End of the Magic Era

William suddenly reacted.

‘Shit, I’ve been so flustered by that crafty Ross and the negative effects of the counterspell that I limited myself to fire spells, completely forgoing the other types of spells. I’m so stupid.’

Thankfully, this reminder came right on time.

After William realized his problem, he immediately changed his approach. He mixed many different types of spells within. Although the power of these spells was far from comparable to that of his fire spells, after being strengthened by all kinds of Metamagics, they gave William the opportunity to breathe.

‘Whew…’ William finally sighed in relief. The situation had gone from terrible to bearable. He hadn’t been able to retaliate against Ross’ rain of spells before, making him feel like he was only a small boat facing a storm. If not careful, he would drown under the waves.

Fortunately, he managed to recover some ground. As long he was able to push back from the disadvantage that the Counterspell had put him at, the battle’s situation would be the same as it had been the start.

As he thought of this, William couldn’t help smiling. He was an expert at being patient.

But his smile didn’t last long before a voice came from behind.

“What are you still waiting for? Are you waiting for him to invite you for dinner? Such a great opportunity, yet you aren’t taking it. Are you trying to eat a second Counterspell? Hurry up, my time is limited, settle that fight or I’ll go back…”

“…” William almost slipped up.

If not for the battle being so intense, William would have already turned to ask, ‘Big Brother, don’t mess with me, I’m being suppressed, how could there be an opportunity?’

“I see, you are truly stupid. Did you calculate Spell Cooldown timing? Did you even study the Round Table Theory? How could you not see the opportunity?”

‘Spell Cooldown, Round Table Theory…’

Ross’ flurry of attacks was still as fierce as before, but William’s eyes were getting brighter and brighter.

After the reminder, it felt as if a door had opened in front of him.

Or it might be better to say that a thread suddenly came out of the complicated ball of numerous threads in his mind.

William had been passive during this duel due falling into a disadvantage at the start. He only managed to get some breathing room after being prompted to use a wider variety of spells, but he was still busy casting, forced to go all-out.

Up until that reminder.

‘Yeah, why didn’t I think of calculating the Spell Cooldowns? Ross’ waves of spells keep falling down and it’s already been several dozen spells, as long as I can calculate the cooldowns, I could completely predict this battle’s direction.

‘Isn’t that what I’m good at?’

William finally understood why his cousin always emphasized time: casting time, cooldown time, bursting time, channelling time, and so on. Sometimes, William even felt that his cousin had a morbid obsession with time. Casting had numerous variables. It was the same with spells and mages. In different circumstances, time was completely different.

Too many factors influenced time.

William had complained, but every time he did, he would suffer harsher treatment. That period of time for the foolish William was like hell. Sometimes William even doubted if it was just his younger cousin making fun of him.

This suffering had continued for three months.

In those three months, William almost went insane. He would have to keep casting no matter what he was doing, even eating and drinking. That period had already turned into a painful torture. An ordinary Wind Blade would need at least seven calculations, and if even one of them was wrong, what awaited William was an even more painful torment.

After three months, William had finally met the minimum requirements and gained a perfect grasp of all time-related information concerning the lesser spells.

William clearly remembered that his younger cousin hadn’t said anything, only handing him a handwritten copy of the Crimson Heart.

From that point on, his strength increased by leaps and bounds.

From 5th Rank Great Mage to High Mage, it only took half a year.

He was even able to fight Ross today.

Before going through all of this, William would never have thought that he could ever do so.

After clearly understanding this, William wasn’t just casting and fighting anymore. His mind was now focused on the cooldown calculations.

Under the guidance of the Round Table Theory, William quickly found Ross’ casting pattern.

‘Turns out it was possible to fight like this…’ After accurately predicting again and again, William suddenly felt as if a cloud of fog around him had suddenly cleared up. William realized how precious his cousin’s teachings really were. This completely overturned how mages normally fought.

William had already recovered his lost initiative, so he and Ross were back at the starting line. With William’s altered strategy, the unbalanced fight had suddenly become deadlocked.

Lin Yun watched from the side without worry, only giving some pointers from time to time.

“You didn’t notice such a simple pitfall? This is a trap to make you waste your Counterspell…

“Careful, careful, I told you to be careful, what are you doing, don’t use Runic Shield casually, don’t you have other defensive spells to use?

“Attack, attack! Fuck, is Sharp Mind in your spell lineup? You should have used it a minute ago, didn’t you see that it was your best opportunity to burst out?”

…

Like this, the battle kept going until the sun set.

The power used in the fight between the two High Mages was quite amazing. Besides Lin Yun and the Draconic Beastman, everyone else had retreated quite far away. During that fight, the whole courtyard was almost completely destroyed. It was to the point that they couldn’t even find proper footing.

At this time, both Ross and William were arrows at the end of their flight. The spells used by the both of them were slowly regressing in rank, from 6th and 5th Tiers to 2nd and 1st Tiers. It could be seen that they were already running out of mana.

“Ha… Haha, Ross, it looks like the gap between us isn’t as big as you imagined…” William kept panting while taunting.

This fight had allowed William to blow off some steam.

Before today, he’d never even dreamt of fighting Ross on such close footing.

After all, he was one of the three geniuses of the Merlin Family, the owner of the most powerful Endless Spring. He had already advanced to become a 5th Rank High Mage half a year ago, while William was only a 5th Rank Great Mage at the time. The gap was so huge that they simply couldn’t be compared.

But he was already standing on the same stage as Ross now!

He withstood the first Counterspell and held firm against Ross’ rain of spells. He even forced Ross to run out of mana.

That was Ross Merlin!

The Endless Spring, Ross Merlin!

He managed to almost exhaust the Ross who managed to fight for seven days and nights in the Crimson Fort with the support of his Endless Spring!

In other words, the pressure William brought to Ross was far greater than the pressure Ross brought to William.

He had already won this battle, in a way…

And it only lasted this long because of the Endless Spring.

William had more than enough reason to be proud.

“Hey, you haven’t won yet…”

“…” William’s mouth twitched. He paused for a while before saying, “I’m running out of mana…”

“So you do know that you are running out, eh? Don’t you know that your opponent has the Endless Spring? His mana recovery speed is ten times faster than yours. If you delay your offense and talk for a while, you’ll be helping your opponent. Maybe after you finish talking he’ll be able to cast a Flame Burst to turn you to ashes…”

“But…”

“But what? Didn’t your soul inheritance teach you how to make use of a spell backlash to extract some mana?”

“Ah, Spell Backlash…” These words suddenly reminded William that he did learn the way to take advantage of a backlash to extract some mana.

But that method was too dangerous.

The theory behind it was to use the collision between two spells to take mana that burst out for one’s own use. In the process, he would have to bear with the damage that would have been dealt by both spells. This was too dangerous for a mage. The power bursting from two 1st Tier Spells colliding was no joke. If he wasn’t careful, he would suffer greatly before even being able to try to extract the mana.