While Herad was still trading fireballs with his opponent, the favorite to win the championship had already finished his fight.
His overwhelming casting speed, backed by a water elemental, had left his opponent utterly stunned.
That contestant had not yet become an Intermediate Mage, but he was only a step away.
He was also one of the highest-ranked favorites among all the contestants.
Yet the gap between him and an opponent who had already become an Intermediate Mage was still enormous!
That was precisely why Herad had gone out of his way to capture an air elemental as a helper.
The other contestants could barely muster any fighting spirit when they saw that fellow.
Facing him meant their run would end right there.
After Herad comfortably defeated the beautiful mage, the semifinal matchups were announced.
His face fell the moment he saw that he would be facing the championship favorite.
Even the gamblers who favored him and believed he had been hiding much of his strength felt deeply uneasy.
That fellow named Carl Deep Shadow had defeated even a prodigy from a spellcasting family.
The Deep Shadow family often produced capable rogues and rangers, but rarely powerful spellcasters.
Still, all High Elves had some degree of talent for spellcasting.
It was simply a matter of some families being more likely to produce prodigies than others.
The towering Windrunner Spire south of Windrunner Village had been built by an Archmage of the Windrunner family.
Rommath, currently the most senior and accomplished spellