to hear what you want, and I'm sure the lord will grant your request even if you don't announce it now, right?"

"t-that's r-right!!"

The Lord answered my question while shaking and avoiding looking me in the eye, the effect of {Nightmare} is still going strong, it seems.

"you little-!"

"the lord has announced that you don't need to tell us what is your wish, are you going to disobey him?"

"I'm going to teach you a lesson!! Filthy commoner"

"Are you both ready?,….START!!"

After the referee announced the start of the duel, Poro held his staff high and started channelling his magic through it and chanted the name of a protection type spell that covers the body with a thick spherical barrier.

"{Protection Sphere} ...are you just going to stand there without doing anything?"

"Is there something I need to do?"

I just stood there with my hands inside my pockets as if looking down on him.

"then die!!.... {Fire Spear}"

"{Spell Break}"

"wha?!!"

{Spell Break} is a common spell used to counter other spells by firing a mass of mana from the opposite attribute at the core of the opponent spell, but for it to succeed the user has to be able to use the spell he wants to cancel, so the reason I was able to cancel Poro's spell is that I can use {Fire Spear} myself, but all I have to do is use {Analyze} to know what is the spell he was going to use the moment he started gathering his mana to invoke it.

"so you can use {Fire Spear} yourself, huh...what about this then …..{Stone Fang}!"

"{Spell Break}"

"….you little bastard!! How many attributes can you use?"

"I have no reason to answer that"

"..I'll show you your place!!.....{Stone Hold}!!"

"{Spell Break}"

This time he used a capturing spell rather than attack one but it was cancelled.

"that was an intermediate spell!! Where did you learn it?!"

"as I said before, I have no reason to answer you"

"tsk, know your place, filthy commoner!!"

"I'm pretty sure I know my place, and that is far above you, incompetent"

"you bastard!! ….I'll kill you!!"

At that moment the presence of people hiding inside the walls of the arena started gathering mana, since the rule said that you can do whatever you want to win, I knew he would prepare sneaky plan like this, so I put my hand on my katana, in all, there are five people hiding in the walls as if to surround me.

"you are late!! Now die, commoner!!...{Acid Spear}"

"{Batto: Iai Gosen} and {Spell Break}"

"h-how?!!"

I calmly used an attack from the skill {Kenjutsu Arts} and cut the heads of the people inside the walls with the walls they were hiding behind and cancelled Poro's spell, and then I returned the katana to the sheath and returned to the way I was standing before as if nothing happened.

"It seems your little friends are not as strong as you have thought, but what can I expect from an incompetent like you"

"you bastard!! You think I'll let you do anything you want just because you got lucky once?!!"

"shut up and try your worst, incompetent"

"I'll show you my true power that the royal court magician praised! …Head my call and descend in the realm of the mortals, O thunder punish my enemy {Thunder Pillar}"

"{Spell Break}"

The spell he used was a spell from the lightening attribute, this attribute is one of the rare attributes that the humans can use alongside holy magic and light magic.

The people in the arena were split into two groups, the commoners were cheering for me happily, and the nobles had a mixed reaction to me cancelling Poro's last spell, most of them were looking at me fearfully and some of them were looking at me with eyes full of interest.

When I looked at the guild master in the stands he made a hand signal to me singling the success of the operation.

"impossible!! How did you cancel that? That spell was passed to me from the grand teacher, that's just impossible!!"

"I don't care about your teacher or whatever you are talking about, and since I started feeling pored I'll start attacking you now"

Since the operation to spread the information about the nobles and the church corruption was a success, I don't have to keep stalling for time anymore, so I swung my katana at his barrier and broke it.

"How can you destroy my barrier with a simple attack from your sword?!"

"I simply channelled my mana to the sword, more than what you put in your barrier"

"impossible!! How can you have more mana than me? I'm the court magician of Donatis for god sake!!"

"well, since you are so fond of your title as the court magician, how about I kill you with your own magic….{Thunder Pillar}"

"n-n-no i-impossible!!..... no!! stop- GYAAAAAAA!?"

Since I held back he didn't turn into ashes but died of shock with some burns here and there, everyone present in the arena was speechless, and the referee was so dumfounded, to the point of not moving his gaze from Poro's body.

"…erm, excuse me!!"

"…ah, yes!!.....ehem!! the winner of this duel is, the adventurer Ryo!!"

At that moment all the people in the arena snapped back to their senses, most of the people were cheering happily while some were looking at me with surprised expressions on their faces, and I also noticed a couple of nobles trying to leave the arena without anyone noticing them but I stopped them with {Shadow Manipulation} and singled to the guild master to take care of them, we talked about this yesterday and decided to take some measures if something like this were to happen, but then I felt hostility coming from behind me.

