Magic to Decide Victory

Ever since that night's gathering of the disciples, two and a half full days had passed.

The deep hunger Guter experienced after his first mana shock finally reached its limit and began to gradually fade.

During that time, the "Desperately Ravenous" dining duo formed by him and his junior disciple Gumi had made quite a name for themselves in Oysaster's restaurant scene in just two days.

Every restaurant they had "graced" left its owner sighing in disbelief and its kitchen staff questioning their lives. No matter their role, everyone had their understanding of big eaters completely rewritten.

During that unusual period, Guter felt that any food entering his mouth required no time at all to digest.

His stomach and intestines could instantly refine it into pure nutrients, which were absorbed throughout his limbs and body.

With such an enormous supply of nutrition, how could his body not grow stronger?

There was no need for careful calculations.

Even from the rough sensations of daily life alone, Guter could clearly feel his physical abilities improving across the board over those days. His strength, explosive power, and speed had all far surpassed what they had been before.

Just as Teacher Serie had described, once the hunger within the body began to fade, a practitioner's physical abilities would undergo a period of growth.

Although that period was relatively brief and nowhere near enough to completely transform one's body, it still utterly outclassed the minor gains brought by ordinary training.

Even better, this burst of improvement in his physical abilities had also benefited from the system's daily mission bonuses.

Although the rewards could only accumulate for a maximum of three hours each day.

The Physical Enhancement Period was expected to continue for some time yet. Adding up the mission rewards from these days would probably result in no small increase.

Another two and a half days passed.

The deep hunger within Guter had completely vanished, and the rhythm of his daily life could finally return to normal.

At the farewell meal for the "Desperately Ravenous" dining duo, Guter reached out and pinched his junior disciple Gumi's little face. As he looked over the girl's slender figure, he truly could not understand it.

How did she manage to eat so much without gaining any weight at all?

Truly incredible.

Another five days passed.

At a training ground in Oysaster.

Guter repeatedly swung his fists, punching the air again and again. Faint bursts of air exploded from time to time.

He continued moving around the training ground while throwing messy, unstructured punches. When he reached a wooden post, his punching motion suddenly halted, but a sharp kick lashed out in an instant and landed solidly on it.

With a bang!, the solid wooden training post was kicked in half by Guter. Its upper half flew straight out, spinning two and a half times in the air before barely falling to the ground.

"Whew—"

"My body has really been raised to a terrifying level now."

Guter clenched his fist, feeling the explosive strength contained within his body. He was immensely satisfied.

It was just a pity that the temporary boost in his constitution brought by his first practice of the Body Tempering Method had now been completely exhausted.

From then on, any improvement in his physical strength could only come through the gradual accumulation of daily training.

Still, Guter was already very satisfied with such improvement.

After fully venting himself at the training ground just now, Guter had gained a fairly accurate understanding of the total increase in his physical abilities after the hunger began to fade.

The physical improvement from his first shock, combined with the system's daily mission rewards, was roughly equal to one and a half, perhaps even two years of hard training.

And the Body Tempering Method's benefits did not end there.

Just as Guter squeezed out the very last trace of improvement from within his body, the system, which had been silent for a long time, suddenly sounded a notification.

Ding!

Congratulations, host, for unlocking [Talent Trait: Transcendent Body] through your own efforts.

Guter withdrew his fist and sat down. After taking a deep breath to calm himself, he summoned the System Interface to inspect it.

Personal Interface

Host: Guter

Activated Traits: Transmigrator (Gold), Otherworldy God of Cooking (Blue), Worldly (Blue), Disciple of the Mythical Archmage (Blue), Great Fortune (Blue), Transcendent Body (Green), Atheist (White)

Trait Effect Details:

Transcendent Body (Green) / (Upgradeable)

Your body has surpassed its original limits due to a special Body Tempering Method. Continue practicing, and perhaps you may achieve even greater results.

Talent Trait Effect: All physical limits are slightly increased, lifespan is slightly increased, injury recovery speed is slightly increased, and endurance is slightly increased.

