Translator: Exodus Tales
Editor: Exodus Tales
Chapter 23 – Training Results
Meditation increased the size of one’s mana pool, while actual combat honed one’s ability to cast spells. As such, Zwei spent the following days meditating and raiding dungeons.
However, after training in the Night Forest’s Depths for some days, Zwei had no choice but to halt his training.
The reason was simple. Alyssa had already learned the Magic Bullet and Mage Hand, although she had yet to achieve full mastery over the two spells. She couldn’t cast charged Magic Bullets like Zwei, and her Mage Hand could only lift items within five meters of herself and weighing 10 kilograms at most. Even so, she had undoubtedly learned the two spells already. Hence, it was about time she started learning the water magic that actually suited her.
However, let alone teaching others, Zwei didn’t even know a single water spell.
I should’ve specialized in water magic if I knew this would happen.
Due to this situation, he could only set his sights on the Noisy Beach once more.
So long as he could conquer the Noisy Beach, he would receive a Proof of the Strong, which he could then use to learn water magic.
Besides that, he also wanted to see how much he had improved after training for the past two weeks or so.
Hence, after concluding today’s class and sending Alyssa off the mountain, Zwei promptly opened the Magic Academy System’s Trial Gate panel and chose to enter the Noisy Beach.
—Noisy Beach—
A sickle crab widened its mouth and brandished its sickles. It even desperately swung its four pairs of legs. However, no matter how much the sickle crab struggled, it simply couldn’t change its embarrassing fate of hanging in midair.
A nearby sickle crab noticed its troubled kin and scurried over to the rescue. However, just as it was about to reach its kin, the suspended sickle crab seemingly regained its weight, its body falling under the pull of gravity. As the crab fell, an unknown force also pushed it, accelerating its descent and slamming it into the sickle crab on the beach like a meteorite.
Immediately, carapace and fluid from the two arthropods splattered all over the place. The fine sand of the beach rose into the air due to the impact, creating a golden smokescreen.
Before the two crustaceans could recover from the dizziness caused by the violent impact, a bundle of flames appeared in the hands of the human standing before them. The flames then stretched into arrows that flew toward the two sickle crabs!
The next moment, violent explosions and towering flames enveloped the area the two sickle crabs occupied.
The whole process went smoothly and efficiently. Previously, Zwei had taken over a dozen minutes to whittle and kill a sickle crab. Now, however, he could simultaneously kill two sickle crabs with little effort. He was a completely different person when compared to his past self two weeks ago.
Before I knew it, I actually became so strong already.
Maybe it was because he had been improving every day, so he had gradually grown accustomed to the changes. Furthermore, the goblins were incredibly weak opponents. Hence, he hadn’t noticed how much he had grown until now.
Setting aside all else, just the improvement to his mana pool was plenty significant. When he had conducted his first prolonged meditation, he had easily increased his mana pool by one-fifth of its total size. Back then, he had chalked it up to his weak foundation, so the progress he made was obvious. However, contrary to his expectations, this situation wasn’t unique. Instead, it repeated itself over the past two weeks.
Compared to the mana pool he had when he first attempted to raid the Noisy Beach, his current mana pool was basically three times larger. In other words, he had over eight times more mana than before!
Zwei hadn’t been taking this situation seriously, but now that he thought about it, it was already foul play for an Apprentice Magician to have such a large mana pool!
Previously, he had spent half his mana just to stop the saberwolf’s charge. After his two weeks of training, though, he could stop the goblin charger’s frontal assault with little effort. The amount of mana he spent doing so was also within an acceptable range. Initially, he had been too lazy to figure out the reason for the change, so he had simply chalked it up to the system. He hadn’t actually thought this change was due to his own growth.
However, easily lifting a sickle crab into the air and sending it smashing into another sickle crab definitely wasn’t something his previous self could accomplish.
Not only that, but the Night Forest’s Depths was now too easy for Zwei. Hence, he could easily find time to cast Exploding Flame Arrow, a spell that he couldn’t instant-cast. This had indirectly improved his spell mastery. Now, he didn’t even need one second to cast an Exploding Flame Arrow; he was basically at the threshold of full mastery. So long as he continued using the spell, he might be able to fully master it without spending additional Skill Crystals.
Now, Zwei easily annihilated the sickle crabs that roamed the beach. After collecting their corpses, he once again set foot onto the beach he previously died on.
Now that he was prepared for the ambush, the moment the sea hound struck, he sent it flying with a Mage Hand. Moreover, he also left an indelible mark on the beast. With the mark as a target, he launched five charged Magic Bullets and blasted the sea hound into smithereens.
Zwei concluded the fight in one breath, effortlessly dispatching a Level 8 Sea Hound without budging from his original position.
The Noisy Beach’s treasure chest was hidden in the seawater. After the sea hound fell in battle, the water receded, eventually revealing coral reefs of varying sizes. Meanwhile, no matter how he looked at it, the small coral box sitting on top of the largest coral reef was definitely a treasure chest.
The items inside the treasure chest weren’t particularly good. Apart from the Proof of the Strong, the only other noteworthy loot was a Skill Crystal.
Regardless, this could be considered a bountiful harvest already.
Zwei received an A-rank evaluation for clearing the dungeon, and the clear reward was an ice-blue pendant. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see its stats without identifying it first. Lacking an Identification Crystal, he could only set it aside for now.
Immediately afterward, Zwei used the Proof of the Strong to learn “Minor Water Mastery” in order to be able to teach Alyssa water magic. Similar to when he learned Minor Fire Mastery, as soon as he learned Minor Water Mastery, the text transformed into the first-circle magic Ice Bullet. Afterward, he used the Skill Crystal he obtained to activate the first-circle magic Wave Current, a spell that evolved from Ice Bullet.
After learning his skills, Zwei returned to camp using the Return Crystal. He then exchanged the items he collected into resources before exiting the dungeon.
His harvest from the sickle crabs was much better than what he could get from the goblins.
A Sickle Crab Shell could be exchanged for three Stone and two Metal resources, a Hard Sickle could be exchanged for five Metal resources, a Foam Sac could be exchanged for four Alchemy Material resources, and a Crab Roe could be exchanged for two Potion and two Alchemy Material resources.
Combined with the Resource Voucher he obtained from the treasure chest, he now had enough resources to construct the Teaching Block.
However, when Zwei activated the Magic Academy System, he found that changes had occurred.