SSS Awakening: I am the First Legendary Mage

Alex, on the other hand, could fight while controlling multiple spells at the same time, and Kevin had personally seen him use complicated combinations without losing focus. The difference was so large that Kevin had stopped trying to understand it.

It took Kevin several minutes to get the general idea of what was happening online. Basically, now that information about the Assessment had appeared, people were becoming increasingly afraid because they knew another Assessment could happen at any time.

Because of that, people were increasingly demanding that powerful Ascendants take control of the situation. There were still many people who didn’t want powerful Ascendants controlling everything, but considering that groups without a strong Ascendant could easily be wiped out by powerful monsters, those people had become a minority.

This had naturally brought attention toward the strongest Ascendants. In particular, people were focusing on Ascendants whose abilities had been recorded and uploaded online because those videos gave everyone something concrete to judge.

Unfortunately, Alex had almost no public evidence showing his actual strength. The only video of Alex that Kevin could find was the one showing him creating a Fire Bullet inside his apartment.

The spell was impressive, but most people online believed that Mages could only maintain a few spells at once. Because of that, many assumed that although Alex’s Fire Bullet was powerful, he would still be relatively easy to defeat.

Kevin knew that the Fire Bullet Alex had created in that video was nowhere near as powerful as the version he could use now. He also saw plenty of people defending Alex, especially those who had been saved by him or had directly witnessed his strength.

However, on a global scale, most people only considered an Ascendant powerful if there was a video showing them accomplishing something extraordinary. Kevin scrolled through several posts and saw examples of exactly that.

Someone in Canada had apparently snapped their fingers and summoned a snowstorm that covered several streets. Another Ascendant in Brazil had punched the ground and destroyed an entire street, and videos of both incidents had received millions of views.

Compared to those feats, Alex had accomplished far more. He had fought dozens of giant Wild Orcs alone and survived battles that would have killed most Ascendants, but none of those fights had been recorded.

That was why his name was being attacked online. A lot of people trusted Alex’s strength, but even more remained skeptical because they had never seen proof.

"This is a mess," Kevin muttered as he rubbed his forehead.

He continued scrolling through Dwitter, but after a moment, something caught his attention. Among the Ascendants being praised for their strength, there was one name that appeared repeatedly.

Matthew.

Kevin opened one of the posted videos and began watching. Matthew was apparently located in San Francisco, and according to several different reports, he had entered a portal alone before returning after killing every monster inside it. Kevin felt a chill run through his body as he watched the footage.

He looked toward the sky and then at the giant blue portal above them. The portal Matthew had cleared was smaller than the one above Kevin, but he remembered Alex saying that the portal above the high school had contained something extremely dangerous and that the entire high school—and perhaps the city—would have been wiped out if that monster had crossed over.

If the portal Matthew had cleared contained something on that level, how powerful would Matthew actually be? Kevin couldn’t help wondering whether Matthew might be as strong as Alex, although even he found the possibility difficult to believe.

At that moment, Kevin heard a sharp gasp from beside him. He immediately turned his head and saw Sophia staring at her phone with a pale face and trembling lips, which made him realize that something serious must have happened.

"What happened?" Kevin asked, his expression becoming serious.

Sophia didn’t answer and simply kept staring at the screen. Kevin followed her gaze and froze when he saw the news displayed on her phone.

The monster that had destroyed Washington had destroyed another city, and it was now moving toward another destination. Among the cities in its path was San Francisco, the very place where they were currently staying.

...

Alex rubbed his chest as he slowly regulated his breathing. The mana inside his Mana Heart was finally under control, and after expelling the excess mana, the pressure had disappeared.

There was still far more mana inside his body than his previous maximum, and Alex could already tell that his mana regeneration had also increased after becoming a Mid rank species, so he was rapidly gaining more mana.

He continued using mana while repeatedly experimenting with the Mana Heart Reinforcement Spell. The spell was coming together much more smoothly than he had expected, and he suspected that the knowledge he had gained from learning so many other spells was making the process considerably easier. When he had first obtained the spell as an option during his evolution, he had expected it to be extremely difficult to learn, but now it didn’t feel nearly as complicated as he had imagined.

Alex repeatedly experimented through trial and error, changing the way his mana moved around his Mana Heart and observing the results each time. There were plenty of failures, but each mistake gave him a better understanding of the spell, and with his current speed, he was confident that it wouldn’t take him long to learn it properly.

Several more attempts passed before Alex finally looked at the notifications that had been waiting in front of him.

[Soul Reinforcement Spell has leveled up. Level 8 → Level 9.]

[Minor Heal Spell has leveled up. Level 4 → Level 5.]

[Minor Tumor Growth Spell has leveled up. Level 2 → Level 4.]

Alex stared at the notifications with a wry smile. Trying to survive the enormous amount of mana inside his body had unexpectedly benefited him, and his Soul Reinforcement Spell was now only one level away from evolving, while both Minor Heal Spell and Minor Tumor Growth Spell had increased by two levels.

..

Author’s Note: If you’re enjoying the novel, consider leaving a vote. It helps the novel a lot. Thank you!