"die!! You filthy commoner!!...{Fire Spear}!!"

"you choose the wrong move, idiot son….{Reflect}"

"wha-!....GYAAAAA!!....My arm!! My arm is burning!! Stop itttt!!"

When I turned my face to the side, I saw the idiot son of the lord chanting a spell and fired it at me without any warning, he must be not amused at the current situation, but I simply used {Reflect}, this spell work by sensing the exact spell and the exact amount of mana packed in the spell, and then the user has to use exactly double the mana used by the opponent on {Reflect} to reflect the spell back at him, but this spell is classified as a highly advanced spell, that only limited number of people are able to use it, and that because the user need to have an excessive amount of knowledge about the spell he wants to reflect, and also need to be sensitive to mana enough to sense the amount of mana used in the spell the user want to reflect, but my {Analyze} can see through all of this in less than a second.

When I used {Reflect}, I also redirected the spell to hit his right arm he used to attack me with burning it off, completely turning it into ashes.

After that I went up to where the lord was setting on the stands, he was looking at me with a fearful expression on his face, when I reached him he immediately ordered for the artifact of truth to be brought over here, some of the nobles were unamused by that and started protesting to the lord, saying that a commoner like me don't deserve to use the artifact of truth and that he should behead me for killing Poro and hurting his son, but when I looked at him with a smile on my face he started shaking in fear and ordered all the nobles to answer my questions while using the artifact of truth, and if anyone of them refused to answer that one will be beheaded at the spot.

The guild master came over when the artifact of truth was brought, and we started by revealing to everyone the informations we gained, and started to interrogate the nobles and the lord in front of all the town, at first some of the nobles refused to talk but when I started chanting the lightning spell I used to kill Poro with they started to talk without hiding anything at all.

But I left everything to the guild master and headed to the church, and saw that priests and the clergy of the church were trying to escape from the city, so I stopped them, all the while showing their escape to the whole city using the same artifact we used to broadcast the duel and the interrogation of the nobles, and then used {Teleport} to send them the guild master.

I went and interrogated the lord and the nobles about the elfs they kidnap, how did they kidnap them and where are they kept, it turned out that the people who kidnap the elfs are not from Donatis, but a special group sent from the capital by the king of the Kazar kingdom, but since they are working in Donatis's territory they give its lord to choose from the elfs the ones he want to keep to himself plus some of the money they gain after selling the elfs.

But I was surprised to hear that the males are more profitable than the females, and the reason is that the elfs have the ability to generate a barrier to protect themselves, but when they use the barrier the enter a sleep mode that can last for tens of years sometimes till all the mana in their body run out, and when that happen most of them end up dead because of mana deficiency, but rarely one or two survive, and since the slave collars are placed on them while the barrier is still in effect, and once the barrier wear off the slave collar take's control of the elfs, but mostly only males survive all of this.

After that, I meet up with Barid and his family and went back to the inn, after talking for a bet I went back to my room to sleep, but I could hear the people downstairs partying till late at night. In the next morning, I checked out of the inn, Barid and his family were sad that I was leaving the town soon, after promising them that I'll stay at their inn when I visit Donatis again, I headed for the guild to inform the guild master that I was going to the forest to train and do some magic experiments he told me that he had a business with me but he decided to talk to me about it when I come back after one month, I left the town and headed to a dangers corner of the forest that no one visit it ever, due to the lack of any adventurers visiting this area, it was teeming with monsters.

After I arrived at a suitable spot I erected a huge barrier one kilometer in diameter, and started cutting the trees and flattening the earth in order to build the interdimensional house I made the design for some time ago, after drying the wood with magic I started cutting the wood into the suitable shapes, after finishing with the wood I started making stone bricks with earth magic, and I made a mine a little bet away from the location I needed to build the house in, using a special magic used to mine ores I started gathering a huge amount of ores, after that I took a magical furnace I made with help of Urak back before leaving the village and started processing the ores into metals while infusing them with my mana, after that I went back to the wood and the bricks and submerged the wood and the bricks in a water I made using water magic and started supplying them with a huge amount of my mana while throwing a small quantities of ground up magic cores of the monsters I killed in the area a little bet at a time, and thus I successfully created a living wood and a golem brick that can be used to make wood golems and stone golems, but I made them so I can enchant them with magical effects and skills and make it so that it's possible to make the house into a interdimensional one that can be accessed from anywhere I want, and to enchant them with {Absorb} and {Mana Manipulation} and {Regeneration} and many other skills.

