Magus Reborn

Kai knew he was taking a huge risk by giving Veridia the opportunity to reach the sixth circle.

Despite the oath in place,he didn’t trust her completely. That much had not changed. She was too ambitious, too used to looking at the world through the lens of power, and too dangerous to be treated carelessly.

But when Kai truly thought about it, he had stopped seeing her as an enemy for a while now.

He knew she hadn’t suddenly become harmless, or he had forgotten what she was capable of—it was simply because there were too many other things that demanded his attention.

Compared to an end-bringing dragon, a Magus was much easier to deal with.

And honestly, even Kai knew she was not an idiot.

Veridia had enough sense to understand that making trouble while the world was moving toward destruction would be one of the worst decisions she could make. She valued power, but she was not suicidal. There was no point in climbing higher if there was no world left to stand on.

More than that, Kai needed allies.

That was the part he disliked the most, but it was also the truth. Other than Killian and Elias, he could not think of many people strong enough for him to trust with serious threats. Even then, neither of them was ready to face the higher members of the Maleficia alone.

Veridia wasn’t ready either.

But if she reached the sixth circle, that would change.

Offering her the method wasn’t charity. It was not trust either. It was Kai’s way of creating another powerful ally before the situation grew worse. He planned to do the same for Elias as well. With their experience, neither of them should take too long to advance once they had the right path in front of them.

If both Veridia and Elias became Sixth-Circle Mages, Kai would finally have people who could truly pull their weight against the Maleficia.

Still, despite the first flash of excitement and shock on Veridia’s face, Kai knew she would not agree blindly.

She recovered quickly as he expected.

Her expression smoothed out, and her eyes sharpened as she studied him. “I don’t think you only want my help with the corruption zones if you are offering something like that.”

Kai didn’t answer right away. She tilted her head slightly. “What else do you need from me?”

“I knew you would catch on,” Kai said.

Veridia’s gaze stayed on him.

“What I need from you is help even after the corruption zones are dealt with,” he continued.

Her expression cooled. “I am not one of your soldiers.”

“No,” Kai said. “You are not. But you are going to fight whether you like it or not, because what is coming will not only affect my kingdom. It will affect everyone. Unless you plan to jump back to the Earth Plane and hide there forever, this will reach you too.”

Veridia only stared at him, her eyes narrowing slightly as if she were trying to separate truth from manipulation. Kai let her look. There was no lie for her to find. If the prophecy came to be, there would be no hiding from it. Not in Lancephil. Not in Vanderfall. Not in some distant corner of the continent. Not even in whatever safe place she might try to build for herself in the future.

Dead mana would spread through everything.

It would seep into the land, the air, the water, and every living thing that depended on mana to survive. A world like that would not leave room for neutrality.

After a while, Veridia finally spoke. “I don’t know how you can trust a prophecy so much.”

Kai looked at her. “You know about it?”

“I know about it,” she said. “Regina always talked about it like it was a dream she wanted to see with her own eyes. But I never believed in it as much as she did.”

“Why?”

Veridia gave a small shrug. “Prophecies are always there. Every age has them. Every kingdom has some old warning carved into a stone, some mad oracle speaking of ruin, or some forgotten text claiming the world will end. That does not mean all of them come true.”

“What about the Maleficia?”

“A cult,” Veridia said.

“A cult?”

“I have seen more than my fair share,” she replied. “Dangerous ones. Fanatical ones. Ones that thought they could reshape the world because they had found some ancient truth no one else understood.”

Kai’s scowl deepened. “This cult killed the Elder Tree.”

“Then they are a dangerous cult. Probably the most dangerous one alive right now.” She paused, her voice turning quieter but no less certain. “But they are not the first organisation to try ruling the world in some twisted way, Arzan. And there is a reason half of them are creatures that thrive under dead mana. To them, this prophecy is not the end of the world. It is the beginning of theirs.”

“They also worship a dragon,” Kai said. “One they call the Endbringer.”

“You know very well that we do not have dragons in this world. If they existed before, they do not exist now. It is a myth. A figure they worship because cults like that always need something grand to kneel before.”

Kai looked at her and, for a moment, could not help feeling sorry for the ignorance she was trapped inside.

Veridia wasn’t stupid. That almost made it worse. She understood that the Maleficia were dangerous. She understood that dead mana was a threat. She had even seen enough of Regina to know the organisation was not harmless. But despite all of that, she was still underestimating them massively.

He realised there was no point holding anything back.

“I have seen it,” he said.

“Seen what?”

“The dragon,” Kai said. “I have seen it.”

For the first time, Veridia went completely still.

Kai continued before she could dismiss him. “I know you might think the Maleficia are just another cult, but they are not. The Elder Tree nearly dying should have been proof enough. But if you need more, then I will give it to you. Malefic is real, and it is going to come for this world far sooner than you think.”

Veridia looked shocked.

She tried to hide it, but Kai saw the change in her eyes. The disbelief was still there, but he could see the uncertainty creeping into it.

