Ice Crystal Skeleton.
The mighty remains of past Snow Kingdom generations, buried in the academy’s back mountain, possessed by an entity akin to a Snow Demon. A powerful ‘Demonic Beast’ born from the intertwining of ice mana and deathly aura.
Though its appearance, apart from that dazzlingly brilliant ice-crystal frame, is identical to an ordinary skeleton soldier, it is a genuine magic-type Demonic Beast…
The Ice Crystal Skeleton’s mana is so formidable it rivals a human Archmage-level Mage. Even Huan Moxi, after resolving her inner demons, could only put up a fight against it.
Click, clack—
The clattering of its jawbone rang out crisply. It seemed to be grinning hideously, mocking this foolish human who had trespassed into the land of the dead. Here, it would drag another soul down beneath the ice… heh heh, look at this young lady. By the aesthetic standards it held in life, she was the perfect “be my wife” type. That petite and exquisite bone structure would make an excellent Skeleton Bride.
An evil, icy flame flickered in the skeleton’s eye sockets. It was so excited it let out another “clack,” as if proclaiming its unmatched power. Immediately after, it leveled its longsword, which was wreathed in icy mist…
Ping!
A crisp sound. A massive, two-zhang-wide, ice-blue magic array, far larger than its own body, expanded vertically from the sword’s tip and began to rotate slowly.
BOOM————!!
Countless shards of shattered ice crystal, carrying an abyssal chill, surged towards the young lady like a river of icy sand… The high-speed impact formed by the convergence of countless ice crystals was no less force than a high-speed train crashing into Weilin.
Weilin stood still, unmoving.
“Rock Flow Wall.”
The moment the intangible whirlwind of mana surged out, it instantly converted into the earth element.
The sky above suddenly darkened. Overhead, torrents of quicksand roiled with a heaven-shaking momentum that made even the Ice Crystal Skeleton’s skull tingle with numbness. Innumerable rocks and flowing sand cascaded from over a dozen zhang high, like the world’s largest quicksand waterfall. The scene resembled the very earth rising into the sky, disintegrating into billions of grains of sand, then plummeting back down…
Ice Crystal Skeleton: ????
The colossal sea of sand, blotting out the very sunlight, stood like a Sand Demon King that could only have spawned in ancient epochs, towering over the world and looking down upon the comparatively minuscule skeleton.
Behind the Rock Flow Wall, the young lady commanded a torrent of mana exceeding human limits, like a Demon God King, controlling this wall of flowing sand as it surged and rolled. It brought with it a dense, grating “sh-sh-sh” sound that might cause someone with trypophobia to drop dead on the spot.
The wave of ice crystals, like a river of stars, charged forward in an A-attack.
Those chilling ice crystals were swallowed whole by the quicksand in the blink of an eye, then rolled along with it, utterly subdued.
The cold, ghostly fire in the skeleton’s eye sockets trembled, flickering ever more weakly. Its jawbone opened and closed frantically, as if wanting to lodge a complaint that this human girl was cheating, but it could only produce “click, click, click…” sounds.
Finally, it couldn’t keep up its high spirits anymore. It turned, lifting its long, nimble thigh bones, and prepared to flee.
Whoosh—
This was the sound of the air being pierced, like a stone thrown with a little force.
The next instant—
Kzzzzzzt—krzzt—kzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt—!!!!!
Again, a dense, intertwined sound that made one’s scalp crawl. But this time, it was the explosive crackle and roar of electric light, bursting forth at full power…!
A beam of light, roughly one zhang thick, formed from a flow of destructive, silver-hued thunder that pulsed and flickered, blasted a massive hole straight through the Rock Flow Wall. It unleashed a precisely targeted Thunder-ray execution upon the fleeing skeleton.
The indestructible ice-crystal white bone, which could easily withstand even a 5th-Tier Blazing Sunlight Beam, quickly disintegrated into a cloud of calcium powder when bathed in this violent lightning, scattering into the air.
No… this is impossible…
It had been the overlord of the academy’s back mountain for a hundred years. Today, it merely went out for a stroll, encountered what seemed like a young maiden in love awaiting a rendezvous, and then, without any resistance whatsoever, its invincible skeleton life was forcibly ended by this damn thing.
The soul fire in its sunken eye sockets wildly shrank and flickered, then was dimly extinguished within the electric light.
Until its death, the Ice Crystal Skeleton never understood just what kind of monster it had encountered…
The Rock Flow Wall had consumed a portion of mana, but 80% of it could be converted and recovered. The rest returned to dust, dust to earth. Once that wall of flowing sand vanished, the sky brightened again.
A trace of the lightning’s destructive aura still lingered in the void.
“Ah, I couldn’t pull off a proper Railgun…”
Out of personal interest, the young lady voiced her regret in an unexpected way.
Under that all-out strike, it could even destroy such resilient bone. The small pebble she had tried to use shattered the instant it contacted the lightning. At best, this could only be considered a Laser Cannon.
…No, what Laser Cannon? What Weilin had used was clearly a 1st-Tier ‘Electric Discharge’!
What about other skills?
[Allocate 1 Skill Point, learn Illumination Spell]
Weilin proceeded to learn another spell on the spot, Illumination. She raised her palm, and with a flicker of intent, a wisp of illuminating flame curled up from her small palm. Since it was daytime, the illumination effect wasn’t obvious.
Illumination Spell and Holy Light were different.
According to Weilin’s theory, if this wisp of flame could be made bigger, it could probably be hurled like a Fireball. But what about Holy Light?
…Can you even throw light?
Though maybe it could work somehow, she had learned Illumination Spell anyway.
This was the normal state of Illumination. Now, Weilin manually activated the ‘Home Has a Mine’ talent.
With the 10000% mana amplification bonus, the flame in her hand condensed and elongated at a terrifying speed, stretching from 14cm to over 40 meters in a single breath. It resembled a divine blade of fire forged from the very flames of the sun, piercing straight into the firmament, radiating a blazing, dazzling golden flame-light that dyed half the sky a brilliant golden-red…
Weilin attempted to grip this forty-meter-long Sword of Blazing Fire and swung it diagonally, just like a normal blade.
Then, a super-giant sword beam, surging with scorching, bright flames, streaked across the sky with a smear of resplendent, gilded light, crashing into a dense, snow-white forest in the distance.
Wherever the enormous flaming sword swept across, flying snow melted in moments. Countless snow-covered white trees ignited simultaneously. Amidst the crackling roar of flames, there were also shrieks of panicked wild beasts fleeing in terror.
Wind and snow filled the sky, while the back mountain blazed fiercely. For the first time, thick, black smoke blotted the flawless, ice-blue sky.
——————
“This old man saw everything. I never expected… the current younger generation…”
“Hey, you’re not going to hold me responsible for starting a forest fire, are you?”
“Don’t worry, the fire will be out soon enough.” Doma Chitose’s eyes were brewing with an incredibly complex light. He looked at Weilin with a mix of extreme fear and respect that she found somewhat bewildering, then asked in an astonished voice, “That sand wall… was that a small-scale Forbidden Spell, Quicksand Divine Dance, or a 9th-Tier magic, Sand Waterfall Imperial Funeral?”
“Huh? …That was just a 3rd-Tier Rock Flow Wall… wait a minute, I didn’t steal any high-tier skills from your academy!”
“I know, because our academy doesn’t possess such super-high-tier magic at all!” The Grand Elder looked at the young lady with almost fanatical eyes. “…That lightning beam—was it an 8th-Tier spell, Divine Wrath Thunder Strike?”
“No… that was ‘Electric Discharge.’”
“Heh, if you can deceive this old man, then I have lived a thousand years in vain! That final divine weapon of fire must surely be the legendary 9th-Tier magic ‘Eternal Flame Sword.’ Two hundred and sixty years ago, at the Star God Holy Assembly, I saw it just once, and it was forever branded into my heart and soul… I am confident I would never mistake it.”
“Eternal my ass, that was an Illumination Spell, just Illumination… You’ve got to believe me!”
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