Reborn With a Magic System

"Dimittis!"

As soon as Damion cried out the training bracelets on his wrists and ankles clicked open if not for his gauntlets and shin guards holding them in place, they would have dropped to the ground. Without the bracelets constantly draining his mana and adding weight to his limbs Damion felt like a new man.

Before either of Damon's opponents could realize what just happened, Damion went on the offensive. The release of the weights allowed Damion to swing his sword as if it weighed nothing letting Damion catch his target off guard. The man's sword was easily knocked to the side.

Damion took a step forward and slashed with his sword while channeling mana into the fire attack glyph. As the sword slashed across the man's chest, Damion's sword became coated in flame. The extra magic power behind Damion's attack cut through the man's defensive enchantments on his armor and sent him sprawling to the ground with a crack in his armor.

If not for still having one opponent, Damion would have closed in and finished off the he man had knocked to the ground. Unfortunately, the second man stepped in and blocked Damion from pursuing him.

The second man understood that somehow, Damion had increased his speed and power. This forced him to change from trying to outlast Damion, to going all out. Damion and the man exchanged a couple of sword strikes, but neither gained any advantage over the other.

As Damion was preparing to launch another fire slash, to hopefully land a blow on his opponent, Damion saw a glint of steel flash through the air before feeling a stabbing pain in his hip. The man Damion had knocked down had thrown a knife and caught Damion in his side.

Now that he was injured, Damion knew he needed to finish this as quickly as possible. With a quick stab that only hit air, Damion managed to force the second man back a step and Damion took a small leap backwards while sending a fire slash at the dagger thrower who was struggling to his feet. The fire slash caught the poor soul in the face sending him back to the ground the life quickly being burned out of him.

This left Damion with just one enemy. The last man knew he was not a one-on-one match for Damion and he needed to finish the fight. Since they had a good space between them still, the last man decided to try and land a hit like his last companion had. The man threw a dagger at Damion, but since Damion was paying attention, he was able to easily deflect the man's dagger.

"Why don't you surrender," Damion said to the man.

"Why? So, I can go to prison? No thanks."

"Then just tell me why the Falks Guild wants to kill me?" Damion asked.

"Because we needed the money."

"Money? You want to kill me for a few hundred gold worth of artifacts?"

"Your artifacts might be nice, but the bounty offered for your head is what makes killing you worth it."

"Bounty?" Damion was confused now. Who would place a bounty on him? Sure, he had caused trouble for the Falks Guild, but not for anyone else. Was there really a mystery man behind the Falks Guild offering a bounty on him? Was the Falks Guild a patsy for someone else who wanted him dead?

"10,000 gold," the man told Damion. "That amount would help get our guild back on its feet."

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"Who…"

"Who set the bounty? No idea. Let's finish this."

The man did not give Damion the chance to respond. Launching himself towards Damion he ended any chance of Damion learning more about who wanted him dead. The two exchanged a flurry of blows, and even though Damion was injured he quickly gained the upper hand. With a quick series of slashes, Damion knocked the man's sword from his grasp and then sliced the man across the neck. When Damion's sword slashed across the man's neck the man's eyes went wide in disbelief and regret. Never did he believe an E Rank kid would be able to match him in a fight.

With all his enemies defeated, Damion fell to his knees, holding his bleeding hip. The knife had penetrated deep, but luckily, did not hit anything vital. Damion retrieved a healing salve from his first aid kit and applied it to his wound. The salve burned a bit as he applied it, but the wound closed, leaving only a fresh line of pink skin.

After Damion's wound was taken care of, he channeled mana into his belt and all the sweat, dirt and blood was pushed off his body, clothing and armor. Healed and feeling invigorated from being clean, Damion set about cleaning up the area around his ground car.

After searching each of the bodies for valuables, Damion piled them onto the campfire they had made. The group did not have much, just low-grade armor and weapon artifacts and a few ration packs. This time, the Falks Guild members had not worn their guild armor or kept anything on them that could trace back to their guild. Either they were learning, or they were instructed on how to prepare for this assassination attempt.

As Damion watched the bodies burn, he decided to help the matter along with his fire attack glyph. Damion channeled his mana and sent a pillar of fire attack into the pile of corpses in the campfire. Pouring his mana, frustration and anger into the attack, the fire pillar quickly became the largest Damion had ever produced. Even with the power of Damion's attack, it still took a few minutes for the corpses to be completely consumed by the fire. Once the corpses were consumed and Damion ceased channeling mana into his fire pillar, he realized that keeping his attack going so long had depleted his mana by quite a bit. Combined with the physical exertion and stress of a life and death battle, Damion had never before been this tired.

Now that the bodies were taken care of Damion loaded up the few spoils he acquired into his ground car and put the fire out. Not wanting to stick around where he fought, Damion drove his ground car along the edge of the Benault Forest for about fifteen minutes. He wanted to set up his camp somewhere without the stink of burnt flesh.

In the morning Damion got up and after eating a ration pack for breakfast, he headed back into the Benault Forest. He was only at nine of the twenty-five Aerico he needed to kill and he hoped he would find at least six more at E Rank so he could complete his quests and increase the level of the Magic System.

Just like the day before, Damion wandered through the forest in search of Aerico. And just like yesterday, Damion was not having a lot of luck finding them. When it was nearing midday Damion finally found a group of Aerico and it was far more than he had anticipated.

Having searched extensively above ground, Damion started to think that it was perhaps possible that the Aerico preferred the underground. After doing another search, Damion found a cave near where he had encountered his first group of Aerico. The mouth of the cave was large enough for Damion to easily venture in and after using his fire attack glyph to turn his sword into a torch to see by, Damion found quite the surprise waiting for him.

The cave wound down into a large pit that was filled with Aerico. Damion was not sure where they were coming from, but he suspected there was more to the Aerico appearing here than met the eye. There had to be another passage, blocked from view, but this place was the source of the Aerico, without a doubt. Right now, most of the creatures were just packed in, but Damion could see in some places where it appeared they had managed to climb out of the pit, which would explain how they appeared sporadically in the forest.

After a rough count, Damion estimated there were at least fifty Aerico in the pit. With this many Aerico, Damion knew he would have no problem finishing his quest or his mission. The issue was, getting down into the pit and back out to collect the right ears of the Aerico he killed. If Damion went back to his ground car, he could bring back rope, but he was afraid that he would not be able to easily find this way back to the cave.

'First things first,' Damion thought as he pointed his sword towards the pit filled with Aerico and unleashed his fire pillar attack.