Dimensional Descent

Leonel used what remained of his Wind Domain's momentum to blow the white tarp away, leaving behind what looked like a garage yard of scrap metal and splintered wood. 

Nigmir was finally caught by one of the Valiant Hall members and now many were looking toward Sael to figure out what to do. But, the young woman suddenly felt stifled. 

She had come here after receiving reports on what happened to Gersan, but the investigation led to a matter she had no idea how to deal with especially since Leonel was involved. To make matters worse, while her own prestige and that of Valiant Hall was on the line, Leonel had completely turned his back to them as though they were worth nothing in his eyes. 

Sael grit her teeth. "Help the others!"

The Valiant Hall squad members looked at her in confusion. Were they really not apprehending this brat? What was going on here?

"Can't you see how many of them are buried beneath a pile of rubble?! Are you going to take responsibility when they all die?!"

Sael held onto her final lifeline. It was only then that those around remembered that Cormus and Ardryn had been buried beneath a pillar of Earth, their life and death completely unknown. They had almost forgot how terrible this matter could become. 

Leonel found what he was looking for and pulled up a beast skin map. He had seen through the flap opening earlier… Obviously, this had happened before he sent one of the Peace Keepers flying. But with Leonel's memory, that split moment was all he needed. 

He spread the map out with his hands, scanning through it. As expected, there were no small number of mines marked on this. The territories of the King of Ores faction, along with their competitors, were all marked out. 

Of course, Leonel knew that the most valuable mines were most definitely not marked on this map. Sarrieth's caution was made obvious by the fact he didn't let anyone know which mine he was travelling to. However, even still, there were more than 20 mines marked here alone. 

Leonel memorized the map with a single look then incinerated it. As for whether the King of Ores faction needed it or not? Who cared?

After he was done with that, Leonel flicked a finger. 

At that moment, a large swath of Ores shot up. 

With a single look, Leonel could tell that all of this wouldn't fit in his spatial ring which had shrunken in size considerably since coming to this world. And, it definitely wouldn't be convenient for him to carry it around like this. 

Unfortunately, Leonel had left the Segmented cube with Aina. And, since she hadn't reacted to all of this, in all likelihood, she had her head down, training, just like Leonel had for the past half month. In fact, if it wasn't because his Mage Arts had shattered during his breakthrough and he had happened to hear Thetris' voice, Leonel likely wouldn't even be here. 

Leonel could use a few of the snowglobes he had kept in store for himself just in case he would have need of them. But... He decided on doing something different after a moment of thought. 

Leonel's gaze shifted and it happened to land on Kaela. 

"You want these?"

Kaela was startled. "I…"

Leonel's hand spread out. A portion of the Ores went to Kaela while the rest spread out to the merchants who had gotten caught up in the battle. 

In an instant, a small fortune's worth of Ores was given out for free. 

Leonel kept a large portion for himself, putting it all into his ring without a care. Then, he turned to leave. His destination? 

Well, wasn't it obvious? He was going to destroy every one of the mines on that map. One by one. 

"Leonel! Wait!"

Sael grit her teeth, she finally couldn't continue to watch what was happening. 

For one, even though it seemed like this business was entirely owned by King of Ores faction, this couldn't be further from the truth. Over 80% of this world was owned by Valiant Heart Mountain. This was obviously the same for the mines. 

Every ore was the property of Valiant Heart. King of Ores faction was only selling them on behalf of the organization and taking a cut. They would then need to pay taxes to Valiant Heart depending on their sales and this amounted to upwards of 70%. 

Beyond this, there was a reason that of the Ores Leonel had picked out were of the Fifth Dimension. In fact, there wasn't a single Tier 7 or and above either. All of these were exclusively sent to Valiant Heart's Founding Peak. 

In fact, students weren't even given jurisdiction over ore minds that could produce such high level Ores to begin with. And, in the rare cases they stumbled upon such treasures, they were obligated to report to the organization in exchange for some compensation. 

This was all to say that while it looked like Leonel was stealing from Sarrieth, he was, in fact, stealing from Valiant Heart Mountain. Everyone else seemed to be aware of this with the exception of him, which was why the reaction of the merchants hadn't been too excited. 

However, that didn't stop a few of them from taking advantage of the chaos to embezzle a few for themselves. 

"You…" Sael's words were caught in her throat, especially since Leonel didn't even stop to listen to her. "… Those ores… They're the property of Valiant Heart Mountain, not the King of Ores faction!"

Leonel continued to walk as though he hadn't heard a single thing. 

"Dammit! You aren't allowed to leave Valiant City unless you've joined a Peak!" 

Sael might have been grasping at straws, but she wasn't lying. After seeing the map, it was too obvious what Leonel planned to do. She really couldn't allow this. Those mines represented 30% of Valiant Heart Mountain's ore resources. At least when it came to Tier 6 ores and below. 

"Then I quit." Leonel said plainly, continuing to walk away. 

Sael clenched her jaw so hard that she almost drew blood. 

"Think of your girlfriend! Are you really going to leave her alone!"

Leonel suddenly came to a grinding halt. 

A heavy air descended, the slow beating of a heart sounding in everyone's ears. It would be a long while before they realized this heart was their own. 

Leonel cocked his head backward, his irises beginning to flicker with red-violet once again. 

"Are you threatening me?"