Nova sat outside the arena and, as he waited for Letto to come out, he stared at the gradually darkening sky in thought. 'Although this is getting more and more interesting, with the empire's knights being so strong they're banned from ever competing in these arenas, it also means I won't be able to clear this portal as easily as I previously thought.' He shook his head. 'Maybe I'm overthinking this. I only used half my strength in most of the matches, and Cynthia might have made the wrong assessment about me. And now that my Aura advanced to the third stage I'm far stronger than during those matches.'

A mutter escaped his lips. "When will I be able to go back home?"

Letto, who had just come out of the arena and now stood right in front of him, heard those words and thought, Home? Does he want to go back to Myra that much?

Nova tilted his head downward and saw Letto silently standing there. With a light smile, he said, "What are you thinking about? I hope it's about your fights, because if you haven't won five by now, I'll personally increase your pain tolerance."

As if someone had stepped on his tail, Letto's head shot up to look at Nova. "Sir! I've already won five matches today. Please, there's no need for you to waste your precious time on me. Just a few tips are enough!"

Nova chuckled and turned around, heading toward the inn as Letto tentatively followed, as if marching toward his own demise. The ex-bandit's head was full of worries.

Contrary to his fears, when they reached the inn Nova explained to Letto that he wouldn't participate in the arena matches for the next few days and would instead train in his room.

"…So take care of yourself. I'll see you in, at most, three days," Nova said. He patted Letto on the shoulder before entering his room.

Three days. I'll try to learn Aura in three days, Letto thought, determination settling in as he stared at the door closing before entering the room opposite Nova's.

Inside his room, Nova wasted no time. He sat on the ground, thinking, as wind swirled faintly around him. 'What I know how to do now is simple magic, boosting my speed with wind, creating wind blades, and making a small shield that can trap or slow down attacks, but that's about it. They aren't refined moves, and I feel like I'm wasting so much of my wind core's potential.'

'The mages I've seen in the arena, even the ones at rank seven, should have had less or equal firepower compared to me, thanks to the strength of my wind core. But if not for my ability to snuff out their magic with my Will, I might have been in serious trouble. Melissa could have killed me, too, if her wind blade had slashed my neck instead of my arm. What do they all have in common?'

In his mind, replays of his various fights with the arena's mages flashed like a sped-up movie. Most of his focus was on Melissa's spells, especially the Hexawind Seal, which he couldn't replicate at all, even with his superior control, and the Skyrend Blade, which he could only mimic with a simple wind blade holding perhaps a tenth of its power, if that.

'If I were to learn either of the two, I might be able to become one of the strongest among rank-eight mages,' he thought. 'I can't be hasty, focus on what those mages had in common.'

His mind soon zeroed in on every mage's actions. He noticed how they all wore robes, marking them as mages. Then he realized each of them had some sort of catalyst, either a book, a staff, or something else they waved around before shouting the name of their spell.

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'Wearing robes shouldn't make a difference. They're probably just doing it to stand out and look down on knights. The catalyst, though, might be important. As for shouting the name of their spells… are they really trying to let the enemy know how to counter them?' Nova thought, a wry smile tugging at his lips. 'I'll give the catalyst a try, I have picked up plenty of them from the fights anyway.'

He stood up and opened his Inventory, pulling out a refined wooden mage's staff with a crystal etched into its tip. Waving it in the air like a stick, he muttered to himself, "The next step should be to infuse it with my Mana."

His eyes narrowed as his wind core spewed out large amounts of Mana that coursed through his body and into the staff. A creaking sound rang out in the air. Being his first time, Nova didn't think anything was wrong and kept pouring wind Mana inside. The staff trembled violently, splinters of wood shooting out, and moments later the entire thing exploded with a sharp bang, leaving nothing in his hands.

Stunned, he heard a thud and turned his head toward the sound. There, on the floor, lay the crystal that had been set into the staff, now broken cleanly in half.

'What?' he thought in disbelief. 'Was it a fake staff?' He couldn't understand what had gone wrong. He had simply poured his wind Mana into it, intending to cast a spell through the staff, yet it had exploded before he could even complete a single cast.

'No, it couldn't have been fake. I saw a rank-six mage weaving spells with this very staff, and it worked perfectly fine. Maybe it was damaged during the fight and couldn't handle more stress.'

Nova tried to reason with himself before fishing out another staff and attempting again, only for it to explode with another bang.

By now a commotion had broken out in the inn. Two explosions in such a short span of time had rattled the building, and people rushed out of their rooms in alarm, trying to figure out what had happened.

Letto, whose room was directly across from Nova's, had already rushed out after hearing the first bang, his eyes narrowed in vigilance as he saw many others do the same. When the second explosion rang out, his gaze snapped toward Nova's door. What is he doing now? he wondered.

But just as he managed to pinpoint the source of the sound, others in the inn were closing in on it as well, their eyes turning toward Nova's room. Not knowing whether Nova was doing it on purpose or not, Letto gritted his teeth and knocked on the door. It opened shortly after, revealing an annoyed Nova.

"What now?"

Letto furtively glanced around before whispering, "Sir, you're drawing too much attention with those explosions. If they continue, I'm afraid they might call the guards to investigate."

Listening to Letto's words, Nova looked past him and noticed the suspicious glances being thrown in his direction. With a brief nod, he replied, "Alright," and shut the door.

Left standing in the hall, Letto could only sigh before retreating back to his room.

Meanwhile, as soon as Nova re-entered his own room, he tapped his foot on the ground. An array several meters wide etched itself into the floor.

"With this Sound Isolation Array, there won't be any more problems," he muttered, before pulling out staff after staff. One by one they exploded, littering the room with shards of wood, bits of metal and broken crystals.

As time went on, the number of catalysts he had in his inventory quickly dwindled to one.

"This is the only staff I have from a rank 7 mage. Should I try?" he muttered to himself, struggling to make a decision as he stared at what was the most expensive and refined staff he owned. By now, Nova had destroyed dozens of them, and the fact that he didn't know whether this one would explode made him slowly give up on the idea.

With a slight shake of his head, he said, "I need to keep at least one staff intact for whenever I learn how to use them. If I hastily try it and it ends up in pieces, I'll need to find another high-ranked mage to steal a catalyst from, and from what I've seen, they're rare. Perhaps only at one of the mage academies I'll be able to find plenty…"

Nova stored the staff back in his inventory and stared at the wall for several minutes before finally seeming to come to a decision. He closed his eyes, and wind immediately kicked up in the room.

He whispered, "Since I can't use catalysts, I'll perfect my control over the wind core. Maybe I'll be able to recreate spells just by using my will."

With a frown, the wind around him grew stronger and stronger, but with effort, he kept it from destroying the room. When he felt it was about half the total might he could unleash, he began to slowly control it.

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