Chapter 57 - Apprentice Tournament (Part Two)

The moment the referee signalled the start of the match, Gaige slashed his sword and projected a wave of fire. The wave propagated vigorously and threatened to envelop Markus.

In response, Markus waved his wand and summoned a spell circle. The flames approaching him collided against an opposition of air and was summarily extinguished.

Gaige used the wave as a distraction to cover the distance between himself and Markus. Unfortunately, he never expected Markus to dissipate the flames so quickly. He was three leaps away when the flames cleared. Markus waved his wand once again and summoned another spell circle.

Gaige had never seen such a spell before; the circle appeared much, much simpler in design, yet it also had an indescribable intricacy to it.

His instincts blared in earnest as the spell approached completion. Gaige quickly halted his momentum and dodged backwards. It was a good thing that he did because a mini-explosion bloomed in the place he was supposed to be.

A bead of sweat dripped down his back as he processed the turn of events.

"What was that spell?" His thoughts were voiced by the audience.

"I've... never seen that before. It has to be some kind of a finishing spell, right?" A student chimed in.

Wei Zao furrowed his brows. He had never seen that spell before either. Even after using his vast accumulation of knowledge, he wasn't able to pinpoint its origin. He then concentrated his gaze on Markus until a book with the boy's name materialised in the Omniscient Library.

In reading the details, Wei Zao's frown deepened.

____

Name: Markus Reva

...

Cultivation Method: Unknown

____

'Unknown? Not None, but Unknown? How can it be unknown, you're supposed to be Omniscient?!' He asked in exasperation.

{...}

But he didn't have the time to interrogate his system further, because Markus didn't let out. He waved his wand once again and flicked it towards Gaige while producing the very same spell circle.

Gaige's eyes widened in shock, 'Damn it!'

He dodged and narrowly avoided the explosion. Before he could take a breath, Markus cast the spell once again!

Gaige was forced to dodge and weave continuously through intuition. Fortunately, he wasn't forced to contend with the explosion spell all the time. Based on observation, Gaige found out that Markus only cast that spell when he crossed a 5-meter boundary centred on Markus.

This suggested that Markus was weak in close combat, which happened to be Gaige's strength.

Beyond that boundary, Gaige only had to face basic |Fireball|, |Earth Spike|, |Water Jet|, |Wind Blade| and so on.

Markus cast these spells at a staggering pace. He had forced Gaige to enter a defensive stance with dodging and blocking those attacks while interspersing warding spells to shield against the projectiles. Gaige figured that this was Markus' strategy: to finish the fight as quickly as possible by overpowering Gaige early with a barrage of attacks.

Fortunately, Gaige had figured it out! All he had to do was wait out Markus, that is, till Markus runs out of mana.

With that in mind, Gaige focused on the spells and implemented the most efficient manoeuvres to dodge them.

"Ha..." One of the teaching apprentices in the audience sighed. "It looks like Gaige figured it out. He's playing an attrition strategy to outlast Markus."

The other apprentices nodded in agreement and internally placed their bets on Gaige. The students followed suit and began to cheer for him. Only the F4 maintained silence and smirked in disdain at the other students.

Wei Zao hadn't relaxed one bit. Since he was already in the Foundation Establishment realm, he had a greater insight into Markus' current condition. He could clearly see that the boy was barely breaking a sweat. He had cast over 50 spells without pause, yet there was barely any lag in his casting.

'He's not tiring out? But how?'

He perused the entry on Markus once again and searched for any details that stood out. It indicated that Markus had a below-average to non-existent aptitude for cultivation. There were no hidden bloodlines or special physiques that offered any advantages. His enchanted artefacts were fairly basic and didn't offer boosted mana capacity.

"How is he doing this?" Wei Zao muttered while scratching his head in confusion.

"It must be the spells!" Wei Zao concluded out loud, attracting the attention of his neighbours.

Wei Zao focused intensely on the spells circles summoned by Markus. Books pertaining to those spells materialised in his Omniscient Library, but they were all empty.

"What the hell! Why are they empty?"

In response to his aggressive inquiry, the system maintained silence.

{...}

Wei Zao cursed the system internally and ran through possible theories in his mind.

'Wait! Maybe the boy is also a transmigrant with a system!'

{Negative.} The system finally responded.

Wei Zao scoffed and rechecked the boy's registered teaching apprentice, Guy Larks.

The book that was already present in the Omniscient Library with Guy Larks didn't change and displayed the same information.

