Ryan stared at the lion who just made its appearance and was standing proud and arrogant. Ryan was wondering how much mana would be required to kill this beast.
Ryan was minding his own business but it seemed like the fire lion was not well versed in the area of patience. It released one of its strongest attacks from the very Start.
Within a second the lion conjured hundreds of burning boulders and he himself disappeared from his position and appeared behind Ryan who moved out of the way when he felt a sudden rise of heat from his back but the main issue were the falling boulders which were only 20 metres away from the ground.
Ryan didn't panic and prepared to dodge this attack without using mana because he knew that this would be very draining to stop. The lion's attack [Meteor Strike] made contact with the arena floor and Ryan saw something weird in this attack which was not as devastating as he thought.
The attack was not that impressive as it looked which was weird because Ryan felt that this should have been at least 2x stronger.
'Something is not adding up here.' He thought while he put out the fire on his clothes with his hand. Ryan looked around but the fire lion was not there. Ryan didn't want to use his hacks for this but he was getting confused from the sudden disappearance of his opponent.
Unknown to Ryan something was at the corner of the arena and it was watching him. The unknown figure's hollow eyes shone faintly and the fire lion appeared but this time it was thrice its previous size.
Ryan found it really weird that it came out of nowhere and got a power up and looked more flashy, its mane was made up of lava which was dripping occasionally. The ground on which the lava fell down was burned black and the lava soon made a hole through the floor.
Ryan saw this but didn't even blink. He knew that he cannot misuse his mana although it was completely recovered. He was getting more and more suspicious about this and fired a water ball towards the lion and watched it vaporise in a split second.
'I didn't feel my attack connecting to this lion.' Ryan barely put anything in that ball of water which had the only purpose of checking if everything happening here was actually real or was some kind of trick.
Ryan wanted to use his vision to see right through this but restrained from it because that was his task for today. Using his innate abilities was not an option.
He was certain that this was not real, that lion covered by fire mana was not real but then what was this? Only conclusion he came to was that this was all an illusion while the real enemy was hiding somewhere near him, ready to attack the moment he let his guard down.
Somewhere away from Ryan two women were sitting on a couch which had a small table in front of it. One of them was playing with a black hamster who looked sick of these games but still couldn't go back because Ryan asked her to stay with them.
Tia had a floating screen in front of her while she was sipping on a cup of tea. She was watching what Ryan was doing, she was the one controlling the arena and the opponents who spawned.
"Looks like he is not using his ocular ability and is trying to find the opponent with other means." Tia spoke with a pondering expression on her face.
"You told him not to and he is not the type of guy who lacks common sense." Selene said while she finished making the hamster wear a princess costume.
"Aww..she looks so cute." Selene nudged little Umbra with her finger. Umbra looked defeated and didn't resist.
"I am surprised you are not lashing out on me." Tia didn't expect her to be this calm about it.
"I trust him and he will not die from those weaklings." Selene seemed to be really confident about Ryan.
"Seems valid." Tia didn't react much to this declaration as she already knew that this was the truth. She then decided to ask something which might cause Selene to lose her calm in the future.
"So tell me, what will you do if he finds another woman in the future and brings them with him?" Tia was really curious because Selene was a lot different than the woman she was a century before.
"Hmm....Fine as long as he loves me. I don't care what woman he brings but none of them will love him like me." Selene said while her eyes sparked golden.
'That seems true. I mean who would be crazy enough to do something like you.' Tia didn't reply as she continued to look at the screen which had something interesting going on.
Ryan was resonating his mana with the atmosphere in hope to find out where the illusionist was hiding, every single movement was being monitored by him.
Just one movement and it would be over. It would have been easy if the illusionist was not using his minions to make it harder for him.
Ryan was not attacking and only focused his mind to find the sneaky bitch. In the arena 20 fire lions were attacking him without rest.
It was hard to dodge at first but Ryan was getting the hang of it. Meteors were falling without stopping and fire claws were barely missing his body. A single slip and he would be wounded.
He did not know why these things were still able to physically harm him despite being fake but he didn't stress on it and continued with his search.
This patience bore fruits and he found his Target. "Sneaky rat." He spoke in a calm voice as he formed an ice sword and stabbed it in his shadow.
A screech followed and a grotesque and ugly figure of a monster came to his view. "You really pissed me off. I swear to kill all of your kind when I see them in real life."
Drops of sweat fell on the floor as he let out a sigh of relief. This might have seemed easy but he was fighting this guy for 5 hours straight and now he was tired.
He conjured a few gallons of water and let it fall on his body at once. He carefully regulated the temperature of the water and made it as refreshing as possible. Ryan was not low on mana because he never used much of it in the first place. The thing that was bugging him was his stamina which had already hit rock bottom.
Ryan felt a bit better from taking a bath and conjured wind mana to dry his body off. Ryan didn't notice this but his proficiency while using mana had increased by a lot.
Suddenly he heard cracking sounds from his core and it was followed by an immense pain in his chest where the core resided.
"Argh.... it hurts." Ryan was rolling on the ground while clutching on his chest. This session of excruciating pain lasted for only a minute. Ryan peeked inside his body to look at the core which was now dark orange but the slight glittery touch was still there.
"Haha...I guess it evolved." Ryan chuckled while he felt a joyous feeling of liberation. He felt his mana capacity grow by a lot and decided to summon a fireball to check his new core.
