Close Combat Mage

Chapter 111 – The First Victory Pt. 1

The audience waited in anticipation. Finally….the referee stood up with a severe expression on his face. He raised his right hand high up in the air, and declared, “The two contestants on the stage, get ready….competition….start!” The referee then threw his hand downwards.

The next instant….the fire mage suddenly began to move. The staff in his hand lit up, and it began to burn fiercely as a fist sized bright red Fire Ball whizzed out towards Suo Jia.

“Bang!” Although Suo Jia had managed to successfully dodge the Fire Ball, he hadn’t imagined that the Fire Ball would violently explode upon colliding with the ground. Shards of rock flew out and pierced Suo Jia, inflicting deep cuts into his skin.

But this wasn’t the end; the opposite party clearly had no intention of stopping. His staff once again lit up and began to release Fire Balls one after another towards Suo Jia. With the aid of his magic equipment, both the magic’s activation speed and projectile speed reached extreme levels.

In reality, although the opposite party’s activation speed was fast, it wasn’t faster than Suo Jia’s. However, Suo Jia understood that if he attacked his opponent, he’d be the one to suffer. His opponent had been training for 6-7 more years than he had, and wasn’t lacking in magic equipment. Both his opponent’s spirit power and magic power were superior to Suo Jia’s.

Because he was considering this, Suo Jia didn’t attack. Instead, he chose to continue evading. However, he hadn’t realized that his opponent’s attacks would be so fierce. It was only the beginning of the match, yet Suo Jia had already been indirectly hit. The scattering shards had created wounds on Suo Jia’s body one after another.

Under the audience’s attentive gazes, the fire mage seemed like a madman. He continuously shot out Fire Balls, generating muffled bangs as everything around Suo Jia was blasted away. Smoke and dust filled the air, and it soon completely hid Suo Jia’s figure. Despite this, the fire mage still didn’t stop. He continued to wave the staff in his hand to shoot out Fire Balls to blast through the smoke. Although he couldn’t lock onto his target, he was still able to continue attacking with the hope of hitting his target with his staff’s especially explosive power.

The audience all gaped in shock at this scene. What in the world was this? This was way too powerful! This firepower could definitely suppress any enemy. Almost everyone was now completely sure that Suo Jia would lose!

On the other side, within the thick and dense smoke, Suo Jia stood with dozens of wounds covering his body. He felt the continuous Fireballs explode nearby, and knew that this was the major point of the match. If he tried to attack too early, he would lose the competition.

Roaring in anger, Suo Jia suddenly waved his arms. Under his powerful manipulation, a whirlpool of water instantly appeared with Suo Jia as its center. Suo Jia’s right arm swiftly dances, his finger drawing shapes into the air, and momentarily activating Revolving Frozen Gas. The spiral of cold air began to spread out around Suo Jia.

The water whirlpool was rotating clockwise, while the cold air was rotating counterclockwise. If anyone saw this, they’d discover that the tide of cold air was quickly being absorbed by the whirlpool. Having been restricted by the whirlpool, the cold air was confined and couldn’t diffuse.

After a stream of clear and concentrated sounds, the vortex that was 1 meter wide and two meters tall instantly froze, and formed a sturdy, shining, vortex of ice!

Not daring to tarry, Suo Jia suddenly reached further and activated the Ice and Snow Pact onto the ice vortex to lower its temperature. The vortex’s strength and hardness were boosted by several-fold. Even the fierce Fireballs currently blasting the vortex head on did no damage.

Seeing that the ice vortex was successful, Suo Jia couldn’t help but exhale in relief. Although describing it takes a long time, from the time Suo Jia materialized the water whirlpool, activated Revolving Frozen Gas, froze the whirlpool, to when he finally combined it into the ice vortex with the aid of the Ice and Snow Pact, the whole process took only about 1-2 seconds. Actually, Suo Jia had prepared to use Revolving Frozen Gas from the beginning; otherwise, he wouldn’t have gotten this far.

