The most frightening thing in a duel between Wizards was not knowing the other party's methods, leaving you utterly at a loss. Worse still was discovering that, aside from conventional spells, the special methods you excelled at had no effect on your hateful opponent.
Those who dabbled in a wide range of spells as apprentices were sometimes called polymaths among Wizard Apprentices. Most Wizards, however, stopped doing that once they reached One-Ring. They preferred to explore a particular field suited to themselves and their Ascension Ritual, refining a handful of spells within that field as a foundation for further exploration, rather than searching the entire world or endlessly learning one unfamiliar spell after another.
That was something only those eccentric spell seekers would do.
Spells were endless. Everyone knew that saying. You could study forever and never learn them all. Compared with the vast Cavern World, a single person was insignificant. To put it extravagantly, you might not even learn spells as quickly as new ones were created.
The Blood Curse Doll was still crawling around, sucking up the lingering curse power as it slowly dissipated.
Ruger smiled, reining in his half-real, half-feigned anger.
He saw frustration in his opponent's eyes, but not a trace of panic. Clearly, the other man still had something up his sleeve.
So Ruger made his smile as infuriating as possible.
Fear, anger, embarrassment, jealousy, and countless other emotions all provided fertile ground for malice. Ruger's task was to ignite their malice and push it past a certain threshold, letting these malicious people taste that foul stench.
For a moment, Ruger drifted into a daze, inexplicably recalling Lord Kurt on the little island and his transformation from joy to sorrow.
Kurt had chosen that path so the believers in his territory could laugh and suffer