Life Hunter

When Arister arrived at the Inn, he had already dispelled his disguise. He appeared as a young man with deep and dark eyes and gray hair wearing casual clothes.

When he entered the guesthouse, he instantly spotted Arima sitting at a table with Lanya and Night. He directly headed there and sat down naturally.

Arima smiled at him, "What do you want to know?"

Arister stared back at him with confused eyes, "Why are you like that? Although I didn't do anything to you, we didn't meet in the best circumstances."

"It's true," Arima acquiesced. "But I like making friends like you. You're quite strong, maybe you could help me at a later date. Who knows?"

Arister looked down at the plate a waitress just put on the table and snorted, "Fine, then let me ask you. You're my teacher, right? What can you teach me?"

Arima snickered and during the next ten minutes, he explained to him about Heaven and the Earthen and Heavenly realms.

When he heard all of it, Arister fell into deep thought, "So… I'm in the first sky of the Earthen realm, huh?"

"Yep," Arima replied and started eating his dessert. "One more thing," He said and pointed at the sky.

"In two months, I'll most likely fight against an Earthen God. In other words, a being at the pinnacle of the Earthen Realm."

"…What?" Arister was startled. Even for him, this kind of information was a bit too much to take with a relaxed expression. "How? Why would you do that?"

"Well, firstly because I want to. Secondly, because he tried to kill me," Arima answered and Night sighed thinking that those two reasons should have been said in the opposite order.

"He audaciously made a meteorite fall on me. Don't you think it's a bit too rude?" Arima added.

"Sorry?" Arister felt like he heard wrong. Arima had told him about gods and then revealed that one of them tried to eliminate him. Wasn't that dangerous? It's a god, you know?

"Yeah, well, I did something that may have drawn his unwanted attention and then he targeted me," Arima explained and Lanya groaned.

"Sorry…" She mumbled.

Arima smiled and gently patted her, "As I said, it's not your fault. There was another way to wake Chronepsis up, but I chose the easiest and fastest one. You could say it's my fault actually."

Arister silently looked at the two, "…By the way, how do you plan to confront him? You're not going to defy a god without any preparation, right?"

Arima stopped patting Lanya and she straightened her hair with a growl. "I'm working on something indeed. Also, I have several trump cards. Well, I'm not sure if Lilis will be there, but in any case, I won't ask her for help if it isn't needed."

"That's surprising," Arister commented, he already had heard about Lilis. "You're willing to let someone help you if it's needed."

"Of course, pride and honor aren't useful if you die with it," Arima laughed and stood up. He yawned and headed toward his room. "See you tomorrow, Arister," He waved his hand and said. Night jumped on his shoulder and Lanya also finished her meal to go sleep.

Arister shrugged. He stood up too and rented a room in this Inn before going to sleep as well.

*****************************************

"So? What happened?" Lilis asked to Azes with piercing glare. She was unhappy to have been called back so suddenly while she was having fun.

Azes coughed, signaling her to be serious. "Karaskan moved," He said two words and Lilis's eyes narrowed. When he saw that, Azes sighed, "As I thought. Arima did something? To a Seed of Chaos, perhaps?"

"Yes…" Lilis slowly nodded. "He destroyed it. Moreover, I have to tell you something important."

Azes frowned, "What is it?"

"He… Arima seemed to know about Karaskan. To a personal level even. He showed extreme anger against him."

"What?" Azes's frown became even deeper. "He lived his whole life in a circuit less world. Even if he is a Life Hunter or even a Death Hunter, he wouldn't be able to interact with magic or gods…" He refuted but then froze. "Wait, did he…?"

Lilis nodded, "I guess a Seed of Chaos was sent into his world and he suffered the direct repercussions of that."

Azes mused. "Karaskan was most likely awakened because he felt a Life Hunter's presence and the hatred directed toward him," He said and glanced Lilis. He extended his hand and light illuminated the place. Azes grasped the source of that light before it vanished. In his hand, there was now a large and brilliant white key which he threw at Lilis.

"Zesta, head to the Time Garden and look into Arima's past in detail. I already did it, but I could only overview the whole thing with my magic. I don't even know anything about the first half of his life. Now hurry up, the flow of time is mingled in the Garden. I don't know how long it will take for you to finish your investigation."

Lilis looked at the key in her hand then clenched it. She nodded before disappearing. After her departure, Azes sighed. "I hope Karaskan won't cause too much ruckus for now. I really wanted him to never resurface again. Now, I have another problem besides those irresponsible High Gods," He muttered and closed his eyes.

*******************************************

Back in the normal world. Arima, who was completely unaware of what was happening in Heaven, returned to the PA.

As Arima was walking through the corridors while chatting with Lanya, he heard a ruckus taking form behind him. Of course, he was used to it. Every time he used the corridors, students would exclaim and they would even greet him sometimes.

