Zatiel and Ezequiel were leaving the tower to complete their mission in the Endless Forest. Zatiel was wearing his black magic robe and carrying his one-handed sword on his waist and Ezequiel had his white magic robe on along with his short sword.

As they were about to leave the first level of the tower, a group of three apprentices headed in their direction.

The one in the lead came to Zatiel and Ezequiel and spoke.

“Hello my name is Leonard, can we go somewhere more quiet to speak?”

Zatiel looked at the man and his followers, and after a moment, he nodded and they moved to an unoccupied place on the first floor.

As they were moving, Zatiel assessed the apprentices. Two were male and one a female. The female is a Rank 3 Apprentice with blond hair and although she had a skinny body; it was very well defined. One of the males was also a Rank 3 Apprentice with a robust body of 2.2 meters high with huge muscles and an ape-like face. 

As for Leonard, he had a 1.9 stature, with a handsome face and although his body was thin, his magnetic force field was the strongest of the three, proving it by how it keeps his surroundings constantly in a state of coldness. Zatiel could feel that his power was that of a Pseudo-Magus.

‘This Leonard should be following the path of an Elemental Magi, corresponding to the water energy and he probably specialized in the cold intent of water. In the woman I can’t feel a dominant element in her spirit so she should probably be following the Arcane path, as for the last man, I can feel a power in his blood constantly changing him, he should be a Bloodline Apprentice. A pretty well-made group covering all their individual weaknesses.’

The Magi have a variety of paths they can follow to strengthen themselves, but the most mainstream ones are the 4 great paths corresponding to elemental magi, arcane magi, bloodline magi, and body-refinement magi. 

Every path has its advantages in certain areas, either battle power, versatility or endurance, so there is no superior path.

The Elemental path is the one in which the magus transforms their body and spirit with the natural energies of the world. Although this path limits the type of energies and spells you can use, they create almost no restrictions in your path through the ranks and give you incredible battle power.

The arcane path is for those who do not want to be restricted by the energies of the world and use arcane knowledge to improve their abilities. Although they are not the most useful in the battlefield, if you are marked by someone like this, hundreds of curses or strange phenomena await you.

The bloodline path is the one where you use the blood or organ of a powerful magical creature to change your body and transform yourself into a humanoid magical creature. 

This is the path which generally has the strongest magi. After all, the rest of the paths still had their base as humans with vulnerable bodies. But there is a downside to this path; the bloodline shackles. This affects every bloodline magi, eventually making it almost impossible to advance past a certain point.

As for the body-refinement magi, this path consists of constantly strengthening the body with some radioactive substance or poison to stimulate the potential of the body. Although like bloodline magi, they are extremely resistant to physical damage, the human body has a limited amount of potential so most of them don’t advance very far in the ranks. 

There are always exceptions to this, and these exceptional geniuses become extremely powerful.

After a moment, they arrived at a corner of the first floor where there was no one but themselves.

“First of all, let me introduce ourselves. As I was saying, my name is Leonard, she is Beatriz and the big guy is Arnold,” says Leonard with a relaxed smile on his face.

“I am Zatiel and he is Ezequiel, so what do you want?” answers Zatiel with an emotionless face. As for Ezequiel, he only nodded.

The man named Arnold immediately shows anger on his face by the rude way of speaking, but Zatiel didn’t even look at him. Just as he was about to shout, Leonard raises his hand and stops him.

“I want to give you some information. According to some news I got recently, the brother of Nick, Arthur is back from his mission and they should be making a move very soon, I must warn you Arthur is a Fire Elemental Pseudo-Magus and he has a lot of people in his group,” spoke Leonard with a smile still on his face as if he didn’t detect the previous tone of Zatiel.

Just as Zatiel was going to respond, the chip’s voice was heard in his mind

[Bip.. spells are being used in the host. The function of the spell appears to be to collect information about the emotional state of the host.]

Zatiel looked at the arcane apprentice but chose not to expose her. After all, using this type of spell on him was useless.

“Oh, is that all,” says Zatiel without really caring for the content of the information, after all, as long his opponent is not Rank 1, they are in no way a threat to either him or Ezequiel.

Leonard could not help but change the expression on his face when he saw the indifference on Zatiel and Ezequiel’s faces. He was expecting at least one of them to show some degree of concern, but nothing happened. 

Remembering his original intention, he continued to speak.

“Actually, we can help you if you join us. Arthur won’t dare to attack you.”

“No need. If that is all you wanted to say, we need to leave,” Zatiel spoke without even thinking about the proposition and started to leave.