It took me a whole week to finish building the house, the final product was a three floors wide building that had many rooms and a kitchen in every floor and a huge work shop, lab and training room, and a farm in the outside with a ranch for the livestock, and a garage with a fancy strong carriage that have beds and everything I might need, I made so it can hold up to five beds in case I needed to take other people on it.

And I made a large bath separated by gender, since I'm planning to give Urak and Annsia and Lyara special keys that gave the access to this place from anywhere in the world.

The house was enchanted with a lot of many skills and magical effects and had a lot of artifacts, all of this is controlled by a copy of Scarlet's soul that I created but it had a deferent voice and it talked like a robot would, and made it so it obey my orders and the orders of anyone with a key, but give my orders priority over the others.

Next to the farm and ranch there is a garden with some trees and flowers and berry bushes with a stone road that looped around the garden with multiple benches, and the whole ground was covered by a clean and beautiful grass lawn.

After finishing building the house I used {Storage}, {Soul Techniques} on the barrier covering the entire place and turned the whole place into an existence that resembles soul weapons, after that I linked the house to my own soul and started to craft the keys I needed to give to other people in order for them to enter the space the house was placed in, that space was inside my {Storage} and the stuff I keep inside of it can be accessed through the storage room in the house.

After that I went to the lab and took out the tools and artifacts I had in my storage and started placing them in the lab, after that I started working on my original summoning spell, first I needed to do some experiments, so I returned to the forest outside and started filling the crater left on the ground after I transported the house into my {Storage}, I used earth magic to fill in the ground and after that, I used plant magic to replant the trees I cut down, after that I did the same to the mine I made and returned the forest to how it looked before.

After that I went to hunt for small monsters, small birds, small rodents and small lizards, I collected up to 300 small monsters all of them alive and started my experiments on them.

..

.

It took me another week to create the spell I had in mind, I named the spell {Homura Bito}.

"{Homura Bito}"

I went outside into the forest and tried the spell out, what came out was a hundred skeleton knights clad in armor and equipped with swords and shields with a blazing red fire covering their whole bodies.

{O king, what is your orders for us!}

Suddenly one of the skeletons bowed in front of me and started talking, this one skeleton was double the size of the other ones and the fire blazing through his body was blue, not red like the others and once he bowed to me all the other skeletons did the same, this one is a skeleton general and he is the leader of all the skeletons, for some reason he was the only one amongst the skeletons who is able to speak, I ordered the skeletons to fight me with everything they had, and thus I started my training with the skeletons.

The goal of this training was to test their abilities and to try and see if it's possible for them to learn new tactics and ways of fighting and if it's possible for them to learn magic and skills.

After training for two days, the results were great, the skeletons learned how to adapt to the situation and act accordingly, and I was able to give them some of my skills and they learned how to use them very quickly, and some of them learned how to use magic up to advanced level and so I had to change their weapons from swords and shields to staffs and their armour to robes, and some of them became more adapted at being tanks so I had to change their weapons to halberds and tower shields and the armour to a heavy armour.

And so when I summon the skeletons an army of skeletons that consist of a general skeleton as the leader, 29 skeleton knights, 50 skeleton paladins, 20 skeleton mage.

And as a byproduct of my experiments on the small monsters I was able to create another summoning spell.

"{Minions}"

Using this spell I can summon 300 small monsters, small birds, small lizards and small rodents, I can send these creatures to scout or spy for me by linking my sight and hearing to them.

After finishing my work on my summons I went back into my house to take a bath and eat dinner.

After finishing with my bath and dinner I went to check on the mana reserves, since the house is considered an artifact and have many artifacts in the lab and the workshop, I'll need a lot of mana to keep everything running, that's why I created a mana tank of a sort, the tank is kept in one of the rooms in the house, it's in the shape of a huge ball, ten meters in diameter to be exact, it's made out of obsidian and it's enchanted to contain huge amounts of mana, that mana comes from the necklace I'm wearing right now, the chain of the necklace is made from Mithril and it has an obsidian ball at the end, this necklace is enchanted to absorb mana from the atmosphere and send it to the tank in the house through my storage, and I also use in my training to increase my mana capacity by pouring my mana into it continuously.

Now that I finished working on my summons and house I'll go to sleep early tonight. I want to head to the elfs forest tomorrow and try to meet with them.

…

..

.

In the morning I headed to the south part of the forest, to the place where the elfs hunters' base is, the elfs hunters are people sent by the king of this country to hunt the elfs and bring them to the capital city after giving the lord of Donatis one or two of them from every hunt.

