Rank 10 Apple

Daniel punched a tree with his bare hand.

"Bam!"

The entire tree shook, and a hole appeared on the tree trunk. However, his right hand also hurt.

"I'm not that much stronger than before without using internal energy," he thought.

Then, he closed his eyes and concentrated, directing a lot of energy to his hand, and punched again.

"Crack!" With a loud crack, the tree, which was 10 centimeters in diameter, broke in half and fell to the ground.

Daniel looked at his painful hand and concluded that he could significantly increase his strength with internal energy, but it wouldn't enhance his defense that much.

"Let's take another 'vigor' pill," he thought. He sat down and swallowed the pill.

The feeling of fullness, like he was exploding from overeating, appeared again, and it was much more intense than before.

He concentrated and directed all of the energy to his aperture, and after 10 minutes, it finally ended.

"That was dangerous! I must not take more pills for at least a day," he thought.

Then he looked at his aperture.

"The internal energy has increased by 10 percent! It's great; I can improve very fast with this many vigor pills," he thought.

Then he returned to his tent, changed his leg's bandage, and slept.

The task of mapping this area had been entirely given to another person, so he had to wait for the group to finish this round of mapping and then return to Eversun City.

…

The Robels Empire stood as the most powerful force in the continent, with numerous colonies spanning every corner.

Its dominion held an unimaginable population, extending its influence even to other continents.

The empire boasted vast mortal technology intertwined with mage technology.

Among its technological marvels was the high-speed airship, a concept that had existed for a considerable time.

However, the previous airships relied entirely on magic, using pure energy as their power source.

Nowadays, airships are powered by purely mortal resources, significantly reducing costs and making them accessible even to ordinary people.

Daniel sat in one such airship, conversing with other knight attendants.

"When we return to the main station, do you think they'll send us back?" inquired a gray-eyed boy.

"No way! They always lack soldiers, so they'll keep us here for the full three years," replied another boy with golden hair.

The Robels Empire had a knight academy, which had its origins under the reign of the great King Owen but had undergone massive expansion during King Doris's rule.

The academy trains everyone, regardless of their wealth. However, it doesn't mean that the rich and the poor are equal.

The wealthy pay for their education and can leave after their studies are completed.

On the other hand, those who can't afford their education must serve in the army for three years.

Most of the army is composed of people drafted into service.

Daniel wasn't one of the drafted individuals.

He had been employed by the army for quite a few years, serving as a peak attendant knight, nearly the best a normal human could be.

All of the people here have swords and know how to fight as part of their training in the academy, but most are attendant knights in the initial stages, barely stronger than ordinary people.

They continued to talk until they reached their destination.

Daniel disembarked from the airship and headed to his house after completing the paperwork.

The main station was bustling with more than 10,000 people who had been sent here to explore and make preparations for the creation of a new city.

This station is designed for long-term stays, so everyone has a personal house.

Although they are small, they are better than living in groups.

In general, there are two main divisions: the war division and the supply division.

Soldiers in the war division focus solely on training with weapons and have no other responsibilities.

They will be issued with a beam weapon when they reach a certain level.

A beam weapon can shoot an intense light that can kill enemies from afar.

It is a new weapon made purely with mortal technology.

Other weapons, such as elemental weapons, can shoot dark or light elements. These are a combination of mortal technology with mage technology, and as a result, they are much more expensive and limited.

Every soldier with a job other than the war division is considered part of the supply division.

Daniel is one of the soldiers in the supply division.

Mapping can be done much easier using airships, but ground details would be lost in areas with thick trees.

After all, the army wants more than just a rough map; it wants a resource map, a wild animal map, and all kinds of fine details that won't be captured by airships.

Every mapping mission will take a long time, with the last one Daniel was in taking 3 months.

Daniel returned home and, sat on a chair next to a small table and closed his eyes. "My internal energy has increased so much! At this rate, I will break through to the rank of great knight in less than three months. In addition to my internal energy, my body strength has also improved significantly."

Daniel laughed loudly and went to his bath. That's right, every small house has a personal bath! After all, the army, under the direction of King Doris, really cared about cleanliness.

...

Doris, who was looking at the list, rolled her eyes. "I feel like I'm stuck!"

Her system, 'Mark of Justice,' was great for the initial stages of mage training. But the higher her rank got, the more points everything required to buy.

She tried her best to earn justice points, but the population base was just not enough to support her expenditure.

So she created colonies, took over many other kingdoms, and expanded the Robels kingdom as much as possible.

This made the situation better, but then her rank increased again!

Her income wasn't going up nearly as much as her expenditure, so she also decided to include non-humans.

What surprised her was that non-humans generated more justice points than humans, so she greatly improved the treatment of non-humans.

She wasn't worried about them having the potential for evil and this kind of stuff.

The reason was simple: this saying is false.

They have exactly the same potential for evil as humans.

But they hate humans! After being oppressed for so long, many wanted revenge, even if the cost was contracting with demons.

The dean of the Orange Light Academy was like this. He was originally a half-human who lived his childhood with the Tree Elves. But human mages attacked and killed many of them.

However, the rank 4 mage in charge didn't kill all of them, instead driving them away.

The dean had great mage talent of rank 10, so he reached the official mage stage and joined the Orange Light Academy, eventually becoming the dean.

After becoming the dean, he slowly took over and replaced all of the deputy deans with non-humans. At the same time, he received assistance from a demon king to reach rank 6 mage. Usually, obtaining resources from hell is difficult, but he had the magic treasure 'Reverse Shooting Star' to facilitate it.

Originally given to the Invisible Light, he negotiated a trade to reclaim it.

