294 Tour de Force

Baiyi and his opponent moved away from each other, putting some distance between themselves. With his right hand, Baiyi placed his Saint Quartz Staff diagonally in front of his chest, and at the same time, he slowly swiped the air in front of him with his left hand.

Five small spell formations glowing with pale blue lights consolidated on the trail which his left hand made. As mana of different elements poured into spell formations, the formations lost their neutral blue glow, one after the other, and started to emit bright elemental glows, starting from leftmost formation to the rightmost formation.

Opposite Baiyi, Grant seemed to be making the same gestures, but he was using modern runes, not spell formations.

This was only natural for advanced sorcerers. Normal sorcerers could only shape their mana into one element at a time, within their body, regardless of how fluidly and quickly they are able to shift between elements. Hence, if a sorcerer planned to use a technique which required synthesis of more than one element, they would always prepare the corresponding elemental mana close to them so that they can draw the mana from their vessels — the formations or runes — to complete their spells.

With that, their last preparation was completed.

However, neither of them was eager to attack first. They remained standing in place and sent their psychic energies out to each other, scanning and trying to discern each other's next move. Both opponents attempted to deduce the technique the other was about to unleash by reading each other's preparatory mana vessels.

This was the most exciting and pivotal part of a battle prelude. In fact, the anxiety that stemmed from the heightening tension had begun to elicit an elevated heartbeat and soft breathes from within Baiyi's helm.

He whispered reassuringly, "Don't be afraid. I'll protect you." 

Nota the fairy was hiding inside his helm.

This was part of their battle strategy. Nota, who was in her fairy form, was now the size of a sparrow. On her back was a pair of intricately-marked, transparent wings, and her body glowed faintly. Small leaves were used to hide her private body parts, similar to the image of pixies in a children's storybook. This was the form best suited for her to aid in battle, as fairies greatly enhanced their masters' spell-casting speed, mana recovery, the accuracy of their psychic energies, and magical effects.

Baiyi had two reasons for having Nota hid inside his helm, instead of letting her dart beside him like Tinker Bell. First, her presence was not supposed to be known. Second, this may very well be the best protection he could offer her — the safest place in the entire world she could stay in for the duel, right?

Nota only forcefully muttered a muffled "mm" when she heard Baiyi's reassuring words. "Mentor, I-I-I'm not scared! I'm just a l-l-little n-nervous…"

She had every reason to be scared, though, especially given the situation they were in. The powerful mien and intense flow of energy flow leaking out of Grant's majestic robe were overwhelming; it was a strong indication that their opponent was no average joe.

Right as soon as Baiyi and Nota finished talking, Grant decided to stop waiting.

His runes darted behind him and formed a ring, and a circle of scarlet flames combusted in front of the Vice President. This was an indication that he was chanting a Fire-type offensive spell; however, the actual rune had been concealed by a special shrouding technique to prevent his opponent from recognizing the exact spell.

"Incoming!" Baiyi muttered under his breath. His own elemental formations streaked to his Saint Quartz Staff, forming a circle of light around the head of his staff. Then, Baiyi aimed his staff at Grant, and suddenly, two overlapping formations manifested above the staff. One was a flaming crimson, and the other was a chilling white.

Both Baiyi and Grant finished their chants at the same time. The formations above Baiyi's staff spawned a flaming ball that contained scorching flames and chilly frost fire. After manifesting, the flaming ball wasted no time in streaking towards its target. Grant's rune ring spewed two orbs of dazzling ivory light and ebony shadow. The two orbs spun in circles around each other, soaring towards Baiyi's magic spell.

The attacks clashed and exploded.

Although this was only their first attacks, both Baiyi and Grant had opted for seventh-grade combination magic. Baiyi's Gelum Ignis and Grant's Sol Luna were both magical offensive spells formed by combining two elements that directly conflict with each other. The two contradictory elements reacted violently, and their chaotic fusion energy would explode upon collision with a foreign surface, dealing significant damage.

Those who were slightly in the know could immediately tell that this battle was no longer faithful to its original "educational" purpose.

"He's on his next one. You concentrate on fortifying my magical damage; I'll handle the psychic energy tracking and disruption myself," Baiyi said to Nota. The way he had opted to use the fairy's exponential boost was unorthodox, and as a result of his tactic, his speed improved dramatically. A formation stacked above another formation, and each of them fired off similarly lower-graded but swift magic.

Grant made his move at the same time. In order to counter Baiyi's rapid spells, he waved his Augustril staff, which was made out of the same material as Baiyi's armor, and three runes flashed briskly around its head. In the same instant, three low-damage, high-speed light orbs were spawned. However, Grant did not use them to directly counter Baiyi's attacks. Instead, he focused his own psychic energy on the Soul Armature's rapidly moving figure, before releasing his answer to Baiyi's attacks.