“Wait, don’t you think you’re being too selfish by imposing your decisions on others,” says Leonard, now showing obvious anger in his face as he looks at Zatiel.

Zatiel immediately understood the meaning of those words, and he could not help but make a mocking face at him.

“Little EZ, I think he is talking about you.”

Ezequiel said nothing, but an immense killing intent radiated from him as he looked at Leonard, he understood the intention of the man right away; he wanted to create friction between them and separate him from Zatiel. 

How could Leonard know that to Ezequiel anyone who wants to hurt the relationship with his master was someone he will kill in the first chance he gets?

The reaction of the boy startled Leonard, and even more due to the threat that he felt.

“There is your answer, thanks for the info,” says Zatiel as he leaves.

Ezequiel keeps looking at Leonard for a moment before following Zatiel.

“Bastards!” Leonard shouted as he saw the duo leave.

“Boss, that boy is truly terrifying.”

The one who spoke was Arnold, whose back was now soaked in sweat. As a bloodline Apprentice, his instincts were greater than the rest, and he could subconsciously feel how his bloodline was telling him that he was before a higher life-form.

Leonard said nothing about Arnold’s comment, after all, he also felt scared before the boy. After a moment, he calmed himself and looked at Beatriz.

“I felt nothing from any of the two, but at the end, the boy was ready to kill all of us without hesitation.”

The reason that she didn’t say a word during the meeting was that she had to be in constant concentration to release the spell and try to felt the emotions of Zatiel and Ezequiel, unfortunately for her, both of them had an extremely strong will and unless they want to show it, their emotions will leave their control.

“Let’s go, they are Arthur’s problem now, we will not meddle,” spoke Leonard with an annoyed face.

Both Arnold and Beatrix relaxed, knowing that they will not be involved with those two.

….

The moment Zatiel and Ezequiel left the tower, they used their agility spells and covered themselves in shadows and lightning respectively as they headed towards the Endless Forest. 

Both of them had reached such a proficiency level in their spells that the amount of Abyss Aura they use is almost the same as the amount that they regenerate, so as long they only use it to enhance their speed, the cost is almost null.

After a couple of hours, they reached the Endless Forest; it was a place full of gigantic trees and immense mountains could be seen at the distance. This is a place that the Magi civilization has yet to conquer. 

This is the home of some truly powerful magical creatures of the Magi World, and it was also the place where special herbs of all types could be found. 

Magical creatures controlled this place and the deeper you enter, the stronger they get, until a point where finding magical creatures stronger than Rank 2 was easy.

Either for the body of magical creatures or the special herbs, the Endless Forest was always full of apprentices and Magi, but of course, they do not always end up like a hunter, a lot of the times the Magi become the prey and end up as food.

“Little EZ, remember what I told you. If you find yourself in danger, escape. Don’t enter the forest more than enough to complete your mission. We can only act in the forest’s periphery with our current strength. 

If you enter too deep, you could trespass on the terrain of a Rank 1 magical creature. If that were to happen, contact me through the core and I will come to help you,” Zatiel spoke to the boy with a serious face. After all, even he could die in this place.

Ezequiel nodded, he already knows to never underestimate his opponent or overestimate his abilities.

“And lastly, I am sure that we will have some ‘friends’ from the tower giving us company. You should take care of them when you get the chance,” spoke Zatiel as he looked in the direction of the tower. He could tell that someone was looking at them, but they were very careful and made sure to stay hidden.

Ezequiel nodded as he looked back. Although he didn’t have Zatiel experience, the instincts of a Neo-Demons were superb, so he also detected that they were being watched.

“We will gather here in a month.”

Having finished speaking, Zatiel and Ezequiel split and headed in different directions as they entered the forest.

Half an hour after they left, seven figures showed up, all of them had magical robes and there were two men in the lead, one was tall with red hair and a stoic face while the other had a skinny body and serpent-like face.

“Benjamin, you will take Nick and Robert and take care of the boy and I will take the rest and head for the other one,” said the red-haired man to the skinny man.

“Brother this is too much, I alone can take care of that brat, the last time was just because he took me by surprise!” Nick says to the red-haired man.

“Shut up, you useless garbage! Haven’t you already made me look bad enough?”

Although Nick was angry at being insulted, he didn’t dare to show it on his face and just lowered his head.

“Benjamin, don’t underestimate him, something tells me he is dangerous.”

“Don’t worry Arthur, I know what to do, let’s go,” said the skinny man before heading towards Ezequiel accompanied by two other apprentices.

Arthur saw them leave before heading with the rest in the direction Zatiel left.