Bear

When Ray arrived at the mission hall, he was greeted by quite a bit of talking and laughter. 'So this is where all the mages meet up and talk' he thought. It made sense, since most people weren't power obsessed people who only wanted to train and do nothing else. They were humans. They might be powerful humans, but they still wanted to socialize. However there was a clear power distinction between people talking. Everyone had their aura released, so he could tell the official mages only were with the official mages, and the same thing with the apprentices. Although there were only a handful of mages and over a hundred apprentices.

The inside of the market looked like a medieval bar with tables everywhere, and food being served by regular humans. At the front there was a more official looking area with an apprentice standing behind a large desk. It had a sign above it that read, "Missions". Ray walked over to the apprentice, and the apprentice handed him a scroll with many missions listed on it.

'Turn in spider beast corpses. 90% of the corpse has to be undamaged to receive reward. Reward: 50 merits each. Requestor: Level 7 mage, Eren Yort'

'Accompany Lord Horthon's daughter from their house to the royal capital. Estimated time: 1 year. Reward: a quarter of a level 5 beast soul. Requestor: Lord Harthon'

There were many quests such as these on the scroll. Turning in monster monster corpses was very high in demand, mostly because they weren't very easy to find, and official mages didn't want to spend their time hunting low level monsters. So if any official mage needed something, or the school itself needed something, they simply put a request for a mission.

After looking through the missions, he also found a few missions about destroying small towns. 'Destroy Harlington town for being suspected of colluding with the Kingdom of Adwykith. Reward: 300 merits. Requestor: The Royal Court. Highest enemy power: Knight'.

These interested him much more than the other missions. The beast hunting missions weren't exactly missions, but things he would complete naturally. For example if he ever left the main school of Mythri, he would probably encounter beasts in the forest while leaving. He would simply store the corpse somewhere and turn it into whatever quest asked for it. As for the other missions, they either took too long, or were too risky/he wasn't qualified to even accept the mission in the first place. He had to get back within 11 months for his teacher, Magnus. And he wasn't willing to take any risks when he didn't need to. The highest power level being a knight meant that they only had a body training technique, they didn't have magic. Without magic you can't progress past the official mage level and you are significantly weaker than a mage of the same level. Ray was pretty confident in being able to complete the mission.

There also seemed to be some tension between the kingdom he was in, Valier, and the kingdom located to the west of Valier, Adwykith. In this plane he was in there were 3 kingdoms who were equal in power that controlled the plane. But it seemed some pre war skirmishes were already taking place. That would also explain why the merit reward was high compared to its difficulty.

"I'll take this one." Ray said while pointing at a mission.

"Your name?" The girl at the desk asked.

"Ray Dyant." He replied.

The girl wrote down something on a scroll, and nodded in his direction. She gave him a map to find the town, then went back to her original position. After seeing she needed nothing else, Ray left the mission hall. He didn't waste any time with anybody else, and quickly packed some essentials and got ready to leave. After overhearing many conversations at the mission hall, he could tell that the beast he encountered was on the stronger side. Ray was just very unfortunate, most new apprentices would have certainly died.

However Ray is a lot more confident now even if he encounters the same beast again. Light ray is more powerful than zap in terms of pure damage, and he is a level higher than previously. Even if the lion beast hits him, he can tank a couple shots just with his existing shield.

Although he is confident, he isn't arrogant. Ray isn't going to buy a horse and spread his aura to show he is fearless. If two beasts attack him at the same time, there is still almost nothing he can do.

After making sure he had everything he needed, he left Mythri. Right before he left through the gate, the guard stopped him and handed him an ordinary looking token.

"Here's your return token. When you come back this will be your proof of being part of Mythri." He said.

Ray pocketed the token and left the school.

Like last time, he completely retracted his aura and walked quietly through the forest. He wanted to fight a couple beasts before he went to the village so he was prepared for the knight at Harlington town. But he also wanted to be safe, so he will wait for one to find him.

