Aaru

In his passion and excitement, Felix continued working on the array for the rest of the night, and only disconnected himself from the game when he felt like he was about to topple over from exhaustion.

Awakening in his bed, Felix was spent. He could feel a headache wasn't too far away, if he didn't go to sleep soon. However, Felix's stomach was also telling him that if he went to sleep without eating, he would regret it, so with some reluctance, he got up from his bed.

Doing so, however, he knocked his chin into his chin, eliciting a painful scream from him.

"Fuck!"

"Olson!"

Yasue was apparently awake and out of the game, Felix noted amidst the pain. Holding his chin painfully, Felix stumbled to his door, and opened it.

He found Yasue in the living room, sharpening… a katana.

"I've been searching for you. Where were you?"

Felix would have joked that he was in his room, but seeing what Yasue was doing, he decided it would be wiser to be a little bit more serious, "I got attacked by an assassin outside Fìrma. I died."

Yasue nodded matter-of-factly, "That's why I was searching for you. Guess I was too late. I didn't think you would get killed that easily, though."

Shrugging, Felix did not take any offense as he replied, "He was stronger than me." And he had a bullshit skill, Felix would have added, if not for his own.

Yasue put the katana back in its sheath as he commented, "If you want a rematch, the old man was from Aaru."

Eyebrows shooting up in surprise, Felix asked, "Aaru, as in the Guild in the Divine Ten?"

"One and only."

That did explain why he was so strong. The rematch, however, would have to wait.

"Anyway, after dying, for some reason I did not revive in Fìrma, but in nacre, the capital. And well, I'm kind of stuck there for the foreseeable future."

This got Yasue's attention as he got up, placing the sword on the table as he asked, "Nacre? That's strange. I remember some tried to send rogues and players with sneak skills over there, but they all got killed by the monsters on the way."

Felix nodded, "That's exactly why I'm stuck. I lost all my money when I died, and while I did find a way to get out of the city, it might take me weeks, if not months to do it. By the way, could you try to find my corpse and safe-keep my Communication Token for me? I got some important contacts in there."

Yasue eyed him for a moment, before uttering, "I'll send someone, and see if there's something left. Where did you die, exactly?"

"Around 2 kilometers from the city's South Gate. It was next to a big rock, and the battle surely messed up with the surroundings, so it shouldn't be too hard to find."

Yasue showed no reaction, so Felix took it as confirmation.

"Well, I've had a long night, so I will be eating something and going to sleep."

The Japanese man informed him, "There's Satay noodles from yesterday in the fridge."

"Oh, thanks."

Felix took the cold plate covered by a thin aluminum foil and microwaved it, before bringing it to his room. Usually, when he ate alone, he would find some video to watch, but he was too tired.

Barely even feeling the spiciness of the food, Felix was already feeling a headache incoming, so he did not even bother bringing the plate back to the kitchen and fell asleep then and there.

---

"You know, you got a real gem there."

His eyes closed as his fingers traced a wall made of metal, Yasue replied to his earbuds, "I'm quite surprised he killed himself before drinking the potion. You sure he read the system's description?"

The person on the other side insisted, "100%. I saw his eyes move."

"Then that could be big. He probably is the greatest mage on Earth, and if he still doubted it after reading the system's prompt, then he may know something we don't. For example, the system isn't omniscient, or at least, it doesn't tell us everything."

The man scoffed, "Or he is a paranoid guy. But in any case, when you asked me to test him, a young man who did not even reach the Control Realm, I expected a small demonstration, not a fight to the death."

Yasue was not bothered by the accusation in the slightest as he replied naturally, "But I didn't lie about the job. Besides, you learned something even better than I."

The man's voice rose as he spitted, "If you tell me some shit about underestimating youngsters or something, I swear I will carper bomb your place."

Whether the threat was legitimate or not, Yasue said with a nosy voice, "If you remain stuck to the path and keep yourself to martial arts, it won't take long before you get left in the dust. That stands for the Guild of your disciple too. Divine Ten or not, if they don't change the way they do things, Odin alone would become able to wipe them off in a matter of months, not to mention other Guilds who followed the new way of things."

"Like your gang you mean?"

His eyes opened as his fingers stopped, Yasue uttered, "The Exploding Fist is a completely legal association of like-minded people."

As he said that, the muscles of his naked upper body seemed to morph as he suddenly moved. He moved so fast that the average naked eye would never be able to follow, but for the slightly more skilled and stronger person, they would see that the muscles of his back turned into a dragon and a tiger, following the patterns of his tattoos as his fist made contact with the wall.

When the fist hit against the metallic wall, the sound of an explosion was made, as if a grenade had been blown.

Yasue breathed out, returning to a normal stance. His fist looked completely unaffected, not even turning red as the skin was undamaged.

The wall, on the other hand, now had a gaping hole, much larger than a fist.

"I told you to stop doing that when we're on the phone! Ma-Ma-Ma! I'm deaf!"

Ignoring him, Yasue looked at the kneeling men in the room, who had been watching his performance, and said, "That's all for today. Keep your questions for later."

Displaying a synchronicity that could only be achieved after months if not years of practice, they all smashed their fists together, shouting, "Ha!", before they quickly walked out of the room, closing behind them.

