Chapter 249
Chapter 249
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 249
Chapter Title: System Operation (2)
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But Shirone didn't stop teleporting.
No matter how precise the defense, it couldn't defy the basic principle of stimulus and response.
‘Now!’
The moment Shirone tilted his body in his photonized state, Dante turned into light and retreated.
Truly superhuman reflexes. But this time, they were his undoing. Shirone dropped the feint and pulled back.
‘Damn!’
By the time Dante realized Shirone's strategy, Shirone was already teleporting away.
As the distance instantly widened to twenty meters, Shirone immediately fired the Photon Cannon.
Faced with a barrage of photons that consumed all available space, even Dante's movements were useless. Choosing the ground, his only escape route, Dante deployed a defensive magic circle above his head the moment he landed.
Shirone gritted his teeth and cast his spells in rapid succession.
Immortal Function expanded a mage's mind to infinity, but reality was not so simple. Fully unlocking the chains of infinity would cause one's ego to dissolve.
That was why an Unlocker drew upon the power of infinity through an aperture called the Spirit Zone. The Spirit Zone acted as a barrier, upholding the boundary between reality and infinity.
While it could be called an endless source of mental energy, there was also the risk of being instantly overwhelmed if the Spirit Zone's durability couldn't withstand the weight of infinity.
But Shirone remained unshaken, even while consuming mental energy beyond his usable limits. This was thanks to his mind reaching a state of adamantine resilience, one that surpassed mere durability.
‘More! More! More!’
Fueled by his immense mental energy, Photon Cannons rained down on the ground without pause.
“Kugh!”
Dante held on with all his might, spreading ten defensive magic circles above his head like a roof. Even so, he thought it was impossible. Any human casting spells in succession would inevitably see their power diminish. But Shirone's assault, far from weakening, was only growing stronger.
‘Damn it! What kind of ridiculous attack power is this?’
He had never felt so intimidated, not even against the kingdom's most renowned heavy hitters.
Dante suddenly realized. Immortal Function. The state he had dismissed as nothing more than a monk's mental game was now crushing him utterly.
The bombardment continued for a full two minutes.
Dante couldn't move a single step from his defensive position. His specialty, evasion, was useless against the hail of attacks.
The students glanced nervously at their Ichunbun bracelets, which were growing hot. The fact that the bracelets, which controlled the information exchange of Ichunbun, were hot enough to feel against their skin was proof that the amount of information flowing between Shirone and Dante was skyrocketing.
“They're not going to explode, are they?”
To Mark's terrified question, Amy replied.
“Don't worry. They worked fine even for the graduating class. Even if the Ichunbun system overheats, the safety measures will activate in a worst-case scenario.”
Mark breathed a sigh of relief.
“I-I see.”
Amy added one more thing.
“Of course, it's not exactly common for them to get this hot.”
Shirone was starting to get frustrated. Over three minutes had passed, yet Dante's defense remained unbroken. But Dante's fierce resistance only fueled Shirone's fighting spirit.
‘In that case…!’
Shirone stopped the barrage of Photon Cannons and cast Laser. A single crimson flash struck Dante's magic circles.
When the power was weaker than expected, Dante scoffed as if it were nothing and began to repair his magic circles.
The ten or so magic circles were instantly restored to perfect condition.
But a moment later, Dante's face twisted subtly. Unlike before, he could feel an energy even more powerful than the Photon Cannon.
“Wh-what is this…!”
The moment Dante choked out the horrified words, Shirone amplified the laser with all his mental power.
The laser's beam began to widen rapidly.
Finally, as all the power drawn from the realm of infinity was poured in, a massive crimson flash completely engulfed the spot where Dante stood.
The students swallowed hard, watching Dante's silhouette as if it were burning in flames.
As the beam narrowed and finally vanished, Dante was revealed, standing stock-still with his arms covering his face. The defensive magic circles that had blocked the Photon Cannons were gone without a trace.
Shirone landed opposite Dante. Slowly lowering his hands, Dante glared at Shirone and ground his teeth.
“Damn it….”
Dante's knees buckled as if broken, and he slammed to the ground.
He had tried to endure, but the destructive power of the Photon Cannon was irresistible. The shock of the anti-magic striking his brain was incomparable to any spell he had ever taken in Ichunbun.
“No way…. Dante's on his knees again.”
The first knockdown could be dismissed as Shirone's surprise attack succeeding, but this one was due to a clear difference in skill.
As such, the result was shocking to the students.
A murmur went through the faculty section as well. Who would have thought that Shirone, who had only been learning magic for a year, would knock down the kingdom's number one, Dante, twice?
Etella said.
“His personality is sharp, but his magic is surprisingly heavy. The lack of fancy tricks is a weakness, but he has the destructive power to overcome it.”
You can tell a mage's disposition by the magic they wield. This was especially true for Unlockers, whose magic was mostly manifested through their unique schema.
Thadd smacked his lips at Etella's compliment.
He wasn't personally close to Shirone, who monopolized the affection of many female students, but he acknowledged his skill.
“Well, he's a guy who's serious about everything.”
Dante's knockdown made the students' excitement even more intense.
Everyone chanted Shirone's name, and the sound echoed back, heightening the atmosphere.
Nade blinked and said.
“Was Shirone's magic… always that tough?”
Iruki had the same thought.
“He might have been confident, or perhaps he was aiming for a psychological effect as well. It's a change from last semester. Seems like he's had a change of heart.”
