Chapter 13

“Let’s start, kid. Show me what you’ve got.”

“Rock Bullet!”

A cone-shaped rock appeared on my hand, spun, and shot toward Master Elara, who easily blocked it with a small barrier right at the point of impact.

Bang!

The Rock Bullet broke apart the moment it hit her barrier, which didn’t show any damage on its surface.

“I’m not done yet! Fireball.”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Three Fireballs shot from my hand and hit her barrier head-on, covering the area around her in smoke and dust so I couldn’t see anything.

Did I get her?

From behind the smoke, arrows of fire and ice shot toward me.

Yeah, of course not!

I slid across the ground like it was made of ice to dodge her counterattack and reposition myself, only to be met with a sudden Fireball right in front of me.

“Ah, crap! Barrier! Water Wall!”

In a hurry, I cast two defensive spells. Water Wall to weaken the Fireball and Barrier to defend myself against the explosion.

KABOOM!

The Fireball made contact with my defensive spells, but the explosion was so strong that it shattered my defenses and threw me back toward the big tree across the river.

“Gah!”

Cough! Cough!

The moment my back hit the big tree, all the air in my lungs was pushed out, so for a while, I could only lie on the ground wheezing, trying to get air into my lungs.

“Fuck, that hurts.”

“You still have a long way to go, kid.”

Master Elara, who had already crossed the river using Flying Magic, said so with a smug grin on her face.

“Of course I do. I just started learning magic three months ago.”

“True. But for someone who has only been learning magic for three months, you’re already very good.”

“How good?”

“If other mages saw our spar just now, they would think that you had already been learning magic for over a year.”

“Is that so?”

“No apprentice mage your age can defeat you now in a one-on-one fight. Even if they ganged up on you, you could easily run away.”

“That’s true. I have to say, using only the floating part of Flying Magic to lift myself just a tiny bit above the ground was a really genius idea. The mana usage is minimal, and my mobility has increased by a lot.”

“Of course it is! Who do you think I am?”

“A drunkard and tea addict?”

Smack!

“That hurt!”

“I am an Archmage, kid. The youngest Archmage in history. The only one who became an Archmage at the young age of 27! The one and only, Elara Veynes!”

“Uwaaah. Lately, you’ve been getting full of yourself, Master.”

“I’m not! I’m just saying the truth!”

If you’re wondering what caused her to become this full of herself…

It’s me. I’m the cause.

These past three months, I’ve been learning magic under her. I’ve learned a lot and grown a lot. My speed in coating was already much faster than normal, and while the coating process was still continuing because I needed to coat the rest of my blood vessels, I also learned more basic magic under her.

Not only the basic magic of the four elements, but I also learned Barrier Magic and this modified Flying Magic that she decided to call Skate. It allowed me to float just a bit above the ground and slide across it without any friction, which in turn increased my mobility by a lot.

She also taught me the basics of magic combat, like reading the trajectory of an attack quickly so I wouldn’t have to cover my whole body with a barrier. I only needed to cover the part where the attack was going to hit to preserve mana. Then she taught me about the importance of repositioning and awareness, so she also taught me Search Magic to make sure I wouldn’t get ambushed. The radius of my Search Magic was still small, though, just a few paces around me.

Now, you might be wondering why I’m the cause of her acting like this.

It’s because it’s very abnormal for someone to learn everything she taught me in just three months. She’s totally going to use my accomplishments to brag to the other Archmages once she gets back home.

“Well, that’s enough for today’s spar. Let’s head back and get some lunch.”

Satisfied after glazing herself, she immediately changed her tune and started making her way back to the estate.

She could at least heal me first.

I got back on my feet and followed her back.

…

“Let’s start the evaluation now.”

“Can’t we finish lunch first, Master?”

“We can do it while having lunch. Why postpone it?”

I looked at Seolhwa, sitting beside me while stuffing her mouth with meat buns.

“Isn’t it because you feel awkward if we just have lunch without having a conversation, but you don’t know what to talk about with Seolhwa, so you chose to use the evaluation as a conversation topic?”

Smack!

“Can you not keep hitting my head every time!?”

“Then stop saying stupid shit.”

Even when me and Master are bickering, Seolhwa just sat beside me focusing on her meat buns. All three of us are sitting at the porch, looking over a fish pond while having meat buns as our lunch.

“Your magic combat skill have improved a lot compared to when you have a duel with your cousin before.”

“At that time you only care about attacking, totally disregarding any form of defense. Well, it was on me because I haven’t teach you about magic combat at the time.”

“So overall, you have a great combat skill as an apprentice mage. But, there’s two mistakes that can be fatal if you don’t fix it quickly. It’s regarding to your habit.”

“Habit?”

“When the I was covered in smoke after your Fireball explosions, why did you stop doing anything?”

“I was thinking, ‘Did I get her?’ at the time.”

“You should have either press the attack or reposition yourself.”

“By stopping your attack, you gave me a window to counter attack, and by staying in place and not reposition yourself, even with my sight covered by the smoke I could still send my attack to your last known position.”

“I only stopped for a second though.”

“And that’s plenty. Now, your second bad habit is that you tend to move to the right when you dodge. 8 out of 10, if you want to dodge an attack you will dodge to your right.”

“That’s why you get caught by my Fireball in the end, I already anticipate where you will move after you dodge my counter attack so I can place that Fireball when you get distracted.”

“Did I often dodge to my right that much?”

“You do, Hwi.”

Seolhwa who was until then just sat quietly beside me while munching on meat buns quipped in.

“I do?”

“Hm. I noticed that whenever we have a spar and even during our duels, you always tends to move to your right.”

“I didn’t realize that.”

The realization was shocking. To think that I was that obvious all this time and was so oblivious to it.

“Wait, why didn’t anyone tell me I had this habit before?”

“That’s not important. What’s important is that for now, I want to get rid of that habit of yours, kid. So we’ll have more sparring sessions for a while.”

“Okay.”

It’s frustrating to know that I had that kind of habit, but it’s a good thing I found out about it. Now I can put in the effort to fix it.

…

“Let’s start again. Come at me, kid.”

“Fireball!”

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The three Fireballs hit Master’s shield head-on, covering her surroundings in smoke and dust.

Keep up the attack and reposition.

I slid across the ground in a zigzag pattern, moving around her and trying to make my movements harder to predict while keeping up my attack.

A gust of wind swept through the smoke, clearing her vision. Master Elara started shooting Fire Arrows and Ice Arrows at me one after another.

I slid across the ground, dodging everything I could and blocking any attack I couldn’t dodge with magic. But my reaction speed got slower because I needed to make sure she couldn’t predict my movements while also keeping up my defense and counterattacks.

With my focus split between several things I needed to keep in mind, I got caught in her Fireball explosion again because I was too slow to react to it and got blown back toward the same big tree as before.

Cough! Cough!

“That fucking hurts.”

“You’re fighting even worse than before now.”

Master Elara said that as she floated down after crossing the river and used healing magic on me.

“There are too many things I need to keep in mind that my movement and judgment are getting slower.”

“Well, these things happen when you try to fix a habit. You just have to keep pushing and get beaten up several times. I can just heal you every time you get injured anyway.”

“Now get back on your feet and start again.”