"That's it?" Revlo's disappointed voice echoed throughout the forest.

"Well, it's my fault for having some sort of expectations" He sighed.

As for why he evaluated that goblin champion as such?

"The staff you're wielding is a novice-rank magic weapon, but isn't the power of your spell a bit lacking?"

As he was saying this, the goblin seemed to have finished charging its attack as a magic laser beam that is as thick as a person's arm shot forward and headed towards Revlo.

"I guess that is the disadvantage in having a low spirit power" Revlo said.

Mana gathered in his left hand but instead of casting a spell, he used mana to reinforce that very hand, he raised it, fingers spread apart as the beam of magic collided with Revlo's left hand.

The magic beam failed to give any damage to Revlo's left hand as Revlo clenched it to form a fist as the magic beam evaporated from his actions, blue glitter scattered and slowly fell to the ground.

The goblin champion's eyes widened at this, the visible anger on its face suddenly turned into fear.

Seeing its attack failing to give even a scratch to its opponent, no matter how ignorant it was, it already knew that it was no match for that human child.

The goblin trembled, turned around, and ran away, it was still holding on to its staff while sweating profusely it wanted nothing more than to get as far away from Revlo as much as possible.

"Where do you think you're going?" Revlo's voice was suddenly heard just right behind him as if he was close by.

The goblin champion didn't stop and continued to run away at a greater speed.

Seeing the running figure of the blue goblin, Revlo didn't say anything, he raised the very same hand that he used to block the goblin's attack, mana still lingered on its skin, he pointed his index finger, aimed it at the goblin's shrinking figure and said.

"Return to sender"

His index finger that was glowing previously shot out a magic beam, it aimed towards the goblin.

Compared to the magic beam that the goblin sent out, Revlo's laser beam was tiny in comparison, it looked no different from a light that you would see from a laser pointer, this attack looked weak in comparison to the goblins attack.

But if any champion that is at least intermediate-ranked or higher were to see this, they would immediately judge that the laser beam that Revlo shot out would be far more terrifying.

"I don't want to waste my mana on a small fry like you, you can have this back" Revlo said, he didn't care whether the goblin heard him or not though.

As he finished saying his line, a tiny laser penetrated the goblin's body as a tiny hole appeared in the area where the goblin's heart should be.

"Awaaaakk!" The goblin screamed in pain as it clutched its heart tightly.

After ten or so seconds, it finally plopped down on the ground and died as a human-shaped shadow was approaching its corpse.

Revlo walked towards the area where the corpse of the goblin was laid out with a trail of blood following behind.

He crouched and grabbed the staff that the goblin was using earlier.

Despite being dead, the grip that the goblin had on its staff was pretty tight and Revlo had some trouble taking it away.

After a while, Revlo managed to take the staff away and slowly inspected it.

"How on earth did this guy manage to get this?"

His eyes scanned the staff up and down, it didn't look that impressive, it had a shabby and simple design with a small white gem on top, the gem itself looked dull and there were some cracks on it.

"No wonder the attack lacked power, this magic weapon wasn't properly maintained at all, it also looks old" Revlo muttered.

You can pretty much paint a picture of what is a magic weapon just by its name, it is a weapon used by champions, each weapon has different grades depending on its uses and power, the higher the grade, the better the magic weapon, its that simple.

The different grades that classify the strength of magic weapons are pretty much the same as the ranks that classify the champions, with the weakest being a novice-ranked magic weapon and the strongest being a world-class magic weapon.

Nevertheless, it had to be reminded that just wielding a higher-ranked weapon than a champion's actual rank doesn't necessarily correspond to a rise in rank in the weapon wielder's combat power.

To explain more thoroughly, just because a novice-rank champion wielding an intermediate-rank magic weapon doesn't correlate with the weapon user itself being able to rival an actual intermediate-rank.

Sure, if a champion wields a higher-ranked weapon, it would obviously increase their strength but there is a limit on how much power they could draw out from the magic weapon itself.

In layman's terms, it means that even if you have a better pc or hardware, you would still suck at the video game if your skills are not up to par. It wouldn't matter if the device you were playing at were an older version or a better version.

To be able to use these weapons properly, you need the corresponding spirit power to draw out a weapon's potential.

Even if your rank is a novice rank, if you have a spirit power of an intermediate rank, utilizing an intermediate-rank weapon to its fullest would not be a problem as long as you can supply the necessary mana, similarly, your combat prowess would leap up in rank as well.

But how rare were champions whose spirit power is a rank or two higher than their actual rank?

You would have an easier time finding a four-leaf clover while being blindfolded than actually meeting a champion whose spirit power is above that of their champion rank.

In addition, not everyone has their own magic weapons, at least only about 1 out of 10 champions owns one.

"The topic about magic weapons could be considered controversial" Revlo said.

Why was it so controversial?

There were magical weapons that are used to raise a champion's combat ability and could be helpful in combat, so why?

Revlo glanced at the white gem at the tip of the staff and he pulled it out.

Without hesitation he dug a hole nearby, the size was just enough for the gem to fit into, he dropped the gem into the hole and covered it up, he grabbed some sticks at the side and made an X-shape on top of it.

"Not the best grave in the world but it'll do"

He stood up and put the staff with its gem now removed into his dimensional pocket side bag.

