Chapter 31

Since the showdown had begun, there was no need for Gao De to hide anything anymore.

This was a life-and-death battle; whatever means he had, he had to use them without reservation.

The dark green acid ball flew extremely fast, and its lethality was not to be underestimated.

But just as the acid ball was about to touch Master Seda, an invisible barrier blocked it, causing the acid ball to explode prematurely.

The strong acidic substance scattered instantly, forming a small acid rain zone.

But even so, not a single drop of acid could get close to Master Seda.

"A magic alchemy item, it should be first-circle." Seeing this scene, Gao De's face looked ugly as he made his judgment.

To be able to block his two attacks so easily, and with Master Seda making no casting movements at all, it was nine times out of ten not a cantrip mastered by Master Seda himself, but from a supernatural item he was equipped with.

Master Seda's identity as an alchemist, and as a senior mage apprentice, having one or two first-circle magic alchemy items was only to be expected.

Gao De had also considered this point when rehearsing beforehand.

It was just that the world of magic was too magnificent, and with his shallow knowledge of magic, he couldn't judge what kind of spell this was, what effects it had, or what its weaknesses were.

"Acid Splash..."

Compared to Gao De's "knowing nothing," Master Seda's knowledge was much broader, and he recognized the spell Gao De had cast at a glance.

His ash-gray face turned slightly blue, he took a deep breath, and sighed with admiration: "I really underestimated you, my good apprentice; I haven't even mastered this spell, yet you've learned it."

"I really don't know where you got the spell formula or when you mastered it."

"But, that's as far as it goes."

As his voice fell, Master Seda finally made his move.

Courtesy demands reciprocity.

For this apprentice who dared to defy his authority, the anger in his heart had accumulated to the extreme.

Master Seda extended his right hand, which looked like withered wood.

His index finger pointed at Gao De.

A tangible vortex appeared in his hand, turning into a dazzling red-orange light, rising with a scorching temperature.

An arrow formed of fire had taken shape.

That fire arrow, following the direction of Master Seda's index finger, tore through the air like a meteor, dragging a tail of flame as it shot toward Gao De.

The flames burned fiercely, and the speed was extremely fast.

The distance between the two was so short, and Gao De had not mastered any spells to increase agility.

It was conceivable that he would have nowhere to hide from an attack that even earth-vein creatures with strong bodies like wolf-rats couldn't dodge.

And that was indeed the case.

However, Gao De was unusually calm.

Facing the blazing fire arrow flying toward him, he didn't change his expression, nor did he make any dodging movements—that would just be a waste of precious combat time.

The fire arrow spell mastered by Master Seda was known information to Gao De.

It was impossible for him not to have a response plan for this.

The next instant, a layer of shimmer swirled around his body, expanding like ripples and enveloping him.

The moment the shimmer appeared was just before the fire arrow was about to touch him.

【Resistance+】! The barrier constructed by the spell showed its effectiveness; the fire arrow, which could have dealt fatal damage to Gao De, had most of its power weakened instantly after colliding with this barrier.

Finally landing on Gao De, it was just some flames that weren't particularly fierce.

Although it burned Gao De's clothes and scalded the skin on his chest, it stopped there and didn't cause Gao De any further damage. "Good lad!" Master Seda was quite surprised to see this scene, and the look of contempt on his face had disappeared, "You have quite a few hidden skills!"

He was surprised by the new spell Gao De had cast, and also surprised by Gao De's ability.

The more powerful the mage, the shorter the casting time required to cast spells.

Logically speaking, Master Seda's offensive spell should have been cast before Gao De's spell.

But the magical light of the fire arrow and the Resistance spell appeared almost simultaneously.

This was because although Gao De didn't know the spells Master Seda had mastered, he could be certain that after he cast 【Acid Splash+】, Master Seda would definitely retaliate.

So after casting 【Acid Splash+】, Gao De immediately triggered the spell model for 【Resistance】.

Therefore, even though his casting time was longer than Master Seda's, because he didn't react only after Master Seda cast his spell, but started triggering the spell model before Master Seda cast his, plus the time it took for the fire arrow to fly, the situation where both their spells were cast at the same time occurred.

In the fighting games of Gao De's previous life, there was a technical term for this.

Prediction.

This was a scene that would only appear in battles between old mages, yet it happened to a first-rank apprentice he hadn't even put in his eyes; how could Master Seda not be surprised?

Gao De's current situation was not good.

His face showed an abnormal flush.

Even though 【Resistance】 blocked most of the fire arrow's power, the residual energy still caused him to suffer.

More importantly, his mana was already more than half depleted!

—Besides the gap in the number of spells mastered and the gap in casting time, the biggest gap between Gao De and Master Seda lay in the number of spells that could be cast.

It looked like both were mage apprentices, and their realms didn't seem to differ much, but Gao De was only a first-rank apprentice, while Master Seda was a third-rank apprentice.

Gao De's current mana could only support him in casting five cantrips before it would be completely exhausted.

Master Seda, as a third-rank apprentice, had enough mana to support him in casting more than twenty cantrips.

A mage without mana is worse than a super soldier.

This is a truth recognized in any world.

And adding the 【Mage Hand】 cast at the beginning, Gao De now had only enough mana left to cast two cantrips.

Gao De took a deep breath, kept calm, and at the same time gritted his teeth, forcing himself to temporarily ignore the burning pain constantly coming from his chest.

Whoosh! Another acid ball appeared in his hand, shooting toward Master Seda with the motion of his swinging arm.

When facing Master Seda's fire arrow spell, he didn't make any dodging movements.

Since he knew he couldn't dodge it, he simply placed all his hope on the 【Resistance】 spell.

This was also to buy time so that he would still have the initiative in the next round of exchanges.

Gao De was betting that Master Seda would be very confident in his fire arrow spell, believing that it would be enough to defeat him, and wouldn't prepare the next spell in the first instance.

He won the bet.

So in this round, the initiative was still with Gao De!

Gao De's third spell was still 【Acid Splash+】.

"How wicked!" Master Seda saw all this in his eyes and couldn't help but curse inwardly.

In a situation where his own casting time was clearly faster than the opponent's, in three rounds of spell exchanges, except for the second round which was a draw, Gao De had held the initiative in the other two rounds.

Who can you reason with about this?

(End of chapter)