Noel and Anna blitzed through the long-winding caverns of the dungeon, burning down any trolls they could find and Anna had to loot their bodies. It was a chore for sure, but Anna was unable to do anything about it. If Noel said so, then Noel said so.
“Where the hell is this goddamn boss monster?” she cursed lightly, manipulating the wind to act as a sort of knife to skin the trolls, gouge out their eyes, pull out their innards, and pass them onto Noel who would store them into his very own pocket space.
Anna eyed as the basket’s worth of monster flesh and organs magically disappeared with a wave of his hand, inwardly sighing at the injustice of the world and his godly talent. She then chuckled, realizing another absurdity, ‘Space magic isn’t even his specialty. It’s fucking miracles! If he can regain that power of his, he’d effectively be unbeatable, especially if his mana reserves return to the level of an archmage!’
‘And to gain that power in the first place, he’d also gain a monstrous ally in the game. A dragon… a dragon!’ Anna screamed in her mind, shrieking with envy. ‘Oh, how life would have been so easy if I had the same talent as that bastard!’
“Shh,” hushed Noel. He waved his arm, activating a sort of divination spell as his eyes glowed with a dim blue light.
Anna looked forward in confusion, but soon enough, her ears twitched as the natural enhancement brought by using spirit magic did its thing. She could hear the sound of distant footsteps; loud footsteps. The ground trembled with subtle tremors, the ceiling shook slightly to each step that she could faintly hear.
“It’s here…,” she mumbled, and controlled the spirits around her. In a few seconds, an incredibly dense wall of wind erupted around her, as if it was almost solid rather than something gaseous.
Noel was faster to react than her. An almost invisible barrier covered his body, warping light by the tiniest of bits that it was almost faint. Around his figure, mana gathered and twisted, forming into long dashes of flames and strange spheres of purple miasma.
Before they could even see the monster arrive, Noel attacked without mercy. The spheres of gaseous purple flew and dispersed, transforming into a large cloud of poisonous and explosive gas. Then, without missing a beat, the dashes of flames shot forward, piercing through the cloud of purple and erupting into a loud burst of orange light.
Anna shielded her eyes as painful roars echoed in the long tunnels. The cave visibly shook with the loud cry, and she wondered just what sort of monster had a loud enough voice that could cause rocks to wobble and shake.
She didn’t have to wonder long enough though, as from the cloud of flames, a single monster rushed forward with incredible speed. It had charred grey flesh and murderous eyes, its body was far larger than the average orc, standing proud with a five-meter tall body. Even though it had just been burned alive, which is one of the most effective ways of dealing with trolls and their regeneration, it appeared to have only been a flesh wound for the thing since its body was already halfway healed to normal.
It gripped a large rock tightly in its hand, swinging it with a murderous grunt. The rock shot forward, aiming straight at Anna rather than Noel, and she inwardly cursed her bad luck - or rather, the intelligence of the troll.
Boss monsters had better AI in the game as well which makes them far more terrifying than their normal counterparts, along with their massively increased stats, they could easily act as the leaders of the entire dungeon and be unrivaled.
Now, with the game world turning into the real world, this better AI seems to have been translated as greater wisdom overall, and the troll was smart enough to target her, the obvious weakling of the two.
She hurriedly erected another barrier on top of her windy shield, raising the ground and forming a rocky wall in haste. Because of her panicky casting, the wall was crude and iffy, but it did its job well enough to lessen the brunt of the attack on her wind barrier.
The rock crumbled into tiny fragments, and she was safe and sound.
Noel rolled his eyes at her inexperience, mumbling with a dissatisfied tone, “You sure are crude with the way you handle your magic.”
“I was panicking, okay!” she retorted, but another rock was flying towards her, and she had to reinforce her wind barrier while erecting another rock wall.
“Hmph, excuses are for those who are weak,” said Noel.
“Just kill the thing already!” Anna begged as she created another layer of defense against the incoming boulders.
