First Battle
Dark spear, form at my will. Dark Spear.
While the old man chanted, Leon was far from idle.
“Aqua Sentinel! ……Mana, flow and dance, lighten my body. Swift!”
Leon activated one of the Arpina spells he had memorized and followed it immediately with a basic haste spell. Since Swift was such a minor incantation, he managed to finish it around the same time the old man completed his own chant.
Reciting two spells in succession consumed a massive amount of mana, but Leon’s vastly expanded mana pool—nurtured by elixirs—handled the burden without issue.
“Black magic?”
“Arpina magic?”
Both of them stared at each other in surprise. Leon was genuinely shocked that the old man was using black magic. While darkness-affinity constitutions were extremely rare, black mages themselves were not uncommon. The risks of using attribute magic without talent were borne solely by the caster, after all. The only real downside was being unable to learn unique or higher-tier spells. For mages with no talent at all, black magic was actually quite appealing. It allowed them to wield fairly powerful spells even at low levels.
However, black magic itself was taboo, and its practitioners tended to be extremely secretive. Because of that, when someone with a darkness affinity appeared, they were often revered by black mages almost like a saint.
“Black spear, pierce the enemy and steal their life!”
Only now did a trace of tension finally appear on the old man’s face. Arpina school magic was that high in caliber. With his wariness heightened, the old man struck first.
The black spear floating above his palm shot toward Leon like a bolt of lightning.
With the droplet-shaped slime hovering beside him, Leon shouted the trigger word. Because this was a linked spell using the slime as a medium, the time needed for mental visualization and chanting was drastically reduced.
“Blast!”
Moisture gathered in front of the slime’s mouth, rapidly condensing into a water droplet. A powerful jet of water then erupted, colliding with the black spear.
Boom—
Leon had never expected a third-grade spell to block it. He quickly twisted his body to the side. The spear that had pierced through his magic slammed into the spot where he had been standing moments before.
“Like a damn rat, the way you scurry around. Do you really think that will change anything?”
Without answering, Leon pulled a magic scroll from his subspace pouch. He infused it with a bit of mana, causing it to glow, then hurled it straight at the old man. Three white missiles streaked toward him.
“Infusion!”
Bang—
The old man didn’t dodge. Instead, he triggered a spell he had already memorized and took the hits head-on. The missiles struck directly, yet the old man remained completely unharmed.
“Heh heh. I knew it the moment I saw you using that pathetic Swift spell.”
A faint blue aura gently enveloped his body.
“I’m curious how a brat who doesn’t even know common magic managed to awaken his mana.”
The instant he finished speaking, the old man charged at Leon. His speed was on an entirely different level from before.
Leon had no time to ponder what common magic even was. He pulled out another Magic Missile scroll and threw it, hoping to at least slow the old man’s approach.
“Dark Chain!”
Chains materialized around the old man and easily blocked the missiles. Leon immediately tossed three more scrolls.
“Just how many scrolls do you…”
Apparently even he had limits against sheer volume. The old man’s steps faltered for a brief moment. In that opening, Leon retreated and calmly reassessed the situation.
The old man had used trigger words without full incantations twice. As a third-grade mage, he still had one memorized spell left. First, Leon would force that one out. Then they would settle the real fight.
Having made up his mind, Leon threw all four remaining Magic Missile scrolls at once while chanting.
“Water Wave!”
Twelve missiles followed by a surging wave of water. The old man’s face twisted in fury as he shouted.
“Web Dominion!”
The moment he activated the spell, the chains floating around him spread out like a spiderweb and wrapped around his body. Leon’s entire barrage was blocked by the black chains and lost all power.
“Pierce!”
At the old man’s next command, the chains that had been shielding him shot toward Leon.
“Let’s see if you can block this too!”
At that exact moment, Leon reached into his subspace and gripped the orb.
His body flashed—then vanished from the spot.
The old man, who had been about to deliver the finishing blow, found his expression involuntarily twisting into one of utter disbelief.
Once inside the orb, Leon hurriedly sat in a lotus position.
“Haa… haa.”
Time in the real world flowed at one-sixtieth the speed inside the orb. He had already confirmed that the orb disappeared along with him when he left reality, so from the old man’s perspective, it must have looked like Leon had suddenly vanished into thin air.
Leon spent ten minutes in the middle of the forest recovering his mana and canceling the mana concealment spell that had been occupying his memorization slots. He quickly filled the freed slot with another spell, then stepped back out of the orb.
In reality, only ten seconds had passed. It was a short time, but the old man’s magic had already swept through the area where Leon had been standing.
When Leon reappeared in that exact spot, the old man’s eyes widened so much they looked ready to tear apart.
“H-how…?”
Leon immediately threw a magic scroll exactly as he had simulated inside the orb. It was an Earth Wall scroll. A wall of earth erupted from the ground, sealing the old man in from all sides.
“Where the hell did you get all those scrolls?!”
Leon ignored the old man’s furious roar. He was too busy casting his next spell.
