9 Mana Stones
Zephyr played with a pebble in his hand. This pebble was not normal. It was shining with a dot of gaseous red color. It was a Mana Stone, which could be found in the depths of the ground or in a market.
Although it looked very fragile, even if Zephyr used his full strength, the Mana Stone wouldn't be broken in several fragments.
Taking that into consideration, he did not hold back at all at the power he used to throw the pebble away. He tied the Mana Stone into a rope of Qi, so it would not go away from him after a certain distance.
After a while, Zephyr reached his destination. A cliff near the sea; the waves of said sea moving forward and backwards.
"What… Is That?" Zephyr knitted his eyebrows, noticing a whirlpool forming near the beach of the sea. Definitely an odd thing to see in such a calm area.
The ground him started to shake, his foot were unsteady. Without another moment passing, he threw himself backwards. This ended up being a bad move as the whirlpool exploded with vigor, pulling out dark energy which formed tentacles.
The tentacles surrounded Zephyr in mid-air much to the latter's annoyance.
"This fucker is equal to the Foundation Creation Realm, I'm weaker than it currently." Zephyr growled in annoyance.'I guess there is no other choice.'
A seal inside his soul broke apart and unleashed an ancient and primordial power.
"Root Of Darkness."
Out of the Root of Destruction and that of Darkness, he was more proficient in the latter. The Root of Destruction required far more physical and spiritual strength than he currently possessed.
Black-colored energy spread itself outside Zephyr's body. It coated his skin, thus the tentacles could do nothing to him.
He then thrust his right arm forward. "Rank 3 Spell - Devourer of Power!" He shouted as the darkness gathered and literally ate the tentacles.
It tore them apart and then devoured all of it in one go. Zephyr glanced at the scene for a second before he was slammed backwards by the whirlpool's odd energy.
"Alright, you have definitely pissed me off!" Zephyr growled.
"Rank 2 Spell - March of a Ruler!" He muttered to himself and launched his body forward. He slammed directly into the Whirlpool's center.
Water spilled around, and somehow a screech followed.
Over the years Zephyr had grown to know how to rank Natural Disasters, Natural Oddities or whatever you might want to call them in ranks.
The whirlpool monster in front of him was most likely in its fetus-stage, thus its first thoughts were to attack him. This would only give it an Unranked role.
Unranked Creatures were kind of annoying to deal with at his current level. Their bodies were several hundred times larger than Zephyr's. That gave him a speed advantage, but nothing else.
"Root Of Darkness - Extermination Of the Evil!" Darkness burst out from his body, coated in mana and thrust itself to the direct core of this Unranked Creature.
The Unranked Creature let out a yelp before it sunk down into the depths of the sea. Zephyr unfortunately was incapable of defeating it. However, he had already gained something from it.
A few Mana Stones had dropped from the increasingly amazing damage he had caused to the Unranked Creature. Magical Beasts,Natural Oddities,Demons and many kinds of creatures were hunted because when they died, their mana crystalized and formed Mana Stones.
This led to massive hunts. Elves, for example were a race which were hunted actively by humans of the Rafea Continent; for many reasons. One of which was their 'Special' Nature Mana Stones.
These Mana Stones contained the power of Mother Nature and could easily last for more than most common Mana Stones.
Both unfortunately and fortunately,their numbers quickly dwindled and they seeked a way to save themselves, this was given in the way of a Gate of Fortune by the Elf God.
The Third Continent, Asmora was populated mainly by Elves and even the continent was named after the Elf God, or to be more precise the Elf Goddess.
Of course, Zephyr was currently in the seventh continent, the distance between the two continents was large, the ocean was an obstacle and not to mention the three continents in between the two.
He had no desire to go there either. The Elves there were naturally stronger than most humans, existences in the Foundation Creation Realm were much more common than in the Rafean Continent.
'I sensed another Mana User nearby, it must be Tai.' Zephyr glanced to his right, he most likely had sensed the presence of the Unranked Creature and rushed to defeat it before it was a problem.
"Zeph, are you okay?" Tai's speed was something Zephyr could only barely catch up, thus it was not a surprise for him to already have reached him.
The latter stared at Tai before removing his fingerless gloves and throwing them away. "I'm more than okay. If you are looking for the odd creature, it already disappeared into the depths of the sea."
"I see. Actually I was worried for you mainly. I can't really teach you a lot since you are a Qi User and since Li Xiao went back into his division a year ago… I feel like you are being limited quite a lot here."
Zephyr narrowed his eyes, immediately seeing through the meaning of his words. He wanted Zephyr to leave the town and go to a 'larger' and more 'thriving' zone. Despite his refusal three years ago, Tai had never stopped asking him to go join the Royal Academy.
"Nope."
Zephyr replied shortly as he ran away.
He had better stuff to do rather than discussing something for the one hundredth time once again. Tai could be really stubborn at times.
"Wai-" Tai sighed helplessly. He was soon going to be forced to forcefully act and send him to the Royal Academy.
~~ (Orphanage Garden)
Tai was slammed into a rock, caught unprepared from a wild movement of Zephyr, he had lost the spar.
'Wha-'
He was left in silence as he rubbed the spot Zephyr's backheel had made contact with. He winced immediately. He could already feel that it was going to hurt for a while there.
However, his eyes did not leave Zephyr's face... The boy had grown to a level that even he had to be careful when sparring with him.
