"He ran away?!"

The words tore from the Headmaster’s throat, echoing against the silent trees.

For six hours straight, John scoured the wilderness, his eyes scanning for any ripple in the air or a single trace that might lead to Zockair. He pushed himself until his muscles screamed and his breath came in ragged stabs.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long, dark shadows across the land, the trail remained cold. When night finally fell, thick and suffocating, John finally succumbed to the bitter reality of his failure. Exhausted and hollow, he turned back toward the city.

Upon his arrival, he spotted the Headmaster. The old man stood like a silent sentinel, guarding the entry to the dungeon. His expression was a mask of concern and worry, but John wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries.

From just one look, the Headmaster could tell how the chase ended. He couldn’t help but ask in doubt, while John only sighed and walked by his side, towards the wall blocking the short alley.

Without uttering a single word of greeting, John drew his sword and cut his own palm. He pulled out a mountain of metal scraps from his storage, the cold iron clattering as he initiated the handshake, paying the price in dejected silence.

The Headmaster’s brow furrowed in confusion, his mouth opening to demand an explanation, but the words died in his throat. He couldn’t tell what John was exactly doing, or where he got all these weirdly shaped metallic pieces from.

A swirling black hole tore open in the fabric of reality, a gravitational maw that sucked both men inside before the Headmaster could even brace himself.

When the world stabilised, the Headmaster found himself standing in a graveyard of iron and ash. He stared, speechless, at the carnage: twisted corpses, massive craters that looked like the footprints of gods, and the looming, silent silhouettes of the mobile fortresses.

John left the old man to wander amongst the gargantuan machines, ensuring first that the fortresses’ automated systems didn’t identify the Headmaster as a hostile entity. For a reason, the machines had a change in their programming.

Previously, they didn’t attack the races he added to the friendly list. Yet when he tested them back, he noticed that they started to differentiate between the same species.

Humans who were considered his allies, like Nikolas and the Headmaster, wouldn’t get attacked. While humans, marked as his enemies, like Ricky’s brothers, the weapons would instantly shoot to kill.

Nearby, Ricky stood tall, his gaze fixed on the horizon. Ricky barely acknowledged the old man’s presence, closing an eye to the intrusion; the current atmosphere was far too tense to waste breath questioning the arrival of such a high-profile stalker.

Ricky could easily imagine the timetable of John’s travel from the academy till arriving at his side and rescue. Though he didn’t press John for details immediately, the timing of John’s return told its own story. John had moved from the academy far sooner than his enemies had anticipated.

As Ricky looked at the scorched earth, his thoughts drifted to Cissel and the devastating attack she suffered from, per the words he heard from his enemies. He burned to ask how she was doing, what exactly happened to her, yet he forced himself to ask the question that mattered most to their immediate survival.

"Did you catch him?" He asked, despite the fact that John came without Zockair’s dead body, which spoke volumes about his failure to catch the prey.

John provided a brief explanation of the chase, recounting how he had hunted for hours without finding a single trace of his quarry. He didn’t stop there, filling Ricky in on the critical details he had missed during the heat of the fray.

Hearing the specifics of what had happened to Cissel by Mark’s dirty scheme caused Ricky’s blood to boil, his fists clenching until his knuckles turned white.

However, when John mentioned she was on the path to recovery, Ricky let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief. He knew the devastating power of John’s sword AOE attacks; one look at the pulverised landscape was a sobering reminder of the lethality John wielded.

"So... Let’s talk," John said, turning fully to the bewildered Headmaster. After briefing Ricky and confirming that he had successfully absorbed the souls of his fallen brothers, John finally shifted his full attention back to the Headmaster. "What happened is like this..."

For nearly an hour, John laid out the truth. He didn’t just speak about their adventure, the facts he and his friends covered and hid before; he dissected the machine conspiracy for the old man, answering every sharp, sceptical question with patience.

The more John revealed, the more the Headmaster’s scepticism withered, replaced by a volatile mixture of shock and righteous fury.

To provide undeniable proof, John opened a portal to his zone. He stepped through the shimmering veil, calling for Lanmar and Goven to join him.

While he summoned them to speak with the Headmaster, John took his time to inspect the progress of his domain. The zone remained peaceful, but it had undergone a radical transformation into a sprawling, industrious worksite.

The landscape was dotted with roughly twenty Mana gemstone mines of varying qualities. Most were of the common white grade, but his eyes caught the distinct glow of the rare blue-grade vein.

The Krogers had proved their worth, successfully turning the raw deposits into fully operational mining sites, while the powerful Bulltors provided the heavy labour required for the extraction process.

The results were more than satisfying. Piles upon piles of Mana gemstones, tens of thousands of them, glittered in the storehouses that were built near the central lake.

While the majority were white grade, the sheer volume was way beyond his wildest estimations. John claimed his personal share, leaving the remainder with the Krogers to fuel their ongoing research and the forging of new weapons.

When he returned to the Headmaster, he found the old man peppering Lanmar and Goven with a relentless barrage of questions.