Joshua's POV

As he passed through the hidden shortcut through the forest on the way to the finish line, Joshua didn't forget to march carefully and avoid provoking any of the creatures there.

He was invisible right now partly for that reason.

The creatures in this forest were all perfectly safe, except one.

He didn't want to meet 'that' one no matter what, but alas he had to take this risk

He was decked in a stealth suit that costs about a hundred credits, it had Energy shielding functions, heat insulating and soundproofing functions.

It was 'a bit' expensive but it was money well spent as far as he was concerned.

The other reason was that today would be the day of his triumphant return!

Today would be the day that Joshua Lancaster, of 'the' Lancaster house returned to school after being hospitalized for six months due to 'bodily damage' after he'd offended one of the strongest girls in school.

The doctors had told him that he was only barely able to rain due to damage to his Mana Stone.

He had to recuperate at home for those six long months, he, the No.1 strongest Mages in school!

Just how strong was she.

Up till now, thinking about the time he was beaten up still caused him to shiver, but he knew better than to plot revenge.

There were rumors across the big families that she and Zeina were the children of someone in the present day top 50 Hero Rankings!

The Lancasters were a big family with centuries of history but they weren't an 'all that big' family so they didn't have any Rankers. Plus he was a Space Mage.

Didn't matter if he was a talented one or that he had a powerful master.

Speaking of his master; he was really worried for his master, 'Missing for two years now?' people already declared him dead but as someone who knew the old man he didn't think he would just die like that.

He decided to focus on other avenues in life, like the School's Leaderboard Earlier this year the school had started the final year's student Challenge series.

There were amazing prizes to be won sure, but he was more interested in standing at the top of all Mages officially, and the whole school!

He was actually a proud winner of one Diamond Challenge; the first one that happened in the year's start.

The monthly five man capture the flag. That was the only one the Mages had won since he'd gone

He'd been severely frustrated watching the display screen showing the school's leader board on the school site.

Something about seeing the glowing blue text with the rank of Mage drop slowly after he forcefully raised them to the top made his insides boil!

'They need me to help them' he concluded

So he'd geared up once he received the message for this month's challenge and decided to use this as Mage challenge to reintegrate himself into the swing of things and start a record hot streak.

He'd learned of the challenge early and made detailed plans for today, left for school before his recuperation was done and here he was now, feeling like a student who didn't study for today's exam

Joshua quietly trudged through the forest leading to the Mage department while feeling melancholic

Earlier he'd felt proud of himself for his master plan but he couldn't shake off the feeling that something was off somehow, he'd forgotten to account for something.

But he dismissed that thought, everything was in his control.Once the first class ends, point out the fact that Beckendorf, the class weakling was the biggest threat and have him tied up, check. He'd stayed to watch the combat mage be tied up. There were certain competitions that had high affinities with certain sub-classes making it easy wins for them. Targeting had become the norm after he'd singlehandedly snatched 4 opposing flags within the first 5 minutes and won a Diamond for the Mage class.After that he'd paid the strongest giant in the school to hold everybody up until they were bunched up so it would turn into a group march instead of individual sprints thereby giving him enough time to get there safely. But even then he didn't leave anything to chance, opting to take a shortcut through the winding roads into the forest.

"Brilliant, too brilliant" he could already see it now; 'Mages make comeback from the bottom of the ranks thanks to the timely return of their strongest'.But just as he passed some trees and came into a clearing he came across the sleeping figure of a black and white monkey lying adorably on a tree branch like a koala.

The road to the finish line was just ahead of this clearing. He only had to bypass this sleeping monkey and he'd be there

'Yep, time to take a detour'

***

'It cost me a minute of my planned time but I'm finally here' instead of dilly-dalling at the edge of the clearing he got out ready to sprint for the finish line up ahead.

It was then that he heard a loud sound coming from the bend just behind him, someone was approaching?

He didn't waste any time wracking his brains about how his plans could have gone wrong and took off for the finish line like his life depended on it.

But it was too bad, the person coming from behind him was also running as if his life depended it!

The only difference was that the person behind him was much faster and was gaining on him quickly!

The distance tothe flag was about twenty meters with less than 2 meters of space between them.

The person behind him was running towards his left slightly but they hadn't seen or heard him yet, so the money he spent wasn't a waste.

Thinking along those lines and with no alternative to win this competition he decided… to jump the person.

He slowed down purposely and began to ready himself.

'Almost there…' right in front, at the end of the path was a collection of blue painted buildings with the largest one having 'Ready…'

And when he saw a dark shadow appear beside him gradually widening the distance between them he knew it was the time to jump the person.

'After I tackle him to the ground I'll immediately leave then run to the finish line.'Nothing can interfere with my return' just before Joshua could pounce on the person and drag them to the floor, he heard a squeaky sound and felt something pierce his camouflage suit and penetrate his back.

"What the hell!" the touched his back trying to feel for what penetrated his 100 credit suit. If the Camouflage suit gets torn anywhere-

???

He suddenly found out that he could no longer move his body

'Paralysis?' he thought

"Risia!"And as soon as he spoke the name, the person appeared like an apparition and crashed into him, knocking the both of them to the ground and causing the two of them to become entangled long enough for the challenge fireworks to go off and for both their phones to receive an alert from the school network on their phones.

"Joshua, you're back?" she hurriedly got off him. At least someone still has respect for the number one strongest.

Even though he didn't get the entrance he wanted he still struck fear into the heart of others.

But she seemed to have gotten over the fact that he was missing for 6 months "Why the heck did you block that shot with your body? If you want to role play your boys love romance story why didn't you do it somewhere else" Risia shouted hysterically at him

Joshua was in pain

***

Meanwhile in a lecture hall filled to the brim with people with silver robes, a lone silver haired girl was talking to someone on her rune phone while seated at the front left seat.

The contact she was talking with was surprisingly someone she was supposed to have a feud with. It was Zayn

[Your location stayed the same as his for a while, you couldn't have manipulated him in that short amount of time, right?]

[No (^～^;)ゞ]

[Whatever. It's my turn to use the five man Training Device]

[(・o・) you know I already know that, you're hiding something! Do you care about him? Now I'm curious about what happened between you two, I'll be sure to ask him, when we meet today(◔‿◔)]

[What?]

[<(￣︶￣)> It's just to train him to escape your 'evil tyranny' or did I hit a nerve]

[I don't care about that! Have you seen the school network. Check the leader board]

Zeina quickly opened up the school's social network and checked the leaderboard for alerts

[...(・o・)]

[I know, he's going to be getting loads of attention now. Better train him fast]

After that there was one last message from her

[(◠‿◕)]

"Damn! Zayn actually knows how to use emoticons? My worldview has shattered" she mumbled while clutching get head.

"Mrs Zeina, would you like to come up and teach the class the theory on using Psionic Energy to perform Magnetoencephalography on the brain?"

"No, ma'am" she sat up straight and immediately began modeling other students in the class.

Luckily the teacher didn't make things hard for her and continued.

Once she liked away though, she returned her attention back to her screen where a headline on the school's news platform.

"NEW STUDENT DEFEATS MAGI'S BEST TO BAG A GOLD IN THIS MONTH'S CHALLENGE. AS A BARELY-TRAINEE?