In the forest just outside Cloven academy, at the same place Anise had her fight with Jeanne, Ian was sitting down with the long shaft of a spear in one of his hands. As I got closer, he slowly got up and stared at me with a serious expression.
Reaching a distance of around ten meters from him, I said: "Guild leader, sir. Is this really necessary?"
Ian didn't say anything for a long time and just stared at me. All of a sudden, he bought his pole forward and took a fighting position before saying: "Come."
Sighing, I used earth magic to create a similar looking pole and also got into fighting position, it was clear he didn't plan on killing me since he removed the pointy end of the spear so I figured I should use a blunt weapon as well.
After taking a deep breath, I used space magic to blink forward really quick and hit towards his chest. He used his pole to perfectly block my attack, his pole only bending slightly from the strength behind the attack as his feet drifted backwards two meters before stopping.
As he stopped, he pushed my pole to the side before performing a quick leg swipe. I jumped over his attack and pushed the pole towards his face. He ducked under the attack and hit my chest while I was still in the air. His speed was so fast that I had no time to react. His attack managed to propel me backwards for over seven meters through the air by sheer force alone.
As I landed and got into position again, he said: "Too slow.", before charging at me. We exchanged a couple more moves, but I came out behind in all of them. His dexterity was obviously a lot higher than mine.
I didn't want to use magic too much, hoping that after beating me enough he will finally stop, but seeing as my health points reached under four hundred and he didn't show any sign of stopping, I decided to finally get serious as well and opened a large distance between us using a teleportation spell.
[He appears to be over level 80. Winning will not be easy.]
Nodding, I said: "I know." As the Staff of Eternal materialized in front of me, strong winds started taking form all around as my robes started fluttering and I slowly floated up from the ground. Since fighting as a warrior didn't work, I'll just have to show him what a wizard can do.
With a thought, ice spears materialized all around Ian and flew right at him. I made sure to dull the tips to not kill him by mistake.
Ian didn't seem bothered at all as he started running towards me, hitting each and every ice spear that flew at him with perfect precision. His speed was so fast that there were actual afterimages left behind. After he closed a large part of the distance between us, he used his pole to propel himself upwards and aimed straight at my chest.
I was already prepared for this so the instant his feet left the ground, I teleported away and focused over twenty ice spear attacks at him while he was still in the air. He managed to block some of them, but being in the air drastically lowered his agility and he still got hit by over half of them.
After he finally landed, there were some clearly obvious bruises on his arms and legs but he ignored them as he charged at me again in the same way. As he propelled himself upwards again, I teleported away, but this time, as soon as I appeared his pole was flying towards me through the air at an incredible speed.
With no time to teleport again, I used my arms to block in the direction of the pole and attacked the guild leader with another wave of ice spears at the same time. This time I doubled their number.
We both got hit and plunged to the ground, but his wounds looked a lot worse than mine. Without the pole to destroy my attack he got hit by all of the spears.
Standing up, I sent the staff back to my soul space and picked up the pole of the guild leader which fell nearby. Throwing it back to Ian, I said: "You lose."
Looking at the pole that fell nearby, Ian barely stood up and said to me: "You win, please take care...". It looked like he also smiled slightly, but passed out before he could finish his words.
I wanted to go and help him, but Anise beat me to the punch as she ran to him and started casting a healing spell right away. Sighing, I sat down and Jeanne walked up to me while saying: "You know, Ian told me once before we broke up that if Anise ever fell for someone, it must be someone who can beat him in a fair fight or he will never agree to their relationship. Hehe he was quite sure that with his strength, no one will be able to take his daughter away from him, but look at him now."
I gave Jeanne a weird look and asked: "Why does is sound like you're enjoying all this?"
Jeanne shrugged at my words and started walking towards Anise and Ian. She said a few words towards Anise and picked Ian up before walking towards the academy gates.
Anise awkwardly walked up to me and said in a worried tone: "Stay still".
Without waiting for a reply, she started casting a healing spell on me. As my health points kept recovering, I laid down and kept staring at the sky when Ai said:
[Ethan. Why didn't you summon your protector to fight him? That way you would have easily won the fight.]
'Well, because he was not really fighting me but it was more of a test to see if I was worthy of his daughter. If I used a summon he might have even refused to let Anise and me get together. This way, I was able to prove my strength to him.'
[I don't understand. Isn't the protector spell also your strength?]
'It's complicated, but he might not have seen it that way. It worked out in the end.'
With Ai no longer saying anything, I turned towards Anise and asked: "What did your mother say?"
"She said we should go at the academy after taking care of your wounds and that she'll take care of father. Thank you for going easy on him."
I chucked at her words and said: "I didn't really go easy. He's one hell of a warrior. That attack at the end really caught me by surprise."
She nodded and said: "My father used to be a commoner. He became an adventurer at an early age since he had to earn his own food. He learned to fight and survive on his own with no help from everyone and at his prime he was the strongest warrior on the whole continent. If he didn't meet my mother and settled down here, he would have probably been a lot stronger by now."
"One hell of a warrior indeed." I mumbled and we kept chatting for another hour until she finally managed to heal my health points to full.
Fully recovered, I stood up and said: "We should go and see what you mother has to say." Anise nodded and we started heading back towards the academy. After reaching Jeanne's office, we found her alone looking through some papers. Anise immediately asked: "Where's father?"
"He asked me to teleport him back, saying that he had to entertain some important guests as soon as he woke up. He also said to make sure to visit him before you leave for the Capital."
Anise nodded and Jeanne continued: "Now that everything is pretty much taken care of, Anise do you mind if I spoke alone with Ethan for a moment?"
Anise agreed and went outside Jeanne's office. Once we were left alone, Jeanne said: "You plan on heading to the northern continent right after your visit to the Capital ends, right?"
