Haloy felt something.

  A portion of his power had just returned to him.

  His eyes widened slightly.

  An Archon had died.

  He straightened up, frowning.

  It must be connected to the alarm.

  He didn't know exactly what was happening. He needed to check.

  But for now...

  He was busy.

  Haloy was currently in the toilet.

  It had been several hours already.

  He felt like he was dying.

  "Nngh…" he groaned, gripping the wooden armrests. "Ghh… aaah…"

  He bitterly regretted having deliberately held it in for two entire weeks.

  Now, he was paying the price.

  If he pushed a little harder, it would surely come out. But it would wreak havoc on its way.

  He wasn't mentally prepared to endure such torture.

  Haloy stared at a point in space, trying to distract himself from his suffering.

  The power he had regained was not insignificant.

  There were several ways to awaken to mana.

  Naturally, it was really rare. One in ten thousand.

  Consuming mana crystals ground into powder was one of the most popular methods. It forced the body to awaken and allowed the individual to develop their own mana.

  Another method involved a mana user regularly and gently projecting their mana into the body of a person who didn't have any to make them awaken. Afterwards, they would withdraw their own mana so the other could develop theirs.

  It was a long process. Months. Sometimes years.

  Haloy smiled despite the pain.

  He had been an adventurer for years.

  He had learned something interesting by chance.

  By injecting his own mana into the body of a non-mana user... it remained his own mana.

  If the user wasn't informed, they thought it was their own mana. But that was false.

  If the user trained "their" mana, in reality, they were training the original user's mana.

  That's what Haloy had used on Lapithathon.

  Every time the villagers used their power, they strengthened his.

  It was an excellent way to get stronger without having to do anything.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The adventurer's guild strictly forbade this method.

  If they learned what Haloy had done to Lapithathon, he'd be in deep trouble.

  But Haloy had taken precautions.

  Lapithathon was a backwater. Isolated. Forgotten.

  Little chance his deeds would be discovered.

  After years here, his power had increased considerably.

  So many people training his power brought significant benefits.

  Haloy had medium-length black hair. A short beard. He looked to be in his forties.

  The power with which he had impressed the villagers was called Absolute Spectrum.

  He himself had created and developed it.

  It was based on a principle of nine colors.

  Each color, different magics.

  White: Light.

  Yellow: Accelerates movement and perception.

  Red: Reinforces physical strength and endurance. Can manipulate blood outside the body.

  Purple: Illusion, hallucinations.

  Pink: Amplifies emotions.

  Green: Plants.

  Blue: Water.

  Orange: Heat, explosion, fire.

  Brown: Earth.

  Normally, developing so many magics meant being bad at everything.

  It was better to specialize to reach the full potential of one magic.

  But because the villagers trained Haloy's magic in his place, each magic of the Absolute Spectrum was properly developed.

  Haloy chuckled.

  He had found the ultimate trick.

  Then he groaned in pain.

  "HNGH!"

  He was suffering too much.

  A servant outside the toilet heard the cries.

  "Master Haloy!" he shouted through the door. "Are you alright?!"

  "It's..." Haloy gritted his teeth. "My war wounds from fighting demons are resurfacing. It's nothing serious."

  He grabbed onto something to support himself in his pain.

  ---

  Hiro was looking at a statue of Haloy.

  So this is him.

  The statue was striking a pose like never before. Dramatic. Heroic. Completely ridiculous.

  He had noticed many.

  Each statue, Haloy in a different pose, in a different situation.

  Haloy fighting a dragon. Haloy saving a child. Haloy pointing to the sky.

  Also, there was this large building in the village.

  A temple.

  That had to be where Haloy was.

  "At least, we won't spend ten years looking for him," said Cassian.

  They ran towards the temple, avoiding the main battle sites and the panicked villagers.

  ---

  The adventurer was currently in the thick of fighting against the guards.

  An Archon arrived at the scene of the battle.

  He wore a white robe. His eyes shone with a green light.

  "Why can't you defeat this demon?!" he yelled.

  The adventurer, in the middle of an exchange of blows, parried an enemy blade with deadly precision, now certain that this village was not what it seemed.

  No ordinary hamlet had such security; it was definitely a criminal organization.

  "This demon is strong," said an Archon with yellow eyes. "He managed to defeat one of us."