Noel grunted, waving his arms and concentrating bolts of electricity into long spears, followed by glacial spears covered in an icy mist. He pressed his hand forward, and the spears followed in a volley of ice and thunder.
The troll roared, raising its arm as it tanked through the numerous spears. The glacial spears pierced through its charred flesh and then erupted into spreading ice that rapidly covered the monster’s entire body. The thunder spears followed, electrocuting it from the inside out and paralyzing its body.
He wasn’t finished with his combo, no. He wanted to end this entire charade once and for all. They had spent more than enough time inside this dungeon, and it was beginning to annoy the reborn Archmage.
He clapped his hands in front of his chest, and slowly spread it out to form a cluster of bright blue flames in the middle. They crackled and popped, releasing a horrid level of heat that was contained within itself, and only inside itself. With his meticulous control, not even a tiny bit of thermal energy managed to leak out from the spell he had constructed in a matter of seconds, displaying his shocking proficiency in fire magic.
Anna was amazed by this level of proficiency, and couldn’t help but be envious once again over his talent. Not to mention his fire magic, his proficiency in lightning and ice magic was more than enough to raise a few eyebrows from shock.
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The bubbling blue flame converged into a single point, burning brightly to the point it appeared white. Then, with a casual flick, the burning ball of terrifying flames was shot at breakneck speeds.
It stared at the rapidly approaching white ball with deep fear in its eyes. It could feel its end coming closer and closer, but it was unable to do anything, helplessly frozen and paralyzed like a stone statue.
As the bright blue ball landed on the troll, it twinkled for a moment before exploding into a burst of blue flames, covering a large section of the cave and releasing a loud boom that produced drastic wind pressure. Anna struggled to maintain the wind barrier around her body, with sweat pouring out of her forehead due to the increasing heat.
Luckily, the flames dissipated and over at the charred cave, a blue and purple portal winked into existence, warping and dilating at random intervals.
“Phew!” Anna sighed in relief, dispelling the barrier around her while staring pitifully at the ashy remains of the troll. “Couldn’t you have not… destroyed it? It would have landed us some more points.”
“It’s too troublesome,” said Noel, waving his hand to dismiss her question. “Besides, we’re guaranteed to land in the top ten after this. With that, I’ll be able to access the restricted sections of the library!”
“Fine,” Anna mumbled and followed Noel to the portal. As they passed through it, she found herself landing inside a crowded building, with people walking in and out from one room to another as a large crowd was formed in the far distance.
She was a bit disoriented by the shift in the atmosphere, and she took a deep breath of fresh air. It was so airy! It was unlike the caves that had a big lack of air which caused her to struggle to breathe for a short while when they first entered the dungeon.
As she opened her eyes, she found Noel already walking towards the large crowd and leaving her alone. She inwardly cursed his rudeness and followed along, curious to see what the current results were in the ranking board.
When she looked up, squinted her eyes, and stared at the board, she was pleasantly surprised to find her name comfortably in fourth place, just a level below Noel Crowley, Kain Vizwel, and Alice Lamuer.
‘Ohohoho, I wonder what reward I should get!’ she thought to herself with a jovial laugh. ‘Do I get the lifetime free food privilege? Perhaps get exempted from quizzes this entire semester?’
She had already begun to daydream, but as she looked at the name beneath her, her eyes almost bulged with shock.
The way people are ranked in this little competition is quite advanced, especially with the help of magic like divination. With magic, the academy could accurately deduce how much a person contributed to the entire party and would share the party’s overall points based on their contribution.
If it was an equal split, then Anna would be ranked second rather than fourth, but since that system exists, the majority of the points belonged to Noel, which she found was well deserved. So, when she saw Rob Fortune ranked fifth, and remembered that they had a party of five, whose names weren’t found anywhere on the top ten, she almost choked on her own saliva.
“Rob Fortune?” Noel hummed, curious as to how this name was on the top ten, especially with his crowded party. So, he walked toward a panel placed to the side, while Anna followed, curious as well to see how this was so.