Returning to his phone call, Yasue groaned, "You are an old man already, grow up."

"Actually, by Epoch's standards, I am in my prime…"

Yasue did not wait for him to finish to hang up the call. Rolling his shoulders, he started shadow boxing, but his eyes never left the katana leaning against the wall.

---

It was early in the afternoon by the time Felix returned to Epoch, and as he did, he was surprised to find someone else within the room.

[?]

It was a woman. She was young, she looked about as old as Felix did, but he knew this could be deceptive as magic messed up with lifespans quite a bit.

She was short, she only reached Felix's chest, and had a short blond bob cut. Allied with her filled out cheeks and small nose, it served to give her a young and innocent vibe, as if she was borne from light and was untouched by the darkness of the world.

Even her dark purple robes, which should have made her look somber, only created a feeling of duality that naturally drew the eye.

However, his Mana Sense told Felix that she was anything but an innocent young girl. Her body did not exude an absurd amount of Mana, but instead he felt like there was a veil around her, blocking his Mana Sense.

This, by itself, was extraordinary enough already, as Felix had never been blocked before, not even by Overlords of unknown levels.

Yet what truly made the hair on his nape stand up was the feeling of complete powerlessness he felt.

He had now grown used to having a certain affluence over the world's Mana. It wasn't enough to use Spells, but he could manipulate it a little nonetheless. Yet right now, he felt this control was completely crushed by another presence.

Even worse, was how Felix's Mana Sense was pulsing, not out of excitement this time, but because he struggled to even keep it up.

It was an absurd thought, as Felix's Mana Sense was as much of a sense as his physical ones. It would be like he was struggling to keep seeing, or hearing.

Yet barely did Felix's heart have the time to skip a beat, the suppression starting to affect him physically, that it disappeared. Part of it, at least.

Felix no longer felt like he was about to be crushed, but he could still feel a frustrating lack of control, and a sense of powerlessness.

It wasn't the same as with other strong NPCs either. Felix knew that any of the people he had met in this city could kill him with a single half-assed attack, but that was it. They did not affect him as long as they didn't attack.

But as he stood next to this mysterious lady, Felix felt like his every action was under her scrutiny, and that Mana didn't listen to him anymore.

Only after a moment did Felix finally realize what was truly happening though. She had a similar skill to him, but it was much stronger.

Her azure eyes staring into his own, she asked in a voice that seemed to be halfway between a whisper and an utterance, "Runefather Odin… Lorenzo told me about you."

Then suddenly, her whole demeanor was flipped on its head as a brilliant smile showed her pearly white teeth, and she shot her hand forward.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Lucy!"

Feeling like his brain had slowed down, Felix slowly took her hand, mumbling in response, "I'm Odin."

Then he made the connection with what Lorenzo had told him before, and asked, "Are you the Guild Mistress?"

Bobbing her head up and down, she cheerfully replied, "That would be me! And sorry about that, I didn't expect you to just pop up like that."

Shaking his head as he felt his control over his basic motor skills return to him, Felix said, "It's fine… things should go much faster with an expert like you here."

Lucy snorted and playfully punched his shoulder, "I can feel it too, you know. I didn't even know it was possible for a Tier 0 to have mastered Inner Projection, but I guess a Runefather can't be like everyone else. By the way…"

She didn't continue, but Felix knew exactly what she wanted to see.

"You want to see my Runic Magic?"

Lucy nodded vigorously, guessing Runic Magic was what made him a Runefather.

If yesterday he was hesitant about using Gravity Well because it would affect the already damaged array, today he knew it would more than mess it up. Even a Rune combination that did not qualify as a Spell had almost torn space open, so his Gravity Well definitely would have terrible effects.

So Felix went for a more friendly Spell… a decision he would have made, were he of a sound mind.

But because of pride, frustration at feeling helpless, and being in some ways a man-child, Felix didn't.

'First Circle: Fracture'

Felix had developed the Spell back when he was in Lake Aurus, and he had tested it against the assassins. Needless to say, in its normal form, it was already strong enough.

The principle behind it was quite simple too. While it used space to cut, it did not tear space open. That wasn't something Felix believed was even remotely possible for a First Circle Spell.

Instead, it made a sort of 'skip' between two points in space. In a way, it can be seen as a small gap being created in space, but in reality it was a small scale forced teleportation that failed.

So when a body meets with that separation in space, the atoms will suddenly be teleported by less than a centimeter. But on the atoms' and molecules' scale, this is more than enough to sever any connection, effectively 'cutting' the body.

Of course, it wasn't all powerful, as with everything, there existed resistance. One could resist teleportation, were they strong enough, and with how small scaled this is, the answer to this attack is simply being strong.

Felix estimated that he could cut any Tier 0 below Overlord Rank, with decreased efficiency for Lord Ranks.

But in these conditions, powered by the remnants of a trans-continental array, Felix estimated that this Spell could skip ranks, plural.

"Oh, that's a funny Spell."

All came crashing down however as Lucy passed her hand through the Runic Circle, grabbing the fracture and crushing it with a gentle squeeze.