Leaving the Trade City

As Fei Lei approached the brown-haired woman, she looked at him with a gentle smile and said, "Welcome to the Alchemy Hall! How can I assist you today?"

Fei Lei smiled back and asked, "Can I acquire books on how to perform alchemy?"

The old lady giggled and said, "Sorry, but only certified Alchemist can browse our libraries. If you want, you can take an entree test, but, from the looks of it, you're a bit too old to start learning now. Most Alchemists start learning when they're young."

Fei Lei smiled and said, "That's fine, are there any books for what I need to know about taking the test?"

The old lady pulled out a few books and said, "In order to become an Alchemist, one must know the names and properties of at least 100,000 different Magic Herbs."

Fei Lei took a quick look through the thick books she was handing over.

The pages were filled with the names and medicinal properties of a few million magical herbs. Smiling, Fei Lei closed the books and asked, "How much does it cost to purchase these books?"

The elderly woman smiled back and said, "10,000 Gold Bills."

Fei Lei nodded his head before he handed over the money and placed the books inside his spatial ring. The woman thanked him for his patronage and watched as he left out the front door.

"So, the Appraiser's Hall is the next step on the to-do list," Fei Lei said as he and the girls marched through the city streets.

After a few minutes, the Mages of Fantasia ended up at a small rickety shack. There were only two rooms inside the shop, the front room which looked like a small lounge, and the shop building owner's personal room that was behind the desk.

There wasn't much space inside the building, but there were at least some cushioned seats and a nice marble table for customers to wait.

"This is different," Fei Lei thought as he looked around the room.

"Yeah, appraisers aren't well funded, those that are said to have the ability to use Oracle Magic are one in a hundred billion," Yan Mei said as she stood beside Fei Lei.

"They're the only society of Non-Elemental Mages that no one dares to look down upon," Hina informed as she looked around.

"As a matter of fact, there are a lot of rumors that the Appraisers aren't magicians at all. Many people believe and claim that they are Mystics who can predict the future," Yan Mei followed up.

"Really? People who can predict the future? I wasn't born yesterday," Fei Lei said as he rolled his eyes.

"Oh, another non-believer has come into my shop I see," The voice of an elderly man called out.

Fei Lei turned around to the desk to see a tall man with a grey beard that went down to his chest. The elder Appraiser was wearing a long black hooded-robe that ran down to his feet. The robe was fairly simple in design and lacked the touch of fantasy-style that Fei Lei had grown accustomed to seeing on Mages.

The elder looked around the room, his face shrouded by the shadow from his hood, gave him an ominous feeling.

The Appraiser sat down and held out his hand, "You're items please,"

Fei Lei lifted a brow and said, "Okay, let's see what an Appraiser can do."

Pulling out the Monkey's Paw and the Tooth with the Mana Vision Spell on it, Fei Lei smiled and said, "Please, appraise this."

The elder chuckled and picked up the tooth, looking at the spell written on it he smiled back and said, "50 Gold Bills."

Fei Lei paid the man and watched as he inspected the spell description, he then threw it back to Fei Lei and said, "This Spell is a Level-2 Non-Elemental Spell called Mana Vision."

Fei Lei rolled his eyes, "Yeah, I know that, how do I access the Spell Matrix?"

"That's easy, just insert you Mana," The Elder responded with a wry grin.

"That easy, huh? Okay, what about the Monkey's paw?" Fei Lei followed up as he put the Fang away in his spatial ring. He wasn't going to learn it here, Fei Lei was afraid he might leak the contents of the Spell Matrix out.

The old man picked up the monkey paw and twirled it around for a few seconds, "Hmm, tell me, where did you find this?"

"It was a dungeon drop," Fei Lei answered.

"5,000 Gold Bills," The Elder demanded as he held out his hand.

Fei Lei hoped he would actually get to see the man use his art. When he heard he was a Mystic, Fei Lei was concerned that he might actually be a Spiritual Cultivator, and if he was, Fei Lei needed to get some information out of him.

After receiving the payment, a single grey and gaseous Sigil appeared over the Appraiser's forehead as he got to work.

While the elderly man stared at the monkey paw, Fei Lei tried to observe the character floating above his head, however, the Spell Sigil was being blurred and obscured by something.

"How is he doing that?" Fei Lei questioned as the old man's eyes widened.

The Elder grinned as he said, "Interested?"

Fei Lei nodded his head in affirmation.

The Elder let out a laugh as he began running his finger across the palm of the monkey paw.

"It's not too hard, you can keep your Sigil from appearing by only using it in a minimal standard. All you need to do is practice hiding you Sigil in the same Manner when you using it to full effect," The Appraiser said as he went back to work.

