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.

total, and with the one they were waiting

with 36, and now they were

30 left near the end, but there were

was quite a devastating

more, the deaths mostly focused on the first two levels in the

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

What happened?

rare

open for Peak Ancestral Mages

only left one

a lot

But who?

remaining Initial Ancestral Mages. After all, an Early Ancestral Mage

Peak Ancestral Mages talked to each other via voice transmission, trying to find out who

been at that level for quite

them focused on inspecting the wildernesses and noting down locations of trials to make a lot of money. She even had several deals

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

Initial Ancestral Mage was a notorious serial trial

the first Ancestral Mage's biggest customer, and he specialized in

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

certain extremely rare materials in the right

make no sense for him to kill so many other Clouds since that would

judging from the auras of the first two Clouds, they were not happy about this

the third Initial Ancestral

was a woman with light-blue hair,

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

exchanging information, the Clouds concluded that she had joined just a

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

still

single Cloud had seen her

noticed all of this, and they moved closer to

they had traveled mostly together

to see if they could earn more by combining their businesses this