Being Op With My Broken System: All Limits Have Errors-Chapter 286: Eric’s mission

After the event that happened at the Vice Dean’s office, Alex returned to attend classes as usual. Many students were curious about why Alex had been called, but they didn’t dare ask him; they weren’t close enough to pose such questions.

Of course, except for Eric who didn’t even wait for instructor Henry to leave the classroom first before asking Alex.

Alex didn’t know what explanation to tell the boy and didn’t want to tell him that they were suspecting him of the missing item as well, because, according to what Ellie and the others had discussed.

They would continue their investigation on the void key in other areas, but would still continue keeping a close eye on Alex while he was in the university grounds.

Alex didn’t want to get others involved so he told Eric that it was something important and was told never to tell anyone else.

"You can’t even tell me, your best friend?!" Eric displayed a shocked expression while pointing at his nose.

"Sadly, no," Alex said with a sigh.

"Hmm, then it must be very important. Fine, I won’t pressure you to answer. Anyways, what are you doing later today?

Come with me, let’s complete the mission that I took from the Union together!" Eric said with excitement.

"I’m not free today, let’s do that tomorrow," Alex stated, thinking of what he should do about the missing void key.

"Deal, I’ll come to your place tomorrow morning!" Eric replied before running off for his next class.

Alex didn’t expect him to accept his option so easily, but he didn’t really mind; they didn’t have to come to the university tomorrow, as it was the weekend, so he could spare a day to hang out with Eric.

After Eric left, Alex didn’t stick around for long either and made his way out of the university on his magic scooter. He was still thinking of what he should do about the matter.

Since Ellie had already handled the issue of him being the prime suspect, Alex didn’t see any need to go to see Hannah as Mr Chen.

’Or could it be...’ Alex thought to himself as he recalled the face of the instructor who had bumped into him on that same day when he was heading to the vault.

’But I’m sure he didn’t follow me, I would have sensed him.’

He didn’t think it was right to suspect someone just because the other person had bumped into him on purpose one time; there might be tons of reasons why he had done that. Still, Alex decided that he would look for that instructor first and ask him a few questions.

After getting home, Alex stood in a random spot in his apartment and released his senses as a Saint rank mage to the maximum, easily covering the entire City.

Just like the last time, there were several parts of the city that his senses couldn’t penetrate just like the residence of the Osworth family.

Alex guessed that the other grey spots were territories of other Saint mages who lived in Brandvel City.

Since he was looking for someone, Alex was going to start visiting these places one after the other since that was the only way he could do a thorough search. Instead, he directed his focus toward the area where Brandvel Magic University was located and began to search around.

Although his senses as a mage couldn’t distinguish between the aura of people, he would be able to detect anything weird, foreign, or out of place instantly.

After searching for several minutes, Alex didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary inside Brandvel Magic University. He was thinking that he might detect a hiding magic beast or an aura similar to the dark beasts of the Dark Union, but all he could sense were mana of students, instructors, and other staff members of the Magic University.

Alex withdrew his senses while letting out a sigh, he had expected too much.

"In the end, spells are still better at searching than even the senses of a Saint rank mage," Alex said to himself, deciding to use his Archmage rank spell, Warden Of The Rift.

But he wasn’t going to use it while still inside his apartment, Alex quickly changed out of his uniform and left his apartment.

...

"I should have thought," Alex mumbled to himself with a serious expression, the silver white glow in his eyes gradually reduced as his eyes returned to normal.

He had just finished using Warden Of The Rift to look through the entire Brandvel City for almost 30 minutes. Aside from the grey spots that he couldn’t see through, every other place had been thoroughly searched by him.

Alex was unable to find the void key that had gone missing. This was to be expected, whoever had stolen the item must have brought it out of Brandvel City long ago to avoid getting caught.

Another thing he had discovered that made his expression darken was...

The instructor who had bumped into him the other day was nowhere to be found!

’So he’s really related to the missing item,’ Alex thought as realisation hit him. He had been too careless, but there was no point regretting what had already been done; he had to think of a way to fix this.

Since this person was able to prepare all of those things on the day that Alex had gone to the vault, it simply meant that he wasn’t working alone, and they had been planning for this for a long time; they had just used this opportunity to frame Alex and shift the attention of the university towards him.

As for the real culprits responsible for this, Alex could only think of one group.

The Dark Union!

"Those bastards again," Alex clicked his tongue in annoyance, recalling his encounter with that puppet.

....

The next day. As promised, Eric showed up in front of Alex’s door very early in the morning. All set and ready to head out for the mission.

Alex hadn’t expected the kid to show up so early, Eric didn’t even send him a message that he was coming. Luckily, Alex was always "prepared", so when Eric showed up, it didn’t take long before they left Alex’s place.

On their way outside, Alex asked about the mission that Eric had accepted.

"Hunting down a mutated ranked magic beast, the steel-horned snake!"Eric answered, his eyes shining with excitement.

Alex "...."

He stared at Eric as if he were looking at a madman A mutated ranked magic beast, and a snake beast at that?!

One had to know that snake monsters had insane agility and movement speed compared to most other magic beasts of the same rank. On top of that, mutated rank magic beasts were beasts that only those above the Expert mage rank would dare to face!

"What rank are you?" Alex asked calmly.

"Peak stage, Core mage rank," Eric answered with an innocent look in his eyes.

The response slightly surprised Alex; he didn’t expect the kid to have reached the peak stage already. That meant he was just a step away from reaching the Expert mage rank, but that was by the way.

"And what rank am I?" Alex asked again.

"Umm, Core mage rank as well but I don’t know your stage. But I’m sure you’re at the peak stage as well considering how strong you are!" Eric answered, his expression was bright as he gave Alex a thumbs up.

Alex was left speechless for a moment before speaking.

"The main point is that, we are both at the Core mage rank, correct?"

Eric rubbed his chin with a thoughtful expression before responding.

"Yes, that’s true."

Alex took a deep breath after hearing Eric’s response before suddenly...

"Then why the hell would you accept a mission to hunt a snake that’s at the mutated beast rank?!" Alex snapped, his voice was so loud that the few people walking around them turned to look at them.

Eric jumped back in fright, he was spooked by how loud Alex’s voice was. After all, this was the first time he ever seen Alex react like this.

"I...I thought we could defeat it together." Eric replied weakly.

Alex let out a sigh as he calmed down and then said.

"Mutated rank beasts aren’t something that Core rank mages should face alone, even Expert rank mages would need help to take one down. Core rank mages going to fight a mutated rank beast is almost the same as throwing their lives away."

He could still remember when he faced the red-eyed bear as a Core rank mage; it would have been a terrible encounter if he hadn’t had the system and happened to be a normal Core rank mage.

Although he could easily kill a mutated rank beast now that he was a Saint, he wasn’t planning to babysit Eric and would play his role as a Core rank mage.

Therefore why he was shocked after learning that they were going to hunt a mutated rank beast.

"But my big sister advised me to accept the mission because it could be related to our promotion assessment to become year two students."