Unlimited Power - The Arcane Path

After hiding his equipment with the exception of his amulet, Leon started to walk toward the city. Dragons had destroyed the bridges, but it looked like someone repaired them with earth magic. It looked like Leon soon would find some mages like himself. Regardless, the only way to enter the city was by air or by crossing the bridges. Surprising the number of people leaving and entering the city wasn't small.

Considering that he would say that he crossed the whole distance on foot, Leon destroyed his improvised cape a little bit and dirtied it with water and earth, and he also dirtied the amulet. The number of soldiers protecting the bridges wasn't small, even though the number of travelers was also relatively high, they were inspecting and examining almost everyone.

"Good… they can't use magic to access the survivors' abilities."

Although Leon knew Analysis and that skill could inspect magic weapons and a few other things, it didn't work on humans. He was hoping to learn that eventually, but Leon's hands were full, trying to absorb the mana of the slime's core.

When Leon got inspected, the soldiers didn't do anything in particular, after confirming that he had no big weapons with him, they lowered their guards.

"What is your name? Where are you from? What do you intend to do in New York." A random soldier who was wielding an ax asked.

"My name is Leonard; I'm from Chicago," Leon said. "Some friends and I hoped to find better jobs here, but then we got attacked by a horde of monsters… I'm the sole survivor."

"You don't look like someone who recently fought for your life." The soldier frowned. "Where is your weapon? How did you escape?"

"I lost my weapon in the battle…" Leon slowly approached the soldier and whispered. "I learned magic by accident and blinded the monsters."

Another thing that Leon learned from his sister was the fact that those who learned how to use magic were also hiding their knowledge there as well."

Leon didn't know if Makoto knew about how one could learn magic alone, but it was hard to believe that he didn't. The motives… there were plenty. Although Ren got mad when he discovered that Leon could only see Makoto as someone prudent, if there are too few people with power, the humans can't survive, but then if there are too many people who have power, monsters wouldn't destroy humanity. Humanity would destroy itself…

Things wouldn't probably get so complicated in Las Vegas since even ordinary citizens were ready to fight when Leon threatened Hector, but it was hard to believe that everywhere else would be the same.

Regardless, when the soldier heard that, he looked at Leon suspiciously and then gave the order to another soldier to take Leon to the city. He imagined that he would take prisoner, but the soldier didn't do anything. It even opened the door of a car they would use.

"That is weird… did I make a mistake already?"

Leon had planned to make his skills famous little by little until he draws William's attention, but it looked like that happened a little too soon. In the end, Leon was taken to a brand new building. It looked like it had been made by earth magic, so it wasn't tall like a skyscraper, but it was like forty meters tall.

Several soldiers were entering and leaving the building, after crossing the gate, Leon and the soldier walked toward one of the receptionists of the building.

"His name is Leonard, and he can be tested," The soldier said. "Is there someone available right now?"

"Yes, I'm going to call one of the examiners." The receptionist said.

"Wait here." The soldier said to Leon and then left the building.

By the look of things, it didn't look like Leon was in trouble. Surprisingly, the receptionist used a telephone to call the examiner. It was the first time he had seen one after his return, Leon didn't have even seen one in Makoto's house either.

While Leon was waiting, he checked the situation in New York. As expected, ninety-nine percent of the buildings disappeared. At least the survivors managed to get rid of the rubble and built new buildings, the shape was relatively uniform and simple, but it was the best that a few mages could do using magic alone.

Since humans didn't have time to worry about the appearance of their new buildings, the interior of that building was also quite rough. Everything was simple and basically made of earth, so it didn't provide much comfort.

The man who would examine Leon was a thin, black-headed man who wore thick glasses. Leon imagined that a muscular man like a military would examine him, but considering his magic would be examined, he thought a little too much.

"Are you the one who is going to be tested?" The thin man asked. "Come with me."

Leon arrived on a floor which had only four rooms, but those rooms were quite large. Surprisingly, the walls were made of glass, and in each of those rooms, some type of weather was being emulated. One room had a lot of sand, other had a lot of water, the third one was empty, but the wind was strong, the last one looked like a sauna without the steam.

"What kind of magic can you use?" The thin man asked.

"Earth Manipulation," Leon answered.

"Then, go to the first room and show me what you can do." The thin man said.

Leon entered the room while thinking of what he should do. It looked like he was in a job interview. Considering that many buildings were made of earth magic, it looked like according to the results of his test, he could end up building houses, or he could end up becoming a soldier. The chances of him meeting William while building house was small, so in the end… he decided to show off. Creating a bullet made of sand, he broke the bulletproof glass.