"I wonder what kind of powerful figure this new Golden Stag substitute will turn out to be."
Watching Gezny, the second contestant for Golden Stag, take to the field, looking as thin as a bamboo stick, such a thought floated in everyone’s mind in the stands.
Imperceptibly, everyone had come to the subconscious belief that Windsor, the member representing Snow Wolf, couldn’t possibly win this bout.
The very skinny-looking Gezny didn’t have the slightest desire to trade words with his opponent. When he came into the field, he directly signaled his readiness at Kleis.
Hence the fight started very quickly.
"Snow Spirit!"
The moment the fight began, a white ball of snow appeared around Windsor, fluttering in circles around him like a snow spirit in the depths of a forest on a snowy night.
This was clearly a very standard strategy. Launching an arcane skill integrating attack with defense, this was the first choice for almost every arcane master in a fight.
The dazzling brilliance of arcane particles also appeared on Gezny’s hands.
His body, and even the clothes he wore suddenly turned into an extremely bright red.
"Hiss…"
There was a collective gasp in the stands.
In fact, even without using your eyes, you could judge what kind of arcane skills the fighters were using in the field just by the various voices coming from the stands.
Only a particularly fearsome arcane skill, or perhaps one extremely peculiar, and one that almost no one knew of could cause such a tsunami-like wave of hisses.
"What arcane skill is that?"
Ayrin was also thoroughly mesmerized.
After turning entirely into a bright red color, Gezny actually began to melt, starting from the feet. His whole body started slowly sinking down. It quickly vanished, and became an extremely bright puddle of thick, sticky blood.
"I don’t know." Charlotte stared in a daze. She never heard about an arcane skill like that either.
Facing Gezny, Windsor was also staring in a daze. After hesitating a moment, he chanted in a quiet voice. The "Snow Spirit" revolving around him still stayed near him, but a white arrow of snow half as big as a man instantly took form in front of him, then shot toward that puddle of blood at astonishing speed.
"Puff!"
The white arrow of ice struck the ground, exploded, forming a blanket of ice covering the entirety of that thick sticky pool of blood.
"What!"
However, what made the spectators in the stands gasp once again, what made Windsor turn white as snow was, a bright red color also emerged under Windsor’s feet.
Like a layer of sticky blood oozing from the ground, a dense, sticky pool of blood also formed at his feet.
Before he could launch another arcane skill, a blood-red figure suddenly flashed into existence on his left. It was impressively Gezny.
"Hiss…"
Windsor himself couldn’t hold back an audible hiss. Along with the pull of the arcane particles from his fingers, the "Snow Spirit" fluttering around him smashed ruthlessly in Gezny’s direction.
The Snow Spirit exploded on Gezny.
At the same time, without a sound and without a trace, a scarlet hand stretched out from the blood at Windsor’s feet, grabbing both his legs.
"Ah!"
Windsor shrieked. His legs also made bone-cracking sounds.
"Puff!"
The Snow Spirit directly went through the blood-red figure’s chest. Bloody waves spread along the hole in its wake, then the entire blood-red figure once again shrank down like a puddle of blood.
The sticky puddle of blood vanished from under Windsor’s feet as though it seeped into the ground. In the meantime, Windsor couldn’t stand upright any longer. He fell to the ground.
"The bones in his legs have been crushed to pieces!"
"What on earth is this arcane skill!"
Amidst the continuous shouts of surprise, Ayrin actually didn’t peep a word. He watched without even a blink.
He saw the puddle of blood once again bubble where Gezny had first disappeared from, then Gezny’s body once again appeared in its original spot as though nothing happened, looking at the fallen Windsor.
Charlotte turned her head left and right, looking at the stands, listening to the voices coming from them. She said, astounded, "This secret skill must surely have appeared very rarely. It seems there’s no one in the entire stands who knows about this secret skill."
"Could it be a skill that merely deceives the sight, while in fact you go underground below your opponent’s feet?" Ayrin asked all of a sudden.
Charlotte turned around and looked at him with a shake of her head. "It’s impossible to know with mere conjectures. The only way to feel what kind of secret skill it truly is is probably to face him."
River Bend Academy was an extremely formidable team just like Golden Stag. In the rest area reserved for participant teams in the stands, a boy in that team who looked only thirteen to fourteen couldn’t resist saying, "This year, Golden Stag Academy is even harder to deal with than last year."
This boy’s hair was of a peculiar bronze color. His height was very short, and his eyes were an azure blue. He looked particularly smart and clever. He seemed to have some sort of ADHD; his hands moved here and then moved there, without any cease. Now and then, he even couldn’t stop himself from taking out a complex building block toy. He tore it apart, then very quickly rebuilt it again.
"Leiston, that’s rather strange. Even a guy like you feels that Golden Stag is hard to deal with?" The group of people from River Bend suddenly gathered all their eyes on this very young boy.
"Of course. Even my genius self can’t see through an arcane skill from a substitute of theirs. That said, it doesn’t matter. If they end up meeting us, I’ll still sort them out easily, ohohohoho…" A strange proud laugh immediately came from this freshman called Leiston.
"You, can you be a bit less narcissistic?!" The group from River Bend immediately smacked this freshman on the head, each of them gifting him with a punch.
"There’s actually a guy like Stingham?" If Ayrin had noticed the situation there, he’d surely have had such a similar thought.
However, Ayrin’s eyes right then were latched tight onto Gezny.
…
"What does that mean?"
"Is it anticipation or is it because it’s innate to this arcane skill to begin with?"
The stands were once again in a turmoil.
