Return of the last survivor

Merlin sealed up the traitors 'very securely' using some of his transcendent knowledge on the supposed [Archive]. The level of this thing, which exceeded the limitations of a skill was far too frightening for Merlin. This was not an active skill like [Berserk]. Instead, it was a passive skill which simply speaking gave him knowledge.

However, The amount of knowledge this skill contained was too much for a Tier 2 Merlin to handle.

In fact, even that in its master skill form [Magic Runes], Merlin could only understand all the knowledge within the skill when he reached Tier 4!

Something like [Archive] was simply too far ahead for Merlin. All he could do was use it as an active skill. Simply put, he used the skill as an instantaneous database, which he could find almost anything related to Magic Runes. He still didn't know what else it contained, but when he accessed the skill, he felt like his soul entered a deep and mysterious library, with the skill acting as the link. The earlier versions of [Magic Rune] and [Magic Language] Simply felt like utter chaos, and a slightly less chaotic mess respectively. On the other hand, [Archive] felt like an elegantly organised library from ancient times with an everlasting feeling of peace that came along with it.

Currently, he could only have access to a few shoddy books placed on the shelves closest to him. Even still, this small restricted access was vast enough to cause a normal human to faint. He could reach out and read any book of his choice without moving his body. In fact, while his soul was within the [Archive], his soul couldn't move an inch.

Most of these books contained similar knowledge as the incredible mess of [Magic Rune]. However, each rune had greater meaning and depth when he used it, allowing him to use it more specifically, and bring out better results by using less mana.

He also had a vague feeling that the [Magic Rune] was somehow related to a law. A law which he was beginning to tap into.

Once Merlin locked up the sealed traitors, who could no longer use any of their mana, and only absorb it, he moved onto other matters.

First and foremost, he spent a total of 2 hours to catch up on everything that actually happened over the course of time.

As it turned out, that audacious bunch actually tried to assassinate Alex and his parents while they were out training.

Although Merlin had wished to protect them the same way they had done for him in his previous life, he had still agreed to them training even during the 4 months before his black-out. This was because the only way to survive was to become stronger. This was the rule of nature, and nothing could change it.

While they were out hunting, 2 Tier 1s ambushed them. Thankfully, Sean and the others had been keeping a close eye on the movements of the New Faction using the surveillance of Phillip.

Sean and a few other Tier 1s had rushed over and instantly killed those traitors and justified this action with the abundant proof of catching them in the action of attempted murder.

However, James, the poor fellow who Merlin had brought along from Max's place to protect his family, and was at the time already a Tier 1 as well, lost an arm in the process.

Merlin decided to do something for this fellow who sacrificed his hand, and almost his life for other with something. For this, he sent his soul into the [Archive] while he was listening to the happenings after that.

After browsing through nearly 200 books, Merlin finally found something useful.

Returning back his soul, he continued to take in the events of the past 8 months as he instructed Phillip to bring in James.

While James was informed of his orders, Merlin was satisfied by all of his 8 trusted group leaders, and Jack reaching the pinnacle of Tier 1, while Alex and his family managed to somehow make it to Tier 1.

It should be known, that simply killing zombies would not allow one to increase in Tier. Once you reached the max level and were prepared to Tier up, you still have to wait for the system to notify you that you meet the qualifications to Tier up.

Until then, you will remain Tier 0. This rule applied until Tier 7, where beings began to understand law the laws. In order to evolve further, you had to conquer a threshold in the comprehension of a law.

Naturally, this would be even harder for Merlin, who was using the Elemental Law Set, which was far more complicated compared to Mage Law Sets.

With a few hours remaining before the mana burst to the next year, James arrived at the half empty conference hall. Although he had become a peak Tier 1 by now, he did not bother with the meeting since his main concern was Alex and his family.

Seeing the missing arm, Merlin felt a novel sense of pride. Not in the fact that his subordinate had lost an arm, but at the loyalty his subordinates showcased, even without him ordering them.

He reached out his hand and began to use the spell he learned from the 213rd book.

It was a spell which utilised his ability as an elementalist, as well as being a Tier 2 and having small control over the elemental laws inside his domain, to form runes that would rejuvenate the dormant ability of cells to grow.

Not simple growth by binary-division, but a complete copy and evolution of the cells to allow them to turn into anything.

Within just a few seconds, the stump of James' arm began to release an incredible amount of heat as all the mana in his body began to boil at a ferocious pace and rush towards and out the stump.

This mana did not leave the stump, and instead began to push out at it, forming a nauseating scene of squirming skin and bones along with flesh and muscle, growing out and forming together.

By the time almost all his mana had been forced out, a new hand had been formed in place of his stump.

This action of re-growing limbs stunned all those present. Healing magic worked by stimulating cells to work faster suing mana, and heal wounds. However, one needed to consume a lot of food to keep up with the increased metabolism in order to replenish the nutrients used to repair the damage.

However, this had limitation, like serious internal injuries that would not normally heal, and amputated limbs.

Naturally, if the right healer was present just as such injuries occurred, they could hold together the messed up internals with their own mana while spurring the patient's cells to repair the damage, or simply causing the cells at the point of severance of a cut off limb to reconnect the limb.

But Merlin had not done any of those. He had spurred the patients mana somehow to create a missing arm out of nowhere!

This was the spell that Merlin used and nearly depleted 1/10th his mana reserves, [Mana Spur].

It was a spell used to instigate the target's mana into performing a certain action. However, since James was already a peak Tier 1, it depleted this much of Merlin's mana, making such a spell extremely inefficient in the battlefield, or to go around healing the world like a saint.