Nothing happened for a few days. He didn't run into beasts or people the entire time. However after 4 days of traveling he heard loud shouts and the roar of a beast in the distance. He thought about whether he should go there or not, then he decided to simply spectate from a distance and then see if he would make a move or not. It sounded like they were struggling, and there weren't exceptionally powerful beasts around this area. So even if they were stronger than him and wanted to attack him, he could probably still escape since they wouldn't have their full battle strength.

When Ray came close enough to see the battle, he saw a group of two people fighting against a beast. To be more specific, one person was fighting against the beast while the other was lying on the ground. Not dead, but clearly injured with a long gash across its chest. Ray let out his aura once he realized the group was in a far worse state than him. It alerted the fighting apprentice of his appearance, but there was nothing he could do with the beast on him.

The beast looked like a bear, but much larger and with blood red eyes. It swiped down on the person it was fighting forcing him a few steps backwards. It should have made him go flying, maybe even killing him on the spot. However the person it was fighting had a glowing red sword in his hands, clearly an artifact.

When the beast slammed its paws on the artifact, Ray could see with his 'mages vision' that the sword let out a burst of energy, also becoming a bit dimmer in the process. 'That sword would suit me nicely' Ray thought while watching the apprentice barely fend off the bear.

Seeing that Ray was just watching him, the apprentice fighting the bear desperately called out, "Help me sir, Please!"

Ray looked at the bear and saw it was already pretty injured. It had several gashes on its neck which had a stream of blood flowing from it. Its left arm was also severely burnt, although the beast didn't seem to notice this fact. "Alright I'll help you." Ray replied.

The apprentice's face became relieved and he said, "You have attacking magic right? Aim for the wound on the beast's ne-"

Before he could say anything else Ray finished channeling his light ray. However instead of shooting at the bear's neck, it went straight towards the apprentice's neck. Before he could even figure out what happened, a beam of light flashed through his neck, leaving a hole about 3 inches wide behind. He tried to say something, but nothing came out of his mouth.

"I was going to do that next anyway." Ray said in a calm tone after seeing the apprentice died. It seemed he didn't have anything else left in his arsenal, the sword was already his last stand. But Ray wasn't taking any chances, and he was confident in taking down the bear from here by himself.

The bear paused for a moment, seemingly surprised that its prey dropped to the ground. But it quickly regained its fury and rushed to the new target, Ray. Before the bear could take its shot at Ray, a beam of light also further deepened the wound on its neck, fully piercing the front after half a second of continuous damage.

In its state of heightened fury the bear ignored the wound and rushed at Ray. Its paws landed on Ray's body, but Ray didn't seem to be panicking at all. The paw hit the shield but bounced off having dealt no damage to Ray. The shield dimmed down a lot, only about half of its energy was still remaining. After being repelled by the shield, the bear dropped to the ground. The fury in its eyes disappeared at the last moment before its death, as if it just realized it was about to die. Ray stood there for a solid minute staring at the bear's corpse until he was sure it died. The bear's legs twitched a couple times, as if it was still struggling to kill Ray even at death's door. But it couldn't do anything with its vital area completely destroyed. Ray could feel the life completely disappeared from the beast using his mages vision, as the soul had completely disappeared from the beast.

Ray shot another bolt at the other apprentice lying on the ground, finishing him for good. He didn't use his sword to finish the job just in case they were pretending to be injured. After double checking and making sure everyone was dead, he looted the bodies of the two apprentices. The apprentice who was already injured had nothing on him except his merit point card, which had dimmed down as if it noticed its owner died. Ray didn't touch it as it might have some unknown mechanism on it. The other apprentice also had nothing on his body except the merit card, however he did leave behind the artifact he fought the bear with. After feeling the sword for a bit, Ray thought 'This sword is very nice. If you were still alive I would have thanked you for this gift'.

He used the bear claw to rip apart the bodies of the apprentices he killed so they were unrecognizable. He didn't know if anyone cared about these two, but now there would be little evidence left that he did something. If someone were to take a quick glance at the scene, they would assume the bear and apprentices died trying to kill each other.

With that out of the way, Ray continued his journey towards Harlington town, now with an extra sword in his sheath. He would have to get rid of his old sword.