“It cannot be real,” she said.

Kai clicked his tongue. He didn’t want to argue in circles. So he walked closer until he stood directly in front of her, close enough that she had no choice but to meet his eyes.

“If it wasn’t real, I would never have offered you a way forward as a Mage,” he said. “The world is going to change in a terrible way, Veridia, and I know what that change will look like.”

Her expression tightened, but she didn’t interrupt.

“If you do not want to die a dog’s death, then agree to what I am offering,” he continued. “Help me now, and I will help you reach the sixth circle. Refuse, and you are free to stay here until the day that dragon fills the sky.”

Veridia stared at him as if he had said something outrageous. Maybe he had.

But Kai had already said everything he needed to say. Nothing else would convince her if this did not.

He could feel Veridia’s eyes on his back as he walked away, and they remained there until he turned the corner into the hallway. Only then did the weight of her stare disappear, leaving him alone with his own thoughts.

There was truly nothing more to say.

If a Mage could not be bothered to help when the world itself was in danger, especially when that danger would also destroy any chance they had of reaching the peak of mageship, then no argument would convince them. Power, survival, ambition, fear, all of it pointed in the same direction. If Veridia still refused after hearing the truth, that would be her choice.

But Kai doubted she would.

She was too ambitious to ignore the offer completely, and too intelligent to dismiss his warning without thinking about it.

As he walked through the castle, Kai’s expression grew heavier.

He knew in his bones that once Malefic woke, the world might take a turn far worse than the history he remembered. In that history, there had been no mention of a dragon. Not one Kai knew of, at least. The world’s deterioration had happened slowly, over decades and centuries, with dead mana spreading like a sickness that no one understood until it was too late.

But now, everything was changing faster. Because of him.

In a way, Kai had become both saviour and destroyer. His presence as a Fatebreaker had shifted the path of the world, and that shift might have urged Malefic to wake earlier than he should have. Instead of leaving everything in the hands of his servants, the dragon might now choose to move himself.

The thought made the burden on Kai’s shoulders feel heavier with every passing hour.

He took a deep breath. Worry wouldn’t help him—so wouldn’t fear. The only thing that had ever moved him forward was work, and right now, there was too much of it waiting to be done.

Kai went straight to his room.

He locked the door behind him and climbed onto the bed, but not to sleep. His body still needed rest, and he could feel the exhaustion sitting deep in his bones, but there were other ways to use time.

He closed his eyes and returned to his master’s room. The moment he found himself there, Kai moved.

He didn’t waste even a second.

The mana hands had already worked in the prototype stage, but he wasn’t satisfied with them yet. They were useful, yes. They could cast the imprinted spell and respond to his commands well enough in battle. But useful was not the same as complete.

And they were not enough for him to call them a true trump card.

Kai pulled the spell structure into focus and began working through it again. He studied the mana expense calculations first, tracing every point where the spell used more energy than it should. After that, he moved to the design of the mana veins, especially the incomplete pathways around the fingers that prevented him from casting freely through the hands.

That was the real weakness.

If the mana hands could only use one imprinted spell, they were a weapon. If he could cast through them properly, they would become an extension of himself.

Kai kept working, adjusting the structure piece by piece, knowing full well that he did not have all the time in the world. Soon, he would have to move again. Vanderfall was still waiting, and the problems there had to be dealt with once and for all.

Until then, every moment mattered.

***

After two more days, Kai was finally ready to move on to Vanderfall and stop Maleficia's plan before it could grow beyond its infancy.

Those two days had not been peaceful.

Whenever he wasn’t working on his spell, he was dealing with one problem or another. Reports came in constantly. Orders needed to be sent out. People needed answers. Even the short moments of silence he found did not feel like rest, because his mind kept moving back to everything that still had to be done.

At least not all the news was bleak.

The Enforcer and Mage parties sent into the corruption zones had started making their way back to Veralt. The drones had reached them with Kai’s orders, and most of the groups had withdrawn before suffering any worse losses. Some had already been retreating by the time the drones found them, their reports matching what Kai had feared.

Huge fiends had appeared in several zones.

Not always the same kind, but always something far beyond what ordinary parties were prepared to face. The corruption zones had changed, and if Kai had not called the missions off, more groups would have been wiped out.

The nobles dealing with zones near their own territories sent letters too.

Most reported the same problem. Larger fiends. Stronger weavers. Dead mana spreading in ways their Mages could not properly control. More than a few of them also asked for a meeting, just as Duchess Vaessa had suggested.

Kai didn’t reply to those letters yet.

He knew that would anger some of them, but he had no interest in wasting time on back and forth arguments. Most of the nobles would want the same thing in the end. They would want Kai to personally clear the corruption zones closest to their lands first, while pretending that their requests came from concern for the kingdom as a whole.

That was not how he worked. At the very least, they would get what they wanted soon enough since Veridia had agreed to help him.

