New summons

Gabe looked at Midas covered in the blood of his friends and allies, he had the urge to throw up as the stench of blood oozed right off Midas.

The vines dropped Gabe on the blood-covered ground, as he stared at the both of them as if he was a rabbit being surrounded by two lions.

Licht stared back at him and asked "Where is your hideout? Your place of operation?"

Gabe felt like there was an out for him because as far as he had valuable information, he would not be killed.

"If I give you the information on where the hideout is, would you let me leave?" Gabe asked with new hope in his eyes.

Licht stared for a moment, smiled, and then swore "If you tell me truthfully where the hideout is, the both of us will not kill you"

Gabe looked skeptically at Licht but at this point, he had no choice, he told Licht that the hideout was in an abandoned mine underneath a mountain a few kilometers in a different direction from where Licht and Midas were heading, Licht sighed and then turned around to let the bandit, Gabe go.

Gabe looked toward Midas and noticed his armor was melting into the floor and he thought Midas had acknowledged his master's promise. He had a face of excitement as he started running away, further and further away from them. As he was running, he heard a cold growl and thought a beast was lurking around, so he picked up his pace.

From the bushes, Gabe felt something sharp scratch him, he panicked, cursing himself that he could not grow extra legs so he could run faster. He heard the bushes rustle, he turned his head slightly to catch a quick sneak at what was chasing him. This was the worst mistake of his life, well excluding the fact he tried to kill Licht.

The creature chasing him was over 3 meters tall, the head of a wolf with 6 eyes, two stingers, and the fangs were really long, also really huge wings on the back of the creature. Seeing such a creature, Gabe fell over and was shivering because the sight was so horrible and abysmal, that he could not stay on his feet anymore.

The creature was obviously Midas's manticore. After he dissolved the armor, it trailed into a bush and had been following Gabe to scare him and kill him after. Midas was becoming cold-hearted as this way of death was really terrifying. Taunting the man before ripping him to shreds.

Gabe kept crawling backward, like a white girl in a horror movie after the killer catches up to her. The manticore was slowly stalking toward Gabe and Gabe at this point had wet his pants, he was crying and mumbling incoherent words.

As the manticore finally reached him, Gabe screamed but the scream did not hinder it as the manticore tore into Gabe. The only thing resounding everywhere was a man screaming, flesh ripping, bone-crunching, and then silence.

Midas and Licht stood in the clearing as two dark green wisps flew toward them, the one in front was the biggest and went directly into the body of Midas, while the one behind was at least 10 times smaller than the manticore's soul that just went into Midas's body. It joined the bunch of souls of the bandits, just floating there like they were waiting for an order. Midas looked toward Licht and said "Master, I think I am ready to advance to the blue rank"

Licht nodded as Midas sat in the lotus position bringing out a huge ether block. This ether block was one of the ether blocks they found in the cave of the beast king, since monsters could not cultivate like normal humans or other human-like races, it was relatively untouched. The only reason the beast king had the ether blocks in his cave was because it felt comfortable as it was oozing a little amount of ether energy back into the atmosphere.

Licht watched over Midas as he was absorbing the energy from the block. The aura around Midas was steadily growing and it was repelling everything away. The earth was being pushed away, the wind was being pushed away, and at this point, he was floating in mid-air. The ether block at this point looked like a cube of sugar, from the size of a bean bag to the size of a sugar cube and he still had not broken through, as the sugar cube-like ether block dissipated, the aura around Midas changed from yellow to blue. Midas had stepped into the rank of blue-ranked beings. A fifteen-year-old boy was now a blue-ranked soulmancer. After the ether stone finished, Midas looked toward the floating bandits soul, they were all sucked into him like he was a black hole. He felt much stronger but he was still in the basic blue rank, he was at least halfway into basic blue rank and was going to enter intermediate.

Both Midas and Licht were pleased with the breakthroughs and they knew after Midas absorbed the souls of the other bandits in the hideout, he was sure to rank up again.

Midas slowly descended and bowed to his master. Licht just smiled and nodded at Midas, saying "You have ranked up into the blue rank, that Frances boy would not be able to last 5 seconds against you."

Midas chuckled and asked, "Master, when are we going to raid the hideout?"

Licht looked at the sky and then said "In a couple of hours. Consolidate your strength and check your new summons."

Midas looked really excited, it seemed like he really wanted to do this since but he tried to act mature and cold so his master would be proud of him but he did not know that Licht only wanted him to be cold only to his enemies and people that would try to hurt him

"Midas, you do not need to act cold to people that care about you, Love like a pet to the people who love you, and kill like a beast to those who want to harm you. Remember that philosophy." Licht said to Midas, like a father teaching his son

Midas mulled for a moment, then bowed to Licht "Thank you master for your teachings"

Licht just patted Midas on the shoulder and walked back to the fire that was oddly still lit.

Midas then said "Come out"

And in front of Midas, several flashing lights appeared, forming and shaping into humanoid beings. They all wore kerchiefs to cover their faces and they had a variety of bastard swords, knives, and whips. They all actually resembled proper bandits.