Not daring to overlook any of the opponent’s explosions, Suo Jia activated the Moisture Technique on all of his wounds. The cuts made from the shards of rock quickly recovered. By the time the fire mage had finally stopped his assault, Suo Jia’s wounds had all already healed. Suo Jia had even managed to rest for a bit.

“Wa!” Along with the gradual dispersion of the smoke, the entire audience finally saw the sparkling bright and translucent protective barrier of the ice vortex. Despite bearing the fire mage’s explosive attacks, the barrier showed no signs of cracking. It was like a great diamond, and it sparkled as it reflected the sun’s rays.

Everyone had to admit that the fire mage’s attack had far surpassed the mage trainee level, almost at the level of an elementary mage. However, they also had to admit that Suo Jia’s defense had the capability of resisting an elementary mage’s violent and explosive attacks!

The terrifying part of a fire mage was their extremely dominating firepower and their gigantic Area Of Effect spells. However…as long these were resisted, then there wasn’t much left of the fire mages as their defenses were extremely weak. Fire shields and Wind shields were fine, but they were intangible items. How could they possibly compare to the ice shield, which was comparable to a stone shield? This was something that even idiots understood.

Hugging his arms together, Suo Jia stood within the ice vortex and calmly said, “What? Are you done attacking?”

Hearing Suo Jia’s words, the fire mage couldn’t help but be at a loss for a while. Then he suddenly waved the staff in his hand, and once again tried to blast the ice shield. A fire mage’s battle meant it was full of only attacking, and nothing else. They used powerful firepower to completely defeat their opponents; this was the only combat method they could use.

However, if their opponent was powerful enough to completely ignore their Fire Arts attacks and negate their attacks, then the fire mages would be unable to flee. They could only wait until the moment their magic power and spirit power ran out, and then be easily wiped out by their opponent.

Faced with the fire mage’s wild explosive attacks, Suo Jia couldn’t help but hug his arms together and feel his spirits rise. After waiting for a long time, the opponent’s attacks showed no trace of stopping; they were still just as fierce as before. This made Suo Jia furrow his brows in confusion.

Although maintaining a sturdy defense could also lead to victory, this type of win was extremely meaningless. Moreover, Suo Jia had no desire to act like a tortoise. He didn’t like locking himself up within a shell. For the sake of being more persuasive, he had to personally act and defeat his opponent!

While thinking deeply, Suo Jia quietly shut his eyes. Although the smoke obscured his vision completely…. he could still tell the opponent’s position by observing the landing point and trajectory of the opponent’s magic.

Putting aside Suo Jia, who was silently calculating and determining the position of his opponent amidst the smoke, the audience on the other side was currently staring in a daze at the strange scene in front of them. The powerful fire mage relying on a full body of equipment was currently crazily bombarding the area all around Suo Jia. Smoke rose high up into the air, completely hiding Suo Jia from view.

“Chi…” Just as the audience was silently wondering whether it would be Suo Jia who would be unable to keep up his defense or whether it would be the fire mage who would run out of magic power first, a low whizzing sound and a blue light suddenly shot out from within the smoke. The light shot straight towards the fire mage, who had just finished releasing a Fireball.

Two round balls of magic, one red and one blue, flew towards each other. They crossed each other midway, and then continued on straight towards their respective targets. Afterwards….as the Fire Ball gave a loud boom, the Ice Sphere managed to collide into the fire mage’s chest, who was completely unable to dodge.

Staring blankly at the fire mage, whose body had just been thrown through the air, the audience was unable to understand what had just happened. At that moment, a blue light flashed from within the smoke once more, and an Ice Sphere shot through the air and towards the fire mage. Once again, it accurately landed on its target.

“Putong…” After suffering two powerful attacks in succession, the fire mage finally fell to the ground weakly, his body curled up in pain. A single glance was enough to tell that he had completely lost his ability to continue fighting. Even his life was in imminent peril.