The Invisible Light is neutral, but it will agree to a fair trade.

With the 'Reverse Shooting Star', he acquired a significant amount of resources from hell and was on the verge of breaking through to rank 6. However, the Black Light and White Light Academies couldn't allow another rank 6 mage to emerge, so they launched an attack, threatening to kill all the non-human kingdoms if he didn't surrender.

Ultimately, he chose to surrender and was subsequently killed.

The White Light and Black Light respected the dean's wishes and chose not to kill the non-humans, instead dispersing them.

Even to this day, Doris doesn't truly understand why the Ancient Seven Lights Academy treated non-humans in such a manner.

She searched extensively but found no convincing answers in any book. As a result, she assumed that it was simply blind prejudice.

She set aside all fears and completely lifted all restrictions concerning non-humans.

Today, most humans have some non-human ancestry. This increased her justice points somewhat, but it still wasn't enough to satisfy her as a rank 7 mage.

Since her promotion to rank 7 four thousand years ago, she had remained stuck in the initial stages.

The difference between rank 6 and 7 was immense!

Before reaching rank 7, mages only use paths, such as the Way of Fate and the Way of Luck, etc.

However, after reaching rank 7, mages use law fragments. law fragments are formed by paths and are, by definition, incomplete.

A complete law, created by paths, is something only rank 10 mages could do.

Mages below rank 10 and above rank 7 use law fragments.

To create a law fragments, at least two paths are required.

There are various methods to collect paths.

One is to consume fruits that contain specific paths within them. For instance, an apple contains a small amount of the Way of Fate, although it's so minuscule that it's incalculable.

A rank 0 apple contains much more, and as the rank increases, the amount of fate in it also increases.

However, finding higher-ranked apples is impossible.

The only way for Doris to obtain them is through her system.

But the price for a rank 7 apple is incomprehensible!

That's why she has been stuck in the initial stages for so long.

It is said that in ancient times, they had so many high-ranking resources that they made pills out of them, but now...

"I wish time wasn't locked," Doris sighed.

Now, she knows many secrets regarding why the high-ranking mages went missing.

Almost a million years ago, a great disturbance in the fundamental law of time alarmed everyone.

All mages with rank 7 and above investigated and identified the cause.

A rank 10 apple appeared in heaven! This drove everyone into a frenzy.

It wasn't just one rank 10 apple; it was a garden filled with apples, many of which were rank 9 and below.

It was so overwhelming that it shook time itself.

Everyone, except for a few who were so focused on their meditation that they didn't realize, rushed to heaven in a wild frenzy.

Heaven was home to gods and angels, but they weren't that powerful.

Gods were at the peak of rank 9, and angels were below rank 9. Mages at that time had more than a hundred rank 9 mages! They rushed there with confidence.

And then they disappeared!

After they disappeared, time became locked.

Nobody knows what happened to them, and nobody knows why the time is locked.

Fortunately for mages, there are significant restrictions on hell. Traveling from the mage world to hell or heaven is actually easy.

Well, it used to be easy for heaven; today, traveling to heaven is impossible. No magic related to heaven works.

But for hell, even rank 4 mages can do it. The more powerful the mage, the easier it is to go to hell.

But from hell, it's the reverse.

The more powerful the demon, the harder it is to travel to the mage world.

Basically, demons above rank 7 cannot travel to the mage world.

Some demon kings have tried to send their clones to the mage world and promote them locally, but it never succeeds.

They don't have the 'reverse shooting star', so the same scarcity of resources also stops their clone's progress.

In any case, the reverse shooting star only works on resources below rank 7.

Reverse shooting star only works from the mage world.

Doris started to think and remembered something! "Didn't Alistair capture one of these clones?" she thought.

Alistair once captured one with pure luck.

His father has told her this story a few times. After all, this was the first time he had met her mother and saved her.

As a rank 7 mage, Doris remembered these details with great precision.

Those memories made her nostalgic. "At that time, Father's treasure indicated a gray color. Gray means uncertain. It was uncertain because the clone was connected to a rank 9 existence, and that rank 3 treasure lacked the power to judge the clone's fate," she thought.

Doris had tried many times in the past to send a clone to hell to gather resources, but they had all failed.

She even had some clones with Royal Bloodline, but still, hell was too dangerous, and they all ended up dead shortly after.

"Maybe there is no other way. I wanted to avoid it, but maybe I should personally go to hell?" she pondered.

"I will never be able to come back, but here, I will never be able to reach rank 7." She hesitated, thinking, "No, it's too soon. I should remain here for at least a million years before deciding. After all, rank 7 mages can live for millions of years."

She couldn't promote the clone here and then send it to hell.

Hell had a stringent system in place.

Every demon born in hell will be a slave to demon nobles, except for royal demons, who are the offspring of demon kings.

That's why only royal blood demons can be used for cloning.

Any other clone without a royal bloodline would be immediately enslaved, unless the clone is rank 7 or higher, in which case it would be promoted to demon nobility.

For a royal demon to be promoted, one must look for other demons with the same blood and use them for promotion.

Otherwise, their bloodline would dilute to the point that hell might enslave them.

There are a lot of demons in hell, and many of them have some royal bloodline, even though not enough to be considered royal blood.

For this reason, demons with royal blood are often the most brutal, slaughtering innumerable other demons and refining their blood for their own promotion.

Once a royal demon reaches rank 7, they will be considered a prince or princess of hell. They are often the most trusted subordinates of the demon king they serve.

"It would have been great if I could send Alistair there. With someone from inside, my clone would have a much better chance of survival."

Then, she cast 'long-distance message' and contacted Alistair.

"Yes?" Alistair said with annoyance.