Unlimited Power - The Arcane Path

"You have completed the task I gave you; my power is yours," Celsius said.

Celsius turned into a light blue sphere and entered Leon's body. As expected, as soon as his body had accepted the energy, Leon received several notifications.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Ice Armor.

Cost: 50 mana per second

You obtained 01 status points.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Summon Celsius' Fragment.

Cost: 30 mana per second.

You obtained 01 status points.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Ice Blessing.

You obtained 01 status points.

Congratulations! The skill Ice Resistance has leveled up.

You obtained 01 status points.

Congratulations! The skill Cryomancy has leveled up.

You obtained 01 status points.

Congratulations! The skill Ice Resistance has leveled up.

You obtained 01 status points.

Congratulations! The skill Cryomancy has leveled up.

You obtained 01 status points.

...

Leon smirked again while his skills were leveling up, Cryomancy leveled up until level two hundred, while Ice Resistance leveled up until level two hundred and fifty.

"You sure a difficult one, Celsius," Sylph said. "He completed my test in just one hour, why would you give someone such a test. It looks like you ask him to do something you wanted but couldn't do."

"Shut up," Celsius said.

Leon's frown took the place of his smirk. Now he heard two weird voices in his heard. The feeling that he was getting insane had been multiplied by two... Regardless, Leon decided to check Ice Armor before anything and soon rubbed his chin when he understood its effects.

"So, it increases my endurance and mentality as well as increase the power of my ice spells and my defense against them..."

"That is right," Celsius said. "You look like someone who might die if a monster bumps into you, so that spell will come in handy."

"I'm worried about the cold I will feel while wearing an armor made of ice...��

Leon was already playing tag with Sylph now and then, so he didn't feel much the need to level him up. Leon's mana was being used to keep his form now that he left his temple, after all. However, Celsius didn't look the type who would appear just to do something like that. So, Leon decided to summon her when he decides to learn some new ice-type spells.

Congratulations! The skill Transfer has leveled up.

You obtained 01 status points.

Congratulations! The skill Transfer has leveled up.

You obtained 01 status points.

Congratulations! The skill Transfer has leveled up.

You obtained 01 status points.

...

Leon returned to Celsius's previous world and then immediately headed toward Ilyana's castle. He just completed a job, but he couldn't slack off now since he had to work for three months to obtain the cooperation of a single intermediate fragment. Leon was hoping that the others would cooperate more easily. But he wasn't naive enough to trust that such convenient developments would happen.

Ilyana was creating her elementals like always, but she looked a bit troubled, and that was a first. Leon didn't know if he should pry into her matters because he didn't trust her yet. But it looked like he wouldn't have to ask.

"You have returned at a good time," Ilyana said. "Since you decided to work with me to some extent, I also decided to put Earth under my surveillance network. It looked like some weird individuals returned to Earth by using dungeons."

"How come you know that they are weird?" Leon asked.

"They came using the same dungeon, and as soon as they left the dungeon, they spread toward all directions in the middle of the night," Ilyana explained. "That is the common behavior of those who have something to hide. Besides, even though I couldn't see them, I could notice that they had something different in their mana."

"It is kind of amazing that you can watch all the dungeons of Earth at the same time, but it is even more impressive that you can notice that even without seeing them," Leon frowned. "Do you think that they are enemies?"

"They are puppets," Ilyana answered. "As I told you before, the behavior of the harvesters doesn't change all that much, they get rid of people like us, but they also cause a ruckus by using some infiltrated agents... you researched about the things that happened to your planet while you were away, right? Does that ring any bells?"

"Yes... There is a group of people who caused a ruckus and many deaths," Leon felt his body getting hot just by remembering about those guys. "Japan had destroyed the places they controlled, but they never confirmed the death of its leaders. They used the mana within other people in order to create massive explosions... in the end, their actions made the alliance between humans fall apart."

"Another common strategy, I'm pretty sure that wasn't something the lizard or the shadowy figure you mentioned tend to do, but..." Ilyana rubbed her chin. "I'm quite certain that their goal was probably that, destroy the alliance between humans."

"Divide and conquer..." Leon bit his lips. "In the end, after obtaining what they wanted, they fled to other worlds, to obtain more power, right?"

"Yes, it looks like things stabilized on Earth again, so their goal is to cause ruckus again in order to slow down the population growth in numbers and power," Ilyana explained. "If you want to protect your planet, you can't leave them alone."

"I know, I wasn't planning to leave them alone," Leon smirked. "I'm just a bit surprised that they returned such a convenient time."

"They probably are planning to do that once or twice every one hundred years," Ilyana said. "They stayed away until now to grow strong enough to increase their chances."

"I see…" Leon said, his eyes showed a weak but vicious glint. "It doesn't matter, though. I will crush them to bits."