"Now it's 1v1, still want to come at me?"
Lena smiled at the Incanian who offered to gang up on her and charged forward to attack the man.
The Incanian quickly drew an arrow from his quiver and shot it from his bow, applying a water spell to it to make it powerful and unpredictable.
Lena wasn't impressed. With every stage she broke though, she was strengthened by 5 elements, which widened the gap between her and her peers even further. Although this Incanian was a genius of his empire, he was just a true mage, and Lena didn't fear anyone from the same stage.
She boosted herself with a new spell she learned at the Moon Nova Academy – speed boost using light mana. On top of it, she boosted her speed again with wind mana, making her move at extreme speed.
She easily dodged the water arrow and appeared in front of the Incanian who created a water sphere around himself. She coated her hand with wind magic and sent a chop to his neck, cutting through it and severing his head.
'Three spells…?'
This was the last thought that lingered in the Incanian's mind before his head was separated from his body, and his corpse collapsed on the ground lifelessly.
'Hmm, it was a good choice to constantly train my mind since I discovered this option.'
Lena contemplated while she looked at the effectiveness of using three spells. Although she could defeat a peer in a matter of seconds with two spells only, she could do it in a single second when using a third spell.
Ever since she found out about the concept of mental strength from Shana. She used a technique from the book that Shana gave her to put a constant strain on her mind 24/7.
She first wanted to stop it when she learned in the academy about the bonus of being a higher elite human.
The constant strain slowed down her advancement which might cause her to advance too late, but she changed her mind soon later when she learned about the requirements to become a magus.
She was ambitious, and after checking her mental strength, she deducted that each strengthening she went through boosted her mental strength.
When she realized it, she understood that the better her mental strength was before advancing to the next stage, the better the boost that the strengthening process would provide.
If she managed to break through quickly enough, her mental strength at the Expert Mage Stage would be high enough for her to advance right away to the Magus Phase.
After hearing there was a qualitative difference between a ruler human to an elite human, she set her mind on becoming a magus before her time is up.
After over a year of constant training and a huge head start as a higher elite human strengthened by 5 elements with insane affinity, she finally reached the 100 MSU mark lately.
She looted their magic bags and poured everything into her own before leaving to explore the ruins again.
She found out they were fighting over a rare light artifact that she had no idea how to activate, and she guessed that they didn't have either.
However, she felt that the materials were beyond her understanding, which meant that the artifact was made with materials of the fifth grade or higher.
'Given the place, there's a good chance this artifact is of the seventh grade or higher, although it might be lower, and their deaths were in vain.'
Nobody would want to fight to the death against other geniuses for something that wasn't at least of the seventh grade. It would be a waste to die for something like that.
She stored it in her magic bag and continued her exploration. She found a few more artifacts and stored them all, but other than that, nothing interesting happened.
Eventually, she reached a circular stage that had a large orb in its middle. A few meters behind was a large double door made of wood from an unknown tree with a large stele made of stone next to it.
There were a few bodies lying around, and she recognized them as students from the different forces. There were fallen from all five factions.
There were still 4 survivors who seemed to come to a consensus to stop fighting. The four were 2 students from the Chijakor Empire, one student from the Amistrys Empire, and the last one was an assassin.
The four stood on the stage and bombarded the door with their spells, but they couldn't leave a single scratch on it.
Because they were busy attacking the door, Lena noticed them first, but after she got closer, they noticed her too.
Lena was hesitant at first about whether to continue or not. The reason was simple; all four of them were advanced mages!
But since she could fight genius advanced mages as an equal as long as they weren't lower elite humans, she chose to just go to the stage.
"What's going on here?"
She asked the four mages who stopped their attacks on the door and waited for her.
"Put your hand on the orb."
Since she was a true mage, they didn't take her seriously. One female mage from the Chijakor Empire just gave her an order and expected her to obey if she cared about living.
"No thanks, why don't you put your hand on it?"
She asked suspiciously. She wouldn't just follow the orders of others blindly.
pαndα`noνɐ1--сoМ "Because I told you to put yours, and I'm a stage above you."
The female mage answered, but then her partner stepped forward.
"Ai, don't be so cold. Don't you see how beautiful she is? Beautiful lady, how about you listen to us? This orb checks the aptitude of the explorers, and the door would only open when someone who fits the criteria arrives. We tried to put ours on it, but apparently, it wasn't enough."
"So why are there so many dead people?"
"Everyone thought we arrived at the treasury of the ruins and started attacking each other. In the end, only us 4 advanced mages survived, and we agreed to first check what was beyond the door before continuing to fight. Nobody wants to die because of an empty room."
He let Lena imagine the tragic moment when they realized they couldn't open the door.
"And what are the prerequisites to pass the aptitude test of this orb?"
"We don't know. We think it measures light affinity."
"And none of you has it?"
Lena found it weird that none of them had a light affinity. She was sure that if the Amistrys Empire knew that those ruins were good for light mages, everyone else knew it as well.
"I do, but it wasn't enough. Now stop talking and place your hand on the orb, we've answered enough questions."
The woman wasn't affected by Lena's beauty and didn't plan to simp for her, unlike her friend.
'They're all advanced mages before 35, so all of them likely have an SS affinity. If one of them has SS affinity with light mana and still couldn't pass this test, it only means that the orb will open to my SSS affinity.'
She was confused regarding the fact that nobody with SSS light affinity ever explored this place before in the past few thousand years, but she quickly understood that no force would send someone with such a rare affinity to explore a dangerous place.
When she realized this should be true for herself as well, she soon got suspicious of the decision to send her here.
'Are they trying to eliminate me because I disagreed to hook up with the princes?'
She pondered to herself, but soon forgot about it and focused on the orb. She walked forward and started channeling her light mana into the orb.
The orb glowed with bright light as she channeled her mana, and the doors started to open slowly.
"It's working! Quick let's get in!"
They didn't wait for the door to completely open and rushed in. Lena also stopped channeling her mana and ran inside after them. She was ready to fight.
"Four illegible people detected, please leave."
A voice resounded and the four looked at each other. Since the voice only mentioned 4, it wasn't hard to infer it was ok for Lena to remain inside.
"Should we leave?"
"You can leave, I'm not leaving."
In the room were many light artifacts, and the mana density was so high it was almost tangible. Lena estimated it was at least 300 MDU from her experience.
Additionally, there were fruits and potions that none of them recognized, and each of them radiated a strong aura, which was enough to testify to their high grade.
"I'm leaving. It doesn't worth dying for light artifacts."
The assassin declared and left the room. Although he knew that the Order would reward him for bringing such treasures, he wouldn't be able to use those artifacts and potions for himself, and the reward wasn't worth fighting 3 advanced mages that two of whom had a light affinity.
"I will leave too."
The guy from the Amistrys Empire left, and Lena was left alone with the pair from the Chijakor Empire.
"Girl, you should leave. We won't let you take anything anyway."
But before Lena answered, a bright light filled the room, blinding everyone and making them all only see white light.
"Inheritor, drink the potion."
Lena lost her eyesight but soon relaxed when she heard the voice speak again. Since it could blind her without a problem, it didn't need to poison her.