The fight between Gezny and Svensen, the third fighter for Snow Wolf, had already started.
Clearly, just like many people thought, Svensen chose a highly mobile strategy from the get-go.
By quickly changing his position, perhaps it would be difficult for a puddle of blood oozing from the ground to pose a threat for him.
But what no one in the stands imagined was, with Svensen’s first flash, hurling himself more than a dozen meters away, a bright puddle of blood appeared from the ground at his feet the instant his feet landed on the ground!
As though this puddle of blood was waiting for him to land!
A big scarlet hand suddenly stretched out of the puddle and grabbed at Svensen’s legs.
An aghast Svensen had no time at all to launch another mobility skill. Bright light flashed on his right hand, and a curved blade shaped like a wolf tooth appeared in it. He slashed down at the big frightening hand stretching out of the blood.
"Puff!"
The big blood-red hand split apart from the middle. Without a sound, it became a thick puddle of blood dripping on the ground.
But at the same time, a scarlet figure actually appeared behind him.
"Hiss…"
With a collective gasp from the stands, this scarlet figure ruthlessly hit Svensen’s back with both his hands.
"Crack…"
Svensen’s back immediately cracked as though the bones broke. His entire body splashed away in the air, as though a chariot hurling at high speed had crashed into him.
"Why is this arcane skill so weird and creepy, it’s not just a form of attack?"
"The real attack doesn’t always come from the hand stretching out from the blood on the ground, it can also come from the appearing figure?"
Ayrin stared, his eyes never blinking even once. He saw that pool of blood once again seemingly seep into the ground, then Gezny’s figure once appeared where he previously stood.
For some reason, though of course he couldn’t guess what type of skill Gezny’s skill truly was, he inexplicably felt as though Gezny’s skill didn’t seem hard to learn.
At the very least, it was much simpler than the two arcane skills professor Plum had given him.
"When he launches the skill, the flow of arcane particles doesn’t look complicated at all. It’s about the same as Evil Flaming Eye at most."
Maybe because it was because this arcane skill was too strange, and because Ayrin had also been observing it with extreme focus without missing a beat. All of Gezny’s minute movements every time he launched the skill, every scene of arcane particles flowing out of his hands and feet, they all seemed extremely clear in his mind right at this instant.
Charlotte felt something strange with Ayrin, and couldn’t help but ask, "What’s the matter?"
"I’m not sure," Ayrin said, looking at her. He couldn’t make sense of it either. "I just feel like I can learn this arcane skill."
"Learn his arcane skill, just by superficially looking at him using the skill?" Charlotte stared wide at Ayrin. "Ayrin, are you pulling my leg?"
"I’m not sure what’s going on either, but after watching him use it a few times, I actually feel like I can also do it just like him." Ayrin shook his head, a little troubled. "Before, when I learned arcane skills, I looked at teacher Ciaran and teacher Carter demonstrate, and when I felt like I could do it just like them, make my arcane particles flow just like them, then I wasn’t far away from successfully using the skill I was learning."
"But, even those geniuses from the legends, those powerful people with dragon bloodlines, no matter how powerful their ability to learn and comprehend, it was still impossible for them to learn an arcane skill just by watching someone else use it a few times. All the arcane skills draw and condense arcane energy through minute variations in the flow of arcane particles.
"Take the simplest part, just how fast the arcane particles should flow when launching the skill, what subtle variations there are. Without arcane masters who can launch this skill telling you about their experience, telling you concrete numerical values, it’s almost impossible for you to understand and learn. You must surely have already seen the scrolls or data recording your academy’s arcane skills. You should know that apart from images depicting detailed body movements, there are also detailed values about each flow of arcane particles spraying from your body. Even if you can break down these details, every arcane skill is still so hard to grasp; people often need to practice and feel it for themselves for a very long time before they can learn a skill that suits them. Ayrin, you…" As though she was explaining common sense, a quick unceasing torrent of words came from Charlotte.
But all of a sudden, she seemed to think of something, and suddenly shook. "Ayrin, you’re a freshman at Holy Dawn Academy. How much time did you need to learn Evil Flaming Eye and Crown of Ice and Snow? Also, I think you learned another two skills this time, how much time did you need?"
"I don’t remember clearly about Evil Flaming Eye and Crown of Ice and Snow, because I hadn’t condensed arcane particles yet when teacher Ciaran taught me the way to use Evil Flaming Eye. This time, I used maybe three days for Fountain of Slow and Touch of Bones," Ayrin said after thinking a moment.
"Three days? You learned these two skills after just three days?!" Charlotte couldn’t stop herself from covering her mouth.
"What, are you very surprised?" Ayrin laughed, a little embarrassed. He quietly said, "Teacher Carter and teacher Ciaran also said that my ability to comprehend and learn was much stronger than ordinary people."
"…" Charlotte looked at Ayrin with incomparable shock. Countless thoughts flashed in her mind at this instant, but when she finally opened her mouth, the first thing she couldn’t resist saying was: "Ayrin, you definitely can’t casually let someone else know you have this kind of learning ability… Because that’s your greatest secret."
"Yeah." Ayrin nodded. "I trust you absolutely. Apart from you, I wouldn’t tell someone else."
"Can you really… keenly perceive a skill just be looking at someone using it for a few times? Can you really learn it?" Charlotte breathed deeply. It was difficult for her to quieten her shaken mind no matter how she tried.
"Let me carefully watch it again. He should use it again probably." Ayrin’s eyes never strayed from Gezny. "I’ll give it a try after the match finishes. We’ll know by then."
