“Alright. I’ve decided!” Edward said to himself.

After thinking for a minute or two, there was only one solution to his problem. Yes, he had no other choice.

“I’ll just cut my my through this place.” The hulky boy stretched out his hand, and a burst of blue light manifested from his ring.

‘Spatial Magic that stores my sword. Nice going, Jared.’

>SHUUUU<

Instantly, a bastard sword appeared in Edward’s grasp, gleaming in it’s blue and black metallic color.The longsword was firm, sturdy, and best of all… it was brimming with power.

Edward had been guaranteed that even he couldn’t break this blade no matter how many times he used it, so it was a treat to wield such a weapon.

The bastard sword, as tall as Edward himself, could be easily wielded with one hand, but the boy decided to pour his strength into it for a more assured effect.

He was trying to escape an unknown place, after all. Some measure of seriousness was necessary.

Mana smoothly coursed through the blade, causing it to give off a bright blue glow as it brimmed with far greater energy than earlier.

‘The Mana Conductivity is perfect. Nice!’ Edward grinned.

>SHWWWWWUUUUUUUU<

Within seconds, Edward built up a frightening amount of energy, readying to use everything in a single slash.

With this much power, he could cut down the highest mountains in one swoop. Certainty, it was enough to break free from this strange place.

‘Here goes…’

>WHOOOOOSSSSHHHH!!!<

His blade caused distortion in space, and a powerful wave of bright energy was sent playing in a single direction.

Unfortunately, the vast purple expanse swallowed the deadly slash, not leaving so much as an explosion in it’s wake.

There was no dent or destruction.

Just an empty silence that followed.

‘It didn’t work? Not even the slightest effect?’ Edward felt challenged at this point.

Sure, he didn’t use any special Martial Arts, neither did he utilize Martial State or Fusion Mode.

Still…!!!

‘Alright! Let’s see how much you can resist!’ Gripping his blade tighter than ever, Edward prepared another round of attack, this time raising the stakes a little.

“12 Ultimate Forms: Step 1…!”

*

*

*

“Oh **! Oh **! What should we do?”

At this point, even Ivan who had been the voice of reason, was in a panic.

The first few minutes, he had tried to pull himself together. However, he was going insane as time went on.

Not long after, panic took over entirely.

“We should contact Jared. Ah, communication isn’t functioning here! Shit! I can’t reach him!” He would have tried using the Soul Brand stuff to contact him, but Ivan wasn’t an expert at Soul Magic.

Apparently, only Jared could communicate, not the other way around. Besides, he was only going to intervene if their lives were in danger or something.

The fact that he hadn’t showed up meant they were not faced with a threat strong enough to warrant his attention.

“You shouldn’t rely on Jared for everything. We can figure this out.”

Lemi, at this point, was critically observing the wheel. A floating Automaton was beside her, and she was exchanging information with it as she proceeded.

“U-uh, what are you doing?” Ivan was surprised by the sudden change in the girl.

Not only was she silent, but she was actually being productive. It amazed him how their positions had changed so quickly.

“Trying to analyze what happened, and what we can do to get past this.” She muttered, not letting her eyes off the roulette.

“And? What did you find?” Ivan said, feeling dumb for some reason.

“Not much. I’d advise you to forget about Edward for now. He’s probably paying a penalty for failing to win the spinning wheel game.”

Her cold voice echoed in Ivan’s ears, causing him to flinch a little.

“We should be grateful he was taken. With this, I can further develop my hypothesis.” She smiled, her eyes completely focused on the mechanism in front of her.

“Y-you… you don’t care about what happens to Edward? He could be in danger right now, you know?”

Lemi ignored Ivan and kept conversing with her automaton. After some minutes, she finally spoke out.

“I’ve figured out an underlying principle. It’s just a theory, though. Come here.”

Ivan was furious with the Half Elf, at this point. Edward was their friend, and he was freaking out about his whereabouts. Yet… the one girl he had been showering so much attention didn’t seem to care.

However, since he was curious about Lemi’s discovery, Ivan swallowed his rage and moved closer to her.

“There are twenty two gradients here. It starts from white, and it stops at black. There are several other colors here and there, but what do you notice about this wheel?”

Ivan glared as he observed the object. He honestly couldn’t see what she was talking about. It was all just a circular board of colors—with an arrow pointing upward.

“Look closely, the color yellow is repeated three times. Here, here and here.”

Ivan’s eyes widened as he saw what she was referring to. Truly, as she mentioned, there were three gradients with yellow. They were simply scattered in several locations and trapped amid other colors that one wouldn’t pay them much mind.

Also, they had different shades of hue, so one wouldn’t really classify them under the same grade.

“No other color is repeated there, or even has other shades of hue other than their base appearance.”

Ivan nodded, totally lost, but agreeing regardless.

“I initially thought we needed to choose ‘white’ since it seems like the purest, but with what I’m seeing, the odds of actually reaching that are ridiculously high. Besides, the other colors have the same underlying basis. If we can’t isolate a distinct feature of a particular element, then it just makes the effect or expected result left to random.”

Ivan’s head hurt at this point. He had been fooling himself all along, but now the young boy realized the truth.

‘She’s the one with the brains here… not me.’

While it was painful to admit it, the boy had to concede.

No one was more suitable for the role of leader than the Half Elf herself.

“I have a theory. If it’s correct, then we can win this game.”

*

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*

A

/N

Let’s gooooo!!!