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.

the one they were waiting

with 36,

would be about 30 left near the end,

was quite a devastating death

mostly focused on the first two levels

three levels were still within expected parameters, but 80% of Early Ancestral

What happened?

enter one of the extremely rare group trials with a chance of

Ancestral Mages that had been in the Wilderness Hunt

only left

a lot of

But who?

After all, an Early Ancestral Mage couldn't possibly kill that many Initial Ancestral Mages since they were not allowed to attack them

Ancestral Mages talked to each other via voice transmission, trying

Mages had been at that level for quite a time to accumulate power, and they had always

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

would be detrimental to her business, which was why everyone was quite certain that she

Mage was a notorious serial

biggest customer, and he specialized in a wide variety of

after the other, earning a lot of

requests to find certain extremely rare materials in the

so many other Clouds since

from the auras of the first two Clouds,

third Initial

was a woman with light-blue hair, and they all

had been the new Cloud that had asked the leading Bolt about the Deep

just a couple of decades ago

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

still

had seen her

all of this, and they moved closer

had

could earn more by combining their businesses this