Life Hunter

"Are you trying to cripple me or what?" Arima spat out while waving his glowing arm that he was himself healing.

Arister coughed and stood up. Arima's kick obviously wasn't meant to actually hurt him. "What do you mean?"

"You only healed it on the surface. You actually broke my bones, tied the veins, and twisted my nerves," Arima uttered as he finished repairing his arm. He stretched his arm. There was nothing wrong at first sight but it was still being healed inside.

"Ah," Arister understood what happened. "Sorry."

Arima grumbled and shook his head. "I know why you can't cast it. You misunderstood the chant. Rather, you omitted an important part of the magic formation."

Arister frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The 'reverse' in the chant. You failed to realize its meaning. That word is supposed to work with time magic. Reverse means coming back. Seriously… normally, people think of time when hearing that word. But you didn't. Didn't you see the magic formation?"

"There are three triangles depicted on it. The one at the top has the representation of life in it, the one at the bottom-right holds light, and the one at the bottom left encircles an hourglass; that's time. While conjuring the magic, you utterly failed to activate the third triangle and its corresponding runes."

"Huh? That was time?" Arister was baffled. "How could I know that? I thought it was just some kind of auxiliary boost."

"What? You don't have hourglasses in this world maybe?"

"No… we have. But we never really considered them as the symbol of time... In the first place, time magic is said to be the hardest theory ever. The people who understood it in the whole human history can be counted on one hand. I never thought that your art had anything to do with time. Even without that, how the hell do you want me to understand time magic?"

Arima sighed. "You don't need to. That's what the set is for. You don't need to think of the theory behind the chants. As long as you understand what you're chanting and how you need to do it, it's enough. Well, Lanya certainly had a problem with the theory just now but it was because of a clash between her own grasp of space magic and mine. You don't have to care about that. You don't know anything about time, so it will work perfectly. The moment you add the art's rank and category before the final keyword, the theory will be automatically completed for you. Thanks to the connection the arts have with me."

Arister scowled. "Are you saying that the theory behind each art is entirely yours, and I don't need to comprehend it?"

"Yes. Thank you for repeating what I just said."

Arister blinked once. "That's cheating…"

"Well, you're also cheating now. Welcome to the club. Are you having fun since you joined?"

"…Can I try again?"

"No," Arima instantly answered. "At least not on me. Just test it later on some beasts or monsters you'll hunt."

"Anyway, since we still have a lot of time in this dimension. I'll teach you all the arts until the third rank. The 'second' and 'first' arts are too much for you. Now get ready, I'll show you the magics on a smaller scale. Focus," Arima instructed and Lanya and Arister nodded.

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

Twenty days later, Arima finished imparting the arts to Lanya and Arister and had answered their questions while sparring with them. Lanya was now at the peak of the ninth level and Arister had managed to break through the second sky.

Karma, who trained with Night, succeeded in entering the Earthen realm and achieved a flawless mastery over her new body.

"Well then, let's get out," Arima declared and severed the link with the dimension. The five of them all reappeared in the Inn and sat down at a table of the restaurant. Karma was thrilled as it was the first time she would actually taste food. From the moment she started training with Night, she hadn't gotten the occasion to ask Arima for something to eat and her constitution allowed her to easily get through twenty days without eating. She originally was a cold weapon after all.

"By the way, Arima," Arister raised his voice as they were eating. "Why do you want to participate in the ranking competition? You even said that you would nurture a class. This wasn't in your contract with the PA, right?"

"I just wanted to do it," Arima shrugged. "If I had to spend two months working for the academy, I thought that I should at least make it interesting somehow. So, I decided to take care of a distinctive class."

Night snickered. "Are you going to create little monsters at your image?"

Arima laughed. "I hope they become little monsters. I won't expect less than that from my students. In the class I'm forming, I'm only choosing those who have great potential and talent."

"Little monsters..." Lanya muttered wryly then turned toward Arima. "Hum, incidentally, is me fighting with Velvet still a thing?"

"Yeah," Arima replied while smiling at Lanya's helpless expression. "Arister, you won't participate though."

"Of course, I won't compete with some inexperienced kids."

"What about me?" Karma asked with a full mouth as she raised her hand. Everyone looked at her and squinted their eyes. "…What? Why are you staring at me?"

"I don't even know…" Arima just abandoned the thought and coughed. "Karma, for now, just listen to my lessons, it should be enough."

"Got it," Karma nodded and resumed her meal.

Arima sighed. "Good night," He waved his hand went to his room. Lanya followed a few minutes later and Arister stood up ten minutes after. Karma just continued eating as if her stomach was an endless void while Night waited for her with a tired expression.

Arister smirked at Night's submissive behavior as he patiently waited. "You're already acting like her little guardian?" His voice was filled with sarcasm.

Night's expression twitched. "Just go sleep!" He snapped at him and chased him out of the Inn's restaurant. He even released a bit of his aura which not only intimidated Arister but also scared the other customers.

When Karma was left alone with Night, she swallowed what she had in her mouth and gazed at the wolf sitting on the table. "…Why do we need to keep silent about what that woman said?"

Night sighed and stared at her. "Didn't I tell you already? Lilis advised to not do it. Even if Arima maybe doesn't care or won't be perturbed. It's still better to not say it to him. I only told you as insurance, don't you dare blurt it out."

"Hm," Karma hummed and swallowed an entire salad. "Why are you still here though? Are you waiting for me?"

Night's patience was really put to a test today. "Yes. I. am. Do you have a problem with that?"

Karma chuckled. "Not at all."

