Chapter 271 Blade tempest
The youth in front of him didn't look special in any way, but the purple-pinkish transmuted mana he saw within the youth seemed weird, as Jason never saw such transmuted mana.
His mana eyes could only work perfectly fine if he knew all affinities and the color of its transmutation.
However, right now, the only thing Jason knew for sure, was that the youth in front of him was at the 1st Expert rank, while his mana core size was at the 3rd Expert rank, which indicated that he contracted a soulbond which was either at the peak-evolved rank if the youth in front of him possessed a soul world with a slightly higher amplification than the average had, or that his soulbond was a low-unblemished beast.
Either way, it wouldn't make a huge difference, because it was not essential for Jason to know, who was still trying to think what exactly his opponent's affinity was.
In the end, he never saw this affinity and would have to fight against his opponent without knowing what to be careful about, which was not something he had to do for quite a while.
Met with the unexpected situation, Jason was overly cautious, as the AI initiated the start of their fight.
Unsheathing his dagger he prepared himself to be attacked only to see that his opponent didn't move at all, only to took out a wand.
'Ugh, they're going all-in now, huh?' Jason thought, disgrudgently as he waited for several more seconds in which nothing happened before he manifested a few icicles towards the lean youth.
The youth in front of him still didn't move from his position, yet he lifted his arm with the wand in it as his eyes suddenly glowed in a purple-pinkish hue.
Without further ado, the icicles that previously shot towards the youth changed their trajectory, which caused Jason's eyes to widen for a second as he slowly began to understand his opponent's affinity.
'Is it psychokinesis?!' He asked himself baffled about what he saw as he noticed that the lean youth's affinity enveloped his icicles only to move them away without making it too obvious.
Thinking about the possibility of his opponent having a psychokinesis affinity, Jason's eyes brightened up because this was something he also wanted to obtain in the future.
As such, he wanted to test out his opponent's limits as he summoned two dozen icicles which he shot towards his opponent, who simply swung his wand when his eyes glowed up in a purple-pinkish hue once again, changing the trajectory of his icicles.
'Does he use the wand as a means to distract me?' Jason concluded because the wand itself didn't seem important for the youth in order to change the icicles' trajectory, and it was most likely only used to reduce his mana consumption.
Looking at how easy his opponent changed his icicles trajectory, Jason wanted to increase the difficulty by another notch as he manifested two dozen icicles and additional two dozen fireballs, which he threw towards the lean youth, who smiled lightly.
'If he can easily change the fireballs' trajectory, who can also burn through mana to a certain extent, his psychokinesis is really powerful' He thought, with a single sweat pearl pouring down his temple, as he witnessed the lean youth's smile stiffening for a moment when he figured out how threatening the fireballs really were.
Nevertheless, he was still able to change their trajectory, even if it was slightly more difficult, which was noticed by Jason.
With this conclusion, it was obvious what Jason should do now as he already prepared to manifest several dozen fireballs in his mind simply because his mana consumption was much lower than his opponents, while he could easily replenish them without the need to even think about the passive mana gathering technique, thanks to his sub-area within his mind.
Smiling brightly, Jason decided to ignore this option for now because of a relatively simple reason.
He was curious about the psychokinesis affinity and how his opponent would change the tide and attack him.
As such, Jason continued to manifest icicles in order to attack the lean youth without being too obvious about the advantage he figured out.
Their fight continued and another minute elapsed until Jason could finally hear an enraged shout after enduring an onslaught of almost 100 icicles, when the lean youth took a dozen swords out of his storage device, before exerting his affinity to levitate them in the air.
In the beginning, the lean youth-only wanted to test the waters, but he could have never imagined that his opponent would be so frustrating, which was unexpecting.
However, instead of retorting the onslaught of icicles, he wanted to endure it by minimizing his mana consumption until the golden-eyed youth's mana was drastically reduced, yet even after a minute, this didn't seem to happen which was extremely annoying and frustrating from the lean youth's perspective.
As such, he changed from his defensive standpoint and started a counteroffensive with a dozen grade-1 swords he could barely control by using his whole focus, mana sensitivity, and control.
His whole body was groaning because the mana consumption was devastating and if he were to estimate how long he was able to attack with such a high mana consumption, 30 seconds was probably the most he might take out by draining his mana core completely.
Nevertheless, 30 seconds were more than enough, as he ordered the swords to shoot at Jason who was smiling brightly at the sight of 12 swords attacking him at the same time.
'His affinity's proficiency, mana control, and sensitivity must be extraordinary!' Jason thought as he observed his opponent's mana fluctuations intently and controlling swords seemed to be more difficult than his low mana consumption fireballs and icicles before he averted his attention towards the sword that was about to pierce into his flesh.
Exerting the weightless steps technique to his current limitations, he additionally circulated mana through his body before twisting his body in order to deflect the advancing swords as he additionally manifested an ice wall on his right and left to forcefully halt another batch of swords.
There were still two swords that shot towards him from above, which he couldn't deflect with his ice affinity or daggers, as he barely manifested a spear of fire above him which he shot towards the two swords.
Clashing upon each other, one sword immediately turned into scrap, while the other continued its approach, piercing into Jason's shoulder which sustained a deep cut, and he could only prevent the worst by a hair length.
Gritting his thought because of the pain, Jason thought that his control over two affinities at the same time, exerting a martial art technique and circulating mana in his body at the same time, was still not good enough.
As such, he decided to stop with the fancy attacks and decided to change back to his rather rough and crude fighting style which suited him much more, as he injected mana into his Viridi-Starstream daggers, only to slash at the swords' broadside to shatter them with brute force.
The swords his opponent purchased couldn't even be considered well forged because all of them had tiny flaws within them, while their mana conductivity was at most average.
'With perfect purified grade-1 weapons, his attacks would not only be much faster and stronger, but I wouldn't be able to destroy them so easily…'
Sighing, Jason found many weaknesses inside his opponent's attacks as he slashed towards the swords' flaws to shatter them, only for the lean youth to hurriedly retract them.
Gulping down his saliva, the lean youth was astonished that Jason was able to cope up with his swords that easily, but he had still more than 15 seconds left to use a dozen swords to attack at the same time.
With this in mind, the lean youth threw out a batch of razor-sharp blades from his storage device, which he controls with his affinity.
A dozen blades that were sharpened on all sides levitated in front of him, as he obstructed them to spin, only to shot them towards Jason.
'That's definitely dangerous!' He only thought, and it was obvious what would happen if he were to be unable to evade or deflect the spinning blade tempest in front of him.
Taking a deep breath, he exerted the weightless steps technique before charging towards the spinning blades that shot towards him.
Manifesting a dozen icicles after another, he shot them towards the blades, which were slowed down, as Jason used his Viridi-Starstream daggers to slash at the two rotating blades in front of him to forcefully avert their trajectory which broke one apart while receiving a light cut from the shattered parts.
Not halting in his tracks for a single second, Jason ignored the remaining spinning blades as he appeared in front of the lean youth, who made a huge mistake because he didn't calculate his forceful advancement into his plans.
Slashing out with his sharpened daggers, Jason 'killed' his opponent, as the AI announced his victory.