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 for, they

started with 36, and now they

had expected that there would be about 30 left near the

was quite a devastating

on the first

80% of

What happened?

they enter one of the extremely rare group trials with a

only open for Peak Ancestral

left one

had killed a lot of

But who?

the three remaining Initial Ancestral Mages. After all, an Early Ancestral Mage couldn't possibly kill that many Initial Ancestral Mages since they

via voice transmission, trying to find out who it could have

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

several deals with other Clouds. In exchange for her safety in the Wilderness

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

Mage was a notorious serial trial

Mage's biggest customer, and he specialized in a wide variety

the other, earning a lot of stuff which he would then mostly

even took requests to find certain extremely rare materials in the

would make no sense for him to kill so many other

first two Clouds, they were

left the third Initial Ancestral

was a woman with light-blue hair, and

that had asked the leading Bolt about the Deep Crevices on

had joined just a couple of decades ago and that

Ice Affinity, but

still held

even a single Cloud had seen her fight in

Mages also noticed all of this, and they moved closer to each

thankful that they had traveled mostly

wanted to see if they could earn