Chapter 1357: 115. This Is Very Scientific

"Come!"

Jerome let out a low shout. Magical power surged around his body, and with a raise of his hand, a magic staff appeared in his grasp as well.

Unlike Muen's thick, clumsy staff that looked cheap at first glance, Jerome's staff possessed the exquisite beauty of something meticulously crafted.

The shaft had been made from some kind of expensive magical conductive material. While maintaining a suitable weight, it also possessed extremely strong magical conductivity.

More importantly, embedded at the top of the staff were no fewer than five top-grade magic stones of different colors and shapes, arranged together in an extraordinarily profound and special formation.

As magical power flowed through them, those magic stones seemed to come alive, flashing with dazzling brilliance that was difficult to describe!

"That's Master Jerome's prized magic staff—Five Sacred Chants!"

When Muen had first taken out his staff, the surrounding crowd hadn't realized anything was unusual.

It wasn't until Jerome's powerful magical energy converged into the staff in his hand, and magnificent radiance powerful enough to seemingly suppress heaven and earth erupted from the five brilliant magic stones, that everyone suddenly realized the difference between the two.

Normally speaking, once a mage reached this level, the usefulness of a magic staff was already fairly limited. Many powerful mages would even avoid using one when fighting an enemy in order to conceal the signs of the magic they were constructing.

But in the "pure" magical duel that was about to take place now, the difference between their staffs was immediately obvious.

After all, when it came to comparing their auras, it was actually difficult to perceive the finer distinctions. To the spectators, both sides merely seemed incredibly powerful...

But this was the City of Magic. Even ordinary people who were incapable of learning magic understood magic staffs!

With that comparison, Muen, who had originally gained a slight advantage in everyone's minds through his flamboyant display just now, immediately sank back to the lower side of the scales.

As expected, a veteran magic master was still far more terrifying!

"Accept your punishment, you pathetic wretch of the Enhancement School!"

Now that he was certain victory was already in his grasp, Jerome could no longer be bothered wasting words. He raised his staff directly, and without any chanting whatsoever, a complicated array of magic circles unfolded!

For someone at his level, double or even triple chantless magic was already standard. But as if deliberately displaying his strength, the moment Jerome made his move...

He unleashed five chantless spells at once!

In an instant, thunder rolled across the sky, raging winds howled, ice condensed, and flames surged upward!

Jerome's classroom belonged to the Elemental School, so the magic he used was naturally the purest form of Elemental Magic.

Elemental Magic was the most universally used form of magic on the continent, as well as the type that had been studied most thoroughly. Many spells did not even need to be fully released; merely by observing the flow of magical power, one could already determine how the spell would develop.

But Jerome had clearly reached an extremely deep level of mastery in this field. By using the interactions between several different elements, he actually threw the normally predetermined trajectories of the spells completely into disorder!

Several types of Elemental Magic mixed together, yet under Jerome's powerful control, each continued performing its own role.

Ice and raging wind sealed off Muen's escape routes, while thunder and fire intertwined, intending to crush him completely!

And hidden within those four layers of Elemental Magic was another invisible technique—

Poison Magic!

A virulent poison capable of reducing more than a hundred magical beasts to skeletons in an instant had already silently filled the entire area. Against a physically frail mage, this kind of poison was unquestionably a lethal killing move.

And so, five types of magic combined offense and defense, open attacks and hidden ones. The moment Jerome acted, he created an unimaginable net of heaven and earth, completely sealing Muen within it.

Destruction surged toward him like an ocean tide. The utterly merciless, cold, and brutal attack caused the spectators around the square to suck in breaths of cold air.

"As expected of Master Jerome! His mastery of magic has actually reached such a level!"

"Master Enmu... is in danger!"

...

'It really is a little dangerous.'

Muen's expression gradually became solemn.

After everything he had experienced along the way, caution had already become a habit for him. Not to mention that both his opponent's identity and the force Jerome was currently displaying were enough to make Muen raise his guard.

'This might only be a probe.'

Muen took a deep breath, slowly drawing the air through his lungs and carefully savoring the deadly poison within it.

Pretty strong.

The effect was just a little lacking.

"Either way, it's my turn."

Since his opponent had already made his move, Muen naturally had no intention of sitting there waiting to die. He raised his magic staff high, ignored a certain someone's violently rolling eyes, and as the aura around his body erupted, he threw back his head and roared:

"Enhancement Magic!"

The surging magical power suddenly contracted.

At this moment, Muen no longer possessed the intimidating presence from before. Instead, he looked more like an ordinary person.

And yet, in precisely this state, he suddenly stepped forward.

Under everyone's disbelieving gazes, he walked straight toward the elemental prison trapping him.

Crack. Crack.

The condensed ice shattered effortlessly beneath him, while the raging wind could do no more than stir the corner of his robe.

Thunder from the heavens and fire from the earth struck him simultaneously, yet all they managed to do was illuminate the cold contours of his face.

Just like that, with a single step, he broke through the elemental prison, crossed half the square, and appeared directly in front of Jerome.

"What?"

Jerome's pupils contracted violently.

For a mage, having an enemy close the distance in the blink of an eye was already enough to trigger every instinctive danger warning he possessed.

