SSS Awakening: I am the First Legendary Mage

A faint smile appeared on Alex’s face as he read the notifications. The Mana Bullet spell had jumped two whole levels after a single successful use, and more importantly, the experiment had proven his theory correct.

Without relying on Fire Mana or Kinetic Mana, he could now launch projectiles using nothing but mana itself, finally understanding the principle behind the Titan Reef Crab Leader’s ranged attacks. This method used less concentration that using an elastic mana thread as a slingshot.

The upgrade of Elastic Thread Spell was also welcome. It would make his bullets stronger, and increase the range of his mana sense spell.

After dismissing the notifications, Alex crouched beside the corpse and picked up its Gene Potential before placing the crystal into his backpack. Rae watched him for a second before opening her mouth.

"Give it to me," she said, making it obvious she was referring to the Gene Potential.

"No. You’ve already absorbed too many Low-Rank Gene Potentials. Right now, you should focus on leveling up if you want more stats," Alex said.

Rae frowned, clearly unhappy with the answer. She looked down at her motionless legs before letting out a quiet sigh. Alex noticed her gaze.

"Absorbing another Low-Rank Gene Potential might become a problem in the long run. But don’t worry. I’ll make sure you level up quickly, and you have enough stats for your need," Alex replied calmly.

Rae clicked her tongue loudly enough for everyone to hear, but she didn’t argue any further. She likely understood Alex’s reasoning perfectly well, yet the possibility of walking again made it difficult for her to stay patient. Even so, she must’ve trusted his judgment to leave the matter there.

The group resumed moving deeper into the Supermart while maintaining their formation. The corridor gradually opened into a wider shopping area where toppled shelves, dried blood, and scattered merchandise covered much of the floor. Although the Origin Energy lingering in the air continued to weaken, Alex could still sense enough of it to remind him that whatever had happened here couldn’t have been very long ago.

Before they reached the next intersection, two presences entered Alex’s Mana Sense. He quietly raised a hand, bringing the group to a stop before speaking in a calm voice. "Two monsters are coming."

Only a moment later, two Scorch Salamanders crawled out from opposite sides of a collapsed aisle. Their yellow eyes immediately locked onto the group, and both monsters lowered their bodies before charging forward together, clearly intending to overwhelm them with numbers.

...

Ella had stopped paying attention to how many Scorch Salamanders they had fought. The number no longer mattered because every battle ended almost the same way. Alex calmly handled the monsters while making sure Rae and Charlotta could continue leveling up.

It was shocking to watch. Ella and John were both members of Stefan’s faction, and they had already reached Level 10, so there was little reason for them to fight monsters below their level. The experience gained from weaker enemies was almost nonexistent, but that didn’t mean they could defeat the monsters themselves.

In the Normal Difficulty, they had always fought as a group. Even then, defeating a single monster safely required coordination from several people, and those monsters had been noticeably weaker than the ones roaming Earth. Seeing Alex dispatch creatures that surpassed those monsters from Normal Difficulty so effortlessly made Ella question everything she thought she knew.

She already knew Alex was powerful. Ever Alex appeared, the mages in Stefan’s faction had spoken about him with equal parts admiration and jealousy. One of them had joked that while they were still learning to light small fires like cavemen, Alex was already trying to build a car. It sounded ridiculous back then, but after everything she had heard, she no longer thought it was much of an exaggeration.

Even so, she never imagined the gap between them would be this enormous. She hadn’t witnessed the fight against the Wild Orc herself, only the aftermath when Stefan returned badly injured. Stefan insisted Alex had defeated the monster almost entirely on his own, but Ella assumed he was simply being humble since he carried an shield, one that was at least S Rank, capable of blocking attacks that would kill anyone else.

Stories always felt distant until you saw something similar yourself. Hearing that a forest was burning somewhere across the world never felt as real as hearing your neighbor’s house had caught fire. The Wild Orc belonged to that distant category. She believed Alex had killed it, but she couldn’t truly understand what that meant. She hadn’t seen that monster fight after all.

Now she finally could.

Every Scorch Salamander they encountered was stronger than she was. Their footsteps made the ground tremble beneath her feet, and every breath they released carried enough heat to make her body tense. Whenever one fixed its yellow eyes on her, she instinctively wanted to step back because she knew she wouldn’t survive fighting one alone.

Alex, however, dealt with them as though they were little more than an inconvenience. He carried Charlotta with one arm while pushing Rae’s wheelchair with the other, occasionally letting short mana hands take over whenever he needed both hands free. At the same time, he somehow knew where every monster was coming from before anyone else noticed it.

A Mana Bullet crippled the salamander before it reached them, and another spell followed before it could recover. Rae would then finish it off, then Charlotta would heal her and Alex, earning the experience while Alex simply moved toward the next fight. Everything flowed together so naturally that it almost looked routine.

’Is he really Level 10 like us? ’What kind of monsters does someone fight in Hell Difficulty to become this strong? Or... is Hell Difficulty not the strange part? Is Alex simply different from everyone else?’ Ella wondered

..

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