The birdsong in the woods sounded like the cries of an infant, as if a new life were being born here.
Once the Final Entrustment ritual was complete, a Superstring Mage received the soul power of the deceased.
The Calamity Bell had rung a full ten times, each peal trailing a long, golden resonance.
That meant Leo's soul power had increased by 10 points. Together with the 1 point he had gained when his Cipher Soul String was born, Leo now had 11 points of soul power.
Those 11 points had taken Leo straight from an E-grade mage to a D-grade mage.
According to what Leo had learned in class, the path of a mage was divided into six grades: E, D, C, B, A, and S. Each grade was further divided into nine tiers.
A mage's grade corresponded to the strength of their spells. The higher the grade, the greater the power of their magic.
Tier, meanwhile, reflected the number of times a mage could cast spells. A ninth-tier mage, for example, could cast up to ninety spells after each period of sleep.
...
E-grade mages had between 1 and 9 points of soul power.
A newly awakened mage possessed only 1 point and was an E-grade, first-tier mage. An E-grade, first-tier mage could cast E-grade spells ten times after each period of sleep.
Through continual training, their soul power could slowly grow to a maximum of 9 points, taking them from the first tier to the ninth. They could then cast E-grade spells ninety times after each period of sleep.
The ninth tier was the limit of what effort could achieve. No amount of arduous training could take a mage across the boundary between grades.
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D-grade mages had between 10 and 99 points of soul power.
One fortunate Final Entrustment ritual could grant a mage 10 points of soul power, taking an E-grade mage directly into D grade.
D-grade mages were the most numerous. More than ninety percent of mages remained D grade their entire lives.
This grade was likewise divided into ten tiers.
Once a D-grade, ninth-tier mage reached the maximum of 99 points of soul power, they needed another Final Entrustment ritual to advance to the next grade.
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C-grade mages had between 100 and 999 points of soul power.
Mages at this grade were already tremendously powerful and could attain at least the rank of major in the Unicorn Legion.
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B-grade mages had between 1,000 and 9,999 points of soul power.
Count Leopold Cavendish of Blackport County was the only B-grade mage in the county.
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A-grade mages had between 10,000 and 99,999 points of soul power.
There were only two A-grade mages in the entire Kingdom of Manchel: King Manchel III and Duke Blois Cavendish.
The elderly Duke Blois Cavendish was the Kingdom of Manchel's founding grand duke. At eighty-five years old, he was also the kingdom's supreme marshal.
The Kingdom of Manchel contained fifteen counties in total. Duke Blois held six of them as his fief, most of which lay on the Narnia Peninsula. For that reason, he was also known as the Duke of the Peninsula.
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There was only one legendary S-grade mage in the entire world: holy Archmage Hilquins of the Academy, whose soul power had reached the terrifying height of over 100,000 points.
...
The agitation of Leo's soul power gradually subsided, finally settling at 11 points. He had officially become a D-grade, first-tier Cipher Mage.
Leo slowly exhaled and calmed himself. The mess strewn around him still needed to be dealt with.
But it was not over!
The Calamity Bell's distinctive golden resonance rang out once more!
Death tolled the evening bell that brought calamity. The bell rang ten times. The soul of a dead mage was a ravenous feast!
Leo was caught completely off guard.
What was happening?
He looked down at Kozmo's body, which swayed gently with the current, and considered the possibilities. Was this a special ability of the Calamity Bell?
Leo had killed Kozmo, so the Calamity Bell had rung again?
As the bell's long echoes trailed away, Leo's soul power rose to 21 points!
Conflicting emotions sent his breathing racing. Even the muscles in his throat were trembling.
The instructors at the military academy had never said that killing someone could increase a mage's soul power.
This was the Calamity Bell's special ability. It could absorb soul power from death!
It was an ability only a demon should possess...
A cold wind swept past, and his body temperature seemed to plunge several degrees.
He felt no joy whatsoever at becoming a second-tier mage this way.
When he looked up, it seemed as though pairs of tormented faces were hiding in the shadows of the bushes throughout the dark forest, watching him.
Leo remembered the densely packed faces on the spire in his Soul Sea, each howling in agony.
