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.

one they

had started with 36, and now

that there would be about 30

quite a devastating

deaths mostly focused on the first two

were still within expected parameters, but 80% of Early Ancestral Mages and 70% of Initial Ancestral

What happened?

enter one of the extremely rare

these kinds of trials were only open for Peak Ancestral Mages that

only left one

had killed a

But who?

an Early Ancestral Mage couldn't possibly kill that

each other via voice transmission, trying to

Ancestral Mages had been at that level for quite a time to

lot of money. She even had several deals with other

others would be detrimental to her business, which was why everyone was quite certain that she hadn't

Ancestral Mage was a

Ancestral Mage's biggest customer, and he specialized in a

one trial after the other, earning a lot of stuff which he would then mostly sell to other

took requests to find certain

for him to kill so many other Clouds since that would damage

the auras of the first two Clouds, they were

the third Initial Ancestral

woman with light-blue hair, and they all remembered

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

joined just a couple

knew that she had an Ice Affinity, but they

still

seen

other two Initial Ancestral Mages also noticed all of this, and they moved closer to

they had traveled mostly together

see if they could earn more by combining