"So there is a green quality among Talent Traits?"

Looking at the trait quality section, Guter could not help feeling slightly surprised, though he quickly accepted it.

Based on his own experience and the system's ordering of Talent Traits, green should be a quality between blue and white. Its effects were weaker than a blue Talent Trait's bonuses, but unlike white Talent Traits, it had benefits without accompanying drawbacks.

Still, there was no need to fixate on its current quality. After all, Transcendent Body was an upgradeable Talent Trait, and one focused on the physical side, which he sorely lacked.

Guter was already quite satisfied with such a gain.

Besides, what exactly did the Talent Trait description mean by "endurance is slightly increased"? How much could it improve, and how great was its potential for later growth?

Guter was very curious about that.

Time passed quietly like a small river flowing onward.

Another week passed.

Oysaster, Mage Examination grounds.

Serie sat bored atop the great hall, her gaze wandering among the three disciples below.

At that moment, her chief disciple Guter and junior disciple Gumi were huddled together. Each had a loaf of bread stuffed in their mouth, chewing while seriously reading their respective Magic Books.

From above, they looked like two adorable hamsters.

As for Lairn?

That somewhat timid disciple had found himself a quiet spot far away from his senior disciple and junior disciple.

After sitting cross-legged, he began meditating while maintaining the screening barrier outside the hall.

Forget it. Hoping to find amusement from this disciple was simply too difficult.

With nothing to do, Serie silently watched the disciples below and recalled some memories from the past.

Until the long-silent atmosphere in the hall was broken by the sound of a door opening.

"Finally... has a candidate arrived?"

Serie opened her closed eyes, a trace of excitement flashing through them.

Her assessing gaze fixed directly upon the figure standing in the doorway.

It was no wonder Serie was in such a state. After the fervent examination atmosphere of the first few days passed, the number of mages participating in the examination had dwindled day by day.

Not to mention how the area outside the hall had previously been packed with people before dawn.

The current situation had become so bad that there might not even be five candidates in an entire day capable of passing the mana barrier and entering the second round of screening.

In truth, such a situation was not difficult to understand.

After all, the number of mages was limited to begin with. Among them, those with exceptional talent who could stand on their own were even rarer.

Furthermore, Teacher Serie had officially announced the notice a month in advance. Any mage living in the Northern Countries or Central Countries who had even a little confidence in their magical attainments and wanted to try had most likely come during the first few days.

Whether they succeeded or failed, they would soon receive an answer anyway.

Thus, aside from candidates who lived too far away or had been delayed for special reasons, nearly everyone who could come had already arrived.

Do not be fooled by the small number of candidates these days. In another few days, there would be even fewer.

Therefore, aside from Serie's interest in this candidate who had broken through the mana barrier, even Guter and Gumi, who had been studying their Magic Books, stopped what they were doing and looked toward the entrance in unison.

This time, the visitor was a very tall and burly young man.

Beneath his casually disheveled long hair, he wore a loose set of everyday clothes. In his hand, he held an enormous wooden staff as thick as an adult man's thigh.

Standing in the doorway, he did not look like a mage in the slightest. His temperament instead resembled an unruly warrior.

Yet as the young man walked toward the center of the hall step by steady step beneath everyone's direct stares without changing expression, Guter's eyes flickered, and he instantly overturned his previous impression of him.

This man came from the military.

And judging by that Aura, he was very likely one of its elite.

Serie, sitting cross-legged in her seat above the hall, naturally noticed this as well, but she did not care.

When Serie accepted disciples, she only confirmed whether they were Demons. Beyond that, she had never cared about their identities or backgrounds.

After all, even the Empire that had nearly unified the entire continent a thousand years ago had now fallen into a fragmented state, breaking into countless countries and city-states, with only a trace of its roots remaining on the northern continent.

And such immense changes had taken merely a thousand years—far from a long time for an elf.

Therefore, after Serie briefly sensed the examinee's mana and tested his ideals and courage with a few questions, she nodded and approved him.

