Unsealing Emptiness

On the way to back, many people recognized them as they whispered in low voices while pointing behind their backs.

However, no matter how low their voices may have been, Raven and Blaze were both Rank-5 Mages and Ozul... well, he had his own unusual ways. So they could easily hear their whispers.

“Hey, aren’t they the group who helped Duke Edwin...”

“Yes, I heard that the group was promoted to Gold Rank just today!”

“What is the name of their group, though?...”

. . .

.....

Ozul’s ears perked up when he heard a person talking about the name of their group. He only realized now that they had not set up a title or the name for their party of three.

It wasn’t necessary, but all the Mercenary groups above Gold Rank had at least one title.

‘Again with the names?’- Ozul did not like the idea of having another one of those cheesy titles. He already had enough of them.

‘The Feral’ and ‘The Raven’s Shadow’ still bothered him whenever he heard them. Thankfully, not many knew about his identity as the famous assassin.

Even Rufus had heard about ‘The Feral’, but he did not know that Ozul and that ruthless assassin whom he had only heard tales of were the same people.

Just when they were walking back home, Raven asked;

“Why did you not take the test?”- She had been really curious as to why Ozul had suddenly decided not to become a Gold Rank Mercenary.

“Hm? Oh, it was nothing. I’m not even a Fighter, wouldn’t me being a Gold Rank Mercenary be too far fetched?”

“Yeah...”- Both Raven and Blaze had wry smiles on their faces. Though his reason did make sense, they could not understand if him being Gold Rank was his promotion or still belittling of his abilities.

Of course, the duo knew that Ozul’s power could not even be measured using the usual standards.

Unknown to the duo, Ozul had a completely different reason for not getting himself the promotion. When he had first noticed that Lucy had directed all those annoying shiny emotions towards Blaze, he had an idea.

Since he wanted other people to do everything for him, couldn’t he also use them to have one less annoyance?

Ozul had noticed that Blaze also had a near-perfect face. And together with his demeanor, Blaze would make the best leader figure, which would make things easier for Ozul.

Just imagining how much easier things would be when everyone would just annoy Blaze instead of him, Ozul felt happier.

With such thoughts in his mind, Ozul gave a side glance towards Blaze, who suddenly had chills behind his back.

And to be honest, Ozul liked the idea of being the controller while sitting in the shadows. There were many benefits to making Blaze the leader.

He always felt that a man should always keep his strength hidden, which gave him the advantage of the surprise element in almost every situation.

Even if people were famous, they still wouldn’t reveal their trump card to anyone. And the trio’s trump card was Ozul himself.

No one knew how powerful Ozul was right now except for Ozul himself. And he did not plan to reveal his powers either. People can make guesses; it’s up to them. However, he would not deliberately go around announcing how powerful he is.

That was an idiotic move, to be honest. He understood that some people of high statuses announced their Rank for their enemy to think twice before making a move against them, but Ozul still found it absurd.

Your enemy would always think twice before attacking you when they don’t know how powerful you are. But when you go ahead and announce your ‘might’ to the world, the enemy just makes a plan which would put you in a sticky situation.

Hence, Ozul did not like to announce how powerful he was in front of every other person he met. It is just like how the wolf wouldn’t care about the sheep’s opinion.

Ozul did not care if some nobodies had any opinion of him.

Hence Ozul decided to set Blaze as the ‘true leader’ of the group, which he planned to expand in the future.

It would also be easier to gather more people under him due to the fame that they had right now or would gain in the future.

Suddenly, Blaze appeared more likable in Ozul’s eyes.

Along the way, Ozul only had thoughts related to making his life more comfortable by pushing all the labor to Blaze.

When they reached the hotel, the couple were again both together behind the counter. And Irvin did not even seem surprised anymore when he noticed the trio.

“You guys still have rooms, right?”- Ozul asked with an uninterested tone as if taunting him.

“...Of course, we do. But the prices have changed, you would have to give a Gold Coin to stay for a day.”- Irvin said with a smile that did not really look like a smile.

“Well, we can’t do anything about it, can we now?”- Ozul said as if he would not stay here today, however after saying his part, he began to walk up the stairs again, leaving Raven to complete the transaction.

Irvin finally could not control himself as he clenched his teeth, and his hands shook in anger.

Raven tossed the Gold Coin to Haley, the old lady, and took the keys of their room from her before following Ozul together with Blaze.

When she entered the room, the first thing she noticed was that Jinx had already climbed Ozul’s bed and was sleeping on the side.

It was still morning, so Raven and Blaze both chose a corner each in the room and started their meditating.

The advancement to Rank-6 Mages required more than one process, which was usually increasing the quality and the quantity of their Mana and the Mana Core.

It was a tedious process that required the Mages to keep the balance between the quality of the Mana and the Mana Core.

Since Mana Core stored the Mana, Mages had to make sure that the quality of Mana did not exceed a specific limit, proportional to that of Mana Core.

You could take the example of a glass. A usual glass made up of a steel alloy would easily hold water in it. However, if the water suddenly turns into the burning hot lava, it would instantly start to melt.

Just like that, if the quality of Mana Core improves too much while the Mage has not refined the Mana enough, then the time it would require to further the advancement of Mana Core would multiply.

It was because Mana Core required the Mage also to use Mana, and if the Mana was of low quality, it took more time.

Hence, this process required the Mage to put all his focus on it.

However, to advance towards Rank-6, Mages had yet another tiresome and a little itchy process to go through. This process required the Mages to replace their body cells with Mana itself.

Now some people thought that this was a simple process. However, reality hit them hard again.

Replacing the body cells with Mana was like trying to pass the thread from the needle while being pricked on your fingers by the same needle!

Even a small mistake, and a body cell may get corrupted due to the Mana. It would then cause a kind of chain mass genocide, which would not stop until that tissue or the entire muscle would turn into ashes!

And the pain only added to the torture!

Some people also confuse this stage as the same method to become a Fighter. However, both were totally different.

When advancing as a Fighter, the person used Mana to grind the cells of his body into perfection. In contrast, this process required Mages to actually infuse Mana in the cells till they become Rank-10, where all the cells of their body consist almost 99% of Mana!

Being a Fighter at the same time helped Mages speed up this process. Not only would they feel less pain, but replacing the Mana with body cells also became more natural.

After the whole day of training, when Raven and Blaze ended their practice, both of them reeked of smell.

It happened to every Mage above Rank-4. It was because the replaced parts of the body cells would form impurities and leave through their skin.

Raven had created some useful Darkness based Spells. One of them was a black gas that would destroy the impurities on her skin after every long session of training.

After exterminating the impurities on her body, Raven did the same for Blaze who was looking at her with pleading eyes.

Blaze did not want to get up and take a bath when Raven could just solve the problem with a casual everyday Spell.

After that, both of them went to bed since it was night time, but not before Raven angrily glared at Jinx who had again climbed up Ozul’s chest.