Chapter 9

Duke woke up with a dazed mind, the sound of the wind filling his ears. He found that the scene had changed from the fire-lit Northshire Abbey to the Elwynn Forest, full of dark branches, in his somewhat blurry vision.

"Kid, can you hear me?"

"Uh..." Listening to the deliberately suppressed voice, Duke knew he would never know who the person was. To be honest, Duke swore he didn't know this guy at all.

Opening his mouth wide, Duke found he could only spit out a bubble of blood, unable to speak. It was only then that Duke realized a dagger had been stabbed into his right rib, and the paralyzing poison had dulled his senses, but the intense pain still surpassed the numbing effect of the poison, causing him excruciating pain.

"Kid, let me make your death clear. If you hadn't embarrassed Sir Brando so much today, the Brando family might have taken you in as a family mage to guard the gate, given your magical potential. Haha... Too bad for your talent."

"Uh..." Duke wanted to curse, but the stab had caused a lot of blood to flow into his lungs, and with most of his lungs filled with blood, he was in too much pain to speak.

Damn it!

Nobles are no good!

A feeling of regret colored Duke's heart entirely. As a law-abiding college student, Duke's mindset had not fully transformed, so he fell for it.

He fell so easily to the other person's revenge. Brando had only sent a low-ranking thief to take him down.

"Kid, don't think anyone will stand up for you. No matter how strong your talent is, if you can't turn it into strength, you're still that fragile little guy. Don't worry, I'll take good care of you." The person grabbed Duke's face, forcibly turned his neck, and pointed to the slightly blurry distance.

It was a lakeside with some rough triangular houses. By the lake, there were a large number of creatures with fish-like upper bodies and strange human-like limbs.

Duke immediately recognized them.

"Right! Fishmen!" The person laughed maniacally: "A clueless kid, excited and unable to sleep at night, accidentally wandered into the Elwynn Forest and met the fishmen who eat anything, and was eaten. Isn't that a perfect script? At least, even if someone suspects, they can't prove it was Sir Brando's doing."

Duke's body trembled. The thought of his body being torn apart by those sharp, fishy-smelling teeth made him feel nauseous.

His vision went black, and Duke died.

The other person had overestimated Duke's body. Perhaps in their view, a commoner kid could last for about twenty minutes.

"What? He's dead!?! I wanted to hear his screams as the fishmen devoured him alive and record it with a magic crystal to report to Lord Brando." The person looked annoyed, but then they calmed down: "Forget it, I'll take back the remains after the fishmen devour his body, and let Lord Brando know he suffered enough before he died. That should be acceptable."

Saying that, the thief assassin stepped forward, intending to drag Duke's legs and carry him again to throw him to the fishmen.

Just as he lifted Duke, he suddenly felt the weight on his shoulder disappear.

"Oh! Is that so? Then I'll use the same method on you, and you have no objections, right?" Duke's cold voice echoed like a ghost behind the thief.

The system sprite's voice kept ringing in Duke's ears. Although the continuous voice should have been slow and taken a lot of time, Duke suddenly realized that the voice was compressed, just like a high-end computer can perform countless calculations in a second. The system's voice transformed into text, images, and even mind-synchronized information that Duke could understand directly.

In the outside world, not even a thousandth of a second had passed.

"Detected that the host is in a major crisis. Estimated enemy reaction time: 0.3 seconds. Casting process ignored... Detected no available elements in the environment, automatically switching to drawing mana from the host... Entropy calculation in progress, spell model reset..."

"Special skill [Calm and Composed] activated."

"[Calm and Composed]: A metamagic feat that automatically ignores the casting time of the next non-instantaneous spell, making it instantaneous."

"System auto-calibration... Level 1 [Fireball] launched!"

Before the thief could react, he was shocked to see a bright, intense flame light up behind him, and a large, basin-sized fireball was heading straight for him...

"Boom—" Completely unprepared, the thief was almost hit directly by Duke's [Fireball]! He flew backward, his entire body engulfed in flames, and let out a piercing scream.

Is it over?

No! Not yet!

Duke didn't know how strong this guy was. Suppressing the discomfort from the system's forced casting of [Fireball], he almost swallowed the churning nausea in his chest and began to cast a second [Fireball].

Duke didn't know if he could succeed or if he had enough mana. Instinctively, he felt this guy wasn't dead yet, and he had to finish him off.

The system kept sounding: "Detected mana backlash in the host, casting failure probability increased by 38.78%, automatically balancing fire element input... Casting time extended to 8 seconds, spell power increased..."

8 seconds!

8 seconds that would decide life or death!

If he had a choice, Duke would never stand there for 8 seconds, casting a fireball. The tragedy was that Duke, the so-called magic apprentice, had only one spell. He had somehow mastered [Fireball] but didn't even know the [Fireball] before it, [Fireball].

Facing a high-agility, high-speed thief who was much stronger than him, Duke knew all other melee attacks would be ineffective.

Only [Fireball]!

The thief was still rolling on the ground, engulfed in flames. Although [Fireball] caused both immediate and continuous damage, Duke could see the flames weakening.

When the thief regained his ability to move, it would be Duke's death again.

8 seconds! The 8 seconds that felt like 800 years finally passed. With Duke's hope of finishing off his opponent, a large, basin-sized fireball was launched from his palm again.

One detail destroyed all of Duke's hopes. Duke was horrified to see the thief, who had been rolling, suddenly stop, lift his head, and open his eyes. Those were fierce, murderous eyes that seemed to say: Kid, I'm going to tear you to pieces!

Those eyes said it all!