The world stretched out before rlin. His eyes pulsed like they each had hearts of their own, and the color of everything before him shifted into a warped blue. The murmurs raining down from the crowd were both muffled and clear to him in a strange manner, like he was listening to their words from a pipe stretching across rooms. The whole feeling was bizarre and disorienting, and yet he felt quite accustod to it. Most of all, he felt significantly more powerful than he had been just a second ago.
rlin locked eyes with Marcus, and the boy smiled, his stern expression breaking about like a mud wall ramd through by a tractor.
Any other person might have been confused as to why Marcus seed excited, but rlin ca to a quick inference. The boy was obsessed with his abilities, and now that rlin had just showcased sothing even more fascinating, it excited him.
Regardless of how they both saw each other at this mont, though, they were in a duel.
Marcus raised his hand and snapped his fingers. rlin felt the arena quake, but no one else did. He noticed that Marcus had manipulated sound once again, but unlike before when he didn’t notice it until it hit him, rlin saw the waves move through the air as it approached him. He took a deep breath and cald his heart, waiting patiently to see if his newest ability functioned in the exact way he hoped it would.
He had not had the ti to test it out previously, as the whole sequence that had led to its existence wasn’t a straightforward one.
After his training duel with Lee Jaehyun, he had co to a realization that trying to channel out his mana to deconstruct spells while manipulating it at the sa ti to use his other Perks or skills, was almost impossible.
He had likened the process to how Mages manipulated more than a couple spells in quick succession, but last night as he went through the whole process in his mind once again, he realized that he had been going about it the wrong way.
He was not like the others. He wasn’t a traditional mage like they were. He was different. And that ant the way he used his abilities would differ too. For the mages, even though the spells they were casting were technically different, they were cut from the sa cloth. Chima, for example, no matter the spells he cast, it would be a fire spell in general. It always would. Basically, he was manipulating the sa elent, just giving it different forms.
If there was anything the System had made clear to rlin ever since its inception to him, it was that his Perks differed. His Reader Mage ability was not the sa as his Dungeon Artist Perk. They functioned differently and were bound by different and distinct rules. This was also true in Singularity Mage. Even though Kieran had never been burdened by the sa problems as rlin, specifically being restricted by the ti Reader Mage needed to be activated, he had never managed to use it at the sa ti as he used his other abilities. It was one or the other. But rlin knew he wasn’t as powerful as the protagonist, which ant he had to find a way to bypass the restrictions that ca with Reader Mage. A cheat.
His saving grace had co in the form of Maid Eun-Wol’s brief lecture on attunent. He shouldn’t focus on his mana as a whole, but each molecule and how they were bonded. Which brought rlin to a question. What if he could manipulate those bonds? Tweak them to fit his own ideas?
At first glance, it seed risky, but he had lived his whole life taking risks, so rlin didn’t hesitate. He fell into a trance imdiately, and unlike the first and consecutive tis he had tinkered with his ability to attune with his mana, he took a different approach. Instead of heading straight for the nucleus of his mana and boring into it, he instead focused on the particle chain around it. They were numbered in the sa amount as the Perks and Skills he possessed. The molecular structures bearing the knowledge of his Perks were of a lustrous blue and green, while those possessing the knowledge of his skills were of a dull blue and red.
rlin made his way to the one linked to Reader Mage. It was of a more complex structure than the rest, even Dungeon Artist, and for a mont, he wondered if he would be able to find a way to manipulate it to fit his ideas without destroying himself in the process.
Which was why he made a decision to be certain of what he wanted before he tinkered with the structure so as to not cause a negative nuclear reaction.
After a long while of floating in the lukewarm darkness within himself, he ca to an enlightennt when he realized that the way he had been thinking about using Reader Mage with his other abilities was dysfunctional.
Spreading out his mana and trying to manipulate it so that he did more than a single thing at once was like trying to drive two steer two wheels at the sa ti; dividing one's attention in such a manner was a recipe for failure—and that was considering it worked.
But what if one of those wheels was left on automatic? That would give the driver ample ti to focus on the other wheel and steer it in whatever way he wanted.
That gave rlin the idea he so desperately sought.
Instead of Reader Mage to only function when his mana ca in contact with his opponent’s, he decided to tinker it so it functioned in a similar manner to a circuit breaker.
Reader Mage didn’t need to co in contact with his opponent’s spell to deconstruct it any longer, all it had to do was simply exist. And that was proven effective as the sound waves produced from Marcus’s spell fizzled out halfway through the arena as it rushed towards rlin.
[Spell: Ultrasonic Click.
Category: Novice, Tier III
Spell Wielder: A-Class Mage.
