"What do you think? I think it's not bad to do things like this from time to time," The guild master spoke and Arima silently flipped through the folder before putting it down on the table.
"Well, indeed, that could be entertaining. That is for sure," Arima answered and Lanya, who was curious, took the document Arima just put down and started reading it. The more she did, the brighter her expression became.
"Please do it!" She stood up and supported whatever was written on that document with obvious enthusiasm. Lilis was surprised and snatched the folder from Lanya's hands and swiftly read it. Night jumped on her shoulder to look at it. Afterward, Lilis's expression welcomed a broad smile.
"Why not?" Night just said that as he waved his paw. Arima glanced at him and shrugged. He looked at the guild master, "Sure, I'll do it."
The master beamed, "Thank you very much. I'm sure this will be a good experience for you," He stated and gave Arima a sealed letter, "Bring this to the 'PA' (Providence Academy) in five days."
Arima stored the letter then stood up, "Got it, I'll do it. But give me some dungeons to clear as well. I would be bored otherwise," He added and the master chortled. He walked toward a small closet and opened it. He took out some maps and gave them to Arima.
"These are the hardest dungeons we have. I'm supposed to send an SSS and an SS to those two locations respectively in a week. But if you can clear both of them by then, there won't be any problem."
"Thanks," Arima smiled. He waved his hand and made the maps disappear. He beckoned Lanya and Lilis and exited the room with them.
When Arima's group walked out of the guild, the 'fake' sun was already setting down.
"I'm already impatient to be five days later," Lilis claimed and Lanya wore a happy smile. Arima glanced at them and sighed. He then focused on the city's map he had constituted from the falcons' reconnaissance. He looked for the nearest Inn and directly went there.
"By the way, Lilis," On their way there, Arima raised his voice.
"What it is?" She responded and smirked, "Do you have another question?"
Arima ignored her sarcastic remark and continued, "Who is the owner of that golden light?"
"Ah… you noticed after all, huh?"
"Of course. That freaking light wasn't something a human created. It was clearly made by at least an Earthen God's power. If it wasn't because the source was vulnerable; I would have not been able to do anything. And more importantly, I already stumbled upon the same light before."
"You're right. When you fought the Emperor and the Pope back then. I still remember how you overpowered it with darkness magic. You really don't know how crazy that was," She laughed and Arima glared at her to make her continue.
"Ahem, well, basically, he's a Heavenly God. He's not that strong compared to other gods, but he is still powerful. He has absolute dominance over Light and Fire. His name is Tiatus. He is a well-known god for having a huge number of believers in the lower worlds. Now that I think about it, why did the bell ring for you? It shouldn't be Tiatus directly aiming at you. He doesn't have time to do this kind of prank. Additionally, if it was really him, you would undoubtedly be dead already. That church had just been blessed by him."
Arima grunted, "I think it's my death aura that alerted it. There were still some remnants from last time that I didn't get rid of. Perhaps that bell took me for a real undead and then tried to kill me."
"It's plausible," Lilis nodded.
When they reached the Inn, Arima rented two rooms. One for him and Night and the other for Lanya and Lilis.
"You can sleep with us if you want, you know?" Lanya tilted her head and said in an almost too innocent way.
Arima stared blankly at her, "…No," He uttered and entered his room with Night. Lilis giggled and went in the other room with Lanya.
When Arima entered his room, he directly sat down on the bed and used his dimensional magic. When he was on the other side, he started working once again on the eight primary elements. The eight colors merged together. Sometimes it would be rainbow, other times it would be totally white or black, or even transparent. All kinds of results but, Arima didn't succeed even after countless attempts.
Night was quietly watching. He looked around the room they were in and sighed internally, Arima had actually disrupted time when he created a path to this dimension.
Now, an hour here only amounted to a minute in the normal dimension. It means that an hour in the normal world amounted to two and half days in the other dimension. Although it took more mana, it also was a lot more worthwhile.
Night slightly shook his head at the absurdity of this magic and left the Inn. The shadow of a black dragon then emerged outside. A roar that crushed many houses echoed. Night could destroy anything he wanted since it wasn't the real world. He could finally go wild and didn't need to hold back with his training.
A few days later in that dimension, Center City had been reduced to ashes except a certain Inn that had been kept unscathed.
******************************************
The next day, Lanya and Lilis woke up and left their room to take their breakfast. Arima only got out an hour later.
He had spent all night on the 'other side'. Basically, he had just lived twenty days in the span of a night. But he didn't look tired or any different compared to how he was before going in his room.
When Lilis saw Arima, she was prepared to tease him about how late he woke up but her expression oddly changed, "You… you're in the second sky already!" She exclaimed in disbelief.
"How did you breakthrough in one night? No, even before that, I should have been able to feel it…." She mumbled to herself and Arima ignored her.
He ordered some milk from the staff of the Inn, then took out a cake and started eating with Lanya. Night also began to eat a plate of food. The biggest advantage of this small body was the fact that he didn't need to eat that much to be full.
"Wait, I sensed some time magic… but I thought it was just you playing around," Lilis suddenly envisaged something and turned toward Night who was idly eating, "Night, when was the last time you saw me?"
Night looked at her and tilted his head, "Mh? I don't know. Maybe around twenty days ago, I think?" He uttered and Lanya choked on the water she was drinking while Lilis stared at Arima in shock.
"You actually created a space-time independent dimension! Even for a Life Hunter- no, even for you there are limits…" Lilis stopped ranting as she realized she was losing it and just sat down gawking at the sky, ah no, the roof.
