Growth

Cheers resounded throughout the audience that stood on the sides of the streets. In the eyes of the audience was reverie, awe, and hope. As they watched the heroes that were standing atop the roofless, two-horse-driven royal carriage, their hearts thumped as they envisioned a brighter future. Every child that had read a bedtime story had heard of the legend of the four heroes who came from another world and sacrificed their own peaceful lives, and put themselves on a foreign battlefield so that the denizens of a distant land could live in peace from the vile demons.

After the Demon Lord, who would rise again every few hundred years, usually indicated by increased mana concentration levels above a certain threshold on the continent, was defeated, the heroes would stick around and improve the lives of the citizens for the better by involving themselves in important political positions on the continent, putting down crime syndicates, etc.

This tradition of devoting themselves to society's welfare after the Demon Lord's defeat always held true, and no one on the continent found it strange that even the Heroes with vile personalities would do the same. Of course, this was in part due to the deific perception that the people had of the heroes, and thus they could not even fathom that the Heroes could possess subpar personalities. The few that did not succumb to pro-Hero revisionist history understood that the Heroes were not always pure of heart, but since they seemed to mysteriously become saints after the Demon Lord fight, these historians never really questioned the sudden philanthropist tendencies Heroes seemed to exhibit and only attributed this change as a re-examination of their own lives following an intense fight.

The willingness of Heroes to contribute to society time and time again was what led to the public perception of them skyrocketing to the levels it had become, and the reason forcing Noah, Mia, Evan, and Emma into parades was so lucrative for King Thorian.

The parade they were currently forced into had them waving with smiles for hours on end, and the souvenirs, excitement, and travel the Hero parade brought was an all-around economy boost, along with a way to line nobles' pockets while simultaneously elevating their reputations in the eyes of the commoners, as they praised the Heroes to high heavens. It was a joyous occasion for everyone! Everyone, except, of course, the main event, the pitiful Heroes. 

This was the 5th parade they had been forced to attend in the past year of their stay here, and it was following their successful subjugation of the Third Heavenly King, the fourth strongest enemy they would face.

As they got off the parade vehicle, Archmage Elowyn, who had initially been in favour of the execution of the four heroes, politely took the coats of the four off for them with the 7th circle - Spatial Levitation—which did not create flight from wind but rather from spatial movement and gravity control. Using this magic allowed their coats to be taken off without disturbing them with wind. Archimage Elowyn, the archmage known as the strongest in the Elaria Kingdom, now had to praise the four who had each grown stronger than her with an amiable smile.

"Welcome Heroes! Congratulations on another successful subjugation! Truly, the power the Heroes wield is fearsome. The heavenly king subjugations that the Empire, the 5 kingdoms, and the Church frequently engage in consist of a dozen archmages and sovereign ranked warriors, but still claim the lives of half the team every time! Truly, it is incredible that such a feat is possible for the four of you alone."

"Hehe! Thanks Elowee! It was kinda hard this time, but we got it in the bag!"

The proud Archmage Elowyn's eyelid twitched as she was addressed by a pet name by the 18-year-old Emma, younger than even her son, who then jumped onto her.

As much as Archmage Elowyn wanted to immediately unleash the 9th circle - Annihilation on the girl now wrapped around her neck, she held back. Archmage Elowyn had personally witnessed the battle between the four and the fourth heavenly king.

The girl whose hair and beauty made her resemble a sunflower in full bloom had used her illusions to throw her enemies' minds into the deepest depths of despair, then immediately thrown them into paradise several times in a minute, driving them insane. Her illusions created entire worlds that entrapped her enemies, where she would reign as a deity. Once her enemy was caught in her illusory domain, all that was left was for her to use her 7th circle mastery of magic and her abundant magic pool, which was now several times that of the average archmage, to finish them off like shooting fish in a barrel. The fact that the least impressive fact here was her ability to learn up to 7th circle magic in just a single year, with her explanation for being able to do so being 'its just high school math', spoke volumes about her achievements.