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

The next day, when Arima reached his classroom, everyone had already taken their seats.

Behind him, Karma curiously followed and placed herself just in front of the teacher's desk. "Hi, everyone! I am Karma, Arima's…" She paused and tilted her head at Arima. "Wait, what do I say?"

Arima rubbed his eyes. "Who told you to introduce yourself like that?"

"No one," Karma bluntly answered.

"Then why are you doing it?"

"Because I thought I should. Otherwise, your students would not know me and wouldn't be able to concentrate on your lecture," She explained and Arima opened his mouth but closed it afterward. He frowned. He was irritated at the fact he couldn't refute that.

"Fine, fine, move." Arima pushed her and gave her a chair. "Her name is Karma, she's an old friend of mine. She will just attend. Quietly. So, don't pay attention to her." Arima emphasized the word 'quietly' while he shot a look at Karma.

Arister and Night snickered while Lanya laughed a bit. Even the students were a bit amused by the scene.

"Anyway…" Arima waved his hand and a paper appeared before every student. "That's your tests," He casually stated and all of them were shocked.

Even Ofia's eyes widened. The number of people who had taken this test numbered at least a thousand since there was a lot of people who were eager to challenge themselves and were allowed to try it and leave their paper. Now, everyone was wondering how Arima reviewed them so quickly.

"I noted what was wrong while correcting them. Revise that," Arima added and startled them even more. They possibly couldn't know that Arima had passed an entire month in another dimension so they were dumbfounded.

"Now that this is done, let's continue with the lessons. Today we're talking about non-elementals. There's no scientific explanation for most of them. It's just theories that I will teach you. Don't forget that theories are just theories. You can find some yourself, different from mine and it would still work… As long as it makes sense, of course."

Arima snapped his fingers and seven words appeared on the whiteboard behind him, which he had never used before. "There are seven non-elemental magics. You can also call them theoric magics. We have; Mind, Space, Soul, Neutral, Life, Death, and Time."

"Then let's do it in order this time. Therefore, the first one will be Mind magic," Arima declared and the word corresponding on the whiteboard was highlighted.

"This magic is usually the easiest one to grasp. But it can be very tricky and also has a lot of different uses. Mind makes reference to a being's thought process. One thing that derives from mind magic is spirit. To make it clear, there's no correlation with Spirit magic."

"When people talk about one's spirit, they make reference to the manifestation of the strength, density, and threat of an individual's mind. The greater the mind, the further he can spread his spirit. For example, when using telepathy, the range depends on how far your spirit can go before losing connection with your mind. Additionally, do remember that spirit is a sort of energy in itself and the mind is what generates it."

"Now, to explain in details what is the 'mind'. It's basically one's personality and memories. In a world of magic, your mind can also become a target. If someone ever gets in it, you're pretty much hopeless if you can't overpower the intruder. But to be able to enter one's mind, the victim needs to at least be weakened or, be considerably weaker than you. I have a magic for that. It allows me to convict my opponent and take his memories." Arima smirked, "Useful stuff."

His students could only smile wryly at such words. "Well, the other practical use of Mind magic is to probe and scan things. In combat, you're able to sense things clearer and better if you boost your mind. Of course, it is also used to create illusions. For that, you don't need to enter the enemy's head and you can simply invade the leaking spirit. It's more like putting a veil on one's eyes to alternate his vision of things."

"Lastly, to use Mind magic, you don't need to use it directly on the opponent's mind. As I said, you can spread it and probe the situation, but you can also create creatures made of spirit capable of inflicting damages on the mind. It's also common to control weaker creatures to assist you."

"There's also the limit-break technique that you can perform with Mind magic, but I already taught you that," Arima said and his students nodded with a smiling expression. Recalling that they had this kind of technique rejoiced them.

"Apart from all of that, there's still a lot of other uses for Mind magic. Such as controlling someone, hypnosis, erasing or creating memories, and many more."

"Now, there's a certain thing I have to teach you about this magic," Arima's tone abruptly turned serious. "To be honest with you, it's one of my trump cards," He revealed and the students exclaimed in surprise. Even his own companions were alarmed.

"That one? Are you sure it's okay to teach that?" Night frowned. Everyone heard him, it was also the first time the students had heard the small wolf cub speak during class.

"Yes," Arima responded confidently. "You all, mark my words. What I will impart you next is something that can be easily considered as a forbidden technique. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Everyone answered in unison.

Arima was satisfied with their reaction and nodded. "Everyone holds a dark side. You must be aware of that. Negative emotions can always get the better out of us. Anger, fear, sadness, hatred, folly, and cruelty. What if someone was invaded by these emotions all at once while discarding every other?"

"There's something I learned during my 134 years of life. Heartfelt emotions clean your blade but dull it, fiendish feelings sharpen your blade but damage it."

The students felt like they had heard something completely crazy in the middle of that sentence but couldn't react as Arima continued his speech.

"I'm sure you get where I'm going to with this. This is the ultimate choice you can make with Mind magic. Discard reason and sanity to acquire power. To gain the strength that you only can obtain by falling into madness. Using everything without any inhibition whatsoever. It's nothing compared to the limit-break. Once you use it, you can be sure that you won't last more than a few minutes."

"Every emotion you hold deep down, whether they are dark or bright, when you use this technique, they will get consumed as you're bound to destroy yourself and everything around you at the cost of your sanity." Arima paused and grinned. "Your magic and physical output will be boosted by at least 500%. You will lose fear, pain, and will heal at the cost of your life energy."

"There's an unpretentious name for that technique. 'Berserker Scriptor Semita', the 'Berserker's Path'."