New Resolve

A woman with scarlet red eyes and hair entered the room holding a tray full of fruits. She took unhurried steps toward Marcus and sat by his side on the bed.

She put the tray on his legs as a sweet aroma overwhelmed Marcus' senses, a scent that was a mixture of fruits and the perfume that this woman wore.

"Why so gloomy?" she playfully asked, trying to uplift the mood.

Marcus simply lowered his head, too guilty to look into Claire's eyes. 

Claire frowned upon seeing this, she didn't like the way Marcus behaved after obtaining such a gift from her master.

"You know, Master Maroon sacrificed a thousand mana coins so I could awaken and grow to my full potential, such a sum was spent to let me assimilate two Fire Elemental Seeds and this was already his full capability back then, he wouldn't have attempted the third even if my family offered ten times that amount."

"But do you know how much he spent on your 'simple' awakening array? Come on, guess yourself, I will wait." Claire sprawled out on the bed that could comfortably fit three people. 

Marcus didn't answer for over two minutes as he kept his head lowered.

"Two thousand?" he asked quietly.

"Three hundred..." a wave of relief hit Marcus' heart, knowing that Professor Maroon didn't spend so much on him. Yet, Claire wasn't finished speaking.

"...thousand." a bomb went off in Marcus' mind, that was such a big sum that he couldn't even begin to comprehend.

How could one have so many mana coins and still teach in a magical academy in some small city?

Such a person was usually referred to as a magical millionaire!

He finally turned his head to meet Claire's eyes, yet he found them closed as she rested on the soft cushions.

Marcus' first idea was that those words were a lie, but when he carefully thought through it once more...how could one accomplish such a feat without paying a tremendous price?

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The aura around him started to become more lively. His eyes reopened with renewed determination.

Own up to your words...that sentence continuously echoed in his mind as it gradually became the only thing that he could hear in his mind amid other negative feelings.

"I will." he said out loud as he stood up from the bed and went straight into the shower to take a cold plunge. 

Claire remained unmoving till she heard the water trickling down in the bathroom. A slight smile bloomed across her face as her mind flashed back to what happened a few days ago.

-----

'Why is this mana cyclone so powerful?' Claire rushed through the academy's staff housing complex as she had her eyes locked on an ordinary house that was the source behind all this commotion.

She had run all the way from the academy administrative headquarters as an uneasy feeling gnawed at her heart. 

Not in this entire world did she expect to see such a terrifyingly powerful mana cyclone today. 

The wild and unrestrained energies ripped everything to shreds, as even the previously lush grass around the house had become nothing more than a tattered ground.

Her first instinct as a warrior was to wait out and see the further situation, but she couldn't hold herself down despite years of experience on chaotic battlefields. After all, it concerned her master!

She rushed right into the cyclone of wild energies as a red, transparent film covered her entirely. It wildly flicked in and out of existence, as Claire didn't expect that its base setting would be so weak against this mana cyclone.

She poured more energy into it as a bright brilliance created a light halo around her body as she thrust herself through the berserk energies. 

The struggle was real, as even her power as a High Phase First Rank mage wasn't enough to easily break through the ordeal. 

The rushing wind was like an immovable wall as she extended her arm forward to block her face from all those flying rocks and pebbles. 

Claire slowly made her way towards the house. Surprisingly, the structural integrity of the building was mostly intact, except that all windows were shattered.

'Is it finally calming down?' a thought crossed her mind as she could feel the pressure on her mana ward lessening.

Moments later, the energy cyclone dissipated as Claire burst into the house. She frantically looked left and right, trying to find the cause of this. Unfortunately, she couldn't release her mana sense outward yet, as the berserk mana would mess with her spatial orientation. 

She sprinted up the stairs on the second floor yet found all rooms empty, then it finally clicked as she went down to the basement using the spiraling stairs.

A door appeared in her sight as she conjured a spiked, fiery mana shield, trying to ram through it without a care.