A giant fireball of 100 metres was conjured while Ryan was smiling as he felt that the flow of mana was also smoother than before.
It was his reward for today's training but he knew that it was far from over. An idea sprouted on his mind as he said in a loud voice "Tia, I know you are listening, why don't you send them all at once. I am getting bored of this shit."
Ryan was just guessing and was not sure if she was actually observing but seemed like he hit the mark as a mocking female voice resounded "You think you can handle them all at once. Don't cry later."
Ryan was thinking of creating some really large scale attacks which can aid him while fighting people in huge numbers so that he could easily handle such situations without much thinking.
Tia's voice was like a signal to the arena because the moment she finished the whole place started shaking violently.
"Oh one more thing. Fight in the dark." The lights in the arena were put off after Tia spoke.
"Makes it more interesting." Ryan was excited about this new challenge and it's not like he can't create light of his own but he won't.
"One by one different types of beast appeared. Ryan didn't want to spoil the fun so he took off his shirt and blindfolded himself. Now everything was down to his senses.
59..60...70...100....150....200.....265....300...356....1000...2000.
Ryan felt a total of 2000 auras of beasts and he couldn't help but tremble a bit after witnessing these numbers.
Ryan ran towards the army of beasts which he didn't know anything about. The only advance he had was that he can sense the power of elements from them. Ryan conjured two swords of fire and ice.
Ryan felt power surging through his body as he beheaded his first opponent who seemed to be well versed in wind magic. He didn't stop and let his senses lead him. Ryan felt an attack from both of his sides as he smiled and jumped up and slashed their claws.
Ryan heard screeching voices but didn't stop on his path and continued to attack anything that came his way. Ryan didn't limit himself with swords and kept conjuring [BOA]s and firing them at beasts. He was constantly being attacked from multiple sides but he rarely failed to dodge because of his enhanced senses.
Suddenly Ryan felt that he was being attacked by every side so he spun from the ground and severed every limb that came to attack him. Ryan heard some angry roars and went ahead to behead any beast that was foolish enough to disclose its head.
As more time went on Ryan was learning to trust his senses more and didn't feel much threat and was actually enjoying this. This was a feeling he was not familiar with, a feeling of not calculating and just letting himself follow his instincts.
When he trained with his father he never did something like this. His dad always told him to never risk and calculate every move. Although he didn't think his dad was wrong, such methods would not work in every situation.
Ryan switched from swords to twin headed spear. He jumped up and spun the spear with his hands and he continued to demolish anything that came his way.
He had long lost count of how many he killed but he knew that the enemy forces were steadily losing their numbers.
Several elemental spells were aimed at him as he quickly moved out of the way and attacked the conjurer because it is not safe to let them keep sending long range spells his way.
Ryan tried to imitate one of the attacks that came at him which was a combination of earth and water magic. Several vines held the beasts and located every vital point of their body. Ryan was using plant magic to locate their heads and vital organs.
He wanted to personally kill them but instead used those vines to puncture their organs and then further spread those vines by pouring a little bit of mana. This proved to be effective as many beasts lost their lives because of those thorny vines.
If anyone looked at the arena now they would be terrified by the scene of a man killing everything without stopping and barely using any mana. Dead bodies and blood covered the whole arena as Ryan kept beheading and speeding his way towards the only one who posed a real threat to him here.
The biggest energy signature was being released by this being as Ryan felt that it stood at 150m.
"Too tall." He said and finally poured 10% of his mana to create a wind tornado with a few [BOA]s spinning inside it.
Ryan tweaked these a bit and carefully used plant magic to plant small seeds which spread upon contact with any life signature.
Ryan felt a huge weapon coming his way and carefully dodged it but didn't move too far from it. The moment the unknown being lifted its huge broadsword to attack him again, Ryan jumped at it and launched himself at the arm of the being.
His tornado didn't destroy like before but vines spread around the being's legs and completely restricted its movements.
He quickly ran while two twin headed spears were conjured by him using fire magic. Ryan felt another arm coming his way to crush him to pulp but dodged immediately while he threw the spear on his right hand towards the head of the being while infusing wind magic with the tip.
He felt his spear pierce the side of its cheek as he laughed hysterically and immediately jumped on top of its head and stabbed the whole spear until it was completely inside its head.
A roar of pain was heard as Ryan jumped off the being and muttered "Expand."
The being felt his head swelling as a miniature tornado was forming inside its head, completely destroying its brain and a moment later *Boom*
The head exploded.
Ryan finally dropped to the ground as he was feeling so tired that he could sleep right here but refrained because he could smell the charred smell in the surrounding.
He removed his blindfold as the lights were back in the arena indicating it was over.
He sighed with relief as he noticed that his stamina was depleted again and if he fought anymore he would have been hurt really badly.
He looked around as his eyes shone silver for a moment before they went back to normal.
"Come back, it's over for now." He heard Tia's slightly impressed voice but wasn't in the mood to tease the tigress.
"Ok." He said before leaving the arena with a bang through the door which was opened after he finished his fight.
After he left the bodies started to disappear and every sign of the slaughter was erased.
The arena was waiting for Ryan to come back and entertain it.
------------------------------------
.
.
.
.
.
Thanks for reading everyone :D
This was the end of volume 1 of this book.
.
I'll come back in two weeks with improvements and a new arc "Rise of the wicked."
.
.
Bye for now and if you want to join my discord server then you can join it from this link: https://discord.gg/dT2Tbhsx6D