Manaless Mage

“Wind Blade!”

The frown on Han’s face deepened when he heard those words.

Whoosh! 𝗼𝐯𝐥.𝗻𝐭

The blades made purely of winds sliced through the air with astonishing speed, rapidly closing in on his position.

Their motions were so fast that Han couldn’t follow it.

Usually, he would have dodged this attack by either casting an enhancing spell on himself, or using a powerful defensive spell.

However, all his powerful spells were at the second tier, and since his mana core had regressed by a stage, he couldn’t use any of them.

He had no other choice than to rely on his instincts and try to dodge the attack.

He instinctively attempted to evade the oncoming attack, but his movements were too slow. Before he could take more than two steps, one of the blades found its mark on his shoulder, leaving a cut.

“Arrrg!” Han grunted in pain. One of his hands instinctively went to his shoulder, in a bid to reduce the pain, but it was fruitless.

As if that wasn’t enough, the other blade suddenly hit him right below his chest, leaving another painful cut.

Han let out another grunt and then placed his other hand over his belly.

If not for the elite uniform on him, and the fact that the blades didn’t slash any fatal area, the injuries would have been a lot more painful and fatal.

Dan didn’t bother sending any more attacks, and only kept staring at him with a smug smile on his face.

‘Dammit!’ Han cursed in his mind as a familiar stabbing headache suddenly started raging through his head.

As for the audience watching the duel, majority of them had their mouths wide open in shock and surprise.

For a moment, all that reigned in the large hall was silence as they all watched Dan dominate Han seemingly effortlessly in the duel.

The scene that was playing out in front of them was one that they would have never expected. However, right in front of them, it was happening.

But, what shocked them the most was the elemental aura oozing out of Han. Whenever an elementalist casted a spell, their elemental mana always gave out an aura.

It was similar to mana pressure, except that it was more passive.

Through this elemental aura, one could tell the true stage an Elementalist was in, as long as they had good mana sense.

The case was different though if the gap between the said Elementalist/mages were too wide, then it was impossible to sense their mana core stage.

However, since Han was now a stage one Elementalists, majority of the students with good mana sense had already picked up on his mana core stage, by sensing his elemental aura.

Another thing that solidified this fact, was Han’s style of fighting which was the total opposite of his usual stage. Up till now, he hadn’t even used any of his tier two spells, only relying on tier one spells and attacks.

—”Isn’t Han a stage two elementalist?”

—”Yeah, but why isn’t he using tier two spells?”

—”Can’t you see that his elemental mana… is like that of a stage one Elementalist?”

—”Huh? Isn’t…”

Like that, many of the spectators started bringing up their own theories on why Han was only using tier one spells.

Some believed his mana core had somehow regressed to the first stage, while some believed that Dan had used some kind of underhanded method to put Han in this state.

Meanwhile, the smile on Dan’s face widened as the words of the audience drifted into his ears.

Though some were insulting him and calling him a cheater and a coward, he didn’t care.

His reputation had never been the best, and he couldn’t care less about how worse it could get.

The only thing that fueled his satisfaction was that majority of the words were directed at Han.

The students had already started to lose faith in Han, most of them now believed he was unworthy of his elite status.

As for Han himself, he kept trying to ignore the words of hate and insult drifting into his ears.

But no matter how he tried to ignore it, they still frustrated him to no end.

He could see Dan, standing a few meters away from him, and staring at him with a mocking smile.

Since he was already weakened and practically on his last feet, this was the best time for Dan to end the duel by knocking him out, but Dan didn’t bother to attack him. He only watched from a distance, as if he had all the time in the world.

The frown on his face deepened and he gritted his teeth in frustration. He didn’t need anyone to tell him—Dan was clearly using this opportunity to mock him.

Despite the pain in his shoulders and torso, he slowly stood up while stretching his hand towards Dan.

‘Don’t underestimate me… you fucker!’ He thought as he ground his teeth.

Immediately, he channeled his mana, ignoring the stabbing pain wracking through his head and mind, and tried to cast a spell.

Though his mana was already critically low, he still had just enough mana, to cast just one spell.

However, doing this was quite dangerous. His mana core was already unstable, and completely using up the mana in it could make it more unstable and even worse his condition.

He was going to fall into mana exhaustion, something which wasn’t good since his mana core wasn’t stable to begin with.

“Flaming Blade!” He shouted, as flames erupted in front of his outstretched palms, before rapidly forming into a thin blade that blazed violently with fire.

However, just as he was about to launch the spell, Dan suddenly dashed to the side.

The winds around Dan’s feet flared violently as he dashed to the side with astonishing speed.

The speed at which he moved was so fast, that to most of the audience, he seemed like a blur.

Han’s eyes widened slightly when Dan’s figure suddenly vanished from his front.

He instinctively tried to follow Dan’s speed. He hurriedly turned his hand to the direction in which Dan ran towards and launched the spell.

However, the moment he launched the spell, Han felt as if his soul left his body.

He suddenly feel to his knees, as the consequences of mana exhaustion came crashing down on him.

Whoosh!

The thin blade of fire followed his hand movements and immediately shot forwards, producing a low hissing sound.

Dan stared at the incoming burning blade as he sprinted to the side.

The speed of the attack was so fast that even he was taken aback.

But fortunately, he had already moved before Han even released the spell, making it a lot easier to dodge it.

He simply had to step to the side, using his increased speed to his advantage and escaping the burning blade.

***

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