At that moment, those faces no longer seemed like sculptures. They seemed like real people, tormented and dead. Shadowy darkness stirred deep within their bottomless mouths, just like the shadows in the distant bushes, writhing and grimacing...
Perhaps Kozmo's face had already become one of the sculptures on the spire. Did he now have a bottomless mouth as well?
Leo expelled a long breath of warm air through his nostrils, drawing the slightest bit of courage from it.
He had still been wavering over whether to use the Intimidation Scroll on Kozmo. Now he abandoned the idea completely.
With 21 points of soul power, he was already a D-grade, second-tier Cipher Mage. That was enough. He could not let it rise any further.
The holy Archmage Hilquins had said that souls were another kind of tool and that people had to learn to master them rather than become their slaves.
According to the mage instructors, fallen mages pursued the ultimate applications of the soul, which made them highly prone to paranoia, irritability, mental derangement, and even the loss of their personalities.
Leo did not want to go charging headlong down the path of a demon...
Just as he was congratulating himself for not using the Intimidation Scroll, the Calamity Bell's final note refused to fade!
A fluctuation emanated from the Intimidation Scroll!
It was so bitterly cold that Leo's entire jaw began chattering beyond his control.
A ghastly green light shone from one end of the Intimidation Scroll.
With some effort, he opened the scroll and glanced down. The special ink covering it glowed green.
He had no idea how to use an Intimidation Scroll. Why had it activated on its own?
Was the Calamity Bell exerting its power again?
The dead Kozmo's body began to convulse. Like a decapitated octopus that continued to thrash, Kozmo's corpse seemed to be resisting something.
The Calamity Bell's peals pierced straight through the fragile firmament of Kozmo's Soul Sea and stirred his two utterly lifeless Soul Strings, one thick and one thin.
Carried by the sound of the Calamity Bell, Leo's sight entered Kozmo's Soul Sea.
Here, Leo confirmed that he was different. Kozmo's Soul Sea contained neither spire nor bell.
Kozmo's two Soul Strings had already lost all vitality, but the Calamity Bell's peals forced them into a discordant dance.
The firmament of Kozmo's Soul Sea had frozen on the last thing he had strained to see as he flung back his head: dreamlike rays of light scattered through the river water. The mottled rings of light seemed to have been Kozmo's last hope before death.
The yellow fog of sound had become solid, filthy, dull-yellow cotton, without the slightest movement.
In this apocalyptic world, the Calamity Bell's golden resonance rang without restraint.
Kozmo's slender Soul String, the one representing Haste Magic, twisted and trembled in the bell's peals as though in fear.
Then the sound of the Calamity Bell completely shattered Kozmo's Soul Sea. The peals possessed some inexplicable, tremendous power that tore away Kozmo's Soul String.
After Kozmo's black Soul String entered Leo's Soul Sea, it dissolved into pitch-black clouds that drifted throughout it.
Leo's Soul Sea became oppressively heavy. Kozmo's soul power could not be absorbed by Leo.
The pitch-black clouds shrouded Leo's Soul Sea, leaving his head heavy and dazed.
At the same time, understanding dawned in his mind:
Destroy whatever or whoever Kozmo Enwei cherished. Use bloodshed to force Kozmo's soul into submission, and thereby obtain his soul power!
Those were the conditions for completing the Intimidation ritual!
No wonder fallen mages were hunted by everyone on the Audrian Continent. Their principles were simply too cruel.
His hands clenched unconsciously, crumpling and warping the parchment scroll, which had already gone blank. It took Leo a long time to calm himself.
Now that the Intimidation Scroll had been used, pitch-black clouds drifted through Leo's Soul Sea, weighing down his mood and filling him with an impulse to destroy everything.
He took three long breaths, relaxed the muscles in his palms, and struggled to suppress that unnatural urge.
When he lowered his head to look at the Intimidation Scroll responsible for all this, he saw several deep fingernail marks in the parchment's distinctive leathery surface.
He clearly had no desire to become a fallen mage, yet the combination of the Calamity Bell and the Intimidation Scroll was terrifyingly violent.
From now on, he had to keep his distance from Soul Mages. They could inspect other people's souls, and if he was ever discovered, he would be bound to a stake and burned alive.
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