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 they were waiting for, they would be

with 36,

expected that there would be about 30 left

quite a

the first two levels in

but 80%

What happened?

extremely rare group trials

open for Peak Ancestral Mages that had been in the Wilderness

left

had killed a

But who?

Ancestral Mage couldn't possibly kill that many Initial Ancestral

to each other via voice

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

even had several deals with other Clouds. In exchange for her safety in the Wilderness Hunt, they would

detrimental to her business, which was why everyone was quite certain

was a

customer, and he specialized in a wide variety of

completed one trial after the other, earning a lot of stuff which

took requests to find certain extremely rare materials in

no sense for him to kill so many other

first two

the third Initial

was a woman with light-blue

new Cloud that had asked the

concluded that she had joined just a couple of decades ago

that she had an Ice Affinity, but they

that still

seen her fight

noticed all of this, and

they had traveled

could earn more by