  "We must unite to eliminate him," said the one with green eyes. "This is the greatest trial Lapithathon has ever endured to date."

  The eight remaining Archons formed a circular formation, each representing a color of the Absolute Spectrum, their eyes glowing with their assigned hues.

  "Green, Relentless Growth!" Dozens of thick roots burst from the cracked ground and the walls of adjacent buildings, writhing like hungry snakes, their sharp tips whipping the air towards the adventurer.

  "Orange, Furnace Breath!" A wide jet of flames roared from another Archon, flooding the narrow street and turning the air into a stifling furnace, the cobblestones glowing under the heat.

  "Brown, Fists of the Buried World!" Massive pillars of stone and earth surged from all sides, cracking the foundations of houses and sending shards of rock into the air.

  The adventurer moved fluidly, dodging the roots wrapping around his ankles with an agile leap, slicing through the flames with a wave of lava erupting from his sword, and countering the pillars by exploding them into fiery dust.

  The fight transformed the environment into a whirlwind of destruction: a neighboring house collapsed under the impact of an errant pillar, its wooden walls cracking like broken glass, releasing a cloud of dust that obscured the view.

  The adventurer charged through this veil, slicing a guard who emerged from the shadows, then used a cracked wall for support, which gave slightly under his weight, sending stone fragments flying.

  He bounced with grace, decapitating an Archon with a fluid arc of his blade, blood spraying onto the heated cobblestones.

  A guard hid behind a rickety door of an abandoned shop; the adventurer pierced through the door, the thin wall behind it, and the man in one precise strike, the blade emerging with a wet sound.

  Striking an adjacent side wall, he triggered an explosion that sent debris flying, disappearing into the dust to re-emerge on the other side, an Archon's throat cleanly slit, the body collapsing into an adjacent alley now littered with rubble.

  He parried an attack from a raised balcony, clinging to a guard's back for a full spin, his blade opening the spine along its length while the ground beneath them softened into a nascent pool of lava.

  Jumping onto the unstable balcony, he ripped off the rusty railing and threw it down at two guards below, then dove in a pike position, blade downwards, impaling a third vertically into the ground which cracked under the impact.

  Throwing his sword into the shoulder of a fleeing enemy, he sprinted, passed behind him, retrieved the weapon by pulling it out in a move that slit another's throat, turning the street into a carpet of bodies and blood.

  Two Archons attacked simultaneously; he pivoted, blade horizontal, and two heads fell in opposite directions, rolling on the uneven cobblestones.

  Sprinting between two guards, he left them unharmed for a moment before their torsos slid, revealing invisible cuts.

  A wall exploded horizontally into lava, forcing a guard to dodge in the wrong direction, straight onto the blade.

  Another pressed himself against a wall to hide; the wall turned bright red, making him panic and turn around, the blade piercing him through the mouth.

  ---

  Hiro, Lena, Lucia, and Cassian were now in the temple.

  They were hurrying.

  They had defeated the security at the entrance.

  They searched everywhere, but seeing it would take too long, they asked someone where Haloy was.

  The person said nothing.

  But their gaze betrayed them.

  The group headed towards the part of the temple where Haloy lived.

  They searched everywhere.

  No one.

  "Where could he be?" asked Lucia.

  "We also have to save the villagers from the adventurer," said Lena. "We mustn't forget."

  ---

  The adventurer was about to kill an Archon.

  Suddenly, he felt an imminent threat.

  He dodged hastily.

  At the spot where he had been earlier, stood Haloy.

  He wore a white robe with golden engravings.

  Haloy looked around.

  The bodies. The destroyed buildings. The chaos.

  "Did you do this?" he asked calmly.

  Internally, he was not thrilled to see an adventurer.

  It meant the guild was interested in Lapithathon.

  He couldn't let this adventurer leave.

  "DEMON!" shouted Haloy, pointing at the adventurer.

  The guards and Archons around cheered.

  "HALOY IS HERE!"

  "THE DEMON IS DEAD!"

  "NOW THAT HALOY IS HERE, HE DOESN'T STAND A CHANCE!"

  The adventurer simply observed Haloy in silence.

  He was assessing.

  Haloy, internally, needed to shit.

  He hadn't been able to finish.

  He was more focused on clenching his buttocks than anything else.

  But he couldn't show it.

  He had to remain dignified.