Spell Description: A spell ford by shaping the nucleotide sequences present in the Mage’s modified deoxyribonucleic acid to correspond with a certain aspect of the knowledge their mana possesses. In this Mage’s case, their fingers have been modified to not only mimic the muscles of a tiger moth’s thoracic muscles, but altered to possess a tymbal. Rapidly contracting and relaxing the thoracic muscles causes the tymbal to buckle inward and pop back out, snapping in both occasions to release amplified ultrasonic clicks ranging from 18khz to 25khz, targeted at his opponent]
[Deconstruction Complete]
[Deconstruction Process: Disrupt the bonding between the weakest of the rung base pairs of the Mage’s deoxyribonucleic acid, which is the adenine to the thymine pair, by channeling your mana into the construct of their hydrogen bond.]
[Progress to leveling up Intelligence: 68.5%/100%] → [78.5%/100%]
[Free Attribute Points received: 10]
[Be glad it worked, but do remain ti conscious]
rlin’s brows pulled in at the System’s note, and he didn’t need to be told twice that the thing had just warned him about being overly lackluster.
He had no intention of being that way.
Imdiately, rlin leaned back and dashed forward, a blue blur to the onlookers as he quickly closed the gap between himself and the montarily dazed Marcus. As soon as he popped up before the boy, he tightened his right fist, the glove of mana wrapped around it bubbling with intense energy as he targeted Marcus’s midsection.
Marcus took a step back with gritted teeth, pulled his arms apart, and clapped—hard.
An ominous feeling fell upon rlin as a heavy gust of wind blew him a few steps backwards, giving Marcus the chance to nimbly dance away from him.
For a mont, rlin was confused, sweat gushing out of his forehead as he was caught off-guard by Marcus just making use of a wind spell, and one that had triggered a severe fright in him that had made him almost think he would die.
His confusion was imdiately vaporized by the System as it appeared before his eyes.
[Spell: Cavitation Bang.
Category: Advanced, Tier I
Spell Wielder: A-Class Mage.
Spell Description: A spell ford by shaping the nucleotide sequences present in the Mage’s modified deoxyribonucleic acid to correspond with a certain aspect of the knowledge their mana possesses. In this Mage’s case, the molecular structure of their hands have been altered to mimic the claws of a pistol shrimp. Clapping them at a high speed creates a cavitation bubble ranging from a 100 to 200 decibels, designed to stun or kill their opponent depending on the force used. Honestly, he had used more than a hundred decibel in this instance]
[Deconstruction Complete]
[Deconstruction Process: Disrupt the bonding between the weakest of the rung base pairs of the Mage’s deoxyribonucleic acid, which is the adenine to the thymine pair, by channeling your mana into the construct of their hydrogen bond.]
[Progress to leveling up Intelligence: 78.5%/100%] → [98.5%/100%]
[Free Attribute Points received: 20]
[End this fight quickly!]
rlin didn’t need to be told twice. One glance at the countdown hovering to the edge of his eyes, noting that just a few seconds over thirty seconds had elapsed, he sought out Marcus once again, putting aside the nagging thought that Marcus had just tried to pulverize both him and his hearing with over a hundred decibels of sound level.
He found the boy to his side with a great surge of mana bursting out of him as he prepared to cast what seed to be another dangerous spell.
A-Class Mages sure had it nice.
rlin decided to switch initiatives. He retreated a few steps back as the mana gloves around his arms changed forms into his [Mana Whip]. However, they didn’t take the form of the usual kind, but warped into chains with hooks at their ends.
Marcus’s brows pulled in at the sight. His earlier smile was nowhere to be seen now.
rlin hurled the chains at the boy, and Marcus rushed out of the way, cautious of being hit.
But the chains hadn’t been heading for him.
They swerved as they got to where Marcus had been standing a second ago, changing their direction as they hod in on the Grimoire hovering in the sky.
Marcus noticed this far quicker than rlin had hoped for, and was able to draw his Grimoire close to himself just before the chains could rip it apart.
rlin didn’t see it as a complete loss, however, after all, his chains had ripped out one of its pages, which rapidly disintegrated into ashes in the air.
rlin was curious if that ant Marcus had lost one of his spells—which he was most likely certain wasn’t the case—but he didn’t have the ti to dwell on such thoughts. After all, his actions had annoyed Marcus.
Marcus imdiately jumped on his feet and condensed the surge of mana he had gathered earlier, and an intensified fright of that which rlin had felt a mont ago crept upon him.
Before Marcus could release the spell, rlin clenched his fist—hard—and punched the arena. Cracks spread out from his area of impact like fissures, destroying the surface of the arena as they snaked towards Marcus.
Marcus gritted his teeth, disoriented, and had no choice but to move away from where he was standing before he sunk into the floor.
rlin followed him. He activated [Mana Spring] and blasted himself to Marcus’s new location.