Kai didn’t know exactly what changed her mind. After he left her room, she had called for her disciple, Loras, who was still in the city. The two of them held a private meeting in her room, one Kai was not invited to, and some time after that, a maid came to inform him that Veridia was ready to remain his ally for a little longer.

Kai’s response was simple. He made her take another mana oath.

Veridia was clearly annoyed by it, but this oath wasn’t complicated. It didn’t bind her to serve him. It didn’t force obedience or loyalty. It only covered the one thing Kai refused to risk.

She was not allowed to share his method of reaching the sixth circle with anyone, in any way.

Kai had always been against keeping magical methods to himself.

In his eyes, magic advanced when knowledge spread. The more Mages studied, experimented, failed, and improved upon one another’s work, the faster the entire world moved forward. Hoarding methods only slowed that progress, and in better times, Kai would have wanted something like this opened to every capable Mage.

But these were not better times.

The world was moving toward disaster, and Kai had no intention of letting Veridia share the method with anyone she pleased. A path to the sixth circle was too valuable, too dangerous, and too easy to misuse in the wrong hands. Veridia had probably expected that as well, because after some back and forth, she agreed to the oath.

Once it was done, Kai gave her the soul spell he had used.

Along with it, he handed over his notes. They covered the structure, the risks, the places where the spell could collapse, and the conditions needed to keep the success rate at around ninety percent. They were no longer in the Earth Plane, so Veridia could not use the same environment he had, but that did not make advancement impossible. This world still had places with high mana density, and Kai was sure she would know more than a few.

She did.

But even Veridia could not fully hide her surprise when she saw the spell and the calculations behind it. Her eyes moved over the notes with growing disbelief, and at one point, she discreetly asked him again how he had found something like this.

Kai didn’t need to answer that.

Their deal was already done.

Veridia on the other hand, clearly was not pleased with his silence, but she didn’t push. Perhaps she understood that the method itself was already more than enough. Not long after, she left the city to find a suitable place and attempt her advancement to the sixth circle.

Once she succeeded, she would return.

And after that, they would purge the corruption zones.

While Veridia moved toward her own task, Kai finally made his way toward Vanderfall. It was time to deal with the problem sitting beside his kingdom and end it once and for all.

Honestly, he did not expect Vanderfall to be as difficult as the Ashari Desert or the plague.

The princes were not true threats by themselves. They had ambition, titles, and whatever armies they could still command, but none of them had enough personal power to make Kai worry. The only real concern was the fact that one of them had the support of Maleficia.

Even then, Kai didn’t expect to find someone on Dravros’s level waiting for him.

At least, he hoped he would not.

Because to the Maleficia, taking over Vanderfall seemed more like a secondary objective than the true goal.

Kai doubted they cared much about the kingdom itself. Vanderfall was useful because of where it was and what it could become. If the Maleficia could turn it against Lancephil while the plague was still spreading, then Kai’s kingdom would be trapped between two threats at once. One enemy eating away from within, and another pressing from the border.

It was a strategy meant to stretch his forces thin. Elias’s letters had only made that clearer.

Since returning to Vanderfall, the old Magus had already survived three assassination attempts. The first had been simple poison, hidden in his food. Crude, but dangerous enough that it had almost worked. The second had been stranger. His entire room had collapsed around him, the floor giving way as if the structure had suddenly decided to kill him.

The third was the most disturbing.

Someone had released small ants into his bed.

Elias had called them marrow ants. According to him, they were supposed to be extinct, and for good reason. They were tiny enough to go unnoticed, but once they entered the body, they fed on organs from the inside. A person could carry them without even realising it until the damage had already begun.

Elias had only found one because he had been extremely vigilant. That alone said enough.

The worst part was that no one knew who was behind the attempts.

Not even Elias had managed to find the culprit. The cook responsible for his meals had been questioned and tortured by the prince’s people, but he knew nothing. The guards outside Elias’s room had died when the floor collapsed, so they could not be questioned.

As for the ants, no one had entered the room to place them there. At least, no one anyone had seen.

That made Kai curious.

What kind of enemy was he dealing with?

It could have been a Mage skilled in teleportation, but Kai doubted that. To perform such precise work without leaving a trace would require someone at least near the peak of the sixth circle, and he did not think Maleficia would send someone like Victor for this kind of side plan.

Which meant it was probably another race or creature.

Something with an ability that made ordinary security meaningless.

Kai found himself wanting to uncover it, but that would have to wait. Before anything else, there was another problem he needed to handle.

One of the princes had refused to be part of the peace meeting he was going to hold, and now he’d have to go convince him.

***

A/N - You can read 30 chapters (15 Magus Reborn and 15 Dao of money) on my patreon. Annual subscription is now on too.

Read 15 chapters ahead HERE.

Join the discord server HERE.

PS:

Book 5 is officially launched!If you’re on Kindle Unlimited, you can read it for free—and even if you’re not buying, a quick rating helps more than you think. Also, it's free to rate and please download the book if you have Kindle unlimited. It helps with algorithm.

CLICK HERE!

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!