Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Several Arch-Mages could be seen within the vast space, each tending to a cube that housed something which had taken their interest. Some seemed to have disciples that they entered within the cubes with, and some looked anxious as they prepared calamitous spells with which to deal with the captives… just in case. There was usually a price to pay for venturing into the unknown, and sometimes, it was unforgiving.

The group watched several of these scenes from the distance while Arch-Mage Ryte led them elsewhere – deeper into the formation of tall cubes.

“Gilly my boy. You had concerns about those monsters being secured here at the Academy?” Ryte asked without turning back to the City Guardian.

“Not anymore. I think you know what you’re doing,” Gillewart replied with a relieved sigh.

“I wouldn’t go that far. One of the reasons I’m even entertaining the idea of bringing you here is because so far, short of using Ascended Magic, there’s no way of killing these things,” Ryte explained. “It hurts my ego to declare such a thing. I can practically feel the bruises.”

“Ascended Magic?” Skullius asked with intrigue.

Ryte chuckled.

“It’s a bit complex to explain, but since you already know that there are basic magecraft forms… Patches, like Transmutation, Elemental and Consolidation, you must have guessed that there also higher Patches, right? Asides from rare forms of magecraft that pop up every now and then, there are a finite amount of higher class Patches that any average Arch-Mage can learn. We call that Ascended Magic.”

Skullius nodded repeatedly.

“I see. There’s something called an average Arch-Mage, huh?”

“Of course! Those satisfied with scratching the bare surface of higher bounds of power! We call them all average, even if they have tasted the highest Stage of power; Beyond the Veil! Cheap the lot of them!” Ryte ranted.

“Never thought I’d hear it,” Aurolio chipped in with a comment.

Ryte glanced at him for a moment before turning back to Skullius.

“On this little… pardon me, grand ambition of yours, I understand you have secrets. I would call myself a hypocrite if I ridiculed you two for keeping your own. However, do note that the five beasts we have captive here are not mine alone to allocate to you. I will try to squeeze you in, since I want those things ridden of given how resistant they are to almost all types of power we can imagine, but if I fail…” Ryte said.

It had been a tad bit strange to Skullius that Ryte didn’t argue much about them claiming to be able to kill these beasts that everyone else had trouble with.

The Arch-Mage hadn’t even asked where these beasts had come from, but Skullius assumed that the older man figured they were the entourage of the bigger bad Gillewart had told him about, and thus, had seen it unnecessary to ask about their origin.

The Hybrid Luman had initially attributed Ryte’s willingness to take them to where the Null Badubs were being held, to Ryte favouring him that much and also to his curiosity, but these seemed like lesser factors to the Arch-Mage.

Ryte simply wanted the Null Badubs gone.

He seemed a bit…tense.

To Skullius this confirmed that higher calibres of Null beasts could resist the effect of normal magic and physical assault nomatter how powerful it was, which was probably why Ryte was against keeping them for further research.

It also had to be applauded that such a conclusion had been derived so soon. After all, it had only been a few hours since the creatures had assaulted Genhuis.

That said…

‘How come I needed to exploit the capabilities of my class to gain such abilities? I only ever earned the right to ignore the damage from skills of a certain level when I acquired the [Defiant Raiment of Perversion]. Yet these Null Badubs had something like that from the jump?’ Skullius wondered.

When he put it this way, it definitely seemed unfair, but this was likely because of the distinction between natural Null beasts and him, a bearer of Serenity’s will.

Speaking of the otherworldly being, since Aurolio had done whatever he did with his Voided Death Essence fingering to shut down her interference, his connection to Serenity turned dim, as if it didn’t exist.

It was nice not be pestered by it, especially when he figured out that Serenity was trying to stop him from learning the truth, but he did wonder how long this would last.

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Skullius turned his attention to Aurolio and felt a shiver.

No way.

Soon, the group made a turn with Ryte’s lead and found a massive cube the size of a small mansion surrounded by seven Mages; five Grandmasters and two Arch-Mages.

Uneven gaps that looked like distortions on the surfaces of the dark cubes could be seen, allowing the scholarly looking gentlemen and ladies to peer inside for reference and then argue among themselves.

Their conversation leaked to the approaching group, as it kept up its furious tempo.

“… because I am unmatched in the Fusion Element Patch! Certainly, a combination of true ice and star light powered by finely controlled Aura would be enough to penetrate the ‘hard’ armour of these monstrosities! Just let me give it a try!”

“The spell Dire Space was rendered ineffective against these things! Do you know how absurd of a feat that is?! It can be compared to… to attempting to keep a leaferie in place!”

“Then what do we do? The older geezers are insisting that we get rid of these monsters. That there’s nothing to study about them except the failures we keep encountering when trying to damage them!”

“Not to mention Ryte is burning through his aged bones by having to cast and dispel Shocked Time every time one of you wants to try out a new spell. Poor bastard. If coming down here required climbing down flights of stairs… Pfft. I could laugh.”

“….”

“Hahahahahahahahaha!”

“Hahahahahahahahahaha!”

The boisterous laughter at Ryte’s expense resounded loudly within the great space.

“So I’m the poor bastard with creaking bones, am I?” Arch-Mage Ryte responded to the joke from the distance.

Skullius tensed up.

He had pretended he hadn’t heard the joke from this close a distance. He shuddered at how unlucky these Mages had to be to place a joke like this at such a time.

But as it turned out…

“Oh relax, Ryte. I could hear your crackling bones from the first floor. Our time here hasn’t been as pleasant, neither has yours… so what’s a little funny hurt?”

The other Mages chuckled and greeted the Arch-Mage.

“That’s not funny. I’ve damn near worked as hard as all of you combined in the past few hours simply by casting the same spell, and you all have nothing to show for it,” Ryte retorted. “Luckily for you, I have brought some good news.”

The Mages all looked at Ryte’s guests, but none made demeaning comments against them.

These experts had grown out of their itching-for-a-face-slapping phase hundreds of years ago, and would never undermine the actions of an Arch-Mage without seeing the results.

“Do tell or better yet, show us,” one of Arch-Mage in front of the vast cube said.

Ryte turned to Aurolio.

“As you said, I’ll give you one for demonstration first,” he said before sending a stream of mana that interacted with the face of the cube and opened it up to reveal the silent space inside.

Five spherical shapes could be seen, seemingly made entirely out of a dark fog that spun to create an intangible prison within which the Null Badubs were shocked in time.

The entire cube housing these spheres had no additional aesthetics for looks save for dozens of collections of runes that could be seen on each side up to the ceiling, their functions still active but faint, because Ryte’s Shocked Time was already incapacitating the Null Badubs.

The mana to power the runes was being used to keep the spell Shocked Time active instead.

Aurolio stepped forward under the eyes of the Mages and fearlessly entered the cube.

As he did, Ryte waved his hand at one of the swirling orbs, dispelling the effects of the spell and releasing the Null Badub held within it.

As the large creature held within shook, coming to from its frozen state, it maintained an indifferent expression.

…Until it saw Aurolio.

Suddenly, it wore a wrath filled face and snarled, lunging at the pale man in the next moment!

The creature’s hostile behaviour, which it hadn’t exhibited at all whenever the Mages had had Ryte dispel Shocked Time so that they could try out their spells, startled everyone who was looking from behind.

However, for the pale man decked in a fuzzy jacket, a smirk appeared on his face as he pulled back his sleeve. He formed a fist and concentrated a wild gush of Voided Death Essence…