Amy, who was resting her chin on her hand, grinned.
“Well… he has been through some rough stuff.”
Shirone fought a bloody battle with the Parrot Mercenaries on Galliante Island. In Heaven, he fought against countless powerful foes who transcended humanity.
It would be stranger if he were the same as last semester.
“My goodness…. Dante… How could this happen….”
The reporter, Killain, was astounded by the result. Putting his undefeated record aside, he had never seen a student force Dante to his knees so one-sidedly in any previous match.
‘Shirone? Why has a kid like that never been featured in a magazine before?’
According to his research, Shirone had only been at the magic academy for a year. If that was true, he wouldn't have even had time to make a name for himself, let alone be interviewed.
When he first heard that, Killain hadn't believed it. Or rather, even if it were true, he'd assumed Shirone was just an overhyped student from some mediocre provincial school.
But he was completely overwhelming Dante. He was, quite literally, a rookie who had appeared like a comet.
Dante slowly pushed himself up. Unlike the first knockdown, his face was devoid of any emotion.
“The second knockdown. That's another first.”
Dante spoke, then shook his head. Counting the number of times was meaningless now.
Because Shirone himself was a first.
Normally, purely offensive mages were the type he could handle most easily, and even enjoyed fighting. But against an opponent with such monstrous punching power, it was counterproductive.
A bitter smile formed on Dante's lips. He never thought he'd have to use this magic circle before even entering the graduating class.
He had never cast it in an official match, and only twice even including unofficial ones.
The only ones who knew that those two opponents were an active 9th-class mage and a B-rank bandit group of seventy were Closer and Savina.
“My apologies. It seems I've greatly underestimated you.”
At that moment, a giant magic circle, glowing with red light, was inscribed with Dante at its center. Its clarity was incomparable to an instant magic circle, and it was over ten times the size.
Shina confirmed that Dante's mental energy gauge had suddenly dropped by more than half.
His vast mental energy, which had shown no signs of decreasing throughout the battle so far. She couldn't begin to guess what kind of magic circle would consume half of it.
“Central Processing Magic Circle, Pascal.”
As Dante muttered, the giant magic circle flared crimson, and over a hundred smaller magic circles were generated simultaneously.
Shirone was shocked to see the magic circles, each one schematizing a different spell. It felt like he was facing a hundred mages at once.
“Immortal Function. I looked down on it, but it's certainly impressive. The insight of an Unlocker, I suppose?”
Shirone had no time to answer. He didn't know what kind of magic it was, but it was on a different level from an instant magic circle. If he didn't analyze it quickly, he would lose his advantage.
“Now, I'll show you what I have.”
As Dante extended his hand, all sorts of spells poured out from the hundred-odd magic circles.
Wind Cutter and Fireball, Lightning Bolt and Ice Spear, and even a non-physical Photon Output.
Shirone was mesmerized by the sight unfolding before him.
The most shocking thing was that over ten different types of spells were being cast simultaneously.
Even Iruki, a Servant-type, could only cast two spells at once with his Double Spirit Zone, so it was no wonder this felt like a dream.
Nade said, biting his thumbnail.
“It's probably… a parallel circuit.”
Mark turned his head, a look of surprise on his face.
“What? A parallel circuit? Those magic circles?”
“Magic requires immense concentration. To cast a single spell, you can't have any other thoughts. But each of Dante's magic circles has its own independent circuit.”
“Is that possible? Unless you have multiple brains, you can only create one magic circle from one schema. Even for passive types, the standard is to create them sequentially.”
Nade pointed at Dante's Pascal.
“That's just it. Dante created another brain. That central magic circle—it must be converging Dante's schema and distributing it in parallel.”
Nade's guess was correct. Pascal was a magic circle that saved the schema flowing through a mage's mind into a memory and then processed it via parallel computing.
Once Pascal was activated, Dante was anything but defensive. On the contrary, he would annihilate his opponent with overwhelming firepower.
As if to prove it, every basic spell that could be learned at the academy was being unleashed.
Shirone did not stop his assault. Creating a virtual memory to unfold serial thoughts in parallel was certainly a wondrous feat.
But strictly speaking, neither serial nor parallel was superior. With a parallel circuit, the individual power of each spell was bound to be lower.
The proof was that every spell being cast from Dante's magic circles was a basic one.
‘There's no time. I have to end this now.’
The time he could maintain the realm of infinity was running out. Now was his only chance to overwhelm Dante with sheer power.
Shirone fired a Photon Cannon with all his might. But the moment it passed through a certain section, it suddenly began to slow down.
When the near-light-speed photons slowed to a crawl, Shirone scanned the area ahead of him. And then he understood.
The hundreds of magic circles Dante had deployed were forming small clusters, exerting influence over specific areas of space.
If you connected the magic circles forming the clusters with imaginary planes, they formed a cube, like a die, and were activating a specific spell within that space.
Nade shouted, a look of disbelief on his face.
“A 3D Mansion? A student is using that?”
Dante had assembled 2D, planar magic circles into a 3D, solid structure.
Shirone's Photon Cannon had slowed down because it entered a Mansion designated simultaneously by six Slow magic circles, each positioned five meters apart.
Given that functionality changes depending on how many circuits can be integrated into a limited space, the 3D Mansion could exhibit incredible efficiency that surpassed the limits of a flat plane.