Noel controlled the panel, moved toward a certain section on the screen, and clicked on Robs’ party. A party could have their entire dungeon dive recorded if they so wished, and share it with others if they wanted to as added credibility, which isn’t really that needed since the school is reputable enough - it was more so done for bragging rights, essentially.
One can display their most badass moments and comedic shenanigans, sharing laughs and awe with other curious students. A forum, essentially.
As the video played, an ear-piercing hum boomed in her ear as Anna stepped back, shielding her eyes from the sudden burst of white light. She clicked her tongue and poked at Noel, “Play it back!”
“Fine,” Noel said, manipulating the video to play a few seconds before the sudden burst of white light.
The video then began once more, this time, from the perspective of a party member on the ground. She seemed to be looking up at the sky, toward a distant figure hovering in the air, wielding a strange weapon that caused Anna to nearly enter a coughing fit from the sheer bewilderment she felt over seeing the metallic gun.
The video continued and a low hum echoed in the snowy mountain peak. A distant ogre roared in anger, glaring at Rob floating in the air. He calmly pointed his gun at the thing, charging up a ball of white light that caused the entire video to visibly shake, perhaps from the sheer amount of mana pouring into it.
In the end, a gargantuan pillar of white light pierced through the sky, beaming right at the giant ogre and leaving no remains as it disappeared.
‘W-What the fuck… What the fuck?!’ Anna had her eyes bulging out, staring at the weapon Rob held in his hands intently.
That’s a fucking rifle, a GUN! How is there a gun in this world-
“Is that a rifle?” Noel hummed. “Interesting, interesting. So he took inspiration from the gunpowder weapons being currently produced by the empire.”
“E-Eh? You know what that is?” Anna pointed at the screen, befuddled by what she had just heard. There’s no way he knew it was a gun, there’s no way.
“Don’t take me for an ignorant fool,” said Noel, crossing his arms in disdain. “That seems to be a magic-powered version of the rifle, enchanted quite greatly and has some level of sophistication in the way it is built. Quite impressive for the creation of a fifteen-year-old boy, but I can create something better if I had the time to do so, but it’s not like it would be more efficient than my spells.”
“Although it is many magnitudes better for someone of his level, I suppose. It can allow one to effectively cast torrents of fireballs without much mental taxation and, if what I see is right, can be done with just the press of a trigger. That’s only a surface-level observation though,” Noel paused. “Perhaps the way it’s controlled needs much more skill from the user. Hmm, to think I would see such a rare genius from a common lineage. He resembles me quite a bit, dare I say, especially in my younger years.”
If anyone else were to hear what he had said, they wouldn’t think much of it, since essentially, Noel Crowley is just a highly talented orphan boy of common descent, nothing more, nothing less. But with the context of him being a reborn Archmage, perhaps the greatest Archmage to have ever lived in the history of Tyr, then his praise becomes a lot more… potent, to say the least.
Rob… is like Noel… Of course he is! Anna held back the urge to grab her hair and break down in despair. Fucking hell, just how talented are the bastards around me?!
Why had God made these two assholes prodigies?! Couldn’t the world make me - a good person with a righteous heart - a prodigy too?!
As she helplessly sighed in her mind, Noel dismissed the video and slowly walked out of the fortress-like building. Anna remained, intrigued to watch the videos shared by the others and the various monsters they had fought.
Unbeknown to her, and to Noel himself, a young man of remarkable appearance silently meddled with the panel a few meters away from them, their eyes shining dimly with golden light and their brows furrowed in confusion and curiosity.
“78-S, 24-s; there’s also those strange thoughts she had been having lately,” Rob mumbled with his eyes turning into slits. “How interesting.”
Rob smiled, continuing on with his plans as he walked back to his party, prepared to enjoy a wild celebration for their little success.
But, before he did so, he took one last look at the receding figure of Noel and Anna and wore a playful grin.