John quickly covered Tyrone and Peter's corpses with some earth. Everyone was looking at the frightened Candy, wondering how someone like her could survive in their cruel world, as a mage no less.
A few minutes later, David woke up.
"Good morning" Chris joked "How does it feel to have skin again"
"I must say it feels weird" David chuckled. After a few minutes of talking, Zane asked the question everyone wanted to know.
"What happened?"
David sighed as he started retelling the story of his near death experience.
"When I saw the amount of power in his spell I knew I couldn't block it normally. So I used the strongest defensive spell I had."
"The Cowardly Earth Tortoise" David, John and Candy said at the same time. Every earth mage knew of that spell, it was quite famous.
David nodded with a smile, his smile did turn into a slight frown and lingered for a while on Candy though. Adam quickly cleared his throat and David continued.
"Using almost all the mana I had, I managed to create 10 layers" The other earth mages gasped in surprise. 10 layers! that was a lot. Candy could only make 2 while John could make 5!.
"However when I was now waiting for the spell to hit, I got a bad feeling, somehow I knew I wasn't gonna survive like that" David said.
Once again the earth mages took a deep breath. How powerful was Peter's spell that an earth mage could feel danger while being under 10 layers of the Cowardly Earth Tortoise?.
"I then thought of the idea to use my remaining mana to dig a hole straight down into the earth. That idea was what saved my life."
"I was about 30 meters deep but the shockwave still got me. I would have directly died if it wasn't for the hole I dug as well as the earth armor." David finished his short story.
"Peter was powerful, that must have been a tier two spell" John said after a few minutes of silence.
"Tier?" Zane asked, it was the first time hearing of spells having tiers.
"All the spells you have seen us use up to now are tier one spells, these are the spell we can make up anytime." Adam started explaining.
Candy also listened carefully, as a new mage she didn't know much about this topic even though it wasn't her first time hearing about spell tiers.
"Tier two spells are spells which were made by High Mages. The High Mage makes a spell, then if he or she chooses, they can write it down for others or teach it to their descendants"
Everyone nodded in agreement, all of them except Zane and Chris knew of this.
"So if that spell was made by a high mage as easily as you guys can make your own spells. Does that mean every casual attack of a High Mage is that powerful?" Zane asked in shock.
He had seen the ridiculous amount of mana from the corner of his eye, however that was around the time John was in danger so he didn't put it to mind back then.
"Yes high mages are extremely powerful. Then imagine the power of Supreme mages, then Magus, then High Magus, then Supreme Magus" Chris said, acting like he already knew the power of High Mages.
"Is Supreme Magus the final realm?" Zane asked.
"No one knows. That is because in the entire world there is only one known Supreme Magus." John revealed.
"Only one!?" Zane was extremely shocked. It seems getting to the Supreme Magus realm was almost impossible.
'Aurora is there really only one Supreme Magus on this planet?' Zane asked, not expecting an answer.
<
"How many High Magus?" Zane asked curiously.
"Less than 10" John answered, shocking Zane once more.
"Magus?"
"Less than 100"
"Supreme Mages?"
"More than a trillion" Zane thought he wouldn't be shocked anymore but....
"How can there be a trillion Supreme mages but only a hundred Magus?"he asked.
"You will find out when you become a Supreme mage" John answered with a knowing smile.
"Does that mean you also don't know" Zane asked.
John sighed "Yah I always ask my master but that's how he always answers" he replied.
The group wasted another two hours trying to satisfy Zane's unending curiosity. Mages were apparently very patient. Zane also healed the minor injuries everyone had.
The time was around midday when their conversation was interupted by a groan. The group looked to the side and surprisingly the bald scarred man and the other twin woke up at the same time.
"Finally!, good morning sleepy heads" David said with a smile. Candy was shocked, if someone had told her that the figure which killed Peter was that man, she wouldn't have believed it.
For her David had turned from monster to free spirited in a few hours.
One of the reasons why the group had spent that long doing nothing was to wait for those two to wake up. They could have forcefully done it, however they also wanted to just rest.
It didn't take long for the two prisoners to look around and assess their situation. When they realized their predicament, their faces immediately dropped, the will to live left them.
"What was that water explosion technique?" David asked the remaining twin. He had heard from John's fight story that they could also use that mysterious technique.
"It's called Exploding Water, here is the transcript" The twin took something out of his ring. He had the slightest hope that maybe he would live to see another , although it would be hard without his other half (twin).
Chris quickly got up and...took the man's ring. "Ohhh fancy" he mumbled as he put it on. A slight look of surprise flashed through his face but he quickly masked it under his satisfied smile.
"Chris take the paper!" David rubbed the bridge of his nose in irritation. No one, the twin included contested Chris taking the ring.
Chris then quickly took the piece of paper from the ground and gave it to David. David looked over the paper before passing it onto Clara, who was beside him.
Clara did the same and passed it to Adam and so on until everyone, including Chris and Zane had a look.
"3, 2, 1, Go!" David said and immediately the original three hunters concentrated on their palms.
Zane was half surprised to see water mana building up on their hands. 35 seconds later...
Boom.
Zane heard the smallest explosion ever, come from Clara's hand.
"I won again" she said. A few seconds later, more explosions were heard from everyone else. John included.
"This is a really nice technique, unfortunately it's useless for us" David sighed. The small explosions were the mages of the group using the exploding water technique.
"It's really that easy to learn a technique?" Zane said, shocked that it only take a few seconds.
"No it's supposed to take a few hours, but we are geniuses" David said nonchalantly.
"Ohh that explains it" Zane nodded.
"What do we do with them" Candy asked. She didn't particularly like the two ex teammates of hers. She had just joined the group anyway so she hadn't bonded with anyone.
"You should be asking yourself what we are going to do with you" Just as quickly as he did the first time, David became the cold killer once again.
Candy shivered a little and moved closer to Adam, something she has been doing a lot of lately. The group hadn't really discussed her situation yet so she was quite nervous.
Adam put his arm around her shoulder, easing her nervousness and making her release a breath she didn't realize was held in.
"She's with me" Adam said with a firm look. Candy was touched when she heard that and turned her head to look at Adam. Since Adam was taller and bigger she had to tilt her head upward even though they were sited.
She could have sworn she saw a rainbow appearing behind Adam at that point. She didn't know it yet but one day she will be telling her children about this moment when they ask when she fell in love with their father.
"Ohh that was fast!, you should teach me your tricks" David had became the carefree leader once again. Adam smiled awkwardly but nodded. Even he didn't know how or why whatever happened with Candy happened.
Candy was elated inside. She didn't want to come between Adam and his team. Something told her that Adam would abandon his team without a second thought for her.
"Now about those two" David said. Once again, changing personalities.