Sword God in a World of Magic

"Oh, hey! You're still alive!" One of the Peak Ancestral Mages shouted to a Mid Ancestral Mage with a smile.

The other Ancestral Mage floated over and nodded. "Yep, and I also made quite a bit this time. I completed three trials."

The first Mage let out an impressive whistle. "Impressive," he said. "Anyway, did you get Maruda?"

The second Mage slowly shook his head. "Couldn't find him."

"Huh, he's normally one of the first ones that return. I thought that you got him," the first Mage said.

"Nope," the second Mage said again. "It would suck if he suddenly dies. I wouldn't get my payment and his wealth."

"Speaking of," he added as he looked at the gathered Mages above the surface. "I also don't see my contractor."

The first Mage shrugged. "Maybe they're still in a trial?"

The other Mage just furrowed his brows. Then, he turned to Lucin, who was looking at the ocean. "Lucin, who are we still waiting for?"

"There's one more Peak Ancestral Mage. She's choosing her rewards right now. I don't think it will take longer than a couple of minutes," Lucin answered.

When Lucin said that, several other Mages raised their eyebrows in surprise.

Wait, basically everyone was already here?

They looked at each other and counted.

Twelve Peak Ancestral Mages.

Two Late Ancestral Mages.

Two Mid Ancestral Mages.

One Early Ancestral Mage.

Three Initial Ancestral Mages.

with the one

started with 36,

would be about 30 left

a

deaths mostly focused on the first two levels in

but 80% of Early Ancestral Mages and 70% of

What happened?

of the extremely rare group trials with a chance

were only open for Peak Ancestral Mages that had been

left one other

killed a lot of

But who?

of the three remaining Initial Ancestral Mages. After all, an Early Ancestral Mage couldn't

Mages talked to each other via voice

been at that level for quite a

focused on inspecting the wildernesses and noting down locations of trials to make a lot of money. She even had several deals with other Clouds. In exchange for her

business, which was why everyone was quite certain that

second Initial Ancestral Mage was a notorious serial

Mage's biggest customer, and he

a lot of stuff which he would then mostly sell to

requests to find certain extremely rare

would make no sense for him to kill so

first two Clouds, they were

left the third

light-blue hair,

been the new Cloud that had asked the leading Bolt about the Deep Crevices on their

the Clouds concluded that she had joined just a couple

knew that she had an Ice Affinity, but they hadn't seen

that still

a single Cloud had seen her fight in

other two Initial Ancestral Mages also noticed all

were thankful that they had traveled mostly

if they could earn more by combining their businesses this