But the voices he was hearing at the moment weren't directed at him. He and Lanya turned around and spotted a beautiful and mature woman walking toward them. The students were making a path for her as if she was their queen.

She was wearing a red dress that accentuated her curves. She had crimson silky hair and irises of the same color. Coupled with her facial features, she really was stunning beauty on par with Lilis. The main difference was that the latter didn't act sensual at all in opposite to the former.

When Arima saw that, he sighed inwardly, "(There was that trope too, huh?)"

"Nice to meet you, Arimane Blade," The woman greeted him and smiled. "I am Velvet Venu," She introduced herself. She spoke with a really soft and gentle voice. Arima's expression twitched when he heard it though.

"(Unnatural,)" He thought. "What could Miss Venu possibly want my help with?" He smiled and politely responded. Lanya and Night looked at him as if he was someone else. He actually didn't want to act like that, but his old school habits got the best of him. It was the same thing with the principal. He laughed bitterly in his mind. It was another one of the things his mother had forced him into him; 'Respect your teachers'.

While Arima was getting irritated at himself, Velvet was surprised by his well-mannerism and smiled in return, "I'd want to talk in private with you, is that okay?"

"No, sorry. I have a class to conduct," Arima declined and immediately left. He even teleported, without waiting for her response. Lanya turned toward Velvet with an apologetic look and bowed to her.

"Bye," Lanya said before disappearing.

"…Eh?" Velvet was left dumbfounded. She could already hear the voices of the students around her.

"Teacher was rejected?" There were voices like that, "She was turned down," And the more she heard it, the more embarrassed she became.

*****************************************

Arima and Lanya directly transferred themselves inside the classroom. The latter sat down at her usual spot and Night jumped on the teacher's desk and laid down like the previous times.

Arima cracked his neck a bit and opened the door. This time, there was fifteen students plus forty. The group of fifteen are the ones he had picked the last two days, including Ofia, Lena, and Arister. Among the newcomers, there were two who were quite outstanding.

One of them was coincidentally the girl who led Arima the first day. Her name was Isla and she was 17 years old. Her specialty rested in water magic and she was very smart although a bit too much playful.

The second one was an energetic 16 years old boy. His name was Irian, and although he wasn't that bright, he had a keen sense for everything regarding combat and survival. His magic forte was fire and he relied a lot on his physical aptitude.

Incidentally, let's take this occasion to talk about the two royal daughters. Lena was timid and quiet. She was smart but a bit reluctant to interact with others. She mainly used wind magic.

Then, there was Ofia. Her physical situation wasn't good since birth but in Arima's opinion, her magic is one of the best there is. She possesses almost an absolute dominance over Light and can use it really easily and smartly. She's also the calmest and the most intelligent one in the class, capable of apprehending things at high speed.

Arima sat down on the desk when every student was ready. Of course, Arister was here as well in his younger appearance.

"Well, today, once again, it will be about the basics. I won't start with magic right away because it's a long process to explain it. There are a lot of things to explore on that topic," Arima said and waved his hand. The room was clad in darkness and a new hologram appeared.

This time, it was a hollow silhouette representing the blood vessels in the body, the bones, the heart, and some other important organs.

"As you all know, a body can be trained," Arima's sigil glowed and the figure he had created transformed into a 'non-trained' one and slowly started to change from that point. The outline of the muscles was gradually getting better until the silhouette became very burly.

"But there are limits and a body badly trained can lead to grave consequences. Now, the second way to improve physically is to break through levels," Arima reset the projection and the figure's features returned to what you would expect from a normal human.

"This is level 1," He commented, then the silhouette progressed. It became a bit taller, the muscles were more refined, and even the bones changed slightly.

"This is level two," Arima continued to do that until level ten. In the end, the figure had become a lot taller and the bones seemed to be larger and stronger. Strangely, even some organs changed in size, place, and even color sometimes.

"This is the best a normal human can reach physically speaking. The body structure changes, allowing it to be able to work with mana, and even without the latter, as an example, you could breathe underwater for hours. Most poisons and illnesses also won't work on you."

"You can also control that growth to some extent. If you want to, you could either become extremely skinny or extremely muscular once at the tenth level. Well, all of this is common knowledge," He added and altered the figure to something resembling someone at the fifth level.

When Arima said that it was common knowledge, the students shook their heads silently. Although they knew the body changed along with breakthroughs, and also that it could function with mana thanks to that, they never saw that evolution as precisely as they saw it in the projection. They all had learned something, especially about how they could somewhat regulate how their body would develop.

"Now, let's go on to the main topic, which is physical strengthening. I honestly think that I can teach you a lot about it," Arima declared and grinned.