Marcus swerved on his feet and slamd his hands together, throwing a massive wave of his cavitation bang spell at rlin. But rlin had no intention of letting the spell make contact with him this ti.
Unable to move his body in the air, rlin resolved to rely on his [Mana Whip] skill. He shot one out towards a protruding concrete jutting out of the arena from his previous strike, and pulled himself from Marcus’s line of sight.
The spell missed.
He was not necessarily afraid of if the spell would bypass Reader Mage and affect him due to its greater intensity compared to before, what he was more afraid of was being blown several steps backward due to the aftermath once again.
As soon as his feet made contact with the floor of the arena, rlin flashed behind Marcus, clenched his fist, and punched Marcus in the side.
The attack threw the boy all the way across the arena, rolling on the ground. He ca to a stop just before he rolled off the edge and coughed up a mouthful of blood as he held his stomach tightly.
rlin drew in a sharp gasp after that attack and fell to his knees, breathing heavily.
Reader Mage Variation II took a lot out of him stamina-wise. It was like the exhaustion of several days of working 24 hours at an oil rig slamd into him at once, and his muscles quaked in response.
His eyes shifted to what was left of the ti hovering by the side of his eyes, and noted that only thirty seconds was left.
rlin gritted his teeth. “I have to move fast.”
He pushed himself up and approached Marcus where the boy was still lying on the floor, trying to catch his breath. Then he clenched his fist once more and intensified the surge of mana wrapping it in the form of a glove.
“Give up,” he muttered.
Marcus’s dark brown eyes shifted to him, angry and filled with pain.
rlin had made sure to hold back as much as he could, but it seed it had still been far too much.
Marcus scoffed in rlin’s face. “Like hell I will.”
rlin pressed his lips together; with twenty seconds to go, he had no other choice but to knock Marcus out.
Without saying a single word more, he sent his fist down at Marcus, who just lay there, accepting his fate. However, before the attack could connect, the glove of mana vanished and so did the cloak covering rlin. His fist froze just inches away from Marcus’s stomach, and imdiately a severe pain coursed through his body. The exhaustion he had felt a few seconds ago was amplified.
Screaming, rlin fell to the ground, startling the crowd and the instructors around. His innards felt like they were on fire, forcing him to rub his hands across every part of his body as he rolled on the floor.
Terrified by what was going on, Marcus sat up despite the pain he was feeling and pushed himself several paces backwards as his chin quivered.
“What the…?” he mumbled.
Instructor Park wasted no ti flashing onto the stage as she signalled for the paradics to hurry over.
rlin, on the other hand, had his mind scrambled.
What’s happening to ? he thought through the pain. I had ten seconds left. Why did it vanish? What’s going on? The System. Answers! I need answers!
He got no reply from the System, however, it was completely silent.
This threw rlin’s mind into further disorientation as tears crawled out of his eyes. The pain wasn’t reducing, it was worsening. And with it ca a severe disorientation.
He felt his throat scratch and burn, like he had gulped down a cup of boiling water. His palms, however, were very cold, like they had been dipped into a bucket of ice. It was the sa with every other part of his body. The temperature differed, and it felt like each part of him wasn’t his.
rlin scread out in pain and he saw it. A burst of fla escaped from his mouth.
He didn’t believe it. It was the pain. It was making him hallucinate. It needed to stop.
Then he felt the icy cold that had taken over his hands seep out and onto the arena, relieving him, just like his scream earlier had relieved the itch in his throat.
The murmurs from the crowd traded places for gasps and then the whole arena fell silent.
All of a sudden, the pain that had taken full control over rlin’s body subsided, like he had released it all during his display.
He remained on the floor of the arena for a mont, taking several deep breaths as he tried to calm his raging heart. After a mont, he sat up.
His heavy eyes wandered to the crowd at first. Every single person was staring at him, pale like they had seen a ghost. Then he shifted his attention towards the people standing by his side. Paradics were just at the edge of the arena, stunned, and Marcus was standing beside Instructor Park, both of them looking dazed.
rlin’s heart skipped a beat, assuming that his display had forced Instructor Park to declare him unfit to continue and had given Marcus the win.
“No!” rlin voiced, recalling the instance with Man-Shik during his own fight. As long as he proclaid he could still do it, they would let the fight go on. “I can still fight,” he argued. “I don’t know what happened now, but I can still fight.”
However, Instructor Park didn’t reply. Her eyes simply moved from locking with him and towards sothing behind his back. rlin noticed that whatever it was, it was what Marcus had been looking at too.
He turned around and froze.
Behind him was a thin layer of ice that spread all the way from his palm towards the end of the arena.
rlin drew a sharp gasp as an incredulous stare slapped his face.
“What…” he began. “What the fuck is this?”
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