I nodded and waited for her to continue. Jeanne picked up a memory crystal from under the desk and activated it. Immediately after, images of a large underground chamber appeared in the room. In the middle of the chamber, a large sphere made out of light kept spinning and there were white tendrils coming out of it and entering the bodies of the demons sitting under it. There was also a big red magic circle under that ball of light. Demons could be seen all around the room, happily eating what looked like humans. The recording was quite short, only having a total of four or five seconds but the images were disturbing to say the least. Jeanne said:
"Three years ago, this recording crystal was teleported straight inside my office. I tried to follow the spatial coordinates back, but I only managed to find out it came from the deep underground the northern continent. I took and showed the crystal to the Emperor and his court wizards but no one was able to figure out what is going on in the recording or why it was sent to me. We concluded that whatever the demons are planning, it must be related to that big light sphere. Since you are going north, I figured this information might prove useful in your journey."
[Ethan, that is the core of the world, the place where the world's will consciousness resides. The demons are devouring the world's will. If they succeed, they would be able to alter this world's laws at will. If you manage to find that place in the recording and link the world with the Nexus before the demons finish the devouring process, your mission will be complete.]
//Save the world - main quest//
//Link the core of the world to the Nexus and take control over it's will.//
//Reward: World added to the Nexus.//
'How exactly do I link the world to the Nexus?'
[You must reach the core and enter it with your avatar. I will use your avatar to take take care of the rest.]
'So I don't really have to fight the demons?'
[That is not really true. To step inside, you must first reach the core. All those demons that are surrounding it in the recording are not going to let you just walk in there.]
'Yes, but if I find a way to distract them, I can maybe sneak inside.'
[Theoretically it is indeed possible.]
Taking a deep breath, I said to Jeanne: "Thank you for the information. It is indeed helpful.". I now knew what lead to the world's destruction and finally had a way to stop it.
"No problem. We are family now. Also, be careful inside the Capital. People are unhappy about the emperor's response to the demon attack and there are talks of a few kingdom financing a rebellion. With the demons finally pushed back, they might use this chance to move their plans forward before the army sent to Bastion have a chance to return. When are you two planning on leaving?."
"I understand. I'll be careful. Since we took care of everything here in Cloven City, we'll probably leave tomorrow."
She nodded and said: "Since you are leaving so soon, do you mind having dinner in the garden together with me and Ian this evening?"
After I agreed, I walked out and walked around the academy listening to Anise as she kept telling me stories about her time here at the academy. As we aimlessly wandered about, it was soon evening and the time for the planned dinner so we started heading towards the garden.
Once we reached there, Jeanne and Ian were already sitting down and appeared to be seriously discussing something. They stopped when we reached the table and we took our seats on the other side of the table.
After some polite greetings, an awkward atmosphere descended on the table as none of us really knew what to say. Wishing to get rid of the awkwardness, I said: "What were the two of you speaking before we arrived?"
Jeanne replied: "We were talking about the Fallen Faction. Ian was explaining why they were in our city." As her words ended, she turned towards Ian.
Ian sighed and said: "They are heading north on a SS ranked quest. They just stopped here on the way and are going to resume their journey tomorrow."
"SS rank quest? Do you know what quest it is?" I asked.
"The empire set up a quest to send high rank adventurer parties into the northern continent. Since the demons have not made any move after everything that happened at Bastion, the Empire took it as a sign of weakness and is planning on pushing back and try to set a foothold on the northern continent."
I frowned and said: "I don't think sending people into the demon territory is a wise choice as we don't know the reason the demons didn't retaliate."
Ian nodded and said: "I'm of the same opinion, but the Empire is desperate to show some strength and dissuade the people with thoughts of rebellion."
"But, if the demons retaliate, won't the situation get even worse?"
"Indeed it will. That's what I was speaking with Jeanne about. It's a big gamble and in our opinion a foolish one."
I already knew that the demons actually tried to retaliate so I could imagine that this was not going to end well for that SS rank party, but there was nothing I could do about it. My words means nothing.
We kept chatting about other stuff, including stuff about my past and Earth. The dinner was not a staggering success, but it seemed to have at least warmed up Ian slightly to the idea of me dating Anise. As midnight was approaching, I said my goodbyes and decided to let them speak alone as a family for a while. Retreating to a room Jeanne prepared for me inside the academy, I laid down on the bed and asked Ai:
'Ai, what are my chances of finding Anna and linking this world with the Nexus in the eight months I have left?'
[Before you got the protector spell, your chances were around 30%, but now they increased to around 60. Finding Anna should not be a problem as long as you convince the Imperial Wizard to help. As for linking the world and the Nexus, it first depends on you increasing your level further. You need at least level 100.]
I nodded and said: 'Leveling up should not be that hard up north. I could start hunting down high level demons for experience.'
As I was talking through my future plans with Ai, Anise came into my room and laid down next to me. Moving my hand through her hair, I asked: "How was it?"
She nodded and didn't say anything as she buried her head in my shoulder and closed her eyes with a content smile. Assuming everything went well, I also closed my eyes and went to sleep since I wasted quite a bit of mana during the duel with Ian.
Early morning of the next day, we both woke up and went to Jeanne's office. After saying our goodbyes, we teleported to Ian's office and did the same. Once that was done, we walked out of his office and met with the other members of the party in the adventurer guild as agreed.
Since everyone was ready, we all walked outside the city into a small clearing and I started focusing on teleporting us to the Imperial Capital. Wish Ai's help, the teleportation finished with ease and we all appeared a few hundred meters away from the Capital in a large plain.
Oliver looked at the huge walls in the distance and said: "Welcome to the Imperial Capital."