Chapter 72: Narrow Defeat

This hurt his self-esteem…

Old Grimm felt incredulous looking at the young mage before his eyes. The same person couldn’t even tell if a spell was really released a few days ago, but in the battle just now, he accurately judged Old Grimm’s intention with a Mental Confusion spell. He seized the brief pause after Old Grimm’s spell-casting and successfully suppressed it with a few low-level spells…

Old Grimm’s fear swelled as he watched Lin Li grow stronger day by day.

He recalled the shot of Ice Blast earlier on; if he had not encountered the bite of mana, the one lying on the ground now would be him.

“I’m still too impatient.” Lin Li recovered from the dizziness caused by the Arcane Missiles, but he was not in a hurry to get up. Instead, he sat on the cold floor and summed up his earlier failure. This was a habit he had developed in the recent days. After each failure, he would analyze the combat and look for the key to his failure.

“This is just one of the reasons.” Old Grimm shook his head. “With your current mental strength, even if your casting speed is fast, it would be hard to encounter the bite of mana. You were just unlucky this time to encounter it. Your real problem lies in your mentality.

“You have been losing these few days. Today, you finally got the chance to win, so you’d inevitably be a little out of your mind. You wanted to beat me with that Ice Blast, but in that situation, I was already under the spell of the Mana Retroaction and couldn’t cast any spells for five seconds. Although the Elemental Shield was still there, it had already blocked off several low-level spells. Why did you not continue to use low-level spells to suppress me then? You only needed two or three wind blades to cut through the Elemental Shield. At that time, why did you choose to recite the spell for Ice Blast that took three seconds long? Did you ever consider that if there was a mistake with the Ice Blast, then the opportunity you’ve managed to grab would slip away from you and even put you in a passive position throughout the combat?”

Lin Li carefully recalled the situation at that time. It was indeed just as Old Grimm said; his mentality was unbalanced in the face of the coming victory.

Old Grimm’s expression was stern. In his heart, he had already regarded Lin Li as his student. “The bite of mana this time was by coincidence. However, a real powerful mage would never leave any chance to his opponent. Such is the battle between mages. One such coincidence can be fatal. Maybe you’re much stronger than your opponent. You can win him 99 times in 100 battles, but that one time could kill you and you’d never have the chance to fight him another 99 times.”

“Thank you.” The old man’s words fell into his ears, and Lin Li felt a twinge of gratitude in his heart. He knew very well that the experiences Old Grimm mentioned were summed up in his lifetime. This was more precious than any magic knowledge, and no mage would be willing to speak of it except those who really cared about him.

“But, Felic…” At this point, there was a smile of relief on Old Grimm’s face. “Your performance amazes me. If it had been two days ago, I would never have expected you to push me to such a degree. I even secretly used a Magic Steal once earlier on. This is a level-fourteen spell…”

“No wonder…” Lin Li tumbled. “I was thinking I had lost my Elemental Shield too fast…”

“Heh heh…”

“Why don’t we do it again? But this time you promise you won’t use Magic Steal…”

“Sure!” Old Grimm agreed readily. The battles with Lin Li these days had made him feel like he was a few years younger, as if he had returned to the days when he was a young man following the team of adventurers to every corner of Anril, hunting for magical beasts and precious herbs…

At the same time, the old man nodded his head. Lin Li, sitting on the floor, had released two shots of wind blades with a swish. He had prepared the two wind blades for long, only waiting for Old Grimm to accept the invitation. Old Grimm had said that himself—a mage was not a knight and should cast a spell whenever possible. There was nothing to worry about bad manners as long as you could kill your opponent; a dead body was not entitled to talk about manners.

“Not bad, you learnt fast.” Old Grimm was not flustered. An ice armor was erected and easily blocked the wind blades released by Lin Li. It was then followed by a recitation that was unhurried yet remarkably fluent.

Just as his spell was about to end, he suddenly felt an abnormal surge of mana. The raging fire element seemed to have frozen suddenly. Old Grimm looked up and saw Lin Li’s triumphant smile. This was a brilliant Mana Retroaction, released just a second before the end of the spell. It not only disrupted Old Grimm’s spell-casting rhythm, but also successfully consumed the duration of his ice armor.

However, Old Grimm did not panic. With a thin layer of ice armor, he resisted the suppression of the low-level spells that came after.

The battle between the two men dazzled Gerian. Artful spell-casting techniques, precise time calculation, rapid attack and defense changeover—all kinds of qualities were displayed incisively and vividly. Especially in these two days, as Lin Li’s strength skyrocketed day by day, the battles became more and more exciting, making Gerian reluctant to leave.

Unfortunately, he received a message from Kevin just as he was watching in excitement.

The Shadow’s Nest had once again barged into the Demon Fall Valley.

“Eiserhol, you’ve got guts!” In the guild hall, the furious Gerian slammed his fist onto the table and nearly smashed the crystal ball connecting to the Demon Fall Valley. In his towering rage, Gerian spoke to Kevin in the crystal ball in a shouting voice, “What is the damn situation in the Demon Fall Valley now?”

“They have around a dozen thieves that sneaked in from the Night Song Forest. They destroyed two guard towers and took the mages in the towers hostage.”

“Bloody hell!” Gerian broke out in curses. After a while, he gradually calmed down. “How many people have been taken hostage?”

“A total of four.”

“Write a letter to Eiserhol right now to request an exchange of hostages. Didn’t we capture a few Shadow’s Nest people last time? Exchange them. If they don’t agree, you can increase the price a little. Anyhow, we must get our people back,” Gerian said in one breath and paused before adding, “There are seven days left before the duel, you must hang in there… If you can’t keep the outlying guard towers, give them up. We can recover them anytime. The most important thing is that you are alright.”