Close Combat Mage

Chapter 379 – Profound Essence of Water Magic Pt.2

After a few moments of confusion, he realized the reason. The energy within the crystal had its limits too. Using the power excessively would consume all of the energy, making it impossible to use again.

The Death God’s Cloak and his Atlantis equipment set were different. The cloak’s supporting energy came from the crystal within it, while the Atlantis equipment set could draw energy from Suo Jia’s body. This meant that the Atlantis equipment didn’t have a set limit in terms of usage, while the Death God’s Cloak did!

After calculations, Suo Jia concluded that because he was able to activate the disappearing ability twice and the wings ability once, the Death God’s Cloak could be used for around 50 seconds total, assuming each activation lasted roughly 16 seconds. Past that time limit, the Death God’s Cloak would lose its functions and the crystal would need to replenish its energy before further use. As for how long it took for this replenishment, that required some more tests!

Of course, the cloak wouldn’t have any limits if worn by the Death God himself, as it could directly draw the energy of death to maintain its functions. With the Death God’s strength, he could maintain the disappeared and wing-transformed state for all eternity without any problem.

But despite the limits, Suo Jia was extremely satisfied with the cloak. 50 seconds was enough time to do many things. Of course, if Suo Jia hadn’t already reached the peak level of the Magic Scholar rank and was nearly at the Great Magic Scholar rank, he wouldn’t be able to keep the cloak functioning for so long–at most, maybe 30 seconds.

The crystal controlling the Death God’s Cloak had to be a rank ten spirit magic crystal. After all, a rank nine spirit magic crystal would simply devalue the Death God’s power.

In conclusion, the spirit energy would increase with Suo Jia’s own strength. The greater his spirit power, the greater the crystal energy, and the longer he’d be able to use the cloak’s abilities. There was no real limit. Obviously, Suo Jia would never be as powerful as the Death God and be able to activate the cloak for eternity, but the duration could definitely be extended! More and more…

Suo Jia stroked the fabric of the cloak in content. Because it was a weapon of death, the cloak’s appearance was that of black smoke, and didn’t sport the typical rainbow glow. However, Suo Jia liked its appearance. If he had a choice, he’d always choose the dark appearance. At the very least, it wasn’t eye-catching or ostentatious. It wouldn’t tempt others’ desires!

Suo Jia looked around at the room he’d lived in for nearly four months now, and couldn’t help but feel his heart stir. He knew that he would soon break through to the Great Magic Scholar rank, and once he did, he would have to leave this place!

Suo Jia spent the following few days training behind closed doors, no longer bothering to enhance equipment. Although many people still came to him with requests, there weren’t anywhere enough to make a profit. The gain was too little for the amount of effort he’d have to put in, so it wasn’t worth it.

Finally, Suo Jia activated the Exhaustion Training Method again, doubling his magic power and spirit power once more. Aside from staying inside his room training, Suo Jia spent his time sitting cross-legged on his bed, focusing on trying to gain an understanding of water elemental magic!

Immersed in training, time passed quickly. Eventually…five months had already passed. While Suo Jia was sitting on his bed in deep concentration, attempting to understand the water element, he seemed to faintly sense that he was on the verge of a breakthrough!

Amidst his excitement, the water element surrounding him became frenzied as well, spinning faster and faster around him in high spirits. And then…in an instant, Suo Jia felt an inexplicable enlightenment. Suddenly, many things he’d never understood in the past made perfect sense!

Suo Jia opened his eyes in admiration. At some point, his eyes had become filled with tears of excitement. The profound essence of water magic seemed to pulse brilliantly in his mind. It was clear to Suo Jia that he’d finally broken through the Magic Scholar realm, officially becoming a Great Magic Scholar!

Although the titles of these two ranks only differed by a single word, the realms couldn’t even be compared to each other in terms of one’s comprehension of and communication with the element. These two were on completely different levels!

Although going up a rank didn’t boost Suo Jia’s magic or spirit powers, he’d reached a completely different level of understanding regarding the water element and how to manipulate it!

For example, the Ice Arrow from a Magic Scholar and the Ice Arrow from a Great Magic Scholar weren’t the same at all. Although its outer appearance was similar, its speed had transformed due to the different level of understanding in the element!

Suo Jia had previously sought both sharpness, speed, penetration ability, and destructive ability. This wasn’t wrong. However, this wasn’t the water magic’s specialty. Sharpness was something the earth element possessed, while the wind element was the king of speed!

Neither of these characteristics were the focus of either water magic or ice magic. Because Suo Jia’s previous comprehension of the element wasn’t enough, he had been seeking these superfluous traits and overlooking the major one! The ice magic’s greatest ability was erasing!

The ice magic’s profound essence lay in control and restrictions, not destruction and damage. It could be said that any living being that died from ice magic didn’t suffer a painless death, but rather a tormenting one.

The Ice Arrow’s sharpness, penetration, and speed weren’t important. Rather, its most unique trait was the ‘ice’ part in its name! Without the effect of the ice, the Ice Arrow wouldn’t be any different from a Rock Thorn, or even a normal arrow.

When comparing all these traits, Suo Jia could never match up to a professional archer’s arrow. In addition, Suo Jia could only fire single Ice Arrows that could be used to defeat a weaker opponent in a 1v1 battle. But it would be useless against an opponent of the same level, let alone one of higher level.

In the situation where one was against an opponent of equal strength, the Ice Arrow couldn’t possibly seal the enemy with its ice. Only weaklings could be bound by ice, weaklings that would be easy to kill regardless of the methods used. But these circumstances made it impossible to truly see the significance of the Ice Arrow’s unique trait.

Whenever Suo Jia had encountered an enemy of equal standing or higher, his Ice Arrow had just become trash, which was clearly not supposed to happen. As the ice mage’s strongest singular attack, there was no way it could be useless!

The Ice Arrow was used for controlling. Although it couldn’t actually bind the enemy, a freezing environment would surely affect the speed of any person that wasn’t immune to ice magic. This was the Ice Arrow’s profound essence! Thus, the Ice Arrow of a Great Magic Scholar had a different name: Freezing Ice Arrow. This ‘Freezing’ in the name was where its complexity lay!

In addition, his comprehension of and communication with the element didn’t just transform the Ice Arrow magic, but all of the magic he’d touched upon. For example, Suo Jia had only been able to seal a target in ice with the Freezing Touch at his previous level, without actually utilizing the “freezing” part! Thus, the opponent would always be able to simply break out of the ice unaffected.

In reality, the Freezing Touch was meant to freeze the enemy from the inside and spread outwards, drastically decreasing their speed. This was actually a tactic that was somewhat like a curse that significantly cut their agility. If the enemy simply bound by ice, there was no way they’d be defeated. If all the frigid air was wasted on just forming ice, how could it harm the enemy?

But the current Suo Jia could definitely use the Freezing Touch to halve an opponent’s speed, assuming they were the same level. And how would the battle change as a result? Even the fastest wind elemental warrior with their speed halved wouldn’t be very fast at all. After all, the difference between covering 100m in ten seconds and covering it in twenty seconds was a huge gap, a drop from a world expert’s peak level to the mere skill of a kindergartner.