Group

Several days later,

'Slowly... slowly'

As she slowly but surely let her darkness that was surrounding her soul, and slowly changing it, dissipate, Beatrice, who at the moment had several thick veins on her head, couldn't help but breathe a faint sigh of relief.

"It's finally over..." mumbled Beatrice as she finally relaxed after needing to deal with the stress of having something so close to her soul for several days straight.

Although Beatrice's control over her own soul was very precise, this did not mean that there was no danger in what she had just done, after all, if reaching the Soul Transformation Stage was so easy, and just took a long amount of time, the number of mages that actually reached that level wouldn't be as low as it is right now.

Even with Beatrice's control, if she let a bit too much darkness touch her soul for too long, she could cause severe damage to it in just a few moments.

As for mages with even worse understanding of the soul? They are in even more danger when they do this, as such, most of them take it extremely slow when doing this process.

Right now, though, Beatrice was finally free, and could finally relax... for around an hour, after which the Witch had to once again begin this process, not wasting any time with other, less important things.

...

Looking at the Arcane Cube in front of him, which was now in tiny little pieces, Oliver couldn't help but take in a deep breath.

"It's the real thing, the isn't any room for mistakes..." mumbled Oliver as he suddenly snapped his fingers, causing the core of the Arcane to suddenly float in front of him.

Over a decade ago, whilst adventuring with his comrades, Oliver was able to find three different cubes, which he named 'Arcane Cubes' {A/N: Beatrice called them information cubes} in the laboratory of an ancient Warlock, causing them to split the cubes between each other

For the first few years, as he and his friends were still adventuring, Oliver was unable to study his cube, but after both he, and his friends settled down in their current location, Oliver was finally able to study the cube.

But as it turned out, the cube was both complicated, and fragile, causing Oliver to become extremely cautious whilst he experimented on it.

As such, it took Oliver 7 full years of experiments to gain enough confidence to truly begin making the cube his own.

A few moments after the core floated in the air, two extremely thin semicircles suddenly flew to the left and right of the cube, causing Oliver to very carefully place them onto the core.

Then, with a snap of his fingers, Oliver's Earth Magic did its work, causing the three to slowly but surely begin fusing with each other.

Although Oliver knew that there was probably a proper method to do this, he also felt as though taking the core apart could prove far too risky, at least at his current skill level.

Only a few moments later, several wires made out of Mana Metal, which had been created by infusing mana into Mythril attached themselves to the core, causing Oliver to once again snap his fingers and make this connection permanent.

Just as Oliver was about to connect the other components of the Arcane Cube with the core, using the wires as a channel to do so, Oliver suddenly froze.

A moment later, all the components of the Arcane Cube suddenly floated in the air before being surrounded by a sphere of rock.

A fraction of a second after that, the room that Oliver was currently in suddenly began shaking, causing thick veins to suddenly appear on his forehead.

After getting up from his chair and walking to the window, which was still shaking, Oliver could see what was causing the earthquake.

As he stared at the waves of water, over a dozen meters in height, which were currently rushing towards the village, he was living in, Oliver couldn't help but clench his teeth.

"Madeline... you have to be joking."

...

As she stared at the huge stone wall which Oliver had just created, Catherine, who was just about to create a wind wall of her own, couldn't help but hesitate for a fraction of a second.

But even so, a wall of wind, even larger than Oliver's stone wall, suddenly appeared in front of the village, shielding it from the huge wave.

In the end though, even though Madeline was not the brightest, her magical abilities actually couldn't be underestimated, as after just a few seconds, Catherine's wall was actually broken.

Thankfully, though, the wall of wind had weakened the wave by around fifty percent, allowing the stone wall created by Oliver to stand strong, preventing the water from sweeping the village away.

In just under thirty-second, the wave passed the village, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

And on that wet trail of destruction now came a tall woman with blond hair, Madeline, who currently had a shocked expression on her face.

As she looked at Madeline, who was currently coming towards the village, Catherine, who was floating in the air, suddenly snapped her fingers, causing the Water Mage to suddenly begin floating.

Because she was not resisting in the slightest, Madeline was able to quickly float up to the same level as Catherine, who was just staring at her with a disappointed look on her face.

...

Feeling Catherine's gaze on her, Madeline couldn't help but lower her head.

"Let me guess, you were practicing some spell from that new spell book of yours..." said Catherine, causing Madeline to lower her head even further.

"It was my first attempt, so I didn't expect the spell casting to go so smoothly, I succeeded on the first try..." said Madeline, causing Catherine to fall silent.

Frankly, it was extremely impressive for Madeline to succeed in casting a Rank 1 Spell on her first try, but as she stared at her, for some reason, Catherine couldn't feel impressed.