Bai Ning’s expression quickly turned serious. It was just a basic technique, but she could tell that Xiao Lin’s basics were much better than the others. However, she did not panic at all, and had casted the defensive spell in a flash before her hands quickly moved again, not pausing for a moment as she opened her mouth to start chanting a spell.
Xiao Lin furrowed his eyebrows curiously. Bai Ning’s chanting speed was very fast, but it was not fast to the level of being extraordinary. The key lay in the fact that the woman’s chants only had a few independent magical words. That in itself had shrunk the chants needed to less than a third.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A string of fireballs shot out, but those fireballs were only about half the size of normal ones. Even though the power level had dropped, there were a lot of them, and Xiao Lin’s speed was immediately suppressed.
The fireballs were not very powerful, and Xiao Lin slashed out a wave of sword aura, cutting down the spells that were flying at him. However, Xiao Lin understood that Bai Ning did not plan on claiming victory with those fireballs. In just that short moment, a new chant started. Xiao Lin did not even bother raising his head as he jumped into the air, avoiding the new spells that were flying toward him.
Xiao Lin was still a step too slow. No, it was more accurate to say that Bai Ning’s spellcasting was too fast to imagine. Xiao Lin’s foot, which was already half a meter in the air, still got hit by a bundle of yellow light, and then he suddenly felt his body turning heavier.
A slowing spell!
Xiao Lin immediately determined what the spell was. It was a Bronze-ranked slowing spell. It used the power of earth to burden the enemy, achieving the effect of slowing a target down. Even though that single-target spell had very narrow uses, and was very hard to land, it was not a problem in the hands of an elite mage.
Closely following the slowing spell was another string of debuff spells. Xiao Lin used his sword aura and basic swordsmanship to block a portion of it, which was enough to cause Bai Ning to look at him with a shocked expression as she reevaluated him. However, Xiao Lin was still hit by the remaining spells, and continuously being hit, Xiao Lin’s pace had slowed down to the speed of a turtle. He calculated it in his mind, and he might not even be able to salvage it with Miracle. Only by using Ruin could he increase his speed to something close to Bai Ning’s.
However, it was still a sparring match, and Xiao Lin did not plan on using Ruin or Miracle. After losing his greatest advantage in his speed, he was in a very bad state.
Xiao Lin started to understand why mages held the advantage in individual duels, but he did not plan on giving up just like that. Since he did not have any speed, he decided to just stop in his tracks, raising up his training sword as a dense sword aura started to gather.
“Slashing?” Bai Ning immediately realized Xiao Lin’s intentions. However, she was even more confused, and did not know how to feel because Xiao Lin had kept on using the most basic of swordsmanship skills, including Slashing. Bai Ning had not seen those skills in formal combat for quite a few years.
“Junior, it’s not smart to use sword techniques that require you to gather your energy against mages because, if you give me enough time, the damage I can inflict is much greater than yours.” Bai Ning’s voice had a teasing tone to it, and she started to move her hand to use an even more complicated magical chant with accompanying hand movements. Her body started to gather a striking blue light.
“A Silver-ranked spell Super Concentrated Beam?” Yu Mei raised her eyebrow before taking out a magical scroll, covering the other students in a light.
Concentrated Beam used one’s own magical power as an energy source. The spell’s greatest advantage was that it did not need any elemental power, and could be used ad nauseum as long as one had enough magical power. However, its greatest flaw was the long time it took to gather, but Xiao Lin’s Slashing gave her enough time.
Looking at Xiao Lin, Yu Mei’s expression changed again before she suddenly said in a low voice, “Careful, Bai Ning...”
A rumbling could be heard.
Before Yu Mei could finish her words, the sword aura released by Slashing clashed with the concentrated beam. Slashing needed less than three seconds to gather the maximum amount of energy, even though it was rare to have a chance to gather it to the limits in actual battle. Even at its limit, the sword technique was still at the lowest level, so its power could only increase to Bronze rank.
However, Xiao Lin had used it alongside the power with elemental sword aura. The power of his elemental sword aura was far greater than any other sword aura of the same rank.
There were not many people who used elemental sword aura in the academy, so Bai Ning was not very prepared for it. She never expected Xiao Lin’s Slashing to be able to block her Super Concentrated Beam. The clash of the two energies caused the entire training hall to shake. The sudden light that exploded out caused everyone to shut their eyes.
That sudden loss of sight did not cause Bai Ning to stop her attacks. Even though she was very perplexed, her years of experience still allowed her to react immediately. Following that, she chanted out a flaming sword that had explosive powers. It was a spell that had a physical attack to it.
Even after losing her vision, Bai Ning quickly used her extremely strong perception to lock onto Xiao Lin. The moment she threw out her flaming sword, Bai Ning felt like something was off. When she wanted to react, her disadvantage as a mage showed itself. She had a very strong perception, but her reaction timing was very bad.
A clear sound broke through the air, and the light that exploded out had already dispersed. After all, it was only a Silver-ranked spell.
When they opened their eyes, they looked at the two of them in the arena. Xiao Lin and Bai Ning had already stopped their respective attacks, even though the rest did not know what happened. The victor was already determined.
Xiao Lin looked at his broken armor. The sparks of fire that remained indicated the remnants of the attack. Xiao Lin unwillingly sighed. “Senior Bai Ning, it’s my loss.”
Bai Ning opened her mouth. She looked back at the floor next to her, the training sword was half stuck on the ground. It was only a short distance away from her.
“Why did you choose to throw your own sword at me? Why didn’t you use your sword aura to attack? Your sword aura shouldn’t be that weak.” Bai Ning asked.
“Because you definitely prepared spells to defend against energy. In such a short time, I would have had no better way to break through your defense, so I could only use my sword to attack. You should know as well, a physical attack is the best way to break through an energy shield,” Xiao Lin answered.
Bai Ning smiled faintly, and nodded. “A good assessment. It’s obvious that you should have won.”
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