His flashed with confusion, not knowing why Al wanted to go where he was leading him to, did he think that he could handle what was there? Ha! He knew that this kid that only had some talent in tracking and illusion magic wouldn't be able to even slightly threaten his boss.

He immediately changed to a neutral expression, not knowing whether a change in his emotions would change Al's mind from going to the location.

"Fine... I'll bring you there, just don't hurt me" On the outside, it seemed like he was reluctant and submissive, but he was laughing on the inside just thinking of the image of him being burnt to a crisp by his boss.

The Illusionist didn't have much ability in offensive magic and had to trick others with mind games and illusions to gain an advantage in battle.

He was leading Al to the location which was the entrance of an alleyway and had slightly increased his pace as he neared it, Al didn't seem to mind or notice, halfway through his second burger.

When the Illusionist had taken a few more steps, he sprinted for the alleyway's entrance where his and allies and his boss took ambushed his victims.

"B-boss Kevin!! Help me! I got caught!" He stumbled into the alleyway from sprinting too fast, fearing that Al would have immediately tried to stab him as ran.

He saw that his friends were busy trying to take down the shield of the fat kid who was part of the group of his previous victims, their boss, Kevin impatiently watching from behind.

The dome shield was flickering and was turning a lighter color as if it would fade out of existence at any moment.

Harry had a miniscule amount of Vaes remaining, guessing that he could only hold on for another minute. Upon hearing someone that wasn't on their enemies side had come, he had a small hope that they were saved.

"Jack! You got caught?"

"Yes boss! The guy is just around the corner, he got out of my illusion and snuck up to me, and then asked me to lead him here!" Jack frantically spoke, not stopping his feet as he ran deeper into the alleyway.

"Oh? Even after escaping, he still chose to come here? Sounds like someone troublesome, or someone with too many balls." Kevin laughed in scorn, not thinking that Al was anything more than "troublesome".

Kevin started walking away from the dome shield, his lackeys also stopping their attacks and turned around to watch, but making sure the three behind them didn't try to escape.

Flames started to grow out from and cover Kevin's body, Jack the illusionist had joined the lackeys and was patiently waiting for Al to come around the corner, exciting for what was to come.

Kevin stopped a few meters away from the entrance, he put up his hand and aimed straight at the entrance with an open palm, the flames dancing around his body covered his hand as the flames seemed to condense on his open palm.

A few silent moments had passed, Kevin still aiming at the entrance, Harry watch on nervously not daring to make a sound.

Al had just rounded the corner and had entered the alleyway, with the same pace he had when he followed Jack here, there was no rush to his movements.

Kevin didn't waste any time as the flames on his palm started to burst out towards Al.

Harry tried to warn Al of the incoming attack, thinking that he wouldn't be able to dodge in time.

"Watch out!"

Before his words could reach him, the flames had already reached him as it continued to burst out at his location like a flamethrower, scorching the walls of the alleyway as ghe flames consumed Al.

Jack laughed out in glee watching Al get burned alive, or he assumed he was being burned alive, the flames were too strong and he couldn't see through it.

Harry had turned away, not wanting to watch as another person became a victim of Kevin, Zeena couldn't bare to watch as well, closing hef eyes shut as she just focused on healing Gin.

The flames continued to wash over the area Al had stood on, and after a long ten seconds, he put his hand down and watched as the flames from his attack extinguish.

He had used a powerful attack as he didn't think his new opponent would be as weak as his other victims, thinking that at most he'd be a little stronger than himself.

Expecting to at least see a scorched figure, or at most a charred corpse, he couldn't believe what he saw as the flames extinguished.

Al had been totally uninjured, not even a single burn or black mark on his body.

He had not moved an inch since the start of Kevin's fiery attack, his expression wasn't much different than usual, he had the same slightly bored and neutral face.

Al took two quick bites and finished his second burger,

looking past Kevin and his lackeys that had a look of disbelief on their faces.

He saw the group of three, Harry also with a look of disbelief, still holding up his shield. Zeena was equally surprised and had momentarily stopped her healing, before noticing and bringing her attention back to it.

The burnt figure of Gin on the ground brought a small frown upon his nearly expressionless face.

Al had suffered zero injuries as he had immediately cast multiple spells that countered fire and had defensive attributes since the combination of spells were specifically for defending that attack, it wouldn't work as well for other attacks.

Usually, you wouldn't have enough time to cast all the spells as it would take some time, but Al had a high average spell efficiency which was inclusive of casting speed.

For all people, you'd have to form the spell in your mind by remembering the formula, and for those who used the imagining method, they still had to concentrate on the image in their head to cast a strong spell.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Thus, it would take some few seconds for average people to cast a basic spell, and it was very hard to decrease your cast time unless you've cast the spell a great number of times to the point you've remembered it by heart.

This notion of remembering it by heart applied to each and every single piece of information Al had on his canvas, and thus greatly increasing his cast time for each and every spell.

It was actually more than remembering by heart for Al as he could instantly formulate the spell by pulling it from his canvas and thus further increasing his cast time.

This allowed him to cast his multiple spells the instant before the flames reached him.

But it was not only because of his fast cast speed that he had suffered no injuries, it was also due to the unique combination of spells he had cast.

Normally people wouldn't have combinations of spells that had a single task, but combinations that were able to achieve multiple but similar tasks.

Like someone who focused on spells that pierced or broke through defenses, they would use different spells for different types of defenses.

Al's combination of spells to defend himself with was specifically for defending against fire spells that spread its damage over a period of time, which was perfect for flamethrowers.

But that spell combination was useless against other attributes or a fire spell that dealt a huge amount of damage in one go, like a fireball.

