Dragon's Wrath: The Cursed Returnee

The next two days passed quite slowly. Unfortunately, Ethan couldn't help Emily in dealing with her boredom since he decided to practice his bow and alchemy skills nonstop while also studying all the classes of the theoretical courses. However, thanks to those efforts, Ethan managed to pass the tests of the six courses.

Congratulations! Your rank has increased from F to E. Your salary has also been duplicated.

Your current balance is: $ 359.995.00

"These people…" Ethan frowned. "They make the payment as soon as the rank increases, and they don't consider the fact that I already received the salary of my previous rank."

Ethan just heard that Emily and Ian also had increased their ranks on the previous day. Thanks to it, Ethan could listen to some whispers, and their names were occasionally mentioned alongside his when he passed by some students. His infamy was increasing pretty fast. Regardless, Ethan couldn't care less about that. It was Friday, the last day he had in order to reach the fifteenth stage of the simulator and thus confirm his presence on the expedition next week. He couldn't mess up now. Still, for some reason, Ethan was quite confident that he would only need a single run on the simulator to reach that stage. Studying non-stop and leveling up the skills he seldom used made some stress build inside him, so Ethan intended to use the simulator to blow that steam.

In any case, Ethan had planned to do things wildly for a change. However, he was forced to change his plans when he found Emily and Ian waiting for him on the simulator floor.

"Took you long enough," Emily said. "Do you want to go first?"

"What are you talking about?" Ethan asked. "I thought you wouldn't use the simulator to train your skills."

"That is true, but I also need to show my skills to this guy's father," Emily said. "So, I'm planning to reach the fifteenth stage alone as well. Do you want to decide by using rock, paper, scissors?"

"No, ladies first," Ethan said.

"How strangely gentlemanly of you," Emily frowned.

"Well, my big sis would probably lecture me for more than a few hours if she hears some bad things about me in that regard," Ethan shrugged. "I want to save my ears from the hassle."

Truth be told, Ethan was also quite curious as to how powerful Emily was as a mage. She seemed healthier after spending a good part of the last week running, so she got a bit stronger physically, but her forte still was her magic.

Although Ethan and Ian also entered the room, they stayed in one of the corners. Truth be told, not even Ian knew what Emily was capable of. So, he was quite excited to see her ser in action. That being said, they didn't see anything special. When the slimes appeared, Emily touched the ground, and then a few seconds later, they burned. The same thing happened to the goblins and lizardmen, and even though they resisted for a while, the golems also melted.

ραпdα nᴏνa| сom When the fire golems appeared, Emily froze them in the same manner. Just by touching the ground for a few moments was enough to give Emily the chance to freeze them all. That being said, they didn't die. So, Emily was forced to fire some Ice Arrows and cracked the ice statues.

"This is impressive," Ian said. "However, not in the way I was expecting."

"Emily is a girl who takes things too seriously, so it is only natural that she chooses the most efficient method for her to defeat her targets," Ethan said. "If she can defeat the enemies as fast as possible, she will. If she doesn't need certain skills to defeat them, she won't use them. Well, let's see how she can deal with the monster on the tenth stage."

After defeating so many monsters without holding back, it was impossible for Emily to have enough mana to defeat the magma golem in just a few seconds. Still, even though the fight lasted for a while, Emily didn't get even close to suffering any injuries. The very moment the golem appeared, she froze the monster's legs and attacked the creature's head when the beast tried to free itself. When the beast gave up on that and tried to fire some magma spears, Emily blocked them all with an ice shield and kept attacking the monster's head with ice arrows. In the end, she even took the third place in the ranking from Ethan.

"This is enough, right?" Emily asked. "I didn't suffer any damage, and this was the condition you gave to Ethan."

"Yeah, you passed," Ian applauded. "Truth be told, you didn't have to show me your skills. We don't have many mages working with us, so I'm sure your spot is secured."

"You…" Emily clenched her teeth and glared at Ian.

"Well, it is your turn now, Ethan," Ian ignored Emily and then said. "You have to show us something even more impressive because I'm going to show Emily's run to my father, and if he thinks that she is stronger than you, I don't think he will give you the permission to act independently. We can't have two teenagers running wild without supervision, after all."

While that was annoying, it made sense. Still, Ethan didn't make any promises. He closed his eyes for a few minutes and imagined a certain scenario in his head. That was something he had done a few times in the past in order to sharpen his senses and forcefully make his body reach the next level of concentration.

When Ethan opened his eyes, Emily took a few steps backward because she recognized the eyes of a beast that was about to run wild. Even Ian, who only showed his carefree side, moved his right hand toward his back for a second as if he was about to grab something, but then he quickly recovered. That single involuntary reaction made him understand that Ethan was about to show him something insane, and Ethan did… he reached the eleventh stage without getting hit a single time and without using any skill.