The Place Where Everything Begins

The man had fair skin that exuded a somewhat above average feel about him, wore a clean orange-shaded black cloak with dark-grey lining along the clothe's edges. The waistcoat inside the cloak was deep orange in color interlined with silver-orange trims.

It appeared that the man was wearing some kind of uniform that made him look more civilized than any creatures Jeremy had met so far.

The man's particularly notable features were his well-defined face, slim cheekbones, celestial nose, not so thin lips, and medium length, straight, deep brunette hair, which was un-styled with the hair tip shaded in bright-orange color. After all those features combined with his large amber-orange eyes and sharp black eyebrows, he was not bad-looking in the least.

At this moment, the man in uniform finally arrived inside the hidden chamber. The first thing he did was to turn around to see if the spear user had already gone or not.

After seeing no one else was within the room, the man in uniform could finally feel relaxed...

*Sigh...*

He eventually let out a sigh of relief...

Then he said mumbled to himself with a serious expression plastered on his face,

"The human-disguised monster has finally left. After leaving this place, I have to report to sir Yuriy as soon as possible."

When Jeremy had heard the man's mumbling, he raised one eyebrow and thought ponderingly to himself,

'Hmm...? He knows about my real strength, so he must have observed me and my battles against monsters for he to know such a thing. That's strange... I didn't feel a thing of being observed at all; how did he do it? Also, who is this sir Yuriy?'

Jeremy's deduction was right on the spot because, from the man's speech, it appeared that he had indeed observed Jeremy, using an unknown method, for quite some time as the man knew pretty clearly how strong Jeremy was.

That should also be why the man in uniform didn't dare to attack Jeremy and only wanted the latter to leave here as soon as possible in the first place...

To be honest, the man really wanted to leave this place and escape from the abominable spear wielder so badly, but he couldn't do so...

At first, when he saw Jeremy go inside the hard trial and come out alive, he felt very tense as the battle between him and the latter would be pretty intense and bloody.

Be that as it may, he had thought about many strategies to fight the spear wielder beforehand, but all those had eventually come to naught in one single moment.

The one single moment was that after seeing how Jeremy fought against the giant spider, he had to change his mind without any choice.

After all, he had seen how the abominable man fought against the giant spider using a moving cast spell.

At the end of the day, a moving cast was a feat that only a very high-class mage could do...

Even if sir Yuriy came here personally, he might not win against the spear wielder and come out of here alive...

Thus, how could a puny class-1 mage like him have any thought of battling against someone at that level?

However, he really had no choice as he had to stay within this chamber for one more cycle, which was a whopping six hours. The reason was that it was stated very clearly within the tutorial mission that he couldn't leave here until six hours after the tenth horde of monsters had ended.

Finally, having confirmed that the spear wielder had left the place, the man in uniform promptly turned back, preparing to leave the hidden chamber to take a short rest before teleporting out of here in some hours.

Still...

The man ultimately stopped in track as if he had suddenly recalled something very crucial,

'Hmm... Wait!! He is a high-class mage, but why did he act like a dumb kid, talking and shouting to himse...'

Before the man could finish his thought...

*Whoosh*

A whooshing noise came out of nowhere, moving swiftly towards the man's left flank...

Simultaneously, the man in uniform also vaguely felt a sudden appearance of a high-density clump of mana coming straight at him, so he turned his head swiftly towards his left side to see what it was.

"Ahh!!"

The man exclaimed aloud in shock after seeing what the thing was...

Having no time to respond at all at the sudden ambush, the man could only close his eyes tightly as it was human's reflex when something went towards them at such a breakneck speed.

A split second later...

*BOOOOMMMM!!*

The thunderous booming noise rang out within the quiet chamber, generated from the mana bolt coming into contact with the man's mana field projection and eventually exploded, causing some rocks underneath to be crushed, dust to be blown, and debris to be flung everywhere...

*Crack*

Following closely after the explosion's booming sound was the crackling noise which resounded out from the man's mana field being cracked...

"Aarghh!"

*Thump*

The man screamed aloud as his body was flown back in a straight line towards the wall from the explosion's reaction force...

*Clatter*

At last, a clattering noise rang out, signifying the man's mana field was finally broken, as the man's body bounced back one meter away from the wall...

From the looks of his bent leg and twisted arm, it looked like the man's bones were also broken, just like his mana field...

'Is he dead?'

The perpetrator, Jeremy, thought in startle after seeing the man lying still on the solid floor without moving.

After all, Jeremy didn't intend to kill the man to begin with...

However, he didn't know how much mana to use in the mana bolt earlier, so Jeremy decided to go with 80% of the maximum power, which was a little bit weaker than when he had used it against the dokkaen and the giant spider.

Still, who would have thought the man's mana field projection was so weak...

In fact, Jeremy wasn't at fault here that he couldn't estimate the correct amount of mana to be used.

It was just that his purest mana was one of a kind and too destructive against other inferior types of mana.

Also, this was the first time Jeremy cast a spell to attack another mage in this life so that he couldn't gauge the correct amount of mana.

As a result, the victim's condition was like that... like, even now, he still lay motionless on the ground.

Currently, all of the man's orifices had red blood seeped out continually as the supersonic wave from the point-blank explosion was nothing to be scoffed at.

Such a point-blank explosion could easily make people become blind, deaf, and even permanently amputated. In the worst-case scenario, the victim would just die without knowing why and how they had died.

It could be considered the man had really got the short end of the stick that such an intense explosion took place at only some centimeters away from his body.

From the thunderous explosion earlier, it was akin to a heavenly miracle already that the man's body was still all in one piece without any organ missing...