CHAPTER 29: WATSON’S SUPPRESSION

"Infernal Serpent!" Hanses’ shout conjured a large 3 meter wide snake made of fiery elemental mana that coalesced before charging forward, the very air around it sizzling as it moved forward.

Watson stood uncaring as the large serpent approached him, his bowtie flapping about slightly in the wind. His hand reached out into the empty air before grabbing a wand that appeared from within his Dimensional ring.

He smiled with satisfaction and calmness as he felt the wooden texture within his grasp, as though the item alone was enough to facilitate his victory. Well to him, it was.

The butler released his mana, unleashing a stored spell with his call. "Wind Blade Storm." The emerald embedded at the tip of his wand shined a bright light while multiple blades made of condensed wind appeared around him.

With an infusion of mental energy, the blades began spinning wildly before flying about chaotically to create a storm of wind blades that surged forward to confront the infernal snake.

A loud explosion rang out as the two spells met, the wind and trees around them being pushed away by their contact. Even the four teenagers widened their eyes in amazement as they felt the powerful wind that blew past them.

Watson wouldn’t bank his victory on one exchange though. He waved his wand once more, its emerald glowing while he cast another spell. "Tempest Drill." The wind gathered around the wand, spinning at a sharp speed that swirled into a drill like manner, its tip facing forward.

Hanses grew flustered as he watched his opponent pull out another spell without even bothering to test the fields as much as he could. Gritting his teeth, he forcefully calmed himself and glared at Watson with his ring shining even brighter than before. "I see you’ve decided not to waste time on this, haven’t you? Infernal Hand!"

The fire elemental mana converged to form a large fiery arm that grabbed onto the approaching drill, aiming to crush its structure. But Hanses hadn’t expected his opponent to dump a significant amount of mana into the drill, enhancing its power and allowing it to contend with his Infernal Hand.

That didn’t last forever though. It was painfully obvious to all onlookers that the mercenary’s spell possessed more damage. A roar of explosion rang out as the fiery hand destroyed the drill before moving on to crash against Watson’s cyclone shield. Unfortunately, the power of the spell had been reduced by too much.

"Tsk tsk." Watson simply clicked his tongue while watching this, an amused and carefree smile apparent on his lips as though he had guessed such would happen. "This is why I said you youngsters are too hot-blooded. You care too much for the flashy stuff. As a fire mage, it was really stupid of you to purchase a ring focused on increasing your spell damage."

As the butler spoke, a wave of mana seeped into his being as he manifested another spell he had stored within his aura. "Wind’s Blessing." His figure suddenly blurred as he flew forward multiple times faster than before.

Hanses could, of course, figure out the old butler’s scheme. As a mage, he had also stored an agility enhancing spell of the fire element, but his face turned pale as he felt his rapidly dwindling mana, courtesy of his powerful spells. He could only sparingly infuse his mana into the agility enhancing spell.

Unfortunately for him, Watson had already arrived. "It would be more productive to instead buy an item that increases your mana recovery speed! Tempest Cage!" The air around the mercenary suddenly solidified into a cube, as though trying to trap the man within it.

The latter wouldn’t be stupid as to wait for such to happen. "Fiery Cyclone!" He gritted his teeth and used even more of his scarce mana to spread out a cyclone of fire that burst open the cage, his face growing more and more pale.

Wind blade scattered about following the cage’s collapse, forcing him to redirect the defense of his mana shield so as to avoid getting hit. This momentarily distraction made his heart leap. His eyes jumped about, yet to his surprise, Watson had disappeared from his line of sight!

Spreading out his mana sense, he only had the time to notice a large cluster of mana right above him and yell out in surprise and unwillingness before a large spear of coalesced wind smashed down onto him, breaking apart his mana shield before tearing through his body, blood spraying onto the ground from the sky.

Watson, his ever calm smile never leaving his face, slowly descended, ignoring the falling body behind him as he approached his young miss.

To him, the battle just now was barely a battle. Yes, Hanses was quite famous due to the destructiveness of his spells, but that alone wouldn’t decide the winning factor of a battle. The inability to quickly regain mana had been his downfall.

His spells, having been infused with a lower amount of mana than Watson—who had no immediate care for mana, due to his wand—were indeed more powerful, but this was only because of his ring. While the ring could make up for his lack of mana in the area of spell damage, it was basically useless in every other aspect.

If Watson had been an individual who had no magical tool capable of allowing him to rapidly recover his mana, he would have been dominated by Hanses due to the fact that they would be using about the same amount of mana but the latter would have an advantage in spell damage.

But he wasn’t. So the butler had been able to dish out spell after spell without fear of having to use up his mana while the mercenary subconsciously tried to conserve as much mana as he could and was forced to wait a certain interval between his spells so his mana wouldn’t immediately finish after casting his next spell.

From this fight, Ezekiel gleaned in on the fact that magical equipment was just as useful to a Mage as innate skills. Either could be a potential deciding factor in a battle.

Watching as Watson descended with a light smile as though he had merely exercised a little, the mechanic stood from his previous sitting position before handing Vahn and Yuri their armors while also donning his. It was time to collect his reward.