Shang and Jerald only looked at the fire Mage without amusement.
During the fight, Jerald had already realized that this fire Mage was special. First of all, he hadn't used Mana Shield, and second, he had spoken quite a bit during their battle, which was a bit unusual.
"Why did you attack Jerald?" Shang asked the fire Mage.
"Oh, so your name is Jerald, huh?" the Mage said as he looked at Jerald. "Name doesn't sound familiar."
"Okay, but why did you attack him?" Shang asked.
"I wanted to see how powerful my new colleague would be," the Mage said.
"So, you're the new Assistant Supervisor of the Magic Purity Kingdom?" Shang asked.
The fire Mage turned to Shang and furrowed his brows. "Are you his plus one?"
"I am," Shang said.
The fire Mage didn't seem impressed. "I dunno. You seem a bit weak for such a position."
"I still won against you in my trial," Shang said.
"You did, huh?" the fire Mage said, looking away in disinterest. "I guess we don't get to keep our memories if we fight. Speaking of, shouldn't I be dead if I lost?"
Shang furrowed his brows. "The enemies in the trial are not the real ones. Don't you know that?" Shang asked.
"They're not?" the fire Mage asked with surprise. "Then how can we fight them?"
"The God just makes copies," Shang said.
At that moment, the Mage's eyebrows rose in surprise, and he glanced at Jerald.
Jerald didn't seem surprised.
"Wait, you told him about the God and the Trial?" the fire Mage asked.
Shang only nodded.
"Why?" the Mage asked in shock.
"Why not?" Shang asked.
"You're not supposed to tell others!" the Mage said. "This is supposed to be a secret that only we know about!"
"Says who?" Shang asked.
"Common sense says so!" the Mage shouted in annoyance. "Didn't you watch any anime or read fantasy novels?! We are the isekai people, and our origins are supposed to remain a secret! We are the main characters!"
Shang slowly blinked once. "What?" he asked in an annoyed and bored tone.
"Have you never heard of isekai?! What boring life did you live on Earth?!" the Mage shouted in annoyance.
"I was a professional MMA fighter," Shang said. "Shows and games were not my highest priority."
The fire Mage only snorted. "So, you were a normie, huh?"
Shang slowly blinked once again. "Normie?" he asked with boredom.
"You know, like a normal person. Someone that goes outside, does sports, has a job, has a family. That kind of stuff," the Mage said.
"You didn't have a job?" Shang asked with furrowed brows.
"Hell no!" the Mage shouted. "I'm not going to waste my life for some soulless international conglomerate that sucks out the souls of people to gain a profit."
Jerald only listened to the conversation with a confused, raised eyebrow.
In Shang's mind, the fire Mage's previous persona from Earth was put into the loser category.
But he definitely wasn't weak in this life.
"By the way," the fire Mage added. "When did you actually fight me? That should've been quite a while back."
"Around 60 years ago in the Commander Stage trial," Shang said.
The Mage's face transformed into a mask of skepticism. "I was a Late High Mage 60 years ago."
"So?" Shang asked.
"What do you mean, so?" the Mage asked with annoyance. "How could we have fought?"
Shang only looked with boredom at the Mage. "He's a God," he slowly said with annoyance. "If he can already make copies of people, he can probably also make copies of past versions of people."
The Mage's eyes widened in surprise and realization. "That actually makes a lot of sense."
"Why are you so surprised about these things?" Shang asked. "You should've been in this world for much longer than me."
"Yeah, and that's why I'm surprised, you know?" the Mage added. "I know so much about Magic that these feats just seem that much more unrealistic. Tell some stupid guy from some isolated island that the world is flat, and they believe you. Tell the same thing to a scientist, and they won't believe you."
"Wait, it isn't flat?" Jerald asked from the side as he looked around.
"No, it…" the fire Mage answered, but he trailed off.
Was this world flat?
He actually wasn't sure.
Earth wasn't flat, but this one?
"Hard to tell," the fire Mage said. "I can see very far, but everything just becomes more blurry and blue the further away it is. It could be flat, or it could be just a very, very big sphere."
"Okay, stop," Shang said. "How did we arrive at this topic? What are you doing here?"
"As I've said, I wanted to test the power of my new colleague," the fire Mage said.
"Okay, cool, and what now?" Shang asked.
The fire Mage rubbed the back of his neck.
"I dunno."
"You don't know?" Shang asked in annoyance.
"Yeah, I just wanted to have a good fight. Guess I'll just go back and work on my power a bit more. The fight highlighted some of my weaknesses," the fire Mage said.
Shang slowly blinked once more. "Are you sure you have been here for such a long time? You act like I would imagine you to act on Earth."
"Of course I do!" the Mage answered with a snort. "Why would I change when my personality is already perfect?"
Shang only kept looking at the Mage with annoyance.
"Okay, bye," Shang said.
Then, Shang flew over to Jerald to inform him about what had happened and to plan for the next couple of days.
Jerald kept listening to Shang and nodded a couple of times.
"Hey!" the fire Mage suddenly said as he looked at the two of them with annoyance.
"What?" Shang asked impatiently.
"Don't you want to know who I am?" the fire Mage asked.
"No," Shang said.
Then, Shang continued talking with Jerald.
"What do you mean with no!?" the Mage shouted. "We both come from Earth!"
"So?" Shang answered. "The version of me that has lived on Earth has already died. I have no more connection to that place except for a couple of distant memories."
"How could you say something like that?" the Mage asked with a shocked voice. "Earth is where we came from!"
"Okay, cool, can you go now?" Shang answered. "We have important things to discuss."
The Mage couldn't comprehend how Shang didn't care about these things.
They both came from Earth!
Why didn't he care?!
As he saw Jerald and Shang continue talking, the Mage's face grew red in frustration.
"My name is Charles Pendragon, and I'm-"
"I don't care!" Shang shouted more forcefully. "Go away!"
Charles' face only grew redder.
He had such a cool name, but Shang just didn't appreciate it!
Charles only looked on as Shang and Jerald discussed their potential plans for the next day, as if Charles wasn't even here.
After a while, Charles only looked at the ground.
Then, he turned around and silently left, going back to the Magic Purity Kingdom.
For some reason, he was reminded of his life on Earth.
Jerald and Shang barely noticed him leaving.