After walking for some time, I decided to use my {Minions} to scout the forest for me, and after one hour one of the birds discovered a group of humans fighting against one elf, so I decided to go and help him.

"surround him!! Don't leave him any opening to escape!"

"the poison gas has started to work on him!! He is staggering"

"…guh?! … you cowards kidnaping children…have you no shame?"

When I arrived near the location where the elf and the humans are fighting, I used {Hide Presence}, after I arrived near them I hid myself behind a bolder to check the situation before acting, what I saw was an elven man who appears to be my age but since he is un elf he might be hundreds of years old, he had a golden hair, long ears and was welding two blades, it seems he was trying to save the ten children who were put into a cage not far away from where he was fighting, but he is already surrounded by the humans who appeared to be wearing some type of gas mask.

I decided to act and headed for the children in the cage.

"Lao-nii, please escape!! Don't mind us!!"

"Lao-sama, don't get yourself caught because of us!! Please escape"

"Hello over there kids"

"hii!!"

"Who are you? Wait.. you are a human, so are one of these people, aren't you?"

"yes, I'm a human, but I'm here to save you, kids"

"liar!! Why would a human save us?!"

"not all humans look down and hunt elfs, you know"

"don't expect me to believe you!"

"calm down, they will hear you if you raise your voice to much"

"I don't care!"

"then how about this, do you know what adventurers is?"

"of course I know!! Don't look down me!"

"okay I got it so please don't raise your voice…*sigh* I'm an adventurer my name is Ryo, here is my guild card"

"red?! A rank!"

"that's right, so are you interested in hiring me to save you"

"are you sure? You will be fighting against humans in that case"

"I don't mind that, they are nothing but a group of bandits after all"

"But I don't have anything to pay you with"

"you can decide on that after I saved all of you, you can pay me with food if you want"

"got it, I'll hire you but save that man first"

"deal, and you can keep my guild card with you till I complete our quest'

"okay"

Okay then,…{Flash Step}"

I used {Flash Step} to appear next to the elven man and punched him in his solar plexus to send to sleep.

"Who are you?"

"where did you came from?"

"I'm here to save this guy and the kids over there"

"save him? Do you know who we are?"

"I know, you are the elfs hunters sent by the king to hunt elfs"

"you said you came to save the elfs even though you know that"

"yes, I'm an adventurer who was hired by that girl over there to save them"

"…I understand …..kill him boys!!"

The hunters started attacking me from all sides and I responded by knocking them out one after the other.

"The poison is not working on him?!!"

"impossible!!"

After knocking half of them out the remaining hunters started to show some fear in their actions, and after another one out they started to escape in all directions and the leader and three of the hunters headed to the kids, but…

"you can't escape from me…{Shadow Manipulation}"

"guh?!"

"I can't move!! Why?!"

"the shadow!! My shadow is holding me in place?!"

"our shadows are moving by themselves!! How?!"

And after that, I knocked the remaining hunters out and slung the fainted elf over my shoulder and made my way to the kids.

"Is this good enough?"

"….it is, but why did you attack him? I thought you were lying to as when you did that"

"I only put him to sleep so he will not attack me while I was saving him"

"fair enough"

"now for you guys, hmm, this seems to be a magical lock, the type that don't have a key"

"what do you mean by that?"

"it's a look that can be opened with the owner's mana only, and by the look at the circumstances the lock can only be opened by the lord of Donatis and the king of this country"

"so we can't get out?"

"{Hijack} and here it is open, what's wrong? come out"

"did you not say that only the lord and the king can open the lock?"

"I am a blacksmith skilled enough to make strong artifacts, opening a lock like this is a piece of cake for me"

"artifacts?!"

Suddenly the sleeping elf woke up and when his gaze landed on me he attacked me knocking me over, he straddled me and was about to start punching me.

"Please stop!! Lao-nii!!"

The elven girl pushed him away from me and placed herself between us as if to protect me.

"what are you doing Ria? Move away from that human!!"

"stop and look around you, he defeated the hunters for us and helped us to escape the cage"

"w-what?!! Is it true?"

"yes, believe me"

"Okay I got it, you over there sorry for attacking so suddenly and thank you for saving us"

"don't worry about it"

"But why did you save us? Aren't you a human yourself?"

"I'm a human, but I saved you because I don't discriminate between other races like most of the humans in the Kingdome, and I didn't like how the elfs are treated in this territory"

"you are a strange human, aren't you?"

"never mind that, you. Your name is Laosh Berlarn, right?"

"Who told you about my name?"

"no need to be cautious of me, the one who told me about your name is Nash Berlarn, your brother and my teacher"

"wha-?!!"