Grant was confident that his psychic energy and agility were enough to evade Baiyi's attacks, while betting that his own attack would be quicker than Baiyi's, which would force the Soul Armature to release his psychic energy tracking, which was currently locked onto Grant's figure, in order to protect himself.

"Whoa, that's unexpected," Baiyi sighed quietly as his gaze followed the guiding missile-like glowing orbs.

Baiyi re-adjusted his flying position and began to fly backward. Pure blue energy poured out of Baiyi's hands, and he twirled his Saint Quartz staff very quickly, causing the pale blue energy to morph into a thick blue barrier that blocked the incoming attacks.

That was one of the defense techniques commonly used by war druids. They forcefully released the purest form of their manas, then they re-shaped the released mana by spinning their staffs close to the mana in order to form a special magic shield. This type of defense was especially used to deflect smaller ranged attacks like Grant's.

The Holy-level Grand Sorcerer, who had been gracefully evading his opponent's relentless attacks, still found time to make a comment. "Oh, a tactic straight out of a war druid's book! So unrefined, yet so effective…"

He proceeded to retract his psychic energy in order to critically disrupt Baiyi's psychic target lock. With their guiding system turned off, the conical-shaped attacks wavered, and Grant dodged them easily.

Then, he began to chant a high damage seventh-grade spell.

This time, the rune rings which Grant had prepared beforehand began to glow with dazzling technicolors. Not only that, a few offensive magic which had been enchanted on his gears before the battle was released, at the same time.

It was clear that Grant was going for the kill!

"Tsk tsk. Someone ran out of mercy…" Baiyi sighed. He stuffed his left hand into his storage pouch, grabbed a few scrolls and squashed them.

Suddenly, the air around Baiyi became saturated with countless glowing dots, which formed a curtain of tiny blocks that covered Baiyi's body completely, and the Soul Armature braced himself for the onslaught.

Grant was unperturbed by Baiyi's countermeasures. He knew very well that Baiyi's countermeasures were really just low-graded magic. They were not offensive, and they did not match the mettle of his own mighty pre-enchanted magic. Grant's chanting did not stop, and soon, he had almost reached the end of his spell.

Lethal runes had appeared around him, forming the shape of a planet-sized firebird.

This was ninth-grade magic — the Wings of Inferno! Furthermore, the magical enhancement from Grant's gear had vastly improved the damage output of this spell, making it capable of rivaling tenth-grade magic, or even forbidden technique. Worst of all, excluding forbidden techniques, this particular spell covered the widest range that fire magic could manage. With the speed at which Grant had chanted the spell and the speed of his magic assembling, this could very well be his tour de force in this battle!

Unfortunately, Baiyi could nothing to stop his opponent; he was completely surrounded and cornered by the Grand Sorcerer's powerful pre-enchanted magic. Because of this, Baiyi could only watch Grant speak the last syllable of a spell that could melt the soul armature completely.

Some members of the audience instantly recognized the iconic firebird, and others gasped in horror at Grant's chosen finishing blow. A voice even cried out, "Isn't this supposed to be an educational battle? Why did he use a spell like this? Do they secretly share some kind of blood feud?!"

Baiyi himself was just as stunned. This magic is way out of this duel's league! Just exactly how highly did Grant look up to him, to the point of assuming that he would be able to survive this attack?

"...Or had he… planned to kill Hope all along?"

While Baiyi was mulling over the direction which the fight had taken, Grant's magic finished taking shape. A terrifying phoenix made purely out of flames spread its towering, wide wings, blocking every inch of the sky. The clouds seemed to combust into flames, and the temperature skyrocketed, scorching the sky into a shade of apocalyptic red. The edge of the phoenix's wings and the sky were lost in the flames.

Then, the quagmire of scalding redness that shrouded the scorched sky plummeted straight towards Baiyi's tiny, unmoving frame.

Baiyi could not dodge an attack that came at him from all sides, so he conjured a fire barrier. It seemed like he was betting on using an elemental shield to assimilate and protect himself...

Grant could only shake his head when he saw this. Quite a number of his gears were made specifically to improve the shield-piercing ability of his spells. Hence, even if an elemental shield was able to deflect a weak round of attacks from Grant, it would not be able to tank larger, more devastating round of attacks. To Grant, if Baiyi did not any gears that could subdue fire with him, then the shield he conjured would not save him from the inevitable, becoming a puddle of molten metal.

"Am I seriously winning this round?"

Grant hesitated. If the victor was already obvious, then there was no need to continue. He may have unleashed a fatal spell, but he never intended for Baiyi to die at his hand just like that! With that thought in mind, the VP retracted his mana so as to terminate his attack.

Suddenly, the sound of blowing wind rang by the side of his ears.

The instinct of a Holy-level fighter instantly prompted him to tilt his head to the other side and trigger an energy shield from his gear. However, in the next instant, a loud blast resounded behind Grant, which was followed by the sounds of his energy shield cracking. A massive force struck Grant from behind, and he was sent flying across the sky.

At the spot where Grant had been standing moments before… stood Baiyi.