Chapter 174 - All Attempts To Kill Arthur Fail!
"Look, it's just exactly like what happened to the previous fifty mages who lasted this long like him," one of the nearby mages, of those partaking in this competition shouted, making everyone who heard him sigh in regret, recalling the already fallen geniuses in this test so far.
No one had ever managed to break the record scored from two days ago, as a single mage managed to last for a whole half an hour. Arthur didn't manage to last more than ten minutes now, before his body started to show signs to crack and collapse.
Without anyone noticing it, the tester just stole a glance towards that head master of this competition, before inwardly cursing this ruthless man's methods and his dirty tricks to weaken any competitor to his own clan's young master.
The tester had nothing in hand to do, unfortunately, and thus he just swallowed his discontent and remained silent. His rank in the academy was already one of the lowest graded masters here, and that meant he had no saying in this matter.
He shifted his gaze back to Arthur, for fear the head master would notice his ill gaze, and he was ready to announce Arthur's end of testing at any moment now.
Arthur, however, was in a totally different world of his own. The moment this new aggressive energy entered his body, and started to act rampage there, he didn't panic.
This wasn't the first time for him to deal with such berserk energy, and thus he knew the key to solve this problem always relied on being calm and well collected.
Losing your composure at this critical juncture would deem you a failure in controlling this energy, making him lose such a good chance.
Any hardship always was risky, but it had a great chance inside it indeed. He then started to make his energy sheath this aggressive hostile energy first, protecting his blood vessels, then he started to make his energy lead the alien one to rotate inside his body.
He had to admit, the first cycle was really quite painful, but he didn't give in and continued to guide his energy so calmly to completely rotate around his body.
As the first cycle finished, the next ones were much easier, and less painful. The absorption started to happen between his own and this alien one, making a marvelous transformation to his energy.
This sudden change didn't reflect on his outer body soon, as he took quite a few minutes before stabilizing the hostile energy, and making it completely under his control.
'I dunno what happened here, but I'm very grateful for that! now I can absorb as much energy as I want, and make my energy ascend to another whole level,' he muttered to himself while feeling really grateful to the reason behind the influx of this new energy.
He didn't know that the cause behind this energy appearance was now feeling extreme rage towards him, as the head master noticed that Arthur's body wasn't getting worse, or showing any signs of breaking down, instead it showed signs of improvement!
"What is going on here?" the head master angrily glanced at his minions, as he ruthlessly added, "didn't I order to change the energy into a higher wind natured one? This kid dealt well with the normal earth energy, and this wind would cause much damage to him! why is he still standing there?!!"
Arthur had already crossed the border of fifteen minutes, making him the second longest person taking part in this test. the head master had proposed this test for the academy as a way to show off.
He had already sold places of the final ranking to other great clans and guilds, and this Arthur here was going to destroy all he had agreed upon with these clans and guilds!
"I- I- I'm s- s- so sorry master, but the energy flooding the boy now is what you asked for," the one responsible for controlling the energy stuttered while replying to his master, knowing how scary this master could be when angry.
"Really?!!" the master replied with doubt, as he then checked the flow of energy himself, and what he sensed made him feel more puzzled. "It's really a wind natured energy," he muttered, as he narrowed his eyes, glancing towards Arthur, who was continuing to stand there with explosive anger.
"Change the energy, make it the ice natured one," he ordered, with a flash in his eyes.
"B- But master, the academy…"
The assistant stopped in the middle of his phrase, swallowing what was left in it when the head master turned to brutally look at him, while muttering after some long nervous moments of silence:
"Don't speak with me about the academy, you can arrange your stuff well, and you have me in your back, so don't say any more words and just do it."
The mage moved fast, to change the quality of the energy Arthur was absorbing currently.
Arthur didn't know that he had absorbed wind natured and earth natured energies, the two incompatible with his own ice and fire natured energy.
The wind energy was really aggressive natured energy, and it was Arthur's timely adaptation to be able to limit its great harm to his body.
The fire and ice natured energies were already considered very harmful for anyone who wasn't natured in them. so, the academy set some rules a long time ago, preventing the usage of any of both on any new mage, so this test wouldn't end up crippling anyone.
That was the reason that made that mage hesitate at first, but in front of his already extremely angry master, he had no other choice but comply, or else he would lose his life right away.
As for Arthur, he was totally immersed in his own world, trying to forcibly subdue the alien energy inside his body. The more he tried to totally control it, the sudden burst of resistance waves this energy would show, making him unable to fully absorb all of it in one go like he just did before with the earth natured energy.
Just as he was struggling with that, he felt some refreshing cool breeze flowing towards him. The next moment, all the angry and repulsive energy vanished, and a very docile and cool energy replaced it, making his sore vessels feel much better, and started their healing as well.
'Wow, is this an ice natured energy? Then I should have a fire energy later on? That's quite generous of the academy to be honest,' he muttered, with a cheerful celebration inside his mind, while his body was rejoicing while absorbing this ice energy with extreme hunger and great thirst.
Arthur's inner energy was already an ice natured one, so when this new energy entered his body, marvelous effects occurred, far greater than the previous two energies combined effect.
He didn't only feel his energy to get purer, he also felt it getting thicker. His vessels started to show signs of changing as well, starting to be covered in thin fortified icy layers that made them far stronger.
As for the outside, the whole world was shocked to witness this thick icy layer that suddenly erupted around his body. Whispers started to spread, and rumors about the forbidden of the academy to the use of ice in tests started to be heard here and there.
Despite that, the head master didn't give a heed to any of these talks, as he was thinking of himself as an already a mighty being, away from any question coming from those who had no place in the academy yet.
He looked with a satisfying look towards Arthur, knowing this was the sign of his body being deteriorating. He knew the ice energy was so brutal, and any mage with no affinity to it would be faced with only one outcome, death!
The second sign he waited for was that mage's body in front of him to break apart into small pieces, before the whole ice block in front of his eyes was shattered. However, after the passage of five whole minutes, nothing like that occurred, instead that ice block started to brim with some flashing light, indicating its getting higher in rank, purer in quality.
"What is going on exactly here?" that treacherous master muttered to himself, as he stared towards Arthur with puzzled eyes. It was supposed for Arthur to be long dead by now, however reality proved his speculations wrong.
"No way! This mage has the ice affinity as well!" he suddenly shouted with surprise and anger, "Go, hurry, now go and change the energy into a fire natured one!" he hurriedly ordered his minions to go and change this energy, or else this mage would get more benefit instead of dying!
The fire energy was the extreme opposite to ice energy, making any mage with an affinity to ice threatening to explode and burn to death if he got in touch with fire energy.