'But... How?' Wei Zao exclaimed in defeat.

While Wei Zao was undergoing an internal conflict, Gaige was bearing with the unending onslaught of spells from Markus. His initial confidence quickly began wavering as he found that there didn't appear to be any fluctuation in Markus' fervour.

'How isn't he enervating himself?'

Even the members of the audience caught on to the problem. The man who preemptively declared Gaige's victory swallowed his words and slinked back into the crowd.

Gaige realised that this couldn't go on any longer. Instead of his opponent, he was the one getting tired. His stamina was running out, and his mana pool was draining at a rapid rate in trying to ward out spells he couldn't dodge!

He recalled Markus' weakness in close combat and rushed forward. As he proceeded, he prepared the third sword stance under the first set of techniques complementing Insight into the Abyss.

He weaved through the approaching |Fireball| and the subsequent |Earth Spike|, and quickly passed the 5-metre safety boundary.

Right on queue, Markus activated the explosion spell and directed it towards Gaige. In response, Gaige released the sword stance and produced the wave of darkness. Right as the explosion initiated, the darkness enveloped it and doused it with a barely audible puff.

Gaige smiled and rushed forward with renewed vigour.

'Now!'

Right as he passed the 3-metre boundary, Gaige knew that he was safe. Markus wouldn't initiate an explosion this close, lest he hurt himself. Therefore, Gaige prepared to contend against the basic spells that might block his path.

To his surprise, Markus activated a different spell circle. This looked nothing like the altered basic spells or the explosion spells Gaige had experienced earlier in this fight.

Instead, a visible mist started to form and block his path. Gaige's instinct screamed and urged him to stop, however, his momentum was beyond his control. He had pledged his all in this gambit, there was no chance to stop!

He subconsciously closed his eyes and plunged through the mist.

"AAAAAA!" A scream broke through the centre of the mist causing everyone to hold their breath.

As the mist subsided they saw Markus running out and assuming a position on the other side of the field.

In his original place, writhing on the floor in pain, was Gaige. Steam emanated from the boy's skin, and holes began forming in his outfit. When Wei Zao looked at Gaige's face closely, he could see light yellowish patches and some swelling.

'Acid!' That was the only answer he could think of. He gritted his teeth and directed his attention once again at Markus' pouch. To his surprise, he didn't find anything out of the ordinary. There were no offensive items in there!

"Do you surrender?" Markus said, loud enough so that Gaige could hear.

"What was that attack?" A teaching apprentice blurted.

"Referee! This... Has to be cheating!" One of the students screamed.

The referee furrowed his brows and spoke in a morose tone, "We did not see any illegal moves or unregistered items being used. Please do not make false calls and besmirch the integrity of our process."

Although he appeared composed on the surface, deep down he was extremely perplexed. He was supposed to intervene should the students suffer fatal or grave injuries. However, his scans right as the acid mist spell was cast indicated that there was no lethality to it.

This was confirmed after he observed Gaige who passed through the mist. The damage was only on the skin and could easily be treated through cheap regenerative ointments. The pain came from the extremely distributed nature of the attack. The small mist particles attacked from many points, making it hard for a Mana Condensation mage to brace for the damage.

Everyone shut their mouths and retrained their attention into the arena.

"Do you surrender?" Markus bellowed once again.

"NO!" Gaige screamed, as he stood back up with visible strain, his eyes glazing over in rage.

He readied his sword once again and rushed forward haphazardly.

Markus sighed and performed the same sequence of defensive manoeuvres as before. Just like the last time, his explosion spell was absorbed.

This time, Gaige tried to extend the wave of darkness a bit further to absorb the acid mist as well. However, Markus anticipated this and pulled back the mist in advance, just outside the coverage of the wave.

Gaige ended up suffering the same injury and bellowed in pain as he struggled to stand up. The pain was excruciating, and his nerves were screaming in agony.

He tried once again, and failed spectacularly, incurring additional burns in the process.

"Do you surrender?!" Markus shouted, with a demanding tone and a slight frown. He wasn't taking any pleasure in this, he just wanted to subdue Gaige as quickly as possible.

'Suppress! Consume! I am the endless void!'

Gaige closed his palm into a tight fist and screamed, "NOOOOOO!"

As his primal shout reverberated, a blanket of darkness burst out from him and enveloped the entirety of the arena and a little beyond.

Wei Zao used his mana sense to inspect Gaige, and his eyeballs nearly burst out of their sockets in shock, "It's.... It's perfected resonance!"