"Well, I was actually trying to do something else. The breakthrough was just a bonus."
Lilis smiled wryly, "If you spent twenty days on something then that means it's already mastered."
"No, actually, I still can't do it," Arima replied with a shrug and a helpless expression.
This time, Lilis dropped her fork and Lanya's eyes widened to the maximum, "Are you okay? Are you sick or something? Or did Tiatus's light infect you?"
Arima frowned, "What the heck are you saying?"
Lilis fell silent, "…Are you actually working on something harder than time magic?"
"Yeah, I'm sure it's at least a hundred times harder."
"I can't believe this…" Lilis muttered and laid her head on the table, "Are you even aware that time magic is the hardest magic theory that has ever existed? Something harder than that, it would be something that even gods don't know about."
"Oh," Arima chuckled, "Then you will know what it is once I achieve it," He nonchalantly said and put a lollipop in his mouth.
"If I can have something that Heaven Gods don't, then it'll be one of my biggest advantages. And to be fair, time magic is only hard to master because it's a theory which has a very complex and unclear meaning while also being scientifically ambiguous. The main barrier to overcome if you want to use time is to change your own mind, " Arima uttered and stood up. Night already had finished his meal and was back on his shoulder.
Meanwhile, Lanya who was shocked after hearing that Arima didn't succeed to do something, sighed in relief when she learned it was something that even Lilis didn't know about. Her last thought was: "(It's normal then.)"
Lilis was speechless and just quickly finished her meal whilst pouting before Arima transferred them.
*****************************************
The place they reappeared in was the middle of a canyon surrounded by escarpments.
"Where the hell is this?" Lilis complained already. It was obvious that she was infuriated about what happened earlier.
"A dungeon location apparently," Arima answered, totally unfazed by Lilis's mood. "If I'm not wrong, it should be around here," He said and started walking, following the direction the gorge had delineated.
Lanya and Lilis silently followed him, the latter was still sulking and the former seemed to be curious about what was ahead.
Five minutes later, they arrived at the dead-end of the canyon. But at the same place, a large entrance to an underground cave was opened.
"Well, it's not hard to notice where the dungeon is," Arima snickered and went through the entrance.
Lilis sighed and seemed to have calmed down. She followed Lanya who enthusiastically went in with Arima.
When Arima took a step inside the cave, the sound reverberated around the whole place. The walls of the dungeon seemed to made of a strange and polished gray stone. Arima strode in there for a while before reaching a staircase that went even deeper underground.
Arima didn't hesitate to do down. His sigil glowed a bit and the staircase were illuminated out of nowhere. Lanya and Lilis stayed behind him with blooming interest about this place.
When they took the last step, they arrived in a huge room with perfect dimensions. Indeed, a perfectly square room that probably had a volume of around a million cubic meters.
When Arima stepped on the floor of that room, high pitched squeaks resounded. Arima generated a stronger light and completely illumined the room. The room had many tunnels connected to it and from inside of them were coming out an incalculable number of small monsters with green skin, sharp teeth, and a really grotesque appearance. Simply said, they were goblins.
Arima watched the influx of monsters with bored eyes. His eyes flashed and locked on every goblin. The supposed incalculable number had just been calculated by him. He then snapped his fingers and every goblin coming at him halted in their tracks before collapsing and colliding against each other. When the dust was dispersed, they all had their heads separated from their necks as they laid on the ground.
Just like that, Arima had killed thousands of goblins. "Well, they're weak, but I'll still take it," Arima said and retrieved the life force of these goblins with a magic circle.
He then burned every corpse as if nothing happened. He chose a tunnel to go in then immediately used it. Lanya followed him without questions while Lilis sighed once again.
After that, nothing really interesting happened, the strongest monsters they could find were around the eighth and ninth level. Each time Arima met one, he took it to the other dimension and sent Lanya and Night with them for their training.
Then at some point, they arrived in a really big chamber that only had one monster waiting there. It was a huge humanoid cockroach which seemed to near the upper rank of the tenth level. The sounds he made were quite sickening and it really annoyed Arima.
"[Accelerans](Accelerando)," He just took a step forward and the noise disappeared as the world slowed down until everything was frozen in place.
Arima slowly walked toward the monster whilst unsheathing Karma. He undid the three seals in one go.
"[Aeterna] (Eternal Night)," When he was just in front of the motionless cockroach, Arima conjured a huge amount of lightning then slashed the monster with his sword.
The wave produced by Karma directly exploded and fragilized the monster's defense. The dark and electrifying explosion filled the entire boss room and the earth began to quake as the foundations of the dungeon were fissuring. Afterward, Karma easily cut through the monster's neck and beheaded it. Arima then suppressed the rest of his attack's energy to prevent any unwanted damage.
The monster's head fell on the ground and the flow of time reverted to how it was supposed to be. Only Lilis who had enough power to resist the time lock witnessed the death of the tenth level monster who died in literally less than a millisecond.
"This was a lot easier than I thought it would be," Arima lamented as he put away Karma.
Lilis laughed, "You're at the second sky of the Earthen realm and you can use time magic, what did you expect?"
Arima shrugged and prepared to teleport the group away. Even Lanya and Night didn't understand a thing as to how a tenth level monster died just like that. Because Arima only gathered time around him, even Night was left in confusion.
Arima didn't wait for them to recover their spirits and brought them to the other dungeon he had been given by the guild master. But that one was even easier, and Arima finished it in twenty minutes, without breaking a sweat.
Ultimately, he transferred his group back to Center City. He had decided to spend the four remaining days there before he had to commence his temporary job as an instructor at the PA.