“Hi?” He had expected Amanda to take at least a few hours to arrive, but it hadn’t even been 5 minutes.
And here she was, right in front of him, wearing a massive disapproving frown.
She raised her hand and an invisible string of mana appeared, flying at Michael with unbelievable speed, this was the fastest attack he had seen so far.
However, it wasn’t something he couldn’t react to, his mana sensitivity and general capabilities had increased to abnormal levels.
It also seemed she wasn’t going all out, Amanda was clearly way above level 200, if she really did use her full strength, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
Casting a Mana Shield, he redirected the attack to the side, creating a narrow fissure in the ground that spanned just a few meters.
Her brows twitched as she sent another attack, aiming for his arm, it was many times stronger than the previous one.
‘I don’t think she’s happy to see me’ Michael created a bunch of shields and layered them on top of one another, strengthening his defense while also beginning to cast his Swords of Mana.
This little squabble was on a standstill, Amanda was gauging his strength while also swatting away his strongest attacks as if they were nothing.
Suddenly, she changed her approach, opting for a close range battle.
Appearing right in front of Michael, she struck him on his side, even after using his Mana Shield, it caused him considerable damage.
But yet again, he was no longer in the trials, even if his status screen was frozen, his previous skills still existed.
Combining Mana Shield with Shield of Nourishment, his defenses were nearly impenetrable.
Amanda noticed this and chuckled, sending an attack that Michael could not even react to, sending him flying off into a nearby building.
“Kuh.. hey calm down already” he waved his hands in front of him, trying to calm her down, she seemed to using a lot more strength than he would have liked.
Her attacks did not stop, every single one of them broke all of his shields, needing to recast them after every single clash.
If he didn’t he felt as if any one of them would kill him.
‘But she wouldn’t go that far, right? She is just expressing her frustration.’
Well, I don’t know about you, but she seems pretty serious, I don’t think she will stop until you are heavily injured, good luck.
‘Yeah yeah, whatever’ He still felt helpless in front of her, while he did put up a fight earlier, now he was just being tossed around like some kind of a toy.
Michael tried something new, casting multiple Swords of Light and splitting them into many fragmented pieces, if he had to guess, there were more than 400 miniature swords.
Each of which, had the same amount of mana as the rest, making them small but deadly, even if she swats away most of them, the mana dispersion will enhance the remaining ones.
This is a kind of spell he thought of while doing absolutely nothing back in the temple, he got bored of reading the alphabet and the trials were on cooldown.
He forgot the book back at the temple, however, he had already memorized all of its contents, he just had to comprehend them.
Amanda did as he predicted, she attempted to swat away the swords, but the remaining ones pushed her back.
“Hm..” She backed off for the first time since the beginning and rubbed her wrist, it had a small cut.
Though just as quickly, it healed itself.
“Good enough” She nodded and walked up to him, this time without any sort of hostility.
However, he was still on guard, Amanda was pretty unpredictable at times.
“Where have you been?” She asked calmly.
“Would you believe me if I told you I was in a different world” Michael replied teasingly.
He was met with a frown “That would make sense at the very least, you were gone for 2 years, everyone thought you died.”
Michael shrugged in response, he was not going to explain every single thing that happened, she wouldn’t understand anyway.
They exchanged in some formalities and she told him a bit of what had happened during the time he was gone.
The slums were recognized as an individual city, his classmate Tony became the Saint and better yet, Amanda put a bounty on his head, she thought he had betrayed the government.
That shocked him a little, while he did understand his role as a Saint, him leaving unannounced called for a dead or alive bounty, quite frankly, it seemed stupid.
He also found out that a few of his classmates died, there were dungeon incidents that occurred in the 2nd year, everyone thought the troubles had passed after a single year of peace.
They were wrong.
“So what do you want to do, act dead like a worthless rat? Or would you like to come back to the academy? It is starting next week.” Amanda asked seriously.
“What level dungeons are they doing currently?”
She thought for a moment before replying “Since your class is considered elite, they were doing level 70 dungeons with some of the more impressive ones even doing level 100 dungeons.”
Well, you can finally level up, it would be helpful to do them as they would help you achieve your mana core faster.
‘Fair enough, it’s not like I have an objective besides getting a mana core, I can’t really enter dungeons legally anyway, I don’t want to be branded as a criminal.’
“So uhh.. my Saint title how abo-”
He was swiftly interrupted “No. You failed in your duties, I am only extending courtesy to you because you were a former Saint, nothing more.”
‘Ouch.’
“What about the higher level dungeon bet we had 2 years ago, is that still on the table?” Michael asked with hope, his golden spoons disappearing with each sentence she spoke.
She seemed in thought for a moment “Hm.. you did grow considerably stronger, I could arrange something similar, don’t even think of getting an individual dungeon.”
‘At least that’s something..’
“It’s time to head back, I can’t leave my post alone for long, let’s go.” She pointed at a car that had just arrived, it seemed she went ahead of it.
Michael looked around and checked his pockets, making sure he didn’t forget anything else.
‘Mana refining orb.. check, orb of trials.. here, my sniper… fuck’ He sighed, even if he didn’t use it anymore, it was still worth quite a lot.
All that INT and you forget stuff, I am surprised you didn’t forget those orbs.
‘Yeah.. it was not on my mind at the moment, I think I left it tucked away on the bed.’
“Are you asleep?” Amanda called out to Michael with an impatient tone, it seemed he was a little lost in thought.
He ignored her rude remark and went back to the car, the driver was the same one who had driven him all this time.
It was time to head back to Vivum City.
Michael suddenly remembered something “Hey… Is my house still.. well, you know.. mine?”
“Of course not, it was never yours in the first place, you can stay in the academy dorms” Amanda replied with a scoff.
Guess you are no longer a big shot.
‘..Yeah’
