Chapter 699: Breakthrough
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Roland’s absolute maxim on luck: when two people with bad luck are together, a third unfortunate person will soon appear.
And in order to not become that unfortunate person, I chose the wisest possible method to deal with this situation.
“…I’m going to leave the potion right here. You guys decide who gets to use it. I’m going out for a walk.”
Yep, that’s right, I ran away. Even though I had never run away before, this time, I was truly afraid. I ran away not only because I was afraid of their supporters who were rus.h.i.+ng over to help them, or because I was afraid of the rumors about me which were becoming ever more ridiculous. It was because of my own maxim about luck. If I got too close to Klose and Victoria, it was likely that I would be the one who had the worst luck in the end. And if I had bad luck regarding this situation… I had plenty of fun watching Krose and Victoria’s situation in the past, but it would become a tragedy if I experienced the same thing. It would be far better for people to continue thinking that Princess Peach had actually been Reyne.
“I’ve run away now, so at least the potion shouldn’t get spilled onto me. And if someone else is unfortunate instead… Hah, it’s fine as long as it’s not me. I can even enjoy the show then.”
I, my System, and Harloys all mentally agreed that no matter what happened afterwards, it was incredibly unlikely that either Victoria or Krose would be able to successfully take the Spring of the Drowned Man potion.
I unhesitatingly stepped right into the Dimensional Door leading to the Fire Elemental Plane in the volcano. I felt that I would no longer be so unfortunate if I went to an entirely different dimension. I also needed some time to continue practicing my combat techniques so that I could achieve a breakthrough with my power level as soon as possible.
“Separation Blades.”
I reached out with my hands and took a deep breath, exhaling countless ice swords.
These ice swords of mine devoured everything before them. Anything that was slow moving, no matter if they were magma giants or fire elementals, were instantly sliced into tiny pieces by the ice swords.
Some fire lizards suddenly emerged from the magma sea before me. Fire lizards had a more militaristic society. They were either holding spears or s.h.i.+elds. More than 30 of them had been waiting here in ambush formation for prey to arrive. This was actually a small military squadron.
“Double Tornado!”
I suddenly waved my hands, casting a spell that I had already prepared beforehand. With me at the center, two icy tornados suddenly appeared which crashed into and tore at each other. All living creatures within a thirty-meter radius were all attacked and frozen by my blizzard tornados.
The extreme coldness of the tornados soon turned the fire lizards into lizard popsicles. The flames on their heads and backs were extinguished, which meant that these half fire element and half physical creatures had died. There were only a few high-level fire lizard kings who were still struggling in the cold.
*s.h.i.+ng!*
The fire lizard kings didn’t even get a chance to call for reinforcements when several ice arrows pierced them right through the middle of their heads, stealing away their final remnants of life.
I waved my hands again, causing my ice bow and arrows to vanish. There was now nothing living around me.
I had finished clearing away the mob monsters. Before me was a magma pool that still kept bubbling with flames. It seemed that on the other side was the Fire Elemental Plane. This dimensional s.p.a.ce was still summoning fire element creatures.
For a typical elemental connection point to an Elemental Plane, it would take quite a lot of effort and time to reverse engineer it using regular s.p.a.ce magic. However, I knew that there was another method to break through an elemental portal, other than using the proper key.
“Judgement of the Ice River.”
A hammer of ice appeared above my head. This hammer continuously largened until it completely covered my head. Only then did I have it swing forward and smash.
Tbe gigantic ice river crashed into the magma pool, sending boiling hot steam everywhere. Ice element and fire element clashed against each other in this location. Once everything calmed down, this magma pool became a pool of water.
The temperature in this area rapidly began to lower. I had now sealed shut this Fire Elemental Plane connection point. No matter what the principle was for how the connection point worked, it was a certainty that the fire element powered the connection point. In that case, all that was needed was for me to cover it with fire’s opposite, the ice element.
Of course, closing off one connection point would barely do anything. The entire Fire Elemental Plane was now connected to the mortal plane. There were still hundreds or even thousands more connection points.
In order to clear away this elemental connection point, I had used nothing but pure ice magic. I even dealt with it by using a cla.s.sical mage’s way of thinking. In a way, Harloys’ method of stuffing my brain with knowledge had indeed been effective.
Her categorization of ice magic was something that really fit my style. With her a.s.sistance, my ice magic finally became more regular and systematic. It was just that…
“Separation Blades summons some ice swords, and Judgement of the Ice River is just summoning a ball of ice to crash down. Must I incant these names? It’s so chuunibyou and humiliating!”
“Of course you must. A spell’s name is not only a mage’s subconscious self-suggestion which increases the effect of the magic formula, it’s also a standard by which you can categorize your own magical abilities. If the list of spells you know how to cast are all just some random nameless spells, how are you supposed to use those as the foundation to combine and create bigger spells…? Don’t even mention that ridiculous Ice Aeon to me. That spell is completely unmagical.”
Harloys’ involvement helped my ice magic to improve incredibly swiftly. But, the biggest change of all was the change in my fighting style.
The separation of ice magic and snow magic helped me to better understand my own powers. Since I was skilled in martial arts to begin with, then I should have taken the appropriate path of becoming an ice magic warrior. The core idea of this would be to simply create all sorts of ice weapons to kill my enemies with.
Ice spears, ice arrows, ice swords, ice s.h.i.+elds, and ice hammers. Various ice designs were standardized, and I became accustomed to using these “weapons” in battle to kill my enemies with. Indeed, it was far easier to slay a giant with a several dozen meters long ice sword compared to using a “toothpick”. The only part that I hadn’t gotten accustomed to was how Harloys kept giving these techniques rather embarra.s.sing names.
Ordinary ice mages used ice magic spell formulas that were fixed and lacked adaptability. In comparison, I was far more flexible. When I used ice magic, it was as if there was a giant behind me dancing with ice weapons and showing off his martial prowess, while ordinary ice magic mages were just simply and roughly throwing magical formulas. Although this didn’t seem like a large difference, there was a huge difference on the battlefield. It was the large difference between a veteran fighter and a complete newbie commoner’s ability to fight.
As for compared to my past self… Forget it, let’s not talk about it, because I couldn’t even compare to ordinary ice mages previously.
As for environmental type snow magic spells that mostly killed enemies through low temperature, I had only mastered “Ice Tornado”, “Avalanche”, “Hailstorm”, and such common snow calamity magic spells. This was in order to raise my overall combat strength, but even more to prepare for my reaching the next power level.
Perhaps this was the difference between having a teacher and needing to figure everything out by oneself. Although it didn’t seem like much of a difference, the more I learned, the more I was able to display the difference on the battlefield.
Several days had already pa.s.sed since I entered the Fire Elemental Plane. Although my magic power hadn’t foundationally changed, if it was only my abilities in ice and snow magic, I was now confident that I could beat ten of the past me. Previously, my techniques in using mana were far too coa.r.s.e. I would gather mana to summon the ice element and then toss it out. This would naturally waste more than half of the mana I used. Such a rough attacking method couldn’t even compare to directly using these ice swords to attack with.
But now that my ice magic foundations were solid, it seemed that I was a lot closer now to making a breakthrough to the next power level.