"Whoever you are, rest in peace" he clasped his hands into a prayer and left.

He didn't pray towards the dead goblins, that would be stupid, he prayed towards the grave that buried the magic core of a dead champion.

That's right, the reason why only 1 out of 10 people owns a magic weapon is because the gem that powered those very weapons is actually the magic core of a dead champion. 

It's doesn't come from a champion that died naturally, like dying of old age because the magic core would also die when you take it away from the body of an already dead champion, only forcefully taking away the magic core of a champion when they were still alive can it successfully power a magic weapon.

While magic weapons were revolutionary, the Freedom Empire heavily restricted these weapons from circulating and pretty much the other continent's respective ruling power did the same.

Forcefully taking away a champion's magic core is the most tortuous and the most painful death anyone could experience.

It's not like the people in this world were all self-righteous and ethical, if you look at it from another perspective, imagine if these weapons were circulated and approved by everyone, then how many champions would be sacrificed just to make these weapons?

One life has to die in exchange for the birth of a single magic weapon, if everyone wanted to have one, then at least half of the champion population had to die to make it happen.

Because of the dark history that involves the invention of magic weapons, people had differing opinions about it.

(A/N: cough cough Thanos approves cough cough)

"But it's not like magic weapons are completely banned, there are alternatives other than the magic cores of champions but it would not be as powerful"

There were artificial magic cores, magic cores from monsters, mana stones and directly powering the magic weapon with your mana is an option as well but...

"Artificial magic cores are expensive and are difficult to create, only the powerful and rich could afford them, magic cores from monsters and mana stones have impurities and can bring more harm to the user than their opponents and why bother powering magic weapons with your mana, that process takes too long and it eats up your mana reserves way too quickly and swallows it down like a black hole" Revlo complained.

"Should I make a stop in the Mason Clan? Me and Rena are probably the only clan members to have never stepped foot inside our clan's base"

He was pondering on whether he could ask for an artificial magic core from them, since he is Vorne's son, he should have some status within the clan right?

He had 100,000 gold on him which may sound like a lot and it is, a low ranking champion could work hard trying to earn money in his job, but he would never get close to this figure in his lifetime but Revlo knew that artificial magic cores were worth much more than that, he heard his father say that even an artificial novice-rank magic core costs about over at least 800,000 gold.

But after a while, Revlo shook his head.

"Nah, it's not like I actually need a magic weapon and it is unlucky that the clan is based in one of the 12 Mega Cities of the Empire that is the farthest from the Capital City"

He tapped the scabbard on his waist, containing possibly one of the most expensive swords in the entire world.

"A spirit weapon is a lot better than a magic weapon at the end of the day"

If he decided to visit the home base of the Mason Clan, he would steer too far from his destination and could potentially miss the day of the entrance exam.

He continued to sprint through the forest, the speed he was going at was nothing to scoff at either as he had already cast physical enhancement on himself earlier.

But alas, even with his running speed, the nearest town was at least 2 days away, he eventually got tired, the sun had just set and he camped for the night.

He set up a tent, made a campfire, ate his dinner, and just as he was about to cover himself in his blanket and go to sleep, he heard a howl of a wolf, followed by the howls of multiple wolves soon after.

His ears twitched and he stood up, he looked around and said.

"This... bloodwolves?"

"I checked earlier and I'm sure that there were no monsters or a monster den in this area, how did they find me?" he said.

He also put a stealth barrier around his camping spot so that he wouldn't be disturbed by monster attacks.

"Vision Magnify"

"Enchantment Effect, Nightvision"

He double-chanted and looked in the direction where he detected the wolves were.

"Their movements are a bit abnormal, so they weren't after me?"

From the way that the bloodwolves moved, Revlo concluded that the wolves haven't managed to find him, instead, they looked like they found something else and they were hunting it down.

Revlo turned to look in another direction and saw a horned bear having a staredown with the bloodwolves while keeping an aggressive posture.

There were bites and claw marks all over the horned bear's body and was covered in blood, it also looked beaten up, the bloodwolves managed to put the horned bear into a corner, unable to escape, the bear looked tired as well, it looked like this hunt was going on for some time now.

"A horned bear... from the aura it emits, it looks to be at least a peak Expert-Rank, and the bloodwolves are only at Intermediate-Rank but the numbers that they have is too much for the bear to handle, there is also the alpha of the bloodwolves, looks to be an Expert-Rank as well" 

Revlo looked at the scene one more time and then went back into the tent to sleep.

This event didn't concern him in the slightest as long as it didn't involve him, he couldn't possibly give a damn about some monsters fighting.

But then a change happened, the horn on the bear's forehead suddenly glowed as a bright red light illuminated the dark forest, similarly, its stomach also glowed a similar color, Revlo paused and looked at the area where the horned bear was being surrounded by numerous bloodwolves.

"It's actually ranking up" Revlo muttered under his breath.

"Under life and death situations can someone's potential be stimulated and achieve some form of growth"

"But it looks like the bloodwolves aren't letting it happen that easily"

The bloodwolves also knew that the bear was breaking out of the expert-rank, to evolve and achieve master rank as well.

The alpha bloodwolf howled loudly to command the rest of the pack to attack the horned bear immediately to stop its rank advancement.

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