The others were monsters in their own regard as well. While mages relied on spells engraved on gems to funnel their magic, the one named Evan could draw magic circles in the air. Mages that witnessed how he would run around the battlefield to draw massive magic circles the size of lakes in the air in mere seconds were left speechless, not just at the fact that his physical reinforcement was Lord-ranked, just one below the current highest Sovereign rank on the Calysta continent, but more so at the fact that the divine skill of drawing magic circles in the air utilized the fact that all spells channeled atmospheric mana around it. 

This was a mechanism of magic circles that was really only used in cities. Most cities on the Calysta continent were structured in the shape of a giant magic circle, which would grant cities effects such as purified air and simple barriers to ward away monsters. However, these cities faced limitations in the complexity of the circle they could use. In most cities, anything more than 1st circle magic was unable to be used, as the roads into the country would become too convoluted.

Drawing magic circles was not as simple as it sounded. Mere centimeters out of place, and the mana he used to draw the circle would backflow, rushing into his body and killing him. Only Evan, possessing absolute dexterity, could perform such a feat. His use of large magic circles would make up for his lacking magic mastery that was only at the 3rd circle, boosting his firepower up to the 8th circle. Evan could also be seen flinging small objects he called 'grenades' that he would draw dozens of small magic circles on, that could achieve firepower that rivaled 6th circle destruction magic.

Mia was no less of a force to be reckoned with. Though language mastery was initially thought to be useless, speaking to monsters provided insight into their techniques that no human had ever had access to. In their travels, Mia and Emma would occasionally split off from the others to infiltrate monster clans. By permanently casting illusion magic that disguised the two of them for weeks on end, Emma became more and more familiar with her illusion magic, and Mia would learn the monster clan's techniques by communicating and training with them.

Through replicating the mana flow and techniques of monsters, she developed a unique mana flow that neither warriors nor mages on the continent used. The unique flow of mana that monsters used slowly changed her body, making her a sort of beast yet to be fathomed.

And that wasn't all. English had 27 letters in the alphabet. Japanese had 47. The lost runic language of the Calysta continent had been dismissed as irretrievable from the depths of history for having 60,000 letters, and Mia had effortlessly learned to wield it. Granted, the runic language was only capable of enchantment. However, it was versatile beyond imagination. Legs enchanted with wind could lighten and move quicker, or could allow for a kick to send out a blade of wind or a torrent of it. In the battle Archmage Elowyn had witnessed, Mia had spent the first half of the fight stationary and chanting under the protection of the other three, but the moment she entered the fight, she was an unstoppable force of nature.

What was a stalemate instantly devolved into a thorough beating. The sight of Mia enchanting the air itself with extreme heat, then slicing it apart with its reverse enchantment, extreme cold, creating a pyroclastic sword beam that melted the heavenly king, and finishing it off, was permanently engraved in her mind.

Finally, Noah. He was an existence that no one would wish to have as an enemy. Anyone who had tasted competition would innately understand how it felt when the situation was more advantageous for the enemy. A war fighting an enemy on the high ground, a chess game where one side has more queens than the other, a late throw in rock paper scissors. All of these were situations that required orchestration by a party, and usually the orchestrator would find themselves on the other side of the stick and find themselves to have been played by someone else at some point.

Not for Noah. In any and all situations, his hundreds of monster forms would place him in an advantageous position. He was the eternal figure on the high ground, the one with more queens than made sense, the one with the late throw. He was the conductor of the orchestra, and his position was irreplaceable, a testament to his unparalleled adaptability.

In the recent fight against the Third Heavenly King, Noah would adopt the form of a harpy to dodge any aerial attacks with blistering speed; any unavoidable wide-area attacks that would instantly incinerate a harpy would be rendered obsolete with the sturdy treant. All the while, Noah would inject Hydra's poison in between any attacks, weakening the King. In the event that the enemy struck damage in Noah through some sort of piercing attack that caught him off guard, turning to a troll would multiply his regeneration multiple times, almost instantly healing him. Noah had no flaws. Only head-on, raw power could topple the might of Noah.

Archmage Elowyn shuddered to think what kind of existence could be powerful enough to do that. Hell, she couldn't imagine any of them being defeated by sheer power. Having remembered the kind of power that lay dormant in the four walking beside her, she endured Emma's antics with as amiable a smile as she could muster.

A.N. If you haven't read the prologue yet, you might want to go back and read it, or the next chapter might get real confusing ;)