The Greatest Sinner

Seeing that Olivia was keeping up with him Evan frowned and said rudely: "What do you want? What's the point of me fighting you?"

Olivia smiled and said: "What's the point? We`ll find out who's the strongest!"

Evan looked at her in bewilderment. The girl didn't seem to hear him at all.

<She doesn't understand that I don't want to fight her, okay, then let's do it another way.>

Evan thought to himself and said: "I won't fight, I just got back from the task, so I don't have a drop of mana."

Evan thought that if he gave some good reason and why he couldn't fight Olivia, the girl would get off it back, but it wasn't that simple.

"Huh, that's not a problem. There are rooms for "Creation" next to each arena. They're filled with mana crystals, you'll replenish your supply there pretty quickly. You just have to pay some 'Moon Coins" and that's it."

Evan looked at Olivia puzzled and said: "I don't have any money." The young man quickly walked away trying to get away from the annoying Olivia, but there was no way the girl was going to give up.

"Wait, I'll pay for you, it's not a problem for me. What's more, if you don't have any money, this is a great way to earn it?"

"What do you mean? How can I earn "Moon Coins" just by fighting you?"

Evan didn't want to fight Olivia, as it would be a waste of time, but if this fight could benefit him, he saw nothing wrong with it.

"You've never fought in an arena before, so it's no wonder you don't know anything about it, but I'll tell you anyway. The fact is that not everyone can earn "Moon Coins" fighting in the arena, besides us."

"Don`t waste time, get on with it!"  Evan said succinctly.

"Okay, okay, you don't have to be so rude. I mean, I'm a pretty famous zero-ranked student at this Academy, I'm quite popular. And you're the most famous freshman, because of your actions and results. Of course, you're still a long way from me, but you're not bad either. Anyway, there are always a lot of students in the arena, and since we are popular people, our fights will be watched. And most importantly, they will be betting on the outcome of our fight!"

"I take it the contestants themselves get a percentage of one side's total winnings, right?"

Olivia nodded: "Yeah, 10%, not bad, right? Of course, if you get caught cheating you get a big penalty. So it's always better to fight fairly."

<Hmm, 10% is pretty good, all I have to do is just fight and win. Of course, I'll draw even more attention to myself, that's inevitable, but everyone`s already known about me in any way.>

Evan thought and decided to agree to Olivia's proposal. Now, this battle didn't seem like a waste of time to Evan.

"Alright, let's go to the arena, but I need to recover my mana first."

"Fine."

...

A few minutes later, they reached the rooms for "Creation". Like Olivia had said, she had paid for Evan to replenish his mana supply as soon as possible.

Of course, Evan could have paid himself, he had enough "Moon Coins", but there was no point in spending the extra money. It was Olivia who wanted to fight him, not Evan with her.

"There really is a large concentration of mana here. These crystals are filled with it, this room is much better than the room in Zak`s mansion." Said Evan looking around the room.

<All right, let's get started.>

Evan thought and sat down in the middle of the room and began to "Create". His crimson "Warp" spun at an incredible rate and began to absorb mana.

Olivia, on the other hand, decided not to waste time and went to the arena. At that moment, she thought: <Evan has a white "Warp", which means it will take him an hour or so to regenerate his mana in this room. Amazingly, he's been able to achieve such incredible results.>

To everyone in this world, his "Warp" was white, not crimson. For example, if Olivia had been "Creating" while in this room, she would have replenished her mana in only 15 minutes, but...

<Five minutes will be enough for me. Evan thought, watching the mana flow towards his "Warp".

Caw!

Suddenly he heard Reykar's voice. The raven appeared in "Nirvana," and at that moment, the symbols on his neck glowed brightly. A small amount of mana headed toward him and Reykar began to absorb it.

<So, that's the price for your skill... However, I can feel it getting stronger, moreover it only takes a small portion of the mana, it's definitely worth it.>

  About five and a half minutes passed and Evan had fully replenished his mana reserves, but he wasn't about to leave the room.

He had not yet condensed a single drop of "Void Liquid" since he had broken through the second "Barrier". At this point, he had 333 drops of the 1,000 he needed. But since he only broke through two "Barriers", Evan can only condense 666 drops.

Nevertheless, even in this special room, he wouldn't be able to condense a large number of drops in just an hour.

So Evan decided to channel the remaining amount of mana into the next chain on the Pillar. He had already unlocked four chains and he even had already poured some mana into the fifth one . So, now he decided to concentrate on it.

Evan needed to redirect the mana into the dark space. He would have had a problem with that before, but he was used to moving between spaces a bit.

As soon as Evan thought about it, a black crack appeared in "Nirvana" from which the jaws of a demogorgon crawled out.  Mana headed straight for it and moved into the dark space, then it slowly reached the fifth circuit and began to soak into it.

<Hmm. I can move into this space and into the "Library" myself, but the mana requires the creature's jaws. It's somehow carrying it around, quite interesting...>. Evan thought, and his attention was caught by Reykar, who didn't even move when he saw the demogorgon's jaws. 

It looked menacing and creepy, but it was part of this space, not an enemy. There was no hostile intent coming from it, so the raven was not afraid of the creature. He was busy absorbing Evan's mana now.

<Huh, Reykar keeps absorbing mana when I'm already fully resupplied. This raven constantly surprises me, I guess I didn't come back to the "Half-Dead Forest" for nothing.

Evan felt Reykar's aura slowly increase. Evan didn't know how long it would take. But he was sure that if Reykar continued to absorb mana, he would take it to the next level.