“Zephyrs Herald.”
The moment he activated the memorized spell from inside the orb, a small translucent fairy with a faint silver tint—similar to the water droplet slime—appeared beside him. It was a wind summon that had become available once his foundational Arpina magic reached two-star rank.
Leon stretched out both hands. He wasn’t planning to attack immediately. If the old man broke through the earth wall, he would unleash a barrage of spells right away. Summoning two entities at once consumed an enormous amount of mana, but having just replenished it inside the orb made it bearable.
Soon, muttering could be heard from inside the earth wall. It was the sound of an incantation.
Boom—
“Pierce and bring ruin!”
Black chains, now far larger than before, shot out in every direction. The old man who smashed through the earth wall was breathing heavily. It seemed even he had exerted himself with that large spell.
“I will definitely capture you and wring every last secret from your lips!”
The old man’s face twisted into something demonic.
Leon immediately used the spell he had prepared.
“This ends now!”
It was a spell that had also pushed Leon’s mana to its limits. A torrent of water erupted from the slime’s mouth while blades of wind formed at the fairy’s fingertips and flew forward.
“Second-grade?”
Only then did the old man seem to realize Leon’s true level. His face filled with shock. He floundered desperately until the very moment Leon’s magic was about to land—then, in a single instant, that panic vanished.
A voice still full of strength slipped from the old man’s twisted lips.
“Defensio!”
In his hand was a tiny token no larger than a fingernail. Light burst from it, and powerful shields sprang up in every direction. All of Leon’s magic slammed uselessly into the barriers.
Having used two spells in rapid succession, Leon panted as he watched the scene unfold.
“Looks like you’re finally out of scrolls, eh?”
The old man cackled at the sight.
“Kuhahaha! Did you think you were the only one with artifacts?!”
Even though the shields created by the token had vanished, the old man’s expression remained relaxed. He had no idea how a boy so young had reached the second grade alone, but Leon had already exhausted the limit of what a second-grade mage could memorize. Looking at Leon’s obvious exhaustion, the old man sneered.
“I’ll at least praise you for hiding your level until the very end.”
The old man wiped the cold sweat from his brow and opened his mouth to begin another incantation—then suddenly froze.
“Huh?”
A foolish sound slipped from his lips. And for good reason. Leon’s expression was unnaturally calm. It was not the face of someone who had been gasping for breath just moments ago.
Leon pulled out a scroll, threw it, and the glowing paper vanished. In its place, three flame orbs the size of a human head appeared. It was the final E-grade Triple Fireball scroll he had saved.
“……”
The old man stared at the fireballs with his mouth agape, his face slowly twisting in rage.
“You tricked me, you bastard!”
Kwaaaang—
The fireballs flew toward the old man and detonated. Flames roared upward where he had stood, sending sparks flying in every direction.
Crackle. Crackle.
As the flames died down and Leon’s vision cleared, the old man’s mangled body lay collapsed on the ground. It seemed even the mana protecting him couldn’t withstand a direct hit from an E-grade spell.
“……”
The old man’s now-empty eyes, devoid of life, bored deeply into Leon.
I killed a person…
His stomach churned. He stood there in a daze for a moment. Then the pounding of his heart snapped him back to reality.
Leon took slow, steady breaths.
If I hadn’t killed him, I would have been the one who died.
He calmly used water magic to extinguish the lingering flames. After staring at the corpse for a while, he stored it inside the orb, stepped back out, and retrieved an artifact from his subspace pouch. A silver disc rested in his palm.
Mana trace eraser.
When he infused it with mana, the disc vibrated and sent waves of energy rippling outward. All traces of mana that had flooded the area vanished without a trace.
What remained were only the crater left by the fireballs, the scorched leaves, and the gouges carved into the ground by the old man’s chain magic. Leon personally erased even those marks, then picked up the token that had fallen to the floor. It was the shield artifact the old man had used. The surface had a faint crack.
It should still be usable two or three more times.
After pocketing that as well, Leon returned to the magic archive. Without hesitation, he headed straight for the space the old man had occupied. It was a place the old man had always kept tightly sealed and never allowed anyone to see. Since it had been a black mage’s hidden base of operations, Leon was certain something would be there.
The room looked like an ordinary office. The walls were painted a pale brown, and the floor was covered with gray carpet. In the center stood a large wooden desk, and against one wall was a wide bookshelf.
Leon searched the entire space without touching anything at first.
“Was I wrong…? …That can’t be right.”
In the end, he had no choice but to start examining the objects one by one. He shifted his perspective. If this were a novel and a secret room were hidden somewhere, where would a modern person think to look…?
Leon immediately walked over to the bookshelf. He touched every book on the sparsely filled shelves one after another. When he picked up a book located roughly in the middle of the second row—
Click—
A sharp, short sound rang out, like a small metal component sliding perfectly into place.
Bingo.
As the bookshelf slowly split apart down the middle, Leon let out a sigh of relief.