Chapter 310: No, More Like This
Hearing he had been right and the other guy hadn't been taking this seriously up until now to let him learn the spells the man knew, Lake wondered if he should thank the man after he lost the duel. He had already struggled a few times and was sure he would have been thrown out of his spot already if he had to worry about a few attacks at once.
There was a bonus to the other guy not showing him new spells anymore and that was he didn't have to watch the guys movements as much and could focus on the attacks that were coming at him. As long as he felt out the mana around him correctly it didn't really matter how many attacks there were since all he needed to do was control them and send them back before they hit him.
This might sound hard but Lake had found his level of control was pretty good and he was practiced in splitting his attention on multiple things at once already. Seeing the first wave of spells come flying towards him, Lake wondered why the man had decided to go with weak spells now instead of trying to overwhelm him all of the sudden.
If you were going to send a wave of attacks making them strong enough to actually do something was necessary. Absorbing all of the wind blades that got too close to him, Lake wished he could ask his question instead of just continuing to wonder while they fought. He felt like it could end up distracting him if he wasn't able to focus on what was going on.
Deciding the best way to stop thinking about it was to attack since he would need to plan the spells he was going to use so he could get them ready. Lake started to spin his mana up while making up his mind on what he should do to win. The first attack was unlikely to beat your opponent so you were really better off not showing your hand and going for a probing attack to see if you could identify an area that your opponent leaked in but he didn't think he knew enough about magic to plan something like that.
The areas he knew of that someone could lack in were force and control and that was just something he had heard from the Temple Head so it might not even be the best way to measure how good someone was at Wind magic. They also seemed even in affinity and the guy across from him had a lot more experience so Lake doubted he could come up with something the other guy had never seen before.
This made Lake think the best way to win was to launch as many random spells as possible in the hopes he could get an unblockable combo by accident. He knew this was leaving this battle up to fate but he had already run out of ideas he thought would work the second he started to think about how to win.
Once all the mana he had was spinning fast enough Lake started to cast spells. "Wind Blast, Air Slicer." Lake stopped with just these two because the two combined already took most of his mana and he needed a bit to keep Wind Blast going. Like he expected both of his attacks were redirected back at him but Lake didn't stop Wind Blast this time and just fed the mana back into the supply for the spell.
None of the mana was being lost in this process so he had made a spell that would Last until the other person redirected it in a direction where it wouldn't enter his influence. He also spun the Air Slicer around right back at its original target so both of his two attacks were headed back towards his opponent.
Enough time had passed for him to gather more mana so he also went ahead and sent another Air Slicer right behind that one. Lake was hoping both of these would be sent back to him and he could throw in a Whirlwind to have all three of the spells he had just learnt active at the same time but it seemed the other guy understood what he was trying to do and they absorbed all of the mana from his spells before starting to talk.
"You need to be more creative. Use them more like this next time." After they said this two Air slicers came flying at him from opposite directions. Like last time Lake planned to take control of them once they got close enough to him but he never got the chance because before the spells got close they exploded.
Understanding the real attack this time would be the shockwave that had been produced by this Lake formed an Air Slicer of his own and threw it forward. His plan was to cancel out the wave of air that was heading towards him but the reality of the interaction was his slicer just passed through like it hadn't hit anything.
Understanding his mistake Lake wished he had used Wind Blast instead but it was too late and he didn't have enough mana to cast that spell so his only option was to try and make a shield out of the small amount of mana that he had at the moment. Barely getting a solid plate in front of him before he was hit by the wave of air, Lake felt his feet move across the floor slightly and realized he had just been beaten.
"It's good to remember just because Wind mana isn't the same as the air around us that the interaction between the two can be used if you know what you are doing." Lake knew what the other person said was true because the wave of air that had moved him from his spot wasn't all mana.
He guessed he should have figured this out himself before now. He didn't know the amount of times his hair had been blown about as he was training with Wind magic. Almost every time one of his cubes of spheres had failed a blast of wind had gone out in every direction that had the same mixture as the attack he had just lost to.
"Alright, thank you for the match. I'll move to allow you two to go ahead." If no one had been waiting Lake would have probably asked for a rematch or maybe even a regular fight but the person who was waiting had actually let him cut in line so it would be rude to do that now. "You should stick around and fight again even if it isn't against me. You should still be in top condition since all you did was use Wind magic."
Lake nodded to this since he still wanted to talk to this man and had already planned to get into line even if they hadn't said this to him. As he was getting down the person who had been waiting stopped him briefly and said. "It was interesting to see you learn a spell and fight with it in the same duel. Don't take the loss hard."
Lake gave them a smile and walked to sit on the side of the ring. He was starting to realize that the people in the Temple were much nicer than normal which wasn't too surprising to him. He was pretty sure it was only because they were all on the younger side though. This made him guess they were all hoping to befriend him which he wasn't opposed to.
The Temple was the best place for him to make progress in magic and instead of reading and getting all the information he needed that way he would much rather just have people tell him what he should be doing. It was very obvious that everyone around would know at least one type of magic well enough to help him make progress quickly.
Remembering that he had wanted to take a look at his skills that affected his wind magic, Lake went ahead and pulled them up. It didn't take long for him to see he had never actually gotten Wind mage to level ten and that he only had two shills which wasn't what he remembered.
He had thought he had maxed Wind Mage a long time ago down in the catacombs of the Alchemist guild but it seemed he was wrong. Switching his job over from Thief Lake guessed the next time he went out he could get the other two skills and a few more points in Intelligence.
He was a little worried about doing this since Intelligence was so close to 200 and he would hit the limit soon but decided it was worth it to max out a job related to an element he was interested in. Looking back up from his skills he saw the fight between the two in the ring was a normal one and started to watch it with interest to see how strong the two of them were.
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