The air tingled with tension.
The world darkened with peril despite the bright light of the afternoon Sun shining over the dusty slum district.
The atmosphere grew electric.
Literally.
CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE!
With a single gesture of the Hare of Lightning's wooden staff, a myriad of lightning bolts emerged from it, coalescing to form many rabbits that directed their sharp eyes at their target.
Chills crawled across Cæ's skin as the many powerful lightning rabbits began dancing about the heavens all around them.
He gritted his teeth as he struggled and failed to follow the dozens of lightning rabbits.
Chills crawled across his skin.
Shivers ran up his spine.
He was surrounded by power beyond his limits as the mighty mana-motive force of the powerful senior mage mobilized a tremendous amount of mana from her mana core.
In that moment, he understood entirely that she was truly beyond his league. Even if he went mask-off and used his pure magic to its fullest extent without holding back, he didn't think he stood a chance.
Not only was each lightning magic an order of magnitude above his nominal power level, but they appeared to be autonomous. The rabbits leaped and ran about in the air, circling around them without any direct contact.
It was the fourth Fundamental Form after Manipulation, Change, and Conjuration.
The Fundamental Form of Automation.
A more advanced Fundamental Form that was beyond the scope of the apprentice program due to its mental burdens and difficulty of mastery.
While Cæ had to actively control each spell at each moment of time, she could automate her magic and let it be, allowing her to output a vastly greater amount of magic than he ever could.
Her chilling eyes were fixed on Cæ as a faint whisper escaped her.
"Die."
CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE!
The many lightning rabbits converged upon their target with great power and intensity, threatening to incinerate in the blink of an eye.
And yet, the leader of the senior magetant team was known as the Flowing Shield for a reason.
In the blink of an eye, a great flood of water emerged from him, wrapping around himself and Cæ protectively.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!!
The powerful attacks caused bright flashes of light to light up outside the protective shield of water. The muffled, water-drowned explosion noises emerged from all across the interior omnidirectional shield.
And yet, not a single attack reached Cæ.
WHOOSH
The elder leader of the senior magetant team deftly manipulated the water he conjured, blasting her with great force and power.
What followed stunned Cæ.
Multiple magic circles emerged before her as lightning burst from beneath her feet and from across her back from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet.
A powerful discharge of lightning thrust her forward at great speeds, allowing her to move faster than Cæ could even follow.
The Flowing Shield was unperturbed by her remarkable maneuvering magic, relying on propulsion instead of manipulation magic.
Instead, he continued pressuring her with consecutive wave after wave, threatening to crush and drown her if given even a single opportunity.
And yet, she evaded each and every single attack.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!
CRACKLE!
Her movements were graceful and elegant, almost as if she were dancing in the sky. Each step she took left lightning bolts in her wake.
That wasn't all.
Cæ could hear her whispering to herself.
An incantation.
Incantations were the slowest of the three main forms of magic casting; however, in turn, it also gave one the highest amount of complexity, as incantations accumulated information over a greater amount of time to bypass the cognitive limits of the mind to process things in a short amount of time.
And generally, the greater the complexity of the spell, the more powerful it was in effect, even if the mana put into it was the same as the amount of mana put into less complex spells.
It was the difference between trying to cut cloth with one's raw physicality versus doing so with scissors.
The latter yielded a vastly greater result for the same amount of power.
"She's preparing something big."
Cæ's tone was grave.
"Indeed," the leader magetant protecting Cæ replied. "However..."
His elderly eyes sharpened.
"I do not intend to give her the space she needs."
Several more magic circles emerged before him as he unleashed a myriad of waves of water with even greater speed and power than before.
The expression of the Hare of Lightning grew strained, even as her eyes twitched while she pushed herself to the limit, hurriedly continuing her incantation while the Flowing Shield continued to pressure her as much as possible.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
With each attack, he strategically wove a trap of great power, threatening to leave her with nowhere to run.
It became plainly clear that he had far greater mana than his opponent, which spoke just to how loaded the Elendir Institute of Magic was, to impart such magicapita to their mages for the sake of empowering their mana in combat.
A flash of irritation emerged on the Hare of Lightning's face as she, too, came to the same realization. While the Underworld was certainly quite profitable, otherwise it would not exist, it was also true that the split of profits was far from equal.
On top of that, in a sector that was innately devoid of trust, the Underworld simply couldn't trust its mages to not utilize their granted ownership over magicapita to screw them over and make a run for it.
Whereas the Elendir Institute of Magic signed clear and iron-clad contracts protected by the law with law-abiding mages, for the most part, making it so that Headmistress Lenolia had no qualms with giving her side more power.
