Jack had fought against Scarface before, but at that time, he wasn’t engaging directly with the man. He had made a short ambush attack on the first and second encounters, and on the third one, mostly it was Bowler and Flame who was dealing with the man. So in fact, now was the first time he had a direct match with this man. Not to mention previously he had been engaging as a Fighter, now he could only use his Mage skill, so it was a very different arrangement.
Jack could see that the man’s skill in utilizing the mage’s skills and attacks were better than him, thus he could only abuse his marginally higher stats. He cast Energy Bolts to distract the man, and would use the window it had created to dash forward and get into melee range.
Runic symbol quickly formed on the tip of Scarface’s vine staff. Jack was alarmed. So fast! The rune was formed in just a second, and a light barrier appeared around Scarface. His five Energy Bolts slammed onto the light wall and dissipated.
Jack still needed more than one second to form his Barrier spell rune, sometimes even two seconds, despite his continuous training. He must admit that there were valid reasons that this Mage in front of him had become a famous magic player in past VR games.
But Scarface was also given a fright from Jack’s Energy Bolts. His Barrier spell was level 5, he had invested the 4 free skill points he got after leveling up from level 15 to 17 all to the Barrier skill. This Barrier he had constructed could withstand damage equivalent to 62% of his maximum HP. And his crimson robe added an additional 50 HP to him, thus further increasing his Barrier’s potency.
Yet it had shattered after being hit by only four of the bolts, the fifth bolt rushed towards him. Despite his shock, Scarface could still maintain his calm. He didn’t have the time to summon a Magic Shield, so he swung his staff and hit the fifth bolt. The bolt was destroyed but since his staff’s swing was much weaker than the bolt’s power, he still received a portion of the damage.
The Energy Bolts however didn’t manage to create much disturbance, hence Jack didn’t manage to close in the distance much. Scarface continued to move back to keep his distance from Jack. They continued on this cat and mouse chase while dabbling in range attacks.
Jack lost more HP due to cumulative damage for receiving more attacks compared to Scarface, but Jack’s HP pool was much larger, so it was of no concern. Jack was just frustrated as he could not land many attacks on Scarface. Out of the first hit from the fifth Energy bolt, he had only managed to hit Scarface one other time. It was clear who was more experience in range fights between the two.
Scarface, on the other hand, was also not having it easy. He was under constant pressure to not make a mistake. One small miss in concentration had caused him to get hit, and one hit from this opponent was hurtful. And he also had to constantly keep his opponent on his toe, or else his opponent would close the distance in a very short time. He was sure that he would be done for once his opponent got into melee range.
The thing that confused him the most was his own attacks had hit his opponents several times, but his opponent’s HP bar was still more than half! How high was this person’s HP pool actually?
Although Scarface appeared to be at an advantage on the surface, the fight was taxing him mentally. He was not sure if he could continue to keep Jack at bay for long. Time of gauging his opponent’s strength was over, he decided to go all out to decide the outcome. He cast his Energy Bolts and sent five bolts of light speeding towards Jack.
Seeing the five incoming bolts, Jack did not dare to underestimate them. He knew Scarface’s magic power was considered high among normal magic users. He stopped his charge and took position to receive the approaching spell. When they came near, he slashed using his staff.
When both battling parties attacked at the same time, this world system would consider the one with the larger force to be the winner, and that winner would receive no damage from the attack. While the one with the weaker force would not receive the full brunt of the damage, but would still receive a portion of it.
So when Jack slashed at the Energy Bolt, it was considered an attack against an attack. Jack slash was more powerful than the energy bolt as he was secretly a Warrior, hence he suffered no damage. Contrary to the time when Scarface hit Jack’s last energy bolt with his staff.
Jack used a combination between his staff’s slashing and his shield’s blocking to stand against Scarface’s energy bolts. When he destroyed the third ball, he caught Scarface forming a rune spell from the corner of his eyes. Jack was confused, was he casting Barrier again? But it didn’t make sense, Jack was not attacking him at the moment. Also, Barrier had a long cooldown of three minutes, and that amount of time had certainly not passed since Scarface last used it to block his Energy Bolts.
Realizing the oddity of the situation, Jack couldn’t afford to concentrate on repelling the remaining bolts. He decided to cast Magic Shield, even though it would consume MP. Together with his left hand’s shield, he used the Magic Shield to block the remaining two bolts, while he continued to observe Scarface’s spellcasting.
Surprisingly, after the runic symbol was formed, it didn’t stop. The mana light continued to start drawing another rune! Jack was alarmed, it was not a Barrier spell. And judging from Scarface’s action of sending Energy Bolts to distract him before starting to cast the spell, it must be an offensive spell!
With the speed Scarface was drawing the rune, Jack presumed he would not be able to cover their current distance before Scarface completed his spell. He assumed it was a spell using three runes formation. Peniel had explained to him previously that a spell formation always formed a circle, hence there was no spell formation formed by two runes. After a spell of one rune, it would skip directly to two runes formation, then three, then four, and onwards until nine runes formation which was known to contain the most complicated and powerful spells.
With this assumption, Jack decided to use Barrier. He started drawing his own runic symbol. Although the speed of his casting was slightly slower, Scarface was still in the middle of his second rune, he was confident he should at least be able to complete his rune forming at the same time as Scarface finished his third rune.
When Jack started forming rune, Scarface’s concentration wavered for a bit that he almost failed his spellcasting. A Mage? He didn’t expect his opponent to also be an advanced class like him. He swiftly calmed his mind down as he continued drawing his runic formations. Now that it became a contest of speed casting, he wasn’t about to relent. He focused his concentration and the speed of his spell formation drawing increased.
The speed was so fast that it caught Jack off guard. To his surprise, his concentration was lost. Oh shit! He thought. But when he looked at the half-drawn rune at the tip of his staff, it didn’t vanish. It paused. Jack then remembered the ability of his Spellcasting Gloves, it was not a waste to spend his adventurer points for these gloves, it had really saved him this time.
Forming a rune during practice compared to during a real fight was indeed completely different. He immediately resumed forming his rune again.
But he was slower, Scarface had completed his spell formation. The three runes glowed proudly as the spell take effect. Scarface pointed the completed spell at Jack.
Jack felt pressure on his surroundings. He did not know what Scarface’s spell was, but it certainly was not simple. When he was still wondering, he noticed the ground underneath him started to glow. Five long white shadows extended from where he stood. The shadow formed from light suddenly came out of the ground, like a giant claw of a subterranean creature which covertly came out from right underneath his feet. The five claws closed in on him from all directions, sparing no room for him to dodge.