Seeing that Teacher Serie had given her approval, Guter's gaze froze slightly. This young man, who was highly likely to have a military background, was the fourth disciple Serie had accepted since Gumi.

That was right. Nearly twenty days had passed, and including this man, Teacher Serie had accepted only four disciples.

Upon hearing their teacher's words, even Lairn, who had been sitting nearby in meditation, opened his eyes and looked over.

"Hm?"

Lairn paused slightly. Why did this newly accepted disciple of their teacher seem somewhat familiar?

After hearing Lord Serie say that she intended to accept him as a disciple, the burly man dropped to one knee. After expressing his gratitude to the Archmage Serie, however, he did not immediately agree.

Under Guter and the others' astonished gazes, the burly man began introducing himself to Serie.

"Lord Serie, my name is Sayidat. I am a mage serving in a unit on the Empire's northern border."

"Please forgive me for being unable to immediately accept your approval, because I still have an unfinished matter in the military."

Serie's brows furrowed slightly, and her expression showed a hint of displeasure.

"If that is the case, why did you not wait until you had handled your military affairs before coming to take the examination?"

"Because I need your help right now."

Without concealing anything, the burly man spoke frankly and laid out his purpose without reservation.

"Next month, the unit I belong to will be going to subjugate a Demon General—a Demon General who destroyed my hometown."

"As a soldier of the Empire, I obey the Empire's orders. As the sole survivor of my destroyed hometown, I bear a blood-deep hatred for that Demon General. I would love nothing more than to smash its head apart with the staff in my hands."

"I will not fear fighting it, nor will I regret dying in battle against it."

"I only fear that even if my unit gives everything and fights until we are wiped out, we still will not manage to take down that Demon General."

"I fear that the sacrifices of my comrades and me will have no value and will bring even greater suffering to the residents nearby."

"Because my unit is the only force protecting the nearby residents. If all of us deploy and fail to eliminate that Demon General, it will surely seize the opportunity created by the absence of our defenses to ravage and slaughter the villages."

"I am only a soldier of the Empire, not a general of the Empire."

"I cannot understand tactics, nor do I know whether such an attack plan is truly reasonable."

"I only know that when the attack horn sounds within the unit, I must seize the opening my warrior brothers create for me with their lives and hurl the most destructive magic I have at that Demon General's face with everything I have."

"And now, I wish to beg Lord Serie for a magic that can inflict the greatest possible damage upon that Demon General active in the Kastai Region along the Empire's northern border."

"If that is possible, perhaps our sacrifices can truly take down that Demon General. If possible, perhaps I can shorten the battle. For every second the fighting is reduced, fewer of my brothers will have to risk their lives to create an opening for my attack."

At this point, Sayidat, the burly military man, shifted from his one-knee kneeling posture. His other knee touched the ground as well, and he completely knelt before Serie.

"Lord Serie, I dare not agree to become your disciple, because I cannot be certain that I will return alive from the subjugation battle."

"But Lord Serie, I want to become your disciple, because I love magic. I still remember the first magic I learned. It was a Folk Magic called Magic to Warm the Body. In the bitter cold of the Empire's Border, I remember casting that magic on my parents and seeing their relieved and proud smiles."

"The Empire's Border is very cold in winter, but Magic to Warm the Body is very warm."

"Lord Serie, I want to kill that Demon General and use its death to honor my hometown."

"If I succeed in doing so, I am willing to lay down everything in the military and come become your disciple."

"So... I wish to beg you to first grant me... this magic to decide victory."

Hearing this, Serie sighed and walked down from the hall.

"A magic to decide victory?"

"I think you should know that the more powerful a magic's effect is, the longer it takes to learn, correct? Even if I give you this magic, will you, who are set to subjugate the Demon General next month, have enough time to learn it?"

"I do not know."

Sayidat, still kneeling, replied, "But I know that if it is Lord Serie, you will certainly have a way."

Sorry, I was a little late.