[0765] The True Strength of an Academic Mage

The Time Lock was a great skill. When time flowed abnormally within an area, many things that would normally be impossible suddenly became easy.

The freedom to speed up or slow down time gave Karya more time to prepare his experiments and meant less waiting during the experiments themselves. More importantly, at certain critical steps, he could react quickly and prevent things from spiraling out of control.

That kind of control was exactly what Karya lacked most at the moment.

Since Malzahar had started acting ahead of schedule, Karya naturally hadn't had time to prepare for the experiment in detail. Time was limited, so he could only take things one step at a time.

And experiments where you "take things one step at a time" were always the ultimate test of an academic mage!

One careless move, and the self-destruct sequence might be triggered on the spot, leaving Karya and Kiyran literally blasted to dust.

Even so, Karya wore a smile and looked completely at ease.

It wasn't because he was fearless. It was because Karya himself... was the strongest academic mage in the Shuriman Empire.

Academic mage was a very interesting profession.

They specialized in researching and advancing Magic Theory. They were nothing like the fireball-slinging mages most people imagined.

If anything, academic mages were closer to scholars. Among Hextech practitioners, most people leading their own project teams could be considered academic mages.

There was once a joke in the Shuriman Empire.

"How can you tell an academic mage from a combat spellcaster?"

"Throw a fireball at them. The former will try to analyze its spell model and construct a defensive barrier that can perfectly annihilate the flames. The latter will casually summon an Ice Wall, a ball of water, a sandstorm—or simply take control of the fireball."

"Sounds