RUMBLE
He boldly conjured more water as a constant flux of mana generated more and more water to surround and impede her escape. Despite her speed, the elderly man's greater mana allowed him to slowly overwhelm her speed with volume and area, before increasingly surrounding her with greater water.
But not before she completed her incantation.
Her eyes lit up with glee as she uttered the final runes for the spell, before unleashing her magic upon her enemies.
CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE!!
The world shifted as the very heavens around them grew charged with electricity.
Clouds began spontaneously emerging all around them with alarming speed and volume, darkening almost instantly despite the heat and light of the afternoon Sun. The Flowing Shield's eyes sharpened with severity.
"Stay close!" he urged Cæ as several magic circles emerged before him at the very final moment.
What ensued sent tremors across the sky and land.
CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE!
The mini cumulonimbus cloud that her spell had created generated a tremendous amount of power and speed, while a myriad of magic circles emerged before her, and many lightning rabbits emerged from her, threatening her.
She had used a complex manipulation spell to not just charge the heavens with a mini-storm that could generate lightning, but she also amplified with her own conjured lightning, creating a two-fold attack that was much more powerful than even what the Flowing Shield would otherwise be able to defend against.
BOOM!!!
A thundering explosion erupted as lightning converged upon Cæ and his guardian while water converged upon the Hare of Lightning. The sheer force of the collision sent palpable shockwaves from the collisions emanating across the entire district of the slums.
A great wave of dust erupted from across the mud paths of the entire district.
Cæ opened his eyes, finding himself still alive.
Unharmed.
The water shield appeared to have not even taken the slightest bit of an impact from the attack, from what he could tell, much to his surprise.
The Hare of Lightning had used incantations and magic circles to skillfully overlap multiple spells with great power.
And yet, they had somehow emerged unharmed.
The shield of water around them revealed the outcome of the mutual attack.
FSSS…!
Cæ's eyes widened with shock as he beheld the charred, burned body of the Hare of Lightning.
Plumes of smoke emerged from her corpse.
All it took was contact between her body and the Flowing Shield's water.
It sent a powerful current generated by her natural lightning attack to her own body before she could ever defend, causing her to be electrocuted on the spot.
One moment, she was alive and well, attacking them with great ferocity.
The very next day, she was dead.
"This…" Cæ's voice was stunned.
The elderly leader of the senior magetant team threw a knowing glance at the dead corpse of the Hare of Lightning.
"I prepared salt water instead of regular water just in case."
Cæ's stunned gaze turned towards him. "So that's why…!"
The man nodded. "She underestimated how flexible my attacks could be, and that was her downfall. And given that mages are ultimately human, you only have one chance. You make a mistake, it will cost you your life because underneath the magic that you control, you're only human."
He turned to Cæ even as the Hare of Lightning's body collapsed from the sky, falling straight down.
"Remember that. You are indeed extraordinarily talented with great potential and a bright future ahead of you. But do not grow arrogant in your gifts."
His tone was wise.
He had certainly borne witness to Cæ's rather aggressive and perhaps even rash fighting style, even remarkably smooth and proficient.
"…I understand," Cæ heaved a sigh even as he watched the fallen, burned corpse of the Hare of Lightning. "I won't get ahead of myself in battles from now on."
It was truly difficult to reconcile the fact that one moment she was alive and well, going all out against them with the most powerful attack of the battle.
And the very nex dayt, she was already dead.
It was a startling and jarring change for a mage as powerful as she was.
Certainly far more power than he had.
The death of the leader of the enemy senior magetant leader was a rather stark signal to the enemy mages who glanced about the battlefield in the sky with great alarm as they noticed the abrupt but eye-catching death of their leaders.
It wasn't just that their leaders had died, but the fact that the entire testing operations and even sales operations of the Elendir Institute of Magic and Trinity Housings were complete. This made it completely pointless and futile to continue fighting.
The vice-leader of the enemy magetant outfit gritted his teeth, before bellowing a command to his subordinates.
"Retreat!"
Rapidly, the enemy apprentice and senior magetants disengaged from the task force security teams in a disorganized and chaotic fashion. The security team, of course, didn't pursue, simply watching as the enemy magetants.
They were not aggressors but were instead protectors.
With the retreat of the enemies, the skies finally calmed down as the dust in the slums began to slowly settle, the bright light of the afternoon Sun still shining upon the slums for as long as it could.
The testing teams and the sales team heaved sighs of relief as they continued with the final bits of their operations with more calm and composure, continuing with their operations in the final slums districts.
The gains were considerable nonetheless.
Six individuals with elite talent had been found.
Many Haven units had been sold, and there had even been a real-time demonstration of its value, causing demand for it to increase.