Ruger glanced back, then settled in to enjoy the spectacle.
Boom! The sea erupted.
Man and beast fought in a tangled fury. The sea seemed to have lost its yielding nature; at times, as they grappled, it was like solid ground. The sound of the lesser dragon striking the surface was enough to shake an ordinary person's soul. Neither combatant had wings, yet they were sometimes flung into the air, tumbling and thrashing from above the surface to beneath it. The humanoid behemoth easily broke free of the aquatic lesser dragon's spell-like abilities and hammered the sharp horn on its head straight into its brain. Vast quantities of dark blue blood spread across the sea.
One was vicious, and the other even more so. They bit and battered each other as though fighting for their lives, spells erupting at point-blank range between them. Both possessed tenacious vitality. Even having their brains smashed would not kill them immediately, only provoke greater ferocity.
Ruger could tell that Mahama was gradually adapting, testing the abilities he had gained through his advancement and verifying the various changes in his body.
Before he knew it, during another bout of biting and grappling, Ruger realized that Mahama had actually grown larger than the aquatic Drake Beast.
Ruger tilted his head. If Mahama was piecing together his teacher's spell sequence like a puzzle, the first step that had left a deep impression on him was the Demon Skin Spell from his apprentice days. Even then, Mahama could handle casting materials at the level of a One-Ring Wizard. With those Underground Beast hides on his body, ordinary Wizard Apprentices had no chance of defeating him. This second stage, the changes after becoming a Wizard, seemed more like a transformation of flesh and blood.
The first stage was mastery