After a few seconds of inspecting the item, the elder turned to Fei Lei and asked, "Where did you get this?"

Fei Lei answered the same as before, "It was another dungeon drop."

"From a boss, correct?" The elderly man responded.

"No, a Tyrant was the boss," Yan Mei shouted.

"Impossible!" The Appraiser shouted.

"No, it's true. An Abberation Appeared and turned the old Boss into a Tyrant Beast. If the Dungeon lost its boss, then the Magic Circle should've compensated," Hina explained.

The elder then rubbed his beard and said, "An aberration appeared and you want me to believe you guys survived that ordeal?"

"Would dropping a dungeon on a Sky Devil kill him?" Fei Lei asked.

The Appraiser's eyes widened and shouted, "Sky Devil?! The Aberration was a Sky Devil?!"

The elder then held out his hand and asked, "I will return your money to you if you let me read your palm."

Fei Lei held his hand up and said, "That's fine, I don't want to know my future or anything, just tell me what the paw does."

The Elder sighed and said, "Perhaps it's better that way. The paw is a challenge token of sorts, break one of the fingers and it should grant you something should you survive."

When the Appraiser handed back the monkey's paw, he then looked at Fei Lei with a serious expression and said, "Listen up, boy. Boss Items are not to be underestimated, even at your current level of strength, you shouldn't accept the challenge unless you are confident. Normally an Item drop doesn't have any dangers, but Boss Items don't care about spell ranking. If you aren't careful, using this can cost you your life."

Fei Lei thanked the old man and said, "We'll be on our way, thank you for the appraisal."

After leaving the old man stared at Fei Lei and thought, "What a strange boy, he has the air of mysticism around him, but no spirituality.

When they left the shack, Yan Mei turned to Fei Lei and asked, "What's next? Please say the guild!"

"I guess we'll head over to the guild one last time before leaving, I want to see if there are any good quest," Fei Lei said as he looked off into the distance.

"Finally, we get to go home!" Yan Mei shouted.

Hina smiled and asked, "Can I come with you?"

Fei Lei nodded his head and said, "Sure! You can stay as long as you want."

"Careful with your words, lady killer. Someone just might take them the wrong way," Hina said as she wrapped her arms around Fei Lei's elbow and pressed her breast into his arm.

Yan Mei growled as she pulled Hina off and said, "Knock it off!"

"I thought you approved?" Hina replied with a question.

"I told you, I'm not ready for that yet!" Yan Mei shot back.

Fei Lei turned around and said, "Hey, keep up!"

The two looked ahead and said, "We're talking!"

Fei Lei shook his head and said, "Come on, we're going to the Guild Hall for a quest!"

Yan Mei and Hina snorted at his child-like excitement and followed behind Fei Lei until they reached their destination.

Returning to the Adventure's Guild, they scanned over the bounties and quests on the request-board.

Fei Lei seeing two that he liked, quickly pulled them off the board and went to the front desk to pay the submission cost to apply for the quest.

The dark-skinned receptionist looked at Fei Lei and said, "Bandit Extermination, C-Rank quest, and Blood Taming Grass Gathering, D Ranked. That will be 25 Silver Bills for the D-Quest, 10 Gold Bills for the C-Quest."

Fei Lei paid the cost and handed over his Guild Card. Once the quests were registered in his name, Yan Mei and Hina picked a request for monster extermination and material acquisition.

If they failed, the money would be kept and sent to the owner of the requested bounty as compensation for wasting their time by occupying the quest.

If they succeed the money would be returned and they would earn 85% of the quest reward, while the remaining 15% is given to the Guild.

Once they all registered their quests, the Mages of Fantasia then turned around and left the Guild Hall together. While they headed for the entrance of the city, Yan Mei looked at Fei Lei with a curious stare and asked, "Why'd you pick those two quests?"

Fei Lei smiled and responded, "The Bandit Extermination is something we can do along the way as it is on our route back towards our home, and the Blood Taming Grass quest is actually located not too far away from the Monster Breeding Forest. I just picked them out of sheer convenience."

Yan Mei nodded her head as they walked out of the city gates, suddenly, both Hina and Yan Mei felt their bodies being picked up by Fei Lei's Telekinetic hands.

Fei Lei lifted the girls into the air and surrounded them in a thin bubble as he flew off into the distance.

"You can fly now?" Yan Mei shouted with a surprised expression.

Even Hina was impressed, she stared at the back of Fei Lei and laughed before saying, "Just, when did he get so strong?"

Fei Lei laughed in excitement as he flew off in the direction of the last known sighting of the Bandit Group they were hunting.