He was only able to achieve this due to his insanely high spell count that was much higher than the amount he used during his magic evaluation.

His high spell count made it possible for him to counter every type of spell or attribute just by using spells or attributes that countered them.

Though this wouldn't work for mages much stronger than him as all his counters would just be ignored by the raw power of their spells or their great abilities and higher skill.

He would definitely lose to someone who used pure raw offensive power, as only pure raw defensive power could counter that.

Kevin didn't stay shocked for long, turning himself into a human torch by covering his body with flames.

He launched himself at Al, with great speed and power, his fiery arms grew in size as they struck down, aiming at Al.

Al swiftly dodged out of the way using movement techniques and casting spells that increased his speed and reaction time.

"Flaming avatar… very useful for melee combatants that use fire magic, can increase their physical prowess multiple folds, which included defense, attack power and speed.

Exponentially increasing Vaes usage the longer it was active, making it very useful for short battles or burst attacks, but awful for long term battles…" Al whispered to himself while he continued to dodge and retreat from the flaming figure, who burned everything in his path as he chased Al.

All of his attacks either missing or was extinguished when they struck him, Al's defensive spells still active as he also cast more defensive spells that protected against melee attacks.

Al was dancing around all of his attacks, his movement techniques and spells allowed him to jump from wall to wall as Kevin seemed to be able to keep up, but still failing to actually hurt him.

The group below watching the "battle" above were awestruck by their fast movements as their eyes couldn't keep up with their pace of battle.

Kevin's lackeys had wanted to assist him but they could they wouldn't be able to do much and would only be a burden.

The two had taken their fight onto the roof of the building after they had gone higher and higher and run out of walls to leap off of.

The open space on the roof had made it easier for Kevin to chase after Al, but it was the same for Al as he seemed to benefit much more from the open area compared to him.

Al had shot off a couple of attack spells of different attributes and strengths at kevin, but the defensive boost his Flaming avatar spell gave him had rendered the attacks useless.

It was this, for this reason, Al decided to go for the defensive approach, at lower levels offensive spells were actually much weaker than the equivalent defensive spells as defensive spells were much harder to learn and thus gave an advantage to those who used defensive magic in lower levels.

But it was the opposite for higher levels as offensive magic became much more pronounced in power and though the complexity increased, it wasn't even worth comparing it to how much more complex advanced defensive spells were.

It takes those who were talented in defensive magic much longer time to improve than someone with a below average talent in offensive magic at higher levels.

It was for this reason thst very little people in the higher tiers specialize in defensive magic, its either because they have changed their specialization or have not even reached that point.

Only those extremely talented in defensive magic had any chance of surviving at higher levels.

In short, if the two of them had fought when they were both stronger, it would be unlikely that Al's defenses would be able to defend against the strength of Kevins attacks, normally.

But Al wasn't normal in the first place, the assumption was only assuming that Al improved his defensive capabilities at an average rate, but with the capabilities of his canvas, he would be able to improve at an alarming speed.

And defensive users that wanted to reach the top actually tended to master and learn all-round defensive spells as it took too long to learn different defensive spells for different types of attacks.

Specific defensive attacks were usually learned by those who wanted to cover their weaknesses like a fire specialist mage would learn spells that could defend against water spells.

And as previously mentioned, Al had learned and memorized countless counters for specific attacks and spells, every single one of it stored on his canvas.

"Why… can't… I hurt you!!" Around twelve minutes had passed and Al was still running around on the roof avoiding or tanking Kevins attacks, it didn't seem like his Vaes was going to run out anytime soon as his defenses still held strong, it didn't seem like Al would mind dragging on this battle for another ten minutes.

Kevin had started to show signs of slowing down, and Al felt like his attacks were starting to grow weaker, but this only caused Kevin to attack him at a faster rate, noticing that his spell had reached the point where the Vaes consumption was too much.

He had already been using his Vaes since extremely early in the morning when his group had started to look for targets.

A lot of people usually headed to the location the entrance exam twelve hours prior to the start, to gain a small head start, those who did these were the weak ones who had to depend on at the front of the line to register for the exam, the strong ones usually brute forced their way to be registered.

He had only been using bursts of his Flaming avatar spell together with low costing fire spells to take care of the victims his lackeys couldn't handle.

Short bursts translated to less than five minutes of his Flaming avatar spell and any longer would be considered a waste of Vaes.

He wasn't able to switch his spell on and off like a light switch either, there was a five-minute cooldown between each use of the spell, meaning the cooldown would start when the spell was no longer active.

"Able to use multiple types of attribute attack spells with decent power, specifically has a defensive counter for my physical fire attacks, you can even use spells that boost your speed and agility along with your ability to escape Jack's illusion and find him at the same time…" Kevin muttered to himself while still desperately launching fruitless attacks at Al.

"You're… an all-rounder? Hahaha!! No wonder you can use so many different spells! I admit that you currently have me on the losing side, but it wouldn't be the case if we fought even just a few months later!" Kevin came to a conclusion, not stopping the intensity of his attacks as like he said, he was currently at a disadvantage especially with his Vaes being drained at a great rate.

"All-rounders may be common in a normal society where those who focus to improve themselves on every front would be admired and seen as strong to normal people, but those who aim to climb higher know that only following one path would you be able to reach the top!"

"That may be the case, but what would happen when an all-rounder reaches the top? Would they triumph over all others?" Al countered, his eyes held a glint of determination, his goal of becoming stronger on all fronts excited him, no matter how difficult it would be.

He'd continue to broaden his horizons while deepening it at the same time, so he could see far and wide, unlike those who chose a single path and could only look straight ahead, and swearing not to become like those who could see all around them but are unable to see far ahead.