The old woman raised her cane and tapped the bottom against the giant stone.
A circle of cracks spread across the surface of the grayish-white boulder, and loose pebbles cascaded down from the edges.
She lifted her eyelids, her muddy eyes scanning Ethan.
Her gaze swept over Ethan's Wood Armor, his Wood Shield, and the surrounding wall of vines before finally resting on his face.
“Which academy are you from?” the old woman asked, her voice as raspy as before. “Who is your teacher?”
Ethan did not answer. He splayed the fingers of his right hand, and an emerald-green light condensed in his palm.
Sensing his mana fluctuations, the surrounding vines trembled slightly in unison.
When the old woman saw the light in his palm, the corners of her mouth curled upward.
The grin was so wide it almost reached her ears, revealing two rows of dull yellow teeth.
“Hehehe, quite a cautious little fellow, aren't you?” She raised her cane and gestured toward Ethan. “This old woman means no harm. I was merely passing by and grew curious when I saw that large-scale spell you cast just now.”
The moment she gestured with her cane, Ethan felt an extremely faint ripple of mental power spread from its tip.
The ripple was so faint that without his Combat Instinct and Plant Affinity, he would not have detected it at all.
The moment the surrounding plants came into contact with that ripple, they recoiled in unison.
The leaves of the vines curled slightly, and their roots retracted a few inches deeper into the sandy soil.
The light in Ethan's palm grew even brighter.
“This old woman only wanted to ask a question.” She withdrew her cane and rested both hands on its handle. “Hehehe, little apprentice, I have lived for hundreds of years. I have seen more Third-Tier Apprentices than you have eaten meals. That large-scale spell from earlier covered at least ten square kilometers. A Third-Tier Apprentice's mental power could never sustain such a scale. Why don't you let this old woman have a look at the Wizardry Tool you're carrying?”
Hearing this, Ethan's pupils contracted, and the emerald-green light in his palm slowly faded.
Seeing him withdraw his mana, a flash of satisfaction crossed the old woman's eyes.
“That's more like it. Hand it over obediently, and if I'm in a good mood, I might even give you a few pointers on—”
“Old hag, stop putting on a fucking act! I'm Kha'Zix of the Thousand Beasts Academy! You dare try to rob my Wizardry Tool?”
Ethan's voice boomed across the empty ruins.
Ethan's voice boomed across the empty ruins.
The smile froze on the old woman's face.
She had lived for four hundred years.
It had taken her twenty-nine years to climb from a First-Tier Apprentice to a First-Tier Wizard, rising from a commoner in a low-tier empire to an official member of the supernatural world.
In the three hundred and seventy-one years since she had become a First-Tier Wizard, no apprentice had ever dared to speak to her in such a manner.
Her mouth was still curled open, but the smile slowly vanished from her wrinkled face.
Her muddy eyes instantly grew clear, only to be replaced by a chilling coldness.
“Boy, you dare disrespect a Wizard?”
Her hunched body slowly straightened.
Her dusty robe billowed without any wind, its hem lifting off the stone pillar and fluttering loudly in the hot breeze.
“Die!”
The tip of her cane suddenly lit up.
A mass of dark red fire erupted from the tip.
The fire spread out in a fan shape, over ten meters wide and five meters high.
The dark red flames licked the air, instantly melting the surrounding sand into dark red lava.
Wherever the fire passed, the air warped violently, sending a heatwave sweeping in all directions.
Ethan's Combat Instinct had already screamed a warning before the old woman even raised her hand.
The moment the fire erupted, his body lunged to the left.
Stamping his foot hard against the sand, he darted seven or eight meters to the side.
The flames brushed past his right shoulder.
Ripples spread across the surface of his Wood Armor, and the wooden plates on his right shoulder blackened, carbonized, and crumbled at a visible rate.
And that was without even taking a direct hit from the fire.
Just the ambient temperature of these flames was at least three thousand degrees Celsius.
As for the power of this spell?
It was likely over seven thousand degrees.
The power of a Wizard was truly terrifying.
His mana surged, and new wooden plates sprouted from the damaged area, recovering his exposed shoulder.
“Hehehe, little thing, my casual strike didn't taste very good, did it? Now, how much mana do you have left?”
While the old hag was talking, Ethan focused his mind.
Boom!
The ground beneath the old woman's feet ruptured as dozens of wooden pillars burst from the sandy soil.
Each one was as thick as an adult's waist, their dark brown wooden fibers gleaming coldly in the sunlight.
The pillars shot out from various angles, sealing off all of her avenues of escape.
The old woman tapped her cane lightly.
Boom!
Dark red fire exploded from beneath her feet, forming a ring of fire three meters in diameter.
The ring of fire expanded outward violently, and the newly erupted wooden pillars began to disintegrate the moment they touched the edge of the flames.
The wooden fibers were instantly carbonized by the extreme heat, turning into grayish-white ash starting from their tips, which was swallowed by the flames before it could even scatter.
Wherever the ring of fire swept, dozens of wooden pillars vanished into nothingness in an instant.
“Hehehe, a Wood-attribute cantrip? This old woman specializes in the Fire element. Your little tricks aren't even enough to warm my feet. Not to mention, your element is completely countered by mine. Hand over the Wizardry Tool obediently, and I shall spare your life.”
“Element counter? Like hell I believe that!”
Ethan raised both hands simultaneously, and emerald-green light surged from his entire body.
In an instant, a massive wooden pillar with a radius of one meter condensed around him.
This single pillar was the accumulation of a hundred and thirty-six overlapping Wood Pillar spells.
A hundred and thirty-six Wood Pillars, stacked and fused into one.
Infused with the emerald-green light, the wooden fibers took on a texture that was almost metallic.
The runic patterns on the surface of the wooden pillar were layered thick, with each line greedily absorbing the surrounding energy particles.
Sensing the power of the wooden pillar behind Ethan, the old woman's expression changed slightly.
Boom!
The wooden pillar shot forward.
The air was torn apart by the force, letting out a piercing screech.
The cat-and-mouse expression on the old woman's face finally vanished.
She had lived for four hundred years and seen countless Third-Tier Apprentices.
She had seen even more Wood-attribute cantrips—nothing more than minor tricks like binding vines, sneak-attack wooden spikes, or whipping thorns.
No matter how strong a cantrip was, it was like dry wood meeting a raging fire in front of her specialized Fire element.
But the wooden pillar before her was different.
The dense layers of runic patterns on its surface were proof enough that this was no cantrip.
A cantrip could never possess such power.
This was casting a cantrip with the sheer force of a full-fledged spell.
The old woman tapped the tip of her cane with a withered finger.
Dark red fire erupted from the tip, condensing into a two-meter-tall fire shield in front of her.
The fire shield was oval, its surface flowing with dense, dark red runes, each one spitting tongues of flame.
The surrounding air warped violently under the extreme heat, and the ground crackled from the baking temperature.
The moment the fire shield formed, the wooden pillar arrived.
Boom!!!
A visible shockwave exploded from the point of impact.
Sand was blasted dozens of meters into the air, and shattered rocks shot out in all directions.
Web-like cracks spread outward from the impact point, the sand at the edges of the fissures melting into dark red lava from the intense heat.
Rate on N.U.
