Chapter 17: Breakthrough! Level One Mage!

The next day.

The classmates who normally avoided An Xia like the plague during magical sparring all crowded around him.

An Xia was a little flattered by the attention.

Unlike him, they were extremely well-informed about the other classes.

And with the class competition just around the corner, they had been especially diligent in gathering information on the strongest people in Anders’s class.

The most outstanding among them was Lang Ning.

Although Lang Ning had been beaten badly by Mentor Fenno, even his own classmates had to admit that he was no longer on the same level as the rest of them.

He had already been a Level Two Mage during the Freshman Competition, and according to rumors, he had recently broken through again and become a Level Three Mage.

That was already the strength of a second-year student.

So the moment An Xia appeared, his classmates wanted to ask how he felt about Lang Ning’s declaration of war, and what he thought of it.

After all, there was nothing embarrassing about enjoying a bit of gossip.

“The news spread that fast?” An Xia asked in surprise.

“It is not too bad,” one classmate replied with an awkward smile, while grumbling inwardly.

What did you expect?

One of you was the freshman with the highest realm, and the other was the one who had won first place in the Freshman Competition by taking an entirely unconventional path.

Of course both of you were the center of attention.

“As for how I feel...” An Xia thought for a moment. “I do not really feel anything.”

“Then do you have any thoughts on him?” one classmate asked as he pulled out a notebook and wrote:

An Xia says Lang Ning is not worth mentioning.

“My only thought is that I hope Classmate Lang Ning can display the full extent of his strength.”

“Yes, good.” The classmate continued writing and added another line:

An Xia says Lang Ning is far too weak and still needs several more years of training.

Then he snapped the notebook shut, squeezed out through the crowd with a brilliant smile, and headed toward the other classes to spread An Xia’s thoughts and feelings.

Before long, the rumor reached Lang Ning’s ears.

At that moment, Lang Ning was applying medicinal potion to his face.

He had just finished getting beaten up when a classmate came over to pass on the message.

“Lang Ning, An Xia expressed his feelings and thoughts about your challenge today.”

At those words, Lang Ning lifted his pitch-black face. “Oh? And what are his feelings?”

“An Xia said you are no different from a green-skinned goblin.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you are weak, yet still love to leap about and show off.”

Lang Ning’s face darkened at once, though with the medicinal potion smeared all over it, no one could tell.

“And what about his thoughts?”

“An Xia said you are an egg of a Blazing Landstrider Bird.”

“...What is that supposed to mean?”

“A Blazing Landstrider Bird needs eighteen years to grow from an egg into an adult bird. In other words, An Xia thinks you need another eighteen years of training before you are worthy of being his opponent.”

“Damn it!”

With a bang, Lang Ning slammed his fist down onto the table. He had completely lost his composure.

Even the fine manners he usually maintained fell apart, and the classmate relaying the message was so startled that he nearly jumped.

“The day after tomorrow! The day after tomorrow, I will show him what it means that there is always someone better, and always a heaven beyond heaven!” Lang Ning said through gritted teeth.

He could not even be bothered to keep applying the medicinal potion.

He was going to find Mentor Fenno again and grow stronger through battle.

“Did An Xia really say all that?” another classmate asked in a low voice after Lang Ning had left.

The messenger looked a little guilty. “I merely expressed An Xia’s feelings and thoughts in slightly more tactful language.”

“...”

...

An Xia knew nothing about what had happened on Lang Ning’s side.

Nor did he know to what absurd extent his feelings and thoughts had been distorted.

At that moment, he was in a critical period.

After more than a month of meditation and elemental guidance, he was finally about to break through and become a Level One Mage!

Perhaps for other people, breaking through to Level One Mage was not worth mentioning.

But for An Xia, this was a milestone—an epic achievement.

After all, absorbing an amount of elements as vast as a lake was practically as difficult as reaching the heavens.

If not for the sheer abundance of his spiritual power, which allowed him to sweep along massive quantities of elements, he had no idea when he would ever have become a Level One Mage.

Now, An Xia sat alone in a hidden corner on the academy’s back mountain.

Based on his usual observations, almost no one ever came here.

And that meant he could finally absorb elements with his full strength!

He closed his eyes and entered meditation.

Suppressing his excitement, An Xia began to move his spiritual power, continuously drawing in the surrounding elements.

Gradually, a massive elemental vortex appeared there, as though an invisible giant mouth were frenziedly devouring the elements between heaven and earth.

Not far from that place stood the dormitory building for the fifth years.

Lance Magic Academy had a five-year graduation system, which meant the fifth year was the graduating class.

By convention, most fifth-year students had already gone out to complete their graduation assignments.

In an empty dorm room belonging to a fifth-year student, Abyss was seated by the bed, reading a book.

Suddenly, she raised her head, her pale blue eyes turning toward the academy’s back mountain outside the window.

She sensed an enormous amount of elements gathering and vanishing without cease.

Had she been any farther away, she would not have felt it so clearly.

Her dormitory happened to lie right within the area shrouded by the gathered elements.

Setting the book down, Abyss frowned slightly, rose to her feet, and walked to the window to look toward the source of the elemental convergence.

But all she could see there was a stretch of green foliage.

There was no way to tell what exactly had caused such a phenomenon.

After a brief moment of thought, a rune flashed through Abyss’s eyes.

In the next instant, she vanished from the dormitory, leaving behind only a few ice crystals.

...

The enormous quantity of elements made An Xia feel somewhat overfilled.

It was like eating too much—uncomfortable, but still bearable.

Seeing that only the very last bit inside him remained unfilled with elements, An Xia suddenly hardened his resolve and directly let his spiritual power act on its own.

At once, a vast and overwhelming flood of elements mindlessly surged into his body.

Crack.

It was as though the sound of an eggshell shattering rang out.

His spiritual power abruptly grew weary. Without his control, it did not want to move at all.

The elements stopped gathering, and the vortex began to disperse.

A deep sense of satisfaction rose in An Xia’s heart.

Sage mode activated!

Bah!

An Xia abruptly shook his head. What sage mode? What nonsense was that?

Letting out a long breath, An Xia sensed the elements within his body.

At that moment, the elements inside him had collapsed into a black object that shimmered with multicolored light, and it revolved without end.

At every moment, elements drifted out from his body, and yet this spherical mass of elements continuously drew new elements back in.

Was this some kind of automatic self-cultivation mode?

An Xia scratched his head.

The magic he had learned was already strange enough, so why was the elemental object he had condensed even stranger?

But there was one thing he was absolutely certain of.

He truly had become a Level One Mage.

So...

An Xia smiled brightly and began constructing the Fireball Spell.

As a result of practicing Fireball Spell out of boredom over and over again, he shortened the time needed to construct its runic structure from one minute to twenty seconds.

Now he would see whether the Fireball Spell had grown more powerful after he became a Level One Mage.

Twenty seconds later, the runic structure of the Fireball Spell was completed.

Holding the rune in his hand, An Xia used the elements from the elemental sphere in place of the elements from the outside world.

Then he chose a large tree in front of him as the target.

Sorry about this, An Xia said silently in his heart, and then he activated the rune.

WHOOOSH!

A roaring sound larger than any before erupted in the sky!

The leaves of the great tree shook violently beneath the pressure of the wind, as though the tree itself were trembling.

Behind that tree, a slender figure raised her head and looked at the fireball in the sky with her pale blue eyes, which were filled with astonishment.