While they flew, Fei Lei and the rest got lucky and saw the bandits attacking a caravan, they looked at each other and then laughed.

"How cliche is that?" Fei Lei questioned as he dashed towards them.

"What, bandits behaving like bandits?" Yan Mei asked.

Fei Lei shook his head and said, "No, it's just that, how likely are they to attack when we're looking for them, it's like the plot from a bad novel."

"..."

Hina laughed and said, "I get you, maybe you're just lucky, ever consider that?"

"Whatever, let's kick bandit but!" Yan Mei shouted.

As they flew into battle, something of great importance was occurring across the vast expanse of the lands.

In a remote location surround by large barren black mountains, a huge gothic castle-like structure with four black towers attached to it loomed over an underground city that was surrounded by a massive metallic wall.

Large explosions could be seen going off alongside the harrowing echoes of men screaming out in pain.

As their death cries reverberated all throughout the small city's layout, inside the main castle was a throne room, sitting at the jeweled encrusted golden throne was Fei Lei's teacher, Tetra.

His foot standing on top of the neck of what appeared to be a powerful mage.

Every once in a while, the eyes of Tetra's captive darted around the room seeing shadows blur about taking out his men left and right.

"Oh, Great Mage-Slayer, what is it that we've done to earn your fury!?" The black-haired elder mage shouted as his neck was seconds away from being crushed.

Tetra threw down a piece of paper and said, "You put a bounty on my newest disciple and his wife, yet you dare to ask me what you've done!?"

The pressure on the man's neck increased as he stared at two portraits drawn on the Dark-Guild Bounty. The man began to shiver, "I usually have a hands-off approach to teaching my students, however, that doesn't mean I won't provide them some shelter. Now tell me, has this order reached the Central Dark Guild's ears?"

The man shivered again, "No! I swear, only the eastern branch has this!"

Tetra pushed down harder the man could feel his neck-snapping and shouted, "But I told you what you wanted! I swear it's the truth!"

"Stupid Guild Master. That means only the east branch has to fall." With a loud crunch, the Eastern Dark Guild Master's neck snapped.

With a look of disbelief, the Guild Master's last thought was, "That's not fair."

"Rain, Storm, kill them all," Tetra said as he kicked the lifeless corpse into the air, showing the remaining dark guild members that their leader was dead.

The two that were killing the dark guild members stopped and showed themselves.

Rain was a mature woman that looked like she was in her 30s wearing a white and blue robe. She had long aqua blue hair, and voluptuous curves, only the word peerless beauty came to mind when staring at her.

Small gusts of wind and water surrounded her as a cold mist radiated from her body as she nodded she looked to her partner.

The other was Storm, a mature and well-built man standing around 5 feet 10 inches. He was wearing a long black and gold warriors garb, long black pants, and sandals made of some kind of metal.

His outfit resembled somewhat like a Shinobi war uniform, covered in leather armor and with two Katanas hanging from his hips. Bolts of golden electricity flickered from his body as two tornado-like swirls of wind surrounded his feet.

The two bowed their heads and shouted, "Yes Master!"

With a single combined spell, raindrops formed around them that were charged with a lethal current of electricity.

Using the wind, Storm spread the droplets spread around the room causing hundreds to die on impact. The two disciples then lept outside and rained death down upon the small city as they made their way through the houses, killing everyone that took shelter from their spell.

Tetra stood up and raised his hand two sigils appeared out from him and hovered in place. One was his Transformation Sigil which had become a Level 1 Sigil, and his second that had already reached the Liquid State was in the shape of the character, Summon.

Tetra laughed, To think that that runt managed to help his teacher, I should pay him a visit to thank him."

The Summon Spell shined as the room glowed, suddenly, a massive spell matrix appeared before it absorbed the Mana and organic material from the dead bodies. "I have to use sacrifices in order to supplement the Mana cost of summoning you. What an interesting effect."

Tetra laughed again as a large Metal Dragon's claw slammed down out from the spell matrix.

Slowly, a large steel-scaled, four-legged Western Dragon appeared and destroyed the building as it spread out its wings, burying Tetra underneath the rubble in the process.

It then let out a fierce roar towards the world as it lifted its neck into the sky. The Dragon's entire body was covered with hard steel scales that shined with a metallic luster.

Taking a whiff of the air through its large nostrils, The Steel-Dragon immediately became enraged.

"Tetra!!!" The Dragon shouted as its gaze locked-on to the Mage Slayer's location.

Rain and Storm stood on top of a nearby building staring at the colossal 45-foot dragon roaring into the distance.

"Master's new Sigil is amazing!" Rain said with a gleeful smile on her face.

"To think, it would let him summon any creature he has ever killed! I wonder if there is a limit to the summoning time." Storm said as he waved his hand killing a group of Dark Guild Members.

