Odyssey of the Blind God

The meaning behind Commander Ullyr's words was quite obvious.

He paired Olivia Meradnin, someone from a humble background, against Mirhan Kark, whose family background was almost on par with Jase Irka's, to show that strength was the most important!

With strength, one would survive fighting against the most ferocious dungeon beasts, one could accumulate wealth, and build up connections from everywhere.

Everyone would try to befriend the strong, whether they were from a humble background or a renowned one. One's background might help them have a certain advantage at the starting line, but without the necessary talent and determination, they would still struggle to reach their goal.

Thus, after Commander Ullyr had done quick research that took no longer than 5 seconds, he figured that Olivia Meradnin was the perfect opponent for Mirhan Kark.

Mirhan Kark belonged to the family of Blood Warlocks. His family line was known for descendants born with blood-related close combat Innate abilities.

On the other hand, Olivia Meradnin was the first one in her family to awaken an Innate ability with great potential in both her mana veins and mana core!

She looked frail, had short blond hair, and clear sky blue eyes. However, her weak appearance was just an illusion because her fighting style was anything but weak.

In fact, according to the young Original's ranking in the first two missions, all of the Originals had participated in, Olivia was ranked fifth!

Thus, the commander couldn't help but be a little bit curious about the little girl. He was so impressed by her that he even forgot to act like a professional for a short time as the camp's gathering was not yet over.

Commander Ullyr merely stated that the camp's participants would have to return to train once again while leaving out the most important fact.

However, that was not important to the middle-aged man as he looked at Olivia with a glint of interest.

The young Originals had already backed off so as to create a combat ring in the middle of the large plaza they had gathered in.

Miran Kark had also stepped forward with a faint smile because he was the one whose name had been announced.

For a moment, he had been annoyed that the Commander seemed to take him too lightly but that was not something he was worried about anymore.

After all, this was an opportunity for him to win the spar in an overwhelming manner. And when he would do that, he and his friends' superiority would be established over all other participants! He would be able to do whatever he wanted and make everyone dance to his tunes.

Of course, this was just his daydreaming. None of the military's staff would allow him to act however he pleased.

Rather, the opportunity to allow him to spar in the middle of the camp's gathering was the first but also last chance the Commander gave Mirhan and the other arrogant Originals, who couldn't even respect the people, who had protected their livelihood for decades!

Thousands of soldiers had died to protect the nine shelters from being destroyed against lethal attacks. As such, even the most influential families should have taught their descendants to be respectful to the military.

After all, even the strongest families wouldn't be capable of protecting a shelter all by themselves!

Existences such as the Sword Master were obviously aware of this. As such, he had taught Jase Irka to respect everyone.

Unfortunately, the Sword Master's reputation, the way everyone had always treated Jase Irka with the highest respect, and the fact that he was also talented, possibly even more talented than his father had tarnished Jase Irka's innocence.

And this was what had happened to most Originals from rich families. They had been raised in a good environment, but having everything at their beck and call had made them too arrogant after awakening their origin.

'You can do it!' Commander Ullyr thought while looking at Olivia, and there were several other young Originals who thought the same.

On the other hand, someone like Nial could only shake his head because he could already tell who was going to win.

Under normal circumstances, this would not be possible but Nial's dark energy reacted when he perceived Olivia Meradnin!

But this was only obvious because Olivia's nickname was none other than <Dark Witch>.

Before the suddenly announced spar started, a few minutes elapsed. However, when the calm-looking Olivia and the hot-tempered, red-haired, and muscle-packed Mirhan stood opposite each other, it took only three seconds for the battle to start.

Olivia waved and flicked a small, purplish-black wand in her hand to make a ball of darkness emerge in front of her. She threw it toward Mirhan without hesitation.

However, Mirhan had already left his previous location. His entire body was covered in a bloody aura as he had activated his Innate ability [Blood Berserker] before he shot straight toward his opponent.

He wielded a heavy broadsword and was ready to cut Olivia into two pieces.

'I'm not someone who holds back. If you guys want her to live, protect her properly!'

That was what Mirhan had in mind when rushing at Olivia as he pulled back the broadsword over his head to slash at her.

[Blood Berserker] enhanced his physical strength by 30%, while his mana would receive an enhancement as well.

But these two effects paled in comparison to the Blood aura that the activation of his Innate ability had granted Mirhan.

The Blood aura was comparable to an aura and a mana distortion device.

It weakened the power of mana-based attacks. Thus, Mirhan didn't need to hold back while fighting Olivia, knowing well that she was focused on wielding her darkness magic!

Yet, when ten balls of darkness emerged around the Dark Witch Olivia, even Mirhan had to be a little bit careful.

The balls of darkness didn't seem to be ordinary. He sensed that something was wrong but even before he could make a move, he felt something coil around his legs.

Darkness had emerged from his own shadow, turning into ropes of darkness that had coiled around Mirhan's legs.

They were slightly weakened due to the influence of Mirhan's Blood aura but that was not enough to destroy the darkness ropes completely.

Rather, they slowed down Mirhan, as a vine shot out from the ball of darkness.

'Who said that my balls of darkness are meant to attack?' Olivia merely thought with a faint smile on her lips.

Until now, she had not made use of her Innate ability, at all. This hadn't been necessary because the [Darkness Vines] ability was more than enough to accomplish whatever she wanted to.