BANG!

A powerful tremor went up all over the walls and Claire's body as she gritted her teeth, doing her best to endure the residual kinetic energy traveling up her arms and dispersing all throughout her torso.

Nevertheless, this attack wasn't enough to leave even a single scratch on this inscospicious wooden door that was reinforced by flimsy metal stripes coating its sides, since dark brown patterns that looked like runes swirled around as dozens of magical circles all across the door rotated with hypnotizing tempo.

Claire's pupils shrunk into two pinholes.

'It could withstand half my power?' her face went ashen as she thought through the next sequence of actions.

But her panic didn't continue for long as the door opened with a loud creak as a withered man wearing half-burnt robes presented himself.

"Master!" a panicked scream left her mouth as she instantly conjured healing spells without a second thought. 

Red, fiery spheriphical orbs manifested on her fingertips as she extended her hands towards Maroon, her palms hovering over his chest.

Maroon shook his head as the mana was dispersed with a wave of his hand. Claire became stunned as she raised her head to look at the solemn expression that marred her Master's face. 

She could finally see the aged wrinkles that ran all across his face, his previously chisseled features became less vibrant as his whole person seemed like it could be snuffed out at any moment.

"W-what happened?!" Claire asked with an agitated voice. 

Maroon stood still for a long time, only his eyes could tell the story of a thousand words as Claire rushed into the basement room. 

A scene that shocked her to the core was reflected right into her retina. She had a hard time processing everything that she was seeing? Was this even real? Such thoughts continuously ran through her mind.

At first, she wanted to blame the unconscious boy that lay on the ground, thinking that her Master suffered because of him, as she was seconds away from roasting Marcus alive.

But her rationality stopped her from taking such radical steps, as a blue light flashed within her pupils for the briefest moment. Her mind had calmed down as she turned around to face Maroon.

"Can you tell me what happened?" 

-----

Marcus finally came out of the shower as his gaze focused on the dozed off Claire.

'Did she really not break at least one of my bones?' Marcus jocked inside to lessen his pain. Claire looked up to Professor Maroon as if he was her father, just like Marcus. But the difference was that Claire was scorned by her biological parents. She came from a wealthy family that could acquire a noble status with just a few more years of effort, meaning the standing they had was exceedingly high to begin with. 

The fifth ring consisted of twelve sectors and they lived in the tenth sector. This sector was quite average for the fifth ring, as it wasn't too wealthy or poor. Moreover, it was further divided into twenty four regions that had dozens of cities within them.

The head of the sector was referred to as Alkon and had special honorifics attached to it as Diye, Mio, Kas, Ley. With the first ring being solely controlled by the royal family.

In the case of the fifth ring, they were referred to as Diye Alkons.

Claire Venzaro was a member of the Venzaro family, the powerhouse of Kalto City. If they managed to overtake the entire city under their influence, they would automatically become a Vindo, a City Lord Noble Family. The status of Vindo would allow them to enter the truly big leagues and pave the way to even becoming a Bexin, a regional lord that is a step below Alkon.

Naturally, the power and influence that those statuses had varied vastly from ring to ring, as a Bexin from the fourth ring had the same status as Alkon from the fifth ring.  

Although the Solaris Kingdom might seem small from having their nation categorized into just five rings, the reality was that all rings could be considered separate nations that had exponential increases in resources and power. 

In a way, a top genius from the fifth ring was simply an average in the fourth. It was a simple matter of having an astronomical difference in environment and resources. 

In fact, Claire could compete for the top spot in her ring since she had absorbed two Fire Elemental Seeds and in a way, the feat of absorbing three Elemental Seeds was a common occurence in the third ring while being a rarity in the fourth. This showed the gigantic difference between the information that those of various rings had. Moreover, each ring was incredibly vast and passage to another ring could only be granted by the Regulatory Force Faction if one fulfilled certain criteria.