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

started with 36,

30 left near the end, but there were only

was quite a devastating death

mostly focused on the first

but 80% of Early

What happened?

the extremely rare group trials with a chance of

Ancestral Mages that had been in the Wilderness

left one other

killed a lot of

But who?

Early Ancestral Mage couldn't possibly kill

talked to each other via voice transmission, trying

the three Initial Ancestral Mages had been at that level for

and noting down locations of trials to make a lot of money. She even had several deals with other

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

was a notorious serial

biggest customer, and he specialized in a

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

certain extremely rare materials in

make no sense for him to kill so many other Clouds

first two Clouds, they were not happy

third Initial

light-blue

Cloud that had asked the leading

just a couple of

Affinity,

that still

Cloud had seen her fight in the Wilderness

other two Initial Ancestral Mages also noticed all of this,

had traveled mostly together this

could earn