"Tetra, come out, I can smell you, there is no point in hiding!" The Steel Dragon demanded.

Tetra jumped up through the debris and hopped on top of the castle's highest point before he turned around with a smile on his face and said, "It's been a long time, Mettagon."

The Dragon huffed a breath of air from its nostrils. "How is this possible? I know I met my end at your hand."

Tetra laughed and said, "HAHAHA! Yes but that was 450 years ago."

Mettagon looked around before he asked, "So how come I'm here?"

"I summoned you," Tetra answered as he showed his new Sigil.

"Impossible!" The Dragon shouted.

Mettagon then moved towards Tetra in an attempt to attack when Tetra shouted, "Sit!"

A large spell matrix appeared over the center of the Dragon's head, suddenly, Tetra's Mana caused a powerful surge of magic to course throughout the Dragon's brain, forcing the mighty Mettagon to sit against the floor like a trained pup.

"What Magic is this!?" Mettagon shouted as he struggled to stand.

"From now on you're going to be my mount!" Tetra said hopping on top of Mettagon's head.

Mettagon stewed with anger, "To think that the proud Mettagon, King of Metal would be forced to become a mere mount!" The Dragon knew it had no other option but to obey, the marking on his head was proof of it.

"Don't be so down, from what I can tell, as long as I don't cancel the magic, you can stay here indefinitely. I will, of course, allow you a modest amount of freedom."

The dragon's eyes lit up, "However, you can never make enemies of innocents again, no attacking, no killing them understand."

"I have never killed those that didn't have it coming," Mettagon refuted.

"You killed countless that entered your territory, don't you try to play dumb with me." Tetra countered.

"Those were my lands, I have every right to kill those who intrude!" Mettagon shot back.

Tetra sighed and placed his hand on his forehead before saying, "You're telling me, with your strength, you couldn't have just forced them to leave, or even set up a barrier around your territories, as the other superior Dagons do! I know that you know better than that. Your kin can't resist hoarding, and you and I both understand that Adventure's carry the best gear."

The Dragon huffed, "Why should I have to do all that work! And besides, you humans, go there to harvest our materials all the time, why shouldn't we do the same?"

"Please! As if any regular human could take on the High Dragon clansmen, and this is the first I've heard for sympathy towards lesser dragons. Don't you guys eat them?" Tetra said while shaking his head.

"Humph! I'm not going to argue with you anymore," Mettagon said with a growl in his tone.

"Yeah, because you can't. I'm not saying you shouldn't kill them, but at least give them some chance to never return, if they come back after that, they are simply wishing for death," Tetra responded.

Mettagon muttered like a child who had been caught red-handed, "Whatever!"

Tetra patted his head as he said, "Good boy! From now on you follow my commands."

Mettagon gritted his teeth and said, "Yes...Master..."

Tetra laughed as he shouted, "Rain, Storm! Gather the slaves and captives we saved, and send them to a shelter. I'll go around destroying the entire eastern branch. After you're finished, meet up with me at your youngest brother's place. Gather all the treasures as well, you can give them to Fei Lei as a meeting present."

The two students nodded their heads and bowed, "Yes Master!"

As Tetra flew off, his disciples returned to exterminating the Dark Guild's Eastern Branch.

"To think we get to meet little brother Fei Lei so soon." Rain said with a giggle as he water attacks drowned any surviving Dark-Guild Members in her sight.

"It will be interesting to meet the boy who remade the breathing technique master gave us," Storm responded as his wind and lighting charcoaled and cut up all the nearby enemies.

While Tetra flew off into the distance, Mettagon, unhappy with his situation sighed before asking, "So were exterminating the Eastern Dark Guild?"

"Yep!" Tetra answered with a simple tone.

A small smile crept up on Mettagon's face as he said, "How fun! Is that old man still around?"

"Yes, he became the Demon Lord recently," Tetra said with a sigh.

Mettagon huffed as he said, "That gutless coward became the Demon Lord!?"

Tetra shook his head, "He was hiding his true nature, during your last fight he held back most of his power. So when the opportunity came, he ate his master and absorbed the previous Demon Lord's power and Mana Roots. He's the leader of the Dark Guild now."

"Disgusting! To think I would be fooled by a mortal. Though, if not for him, you might have just lost that fight against me," Mettagon declared with fury in his voice.

"I'll admit, my King Behemoth Form might not have been your match if he hadn't worn you down, but a victory is a victory. Thanks to you, the Steel Dragon form has given me great power."

"I noticed your smell resembled a Dragon, but why are you so weak right now?" Mettagon asked as he rose higher into the clouds.