"I never imagined you would actually defeat Kel'Thuzad."
Antonidas praised Rhode as soon as he saw him.
The Archmage looked fairly healthy, though his face seemed a little darker.
There also seemed to be an aura of dark energy lingering in the air around his room.
"Hehe, I got lucky," Rhode said modestly.
"Luck had nothing to do with it..." Antonidas waved a hand. "Even I couldn't claim I could defeat him easily, especially after he performed the Lich Transformation ritual. And you... despite your best efforts to conceal your mana surge, I can sense that you're already approaching my level."
"What?" Marin and Jaina, standing nearby, were stunned.
Approaching Antonidas's level? Didn't that mean Rhode was on the verge of becoming an Archmage?
That wasn't far off from what the rumors claimed.
"Oh, really?" Rhode was naturally delighted.
"That only applies to your mana surge. A mage's magical ability isn't measured by that alone," Antonidas continued. "With your extraordinary method of learning spell models, I believe you can apply magic more flexibly than I can, and fight more effectively as well. That's why you were able to defeat Kel'Thuzad and his minions."
That explanation wasn't difficult to understand.
To draw an analogy with martial arts stories, a mana surge was like "internal energy." Someone with powerful internal energy naturally had a solid foundation for martial arts.
But without good techniques to make better use of that energy, they might lose to someone whose internal energy was weaker but whose martial techniques were stronger.
Rhode was precisely the sort of person who could put his "internal energy" to its fullest use and work wonders with his "techniques."
Antonidas concluded, "In other words, even if I recovered right now and could fight you, there's no telling who would win."
Now Marin