Her first ability was called [Darkness Vines] and Olivia had studied her ability thoroughly which allowed her to control the darkness vines to near perfection.

Normally it was only possible to shoot the darkness vines out of the ground. However, ever since her proficiency with her ability had increased, Olivia had learned how to turn the Darkness Vines into compressed masses which she could throw through the air.

It consumed quite a bit of her mana to make the Balls of darkness hover in the air, and throw them, especially because the balls didn't have any attack power.

But this was not a problem anymore because the Tier-1 runic armament she procured within the ancient ruin's palace had been a staff customized for darkness magic!

The runic armament reduced her mana consumption drastically, thereby allowing her to play around with the [Darkness Vines]. It tied up Mirhan in place the moment all 11 balls of darkness released the vines within them.

Not even half a minute had passed before Mirhan Kark was utterly restricted by more than 20 darkness vines, which prevented him from moving in any way.

In fact, Mirhan felt dizzy and he could tell that he would collapse in a few minutes if the vines' thorns would keep digging in his skin.

Gritting his teeth, Mirhan tried to activate his first ability [Blood Manipulation] but he felt incapable of doing so.

'My…mana is drained?!?'

Mirhan noticed too late that the Darkness Vines had drained him of his mana, which had not been the case at first.

Little did Mirhan know that Olivia had activated her Innate ability, which manipulated the characteristics of the darkness vines with the use of half of her mana.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, Mirhan knew that the fight was over. His body was in an extremely weak state and he didn't even have a trace of mana left in his body.

"I..I s-surrender…"

It was humiliating but Mirhan knew that collapsing on the ground after having been caught in the darkness vines like a rat in a trap would be even more humiliating.

Accepting his loss, Mirhan promised himself that he would defeat Olivia the next time.

He glared at her while his blood aura intensified further, only for the young and frail-looking woman to keep smiling.

"As expected, she is not bad!" Nial just mumbled, attracting Bella and Mathias' attention.

"Do you know her?" Bella asked curiously because she was pretty sure that Nial didn't know anyone but her, Mathias, and Junades.

"I've never seen her before."

Nial's answer made her feel a little bit weird as he smiled faintly but Bella just shrugged her shoulders before turning her head back to the combat ring.

The fight had just ended, Olivia had released Mirhan from the darkness vines' tight grasp before returning to the crowd of people.

It was as if she was completely unbothered by the fact that she had just defeated one of the strongest and most influential heirs of the Blood Warlock family.

This was actually the case as Olivia had only agreed to fight Mirhan Kark because the arrogance of some youths had annoyed her.

She was quite satisfied with having been chosen by the Commander. This clearly told Olivia that she had left a good impression on the higher authorities of the Teradan military camp.

Thus, she had done her best to give everyone a satisfying show.

Even Junades was quite surprised about Olivia's high control over her ability. Thus, he momentarily forgot that he had wanted Nial to fight Jase Irka.

Commander Ullyr could only inwardly exclaim in joy while he maintained an unruffled expression on the outside.

He made a mental note to reward Olivia Meradnin for her great achievement before he averted his attention back to everyone else.

It was quiet and nobody spoke, which was everything the Commander had wanted to see from the beginning.

"As everyone has probably seen, physical strength is not everything. Without much difficulty, Olivia Miradnin was able to control her ability with precision which allowed her to defeat Mirhan Kark!

Being able to control your abilities with high precision is one goal of the Teradan military camp! We want to create the strongest Warriors to fight against the evil dungeon beasts, who will try to destroy our shelters and the entire human race.

We have to work together against them and become the strongest. Nobody is perfect and I believe that this spar clearly demonstrated this!"

After that, the Commander stopped speaking for a moment as he looked over the groups of the most annoying young Originals.

Even Jase Irka had quieted down. He might be gnashing his teeth in anger but even the young and hot-tempered son of the Sword Master was able to perceive that he would have had difficulties fighting against Olivia Miradnan.

Seeing everyone's flabbergasted expression, the Commander had difficulties keeping a straight face. Olivia's control over her ability had far exceeded his imagination.

Fortunately, he had more than enough experience with prodigies to keep his calm as he continued to speak.

"That is why we will focus on the improvement of your ability's control, your combat experience, improving the knowledge of beasts, dungeons, and much more in the following three months!

I recall that someone had complained about the lack of Instructors.

While it is true that we don't have that many Instructors, there was a reason for us to have given out two missions before we proceeded with the lessons.

The appearance of the ancient ruin's dungeon might have postponed our plans a little bit but the results of the first and second mission were thoroughly scrutinized and scored.

The 10 Originals with the highest score will receive direct tutelage from our Instructors, while the others will have to work hard, and fight for their seats and lessons!"

A moment after Commander Ullyr finished the first part of his speech, a huge hologram appeared in front of him. Everyone was able to see the hologram with a total of 10 names written on it.

Only Nial was unable to see it, but his range of perception could clearly visualize the names written on the holographic screen.

The Commander's explanation felt a little bit incomplete to him because there were still numerous questions Nial had in his mind but he could tell that being in the top 10 would come with great perks.

"As expected, we're in the ranking," Nial said, sounding unsurprised.

His words were enough for many to make them stare at the blind young Original with squinted eyes.

They couldn't believe that a blind Original made it into the top 10, while they didn't!

Something had to be wrong!!

**

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