"End this fight? This foreigner is a little too arrogant." That's the thought that flashed in these three knights' heads. The battle had just begun. Hermione smiled as she saw their reaction.
"You will know the nightmare of fighting a well-prepared Arcanist."
Arcane Rune Spell: Golem Summoning.
A magic circle appeared on the ground. Then, a slim and tall golem manifested. It was made of metal with two knives for hand.
"A Legendary Golem," said Marcus.
"Exactly. This is Golem Model AS–987, designed by a talented Arcanist named Cedric Diggory. It's one of a kind."
Hermione admired the golem with a gleeful smile.
"And just so you know, I could have summoned two more, one for each of you. But I don't want to bully you too much." The Empire only had 10 Tier 9 Golems, and she came with three.
"AS, deal with the annoying archer." The golem disappeared, and Elaine's face changed. AS suddenly appeared behind her as if he was a Shadow and went for her throat. Elaine vanished in the distance, and when she appeared, she showered her location with hundreds of arrows capable of annihilating stars. Unfortunately, there was nothing in that location. AS then appeared next to her and attacked again, forcing them into a confrontation of disappearance and reappearance, testing the limit of their speed.
Meanwhile, Hermione focused on the remaining two. Marcus went on the offensive as he swung his sword, creating a massive golden sword energy construct. The attack passed through Hermione's body and headed to a location a dozen meters away.
She teleported to another location to avoid the attack. "You saw through my illusion?" She expected as much for the Warbeast but not Marcus.
"Don't underestimate us."
Hermione did not say anything else and used a spell to distract him. Then, she looked at Fury, who was evading all the attacks she threw at him. Whether it was the ground turning Earth Pikes or other elemental spells that descended from the sky, he was never hit.
A magic circle appeared behind her and sent a white light toward the Warbeast Lord, who had a severe look on his face. Fury evaded the attack, but it followed him. So, he flew to the sky, and the white light continued its chase.
"It's pointless. The spell is connected to you through Karma: it will follow you to the end of the earth."
Thunder appeared on Fury's body as his speed increased. However, he tried to change direction mid-fly to avoid another danger he sensed. But his senses warned of all-around danger, so he stopped. Then, he saw he was surrounded by spells all around him that looked like a space gate, forming a sphere with an entrance. And from that entrance, the other white spell flew toward him.
Fury made a split decision to destroy the space gate, believing he could survive the explosion. He gathered a massive amount of thunder and punched one of them. But to his surprise, the white light came from the gate he punched and hit him.
Fury spasmed and fell from the ground.
'One down.'
Hermione then focused on Marcus, who was fighting with her mirror clone. "You're next."
Marcus looked at his opponent while breathing heavily. 'I guess I have no choice but to use my Ultimate Skill.' He raised his sword above his head, and light began to gather on him with immense intensity.
"Is this your most powerful attack? Alright, test my explosion."
Ultimate Skill: Light of God
Arcane Rune Spell: Explosion.
A massive ball of light confronted an immense explosion, creating unimaginable destruction. The confrontation lasted for a moment before the explosion overwhelmed the light.
Boom!
Hermione calmly watched everything settle. "This was quite the powerful attack." If this knight could usually destroy 3 to fix galaxies with his power, this attack allowed him at least 10 times the destructive power.
She appeared next to him and looked at the knocked-out Marcus.
"Interesting. Although I control my strength, he still should have taken greater damage. It seems these people have high magic resistance. However, he seemed to have aged by a significant amount."
She then focused on the last remaining one, Elaine. She was breathing hard with slashing marks on her body. Elaine glanced at Hermione, eyes full of determination. Then, she smirked,
Elaine suddenly appeared next to Hermione with energy daggers and stabbed her neck.
Boom!
She was sent flying backward, blood spilling.
"How could your body be so strong?" asked Elaine, shocked. She thought her strategy had worked. She waited until the enemy had used most of her energy and was distracted before using one of her unique techniques: Arrow Teleportation, which allowed her to teleport to any place her arrows were.
"I was careless, not even noticing they were space markers on these arrows," said Hermione, who wiped out the blood on her hand. "To answer your question, all Arcanists must be an all-rounder.
"Do you want to continue?"
"I forfeit." Elaine sighed as she knew even her Ultimate Skill would not work. Moreover, that punch shook her internal organs and did some severe damage.
"That's good." Hermione worked up the others and exited the mirror dimension. Then, she immediately began to negotiate with these three, not caring about their terrible state.
"We will begin with your power system. You can give me a basic or ordinary method to evaluate–as long as it can reach the Legendary Knight Level."
"Your highness, there is no need for this. I trust you, so you can have the Ehre Empire's best Knight Breathing Method," said Elaine.
"How magnanimous," said Hermione before gently placing her above her. A brilliant light flashed on her, and Elaine suddenly healed, returning to her peak state except for her Battle Qi.
"Thank you." Elaine did not waste time and flew back to get the breathing method. Meanwhile, the others understood they were falling behind and needed to do something. Marcus did not want to do the same as Elaine, but Fury was still wary of humans. After all, his race has been persecuted throughout history.
Hermione did not say anything. A few minutes later, Elaine returned with the booklet, and Hermione read it with great focus.
"So, Battle Qi is a more violent version of Aura."
"Aura?" asked Elaine, and Hermione showed her.
"That's the energy you used to increase your physical stats."
"Correct. Based on my analysis, Battle Qi is a more battle-oriented version of Aura. It drastically increases a person's battle capabilities. But in return, it will burn life span when overused, and it has terrible healing capabilities compared to Aura."
She now has a basic understanding of this plane's power system. The first step is to train the body to reach the standard of condensing what is called the Life Energy Seed in the heart. This seed is a way to condense and use life force for battle. These people are called Knight Cadets.
After condensing the Life Energy Seed, a person will become a Beginner Knight or Warrior in the case of the Warbeast race.
They must then absorb mana to expand the seed while training their bodies. The native of this world do not have meditation methods and rely on magical herbs and breathing methods to passively absorb mana from the environment.
After expanding the Life Energy Seed to a certain level, they will reach Intermediate Knight (Tier 2), and once they reach the limit, they will become Advanced Knight (Tier 3).
The next stage is Extraordinary Knight (Tier 4 and 5), where they condense their Battle Qi and expand it. Tier 6 is Master Knight; in that stage, a knight can fly in the air. Tier 7 is called Grandmaster Knight, and a person will awaken an element in this stage, granting extraordinary destructing powers.
Tier 8 is Sun Knight, and the knight will awaken something called the Mind Eye, an imitation of Warbeasts natural Sixth Sense. Tier 9 is the Legendary Knight, and all knights in this stage will have an Ultimate Skill, a boosted technique.
'This Knight Power System is excellent despite the lifespan draw-back. However, it could bring some trouble if it's revealed too early.'
Currently, Magical Arcanists have hit a barrier of Tier 7 because of the Soul Limit. And if a power system very compatible with Aura Master suddenly appeared, and people could reach Tier 9, most Aura Master would change, and the power dynamic of the Empire would change. Or better yet, use it as a reference to evolving the Aura Master system to Tier 9 or higher.
So, for now, this power system cannot see the light.
'The best way to use this system in the current situation is to develop a way to transform [Aura] into [Battle Qi].'
After making a brief plan, Hermione looked at the three: "You have two choices for your plane's fate."