Nash walked out of the restaurant with a smile on his face. He would definitely visit the Last Sip again.
He quickly headed back to the Adventurer's Association.
'Good. They left.' Nash thought as he peaked in, trying to see if the Dark World party was still in the lobby. 'Seems like they left for some quests.'
"There you are. I thought we agreed on 9:00." Alex said coldly as he noticed Nash come in.
Nash looked at the clock in the lobby, which displayed 9:17 am. "I took a little too long to walk back."
Nash took a seat in front Alex. "Well, where's the student?"
"I'll take you there." Alex sighed as he pulled out a teleportation array, then threw it to the ground.
'A Master-rank Teleportation array?!' Nash's eyes widened in shock. He then smirked. 'It seems like Darkie here has more to him than I thought.'
"You're paying for the activation cost, right?" Nash smiled as he walked until he was in front of the array's paper.
"I doubt you'd be able to activate it, even with your wealth." Alex scoffed. Activating this array wasn't something mere Coins could solve, one needed Mana Crystals!!
"D-Did you not check the guarantee?" Nash looked at the man with shock. Nash had put up 2 Mana Crystals!!!
Alex shook his head as he pulled out a single Mana Crystal and crushed it over the array.
A blinding light appeared over the two as they were transported.
Whoosh!!
Nash opened his eyes and found himself in a small cabin.
Alex started calling out. "R. R! Get over here!"
"Heh. Heh. Heh." a little girl took a breathe with each step she took as she run up to Alex. She quickly jumped at Nash with a knife. "Intruder!!"
"Not this time, R." Alex said as he grabbed the back of her black cloak. In fact, she wore completely black attire. She wore a black shirt, some black pants, black boots, black cloak, and a black mask that covered her entire face.
"Then who is it?" R looked up to Alex.
"This will be your teacher." Alex smiled. "Your magic teacher."
R immediately beamed. "Good morning, teacher!"
"Good morning." Nash smiled. "I am Nash, what's your name?"
"Rose!" R smiled. Sadly, Alex's expression was the exact opposite. He looked at Rose with a harsh frown. "Didn't I tell you to not tell anyone your name?!?!"
"I-I'm...s-s-sorry." Rose apologized as she held back her tears.
"Calm down, man." Nash said lightly. "She's a kid."
Alex turned to Nash with killing intent in his eyes. It made Nash incredibly uncomfortable, yet he barely paid it any mind.
"Well, Rose. I will be teaching you magic." Nash smiled as he dropped to eye-level with Rose. "How about you show me what you know?"
"O-Okay." Rose said with a sniffle. She quickly drew an array for a Novice-rank Fireball. Her casting was insane. She had a Casting Speed of 3 runes per second. While that was merely above average in terms of Casting Speed, what truly frightened Nash was her Casting Accuracy...it was 95%!!! Nash's highest Casting Accuracy was 99% while he was a Master-rank using a Novice-rank Spell!! His speed was obviously higher than her 3 runes per second, but she was obviously not a Master-rank, she barely had any Mana control.
"T-That's great, Rose!!" Nash chuckled in surprise. He thought he would work with a complete Novice-rank, yet she would qualify for Peak-Tier, even in the Intermediate-rank! Nash turned to Alex, "Did she receive any training before? If she did, I need to know the race of her teacher. Most races have different teaching styles, so I need to know how to transition."
"..." Alex grit his teeth. "No one taught her before."
"W-What? That's impossible!" Nash refused to believe that such a genius exists!
"I said she didn't." Alex practically growled.
"F-Fine." Nash sighed. He then turned to Rose. "Okay, Rose. Now I need to do some tests, okay?"
"Okay, teacher!" Rose smiled. She was confident. After all, she had always aced the tests that Alex would give her.
"Alright, here you go." Nash smiled as he wrote down some basic questions about magic on a paper. This was her magical knowledge test.
"Uh..." Nash looked at the answered paper. 'She barely has any knowledge about magic, how did this girl awaken as a Mage?'
"How'd I do, teacher?" Rose looked excitedly.
"You did good, but you need some work." Nash smiled awkwardly.
"Okay. Now I need you to use the spell with the shortest Casting Time that you have. Don't worry about Accuracy, just focus on your Speed." Nash said. He already had an understanding of her average Casting Speed, Casting Accuracy, Chanting Speed and Chanting Accuracy. Now he needed to know her maximum.
Nash did the same for all her Chanting and Casting tests. He was shocked as he looked at the results. 'What the hell?! There's no way no one taught her anything!!'
