The idea that Rempegan Lus favored him, wasn't too far off. Lus was a god, and in a way, Timothy had helped purify a fraction of Lus' old home, and so, it wasn't too insane to assume that he won the favor of a god! He experienced four more flash upgrades, after all, and it was safe to assume that something holy was what pushed his mana bracket forward. For once, he wasn't angry at the gods!

"Level five works... My MQ bounced up by another fifty points, so I should also be able to create some cool stuff with all these powers that I stole." He thought.

Timothy waited for his friends to arrive, and in the meantime, he analyzed what his current mana quality was capable of. He quickly figured out that despite the numerous level ups, this realm wasn't keen on deepening his mana pool.

During the ascension throughout the Fintelus' Apprentices Realm of mana, his pool expanded to the millions, and at its peak he could accumulate above two-million mana points in his pool, but the settings were less explosive with the realm that he was in now. Even at level five, the most he could accumulate was two-point-six million points of mana, and the system cited that he'd be able to accumulate three-million points if he chose to turn into a stingray.

In a way, this amount was a lot, yes, but he expected his mana pool to be at least a couple million points bigger right now. The math behind his expectations made sense, but still, it was not the case.

Considering the circumstances, he then theorized that the Adept Arcana Realm was dedicated to quality, rather than quantity.

In this case, quality meant the Densification and Amplification of these abilities, as these were the two things that he desperately had to practice soon! He had to reduce the cost of each ability that he casted, because their cost had deepened upon the numerous level ups, even though his mana pool hadn't as much.

[Your Excellent Mana Pool, otherwise known as level-five mana, is split in the following percentages…] The system beeped, upon a request that Timothy made.

[Blue Mana = 3,060,000/3,060,000 points - (85%)]

[Dark Mana = 245,004/540,000 points - (15%)]

[The dark side of your mana pool has expanded, on the count of all the dark, fractional abilities that you absorbed from your murdered enemies. Once you expel the less-than-necessary dark abilities out of your body, the dark side of your mana pool will then shrink by five-percent.] She further explained, and made a lot of sense.

"That's fair," He nodded, "And I guess that it'll be up to 15% again as soon as I buy the two other necromantic upgrades…"

Dark mana had plenty of negative effects if it engulfed a greater percentage of one's mana pool, so he hoped to keep the occupying percentage small, for as long as he could. Soon enough, he planned to create a bunch of new, normal powers of his own, to increase the influence of blue mana in his pool, and to increase his arsenal of offensive powers. He felt perfectly capable of creating offensive, elemental abilities, for example, and he planned to do exactly that as soon as he had some time to sit down, and breathe without worrying about risking his life!

…

Skendus, Gustav, Arvena, and Ortana finally made it to the ruins. Timothy, in a sense, had purified this little portion of the ruins that he was in, so the giant wyrm didn't bother them this time. It didn't stop his team from entering the ruins, in fact, the dragon didn't even bother Timothy's one-hundred-and-eighty goblin slaves either! They entered the ruins as well, without facing any trouble whatsoever!

The flash upgrades that everyone had afterwards were only expected. It only took a few minutes for them to ascend through multiple levels of mana quality, until they reached their very limit of accession, otherwise known as their mana brackets!

The goblin slaves felt content with what they achieved. Almost all of them, except twenty goblins, escaped the God's Punishment Realm of mana, and entered the second realm!

The second realm wasn't too kind to them, as neither of them made it past the fifth level, but they still felt content. Timothy felt especially happy about this, because now he had powerful goblin slaves, who were also plentiful in number! In case of a battle, he'd have a group of slaves who were both powerful, and numerous! He'd have them to his disposal, and an advantage of this sort was beyond rare!

Fifty goblin slaves made it to level five, seventy made it to level four, and the rest were below the latter level. They've all hit their mana quality brackets, and it was unlikely for them to improve their mana quality for a while, but these results were good enough for them. Tim figured that he could make them more useful if he gave them more powers, but that was a task that he wanted to tend to in the future.

Timothy's friends, however, were a lot more lucky in comparison to the goblin slaves! The group, in its entirety, left the second realm of mana behind them, and Arvena even entered the fourth! However, she wouldn't tell what level she was on, but they expected such secrecy from her, they weren't surprised. The fact of the matter was that she remained as the most powerful member in the group, even though she hit a bracket like everyone else, and this made the team nervous.

It made them nervous, but if she hadn't killed them so far, then she won't kill them anytime soon. She has earned her spot as a member of the team, and was to remain with the team, even though she had fulfilled her duties as their guide.

Gustav made it to level seven in the Adept Arcana Realm of mana, which meant that he crossed Timothy, but he only achieved this because he had a biological advantage, as he was a more superior race of goblin, and a mammalian! Gustav actually experienced two brackets as soon as he entered the ruins, but for some reason that was beyond his understanding, the first bracket broke itself, and he kept progressing until he hit the second bracket! The excitement he felt was beyond accelerating!

"Perhaps the gods favor me?" He smiled, "I did perform great acts of heroism recently!"

Gustav had a stroke of luck, but the rest of the team weren't as bad off either. Skendus made it to level five in the Adept Arcana Realm of mana, he was at the same level as Timothy, which in the way, made the two of them feel like brothers, even more than what they initially felt. He was content with this result!

Ortana, to everyone's surprise, made it to level eight in the Adept Arcana Realm! No one expected her to reach such a high, explosive level, but yet she did, and she was over the moon about it! She theorized that her success was all thanks to the golden veins she had, and they were the same veins that allowed her to summon Celestial Spears!

Ortana had an edge over her team members thanks to that fact, so she accelerated and won the silver medal in this race of ascension, regardless of how many biological barricades she faced in the past! If it wasn't for her golden veins, which signified her celestial blessing, she couldn't have ever gotten this far, she would've hit a brick wall at least four levels earlier.

Anyway, after everyone hit their mana brackets, their last course of action was to get out of here! They got what they came here for, and Timothy didn't want to waste the weeks of prior preparation, just to kill a couple of extra dark mages! it wouldn't make sense.

It was a shame that the ruins were being corrupted by these dark mages, but the team couldn't do much to save the ruins, regardless of their recent flash upgrades which helped them become stronger than they ever were. They'd get massacred by the six-thousand dark mages that were working within the ruins, or, it might even take a single Arch Mage to wipe them out! It was simple math.

The team was outnumbered, and out-performed, so it would be stupid to challenge an entire city of dark mages! They had a window of time to flee, and they did exactly that.

Timothy promised himself that he'd come back to these ruins one day, to slay all evil and reap the benefits, but if he was to do that, he needed greater circumstances at his disposal. He had to become an Expert Mage, at least, and he needed a large army if he was to succeed, as that was what it would take if he was to purge any, and all evil that resided within these ruins!