And the fact that his opponent's method looked almost identical to that of a warrior actually made Jerome feel, for an instant, as though he were facing a Crowned One.

"No."

"Definitely not a Crowned One."

"There isn't even the slightest aura of a crown."

"He broke through using nothing but the pure strength of his body."

"Was what he used really only Enhancement Magic?"

His astonishment lasted only an instant.

Then, within those clouded eyes, the composure belonging to a veteran master appeared once again.

The corner of Jerome's mouth curled upward, forming a mocking smile that seemed to say everything remained firmly within his control.

"You really do have some skill. Unfortunately for you, that move of mine..."

"Was only a test."

An excellent mage should never be thinking about how to suppress an opponent with brute force.

He should be thinking about how to manipulate the opponent completely within the palm of his hand.

From the very beginning, Jerome had been setting the board.

Because he knew that so-called Enhancement Magic, in the end, was nothing more than forcing a mage to abandon the essential for the trivial and play the same stupid game as those reckless brutes.

And because the path ahead had already been severed, Enhancement Magic could not even take that approach to its limit.

It couldn't even compare to a genuine brute.

"I knew you would try to get close, so my true killing move has been waiting for you here from the very beginning."

Jerome raised his magic staff.

In an instant, powerful magic that had already been fully condensed poured into it.

The staff trembled slightly, and the five dazzling magic stones embedded within it actually detached themselves. Incomprehensibly complex patterns surfaced across the stones—

They were suppression arrays engraved in advance, powerful enough to make any formidable warrior lose the ability to resist in an instant!

At the same time, Jerome flicked his wrist, and a bracelet he wore exploded apart. Several more magic arrays overlapped one another and floated before him.

These, too, were defensive arrays engraved in advance!

"Whether you're a warrior or using Enhancement Magic, fighting a mage who has had time to prepare is unquestionably foolish—and I always prepare in advance."

Within that incredibly brief fraction of time, Jerome saw his opponent also raise the staff in his hand, without slowing his approach in the slightest.

Jerome did not panic at all.

He even felt like laughing.

"Give up."

The suppression array he had created through Five Sacred Chants specifically to deal with those reckless brutes needed only two short seconds to fully deploy and begin functioning.

Once it did, no matter how powerful someone's physical strength was, they would only be able to kneel before him.

And aside from an actual Crowned One, there was no one in this world capable of shattering his tenfold defensive array within two seconds.

Just as everyone acknowledged, below the Crowned realm, a warrior of the same rank was completely countered by a mage of the same rank.

Yet this fool had chosen to abandon the path of magic and walk some half-baked imitation of those brutes instead.

How unbelievably stu—

Crack.

"Hm?"

Jerome was still mocking the overconfident fool before him internally while waiting for victory to arrive.

But at that moment, he suddenly heard a strange sound.

Like something unable to bear an overwhelming burden...

Breaking apart.

So suddenly.

"What?"

Jerome's eyes widened.

The instant he saw what was happening in front of him, the composure in his heart collapsed.

Because within his disbelieving field of vision, that strangely shaped magic staff was following the trajectory of the swing from just moments ago...

And smashing straight toward him.

Everything had gone according to prediction.

It should have been so.

There was only one thing he had failed to anticipate...

His tenfold defensive array, which supposedly "could never be shaken in a short period of time by anyone beneath the Crowned realm," had not lasted two seconds.

It had not even lasted one second.

No...

It had not even lasted 0.01 seconds!

The magic staff was swung by the magic master Enmu in a motion resembling someone batting a ball. The front end, embedded with its enormous magic stone, smashed straight toward him like an utterly unreasonable warhammer.

And that warhammer did not strike the defensive magic arrays as though they were barriers.

It struck them as though they were a sheet of paper!

Under kinetic energy powerful beyond imagination, his defenses were pierced through in an instant!

There was not even the slightest sense of resistance or obstruction.

And the staff he had mocked just moments earlier for being cheap and vulgar did not lose even a shred of momentum.

It continued rapidly closing in on Jerome himself.

"Ah... this isn't magic at all!"

At that moment, while Jerome was unable to react...

And had no time to react...

He finally understood the true reason his opponent had chosen that magic staff.

It wasn't because he was poor.

And it wasn't because he was insane.

It was because of that supreme, unshakable truth ignored by most people.

Bigger was better!

The magic staff he had chosen was, in a certain sense...

Both big and good!

—BOOM!

Jerome was struck by the magic staff and sent flying backward.

His body carved a massive trench through the ground before he finally crashed into the far end of the square, embedding himself deeply among shattered stone and dirt.

The square fell utterly silent.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Everyone's heads turned along the enormous gouge in the ground, their gazes finally landing on the place where dust and smoke billowed into the air.

They stood there, stunned and speechless.

Muen, meanwhile, maintained the finishing position of his swing for another three seconds before finally straightening.

He lightly waved the staff in his hand, feeling the grip and balance that he had tested countless times until he finally found something that felt exactly right.

"This really might be a little un-magical."

Muen seemed to hear that unwilling roar still lingering in the air.

He shrugged and chuckled.

"But it's very scientific, isn't it?"