"You did great. Just remember that you can always improve." Nash told Rose. A cocky fighter was a dead fighter after all. Nash turned to Alex, "What's her Mana Core quality?"
"I don't know." Alex sighed. "We never got her tested."
"She naturally awakened?!" Nash asked. 'I guess that would make some sense of the situation.'
"We'll move on and leave it to the end then." Nash said as he went close to Rose. He put his hand over her forehead while Alex gripped the hilt of his sword, Nash then said, "I need you to resist the Mana for me, okay?"
"Okay!" Rose replied enthusiastically.
"Tell me when it starts hurting." Nash smiled as he slowly started unleashing the Mana in his Mana storage ring. He started making it stronger. By the time Rose called out, he had already depleted 47% of the ring's remaining 50% charge!
"Alright. Now while my ring is charging, I need you to turn around." Nash turned the young girl around as he put his hand on her back.
Alex immediately stood up. Nash glanced at him and said, "Calm down. I need to know her Mana Core quality."
Nash sent some of his Mana into her back, more precisely, her Mana Core...yet...it wasn't there. His brows creased as he sent his Mana elsewhere. The heart, the head, the liver, he couldn't find the damn thing. Then he remembered something. Igris, the Zenith-rank Mage, had once given the Earth Alliance a body, a corpse, to research. It was the corpse of an ancient race that existed long before any of the races in the Verse. It was an extinct race that optimized Mana in every single way. As the highest ranking official member of the Alliance, Nash was tasked with researching it since Igris had to return back to the ruins before the Bosses returned. Nash had evaluated that it was outside of his skillset. He called upon one of the most trusted Grandmaster-rank Mages in the Alliance. The Earth Alliance was a peculiar organization. While the organization, officially, had no Grandmaster-ranks, it had many Grandmaster-rank allies. Human Grandmasters would have no problem starting wars for their race. With no Grandmaster-ranks in the Alliance, Nash took control of researching the corpse. He realized one thing about it. It had an unbelievable ability.
Nash quickly tried to extract Mana from Rose's hair. Normally, any Mana that was not directly inside of a Mana Core would be easily extracted. Yet, he couldn't extract the Mana from her hair. A chill went down his spine.
'I knew it! She's a Primal, her entire body is a Mana Core!!!' Nash thought in fear. 'What Lord Igris would give to find her...'
Nash quickly hid his expression as he stood up and grabbed his ring off the Mana gathering array.
"Alright, now we'll have to test your affinity." Nash smiled as he prepared the Mana in the ring and converted it into Elemental Mana. While Nash couldn't use all Elements effectively, he could still use them. "I'll put the Mana in your body, so tell me which one is most comfortable."
Nash tried Fire. Rose smiled. "This one feels nice, it makes me feel excited!"
Nash then tried Water. "Oh, this one makes me relaxed...can you keep it."
Nash smiled, "We still need to test the other Elements."
He then tried Earth. "It makes me not want to talk."
Nash started to smile. 'As expected, I need to keep trying.'
He used Wind. "Haha! I want to fly!"
"Just a few more." Nash smiled as he used Light. "This one is warm, it's so gentle...kind of like mommy."
"I see." Nash disregarded her comment when he noticed Alex glare at him. 'I wouldn't want any info about a Primal get out either.'
"What about this?" Nash used Darkness. "It's nice...it's like it's protecting me...like daddy."
Nash's eyes widened in realization. 'Of course!! The two original races would make up the true original and ancient race! A Demon and Angel procreating would make a Primal!! Of course they went extinct, their rate of pregnancy is abysmal!'
Nash turned to Alex. "She's quite the genius! An affinity with every Element, that's not something you see everyday!"
'I need to get some suspicion off me. If I didn't comment on her talent, I'd look like I don't know anything. I need to stay near this kid! She could become a gate to repopulating the Primal race!!' Nash smiled.
"Here you go. This is my report on her talent. It might not be as accurate as the Adventurer's Association's, but it is still reliable. Her Mana Core is especially great!" Nash handed a paper to Alex.
Magical knowledge: F
Casting speed: C
Casting accuracy: A
Chanting speed: B
Chanting accuracy: S
Mana core quality: S
Elemental Affinity: All
Mana nullification potential: B
"I've never seen such talent before!" Nash smiled. "You should really nurture her. Even Bosses would have to kneel in front of the potential power she can obtain."
"Thanks." Alex sighed, none of these results surprised him. He was more surprised by Nash's precision. "Well, get to teaching."
"Alright." Nash turned to Rose as he started teaching her about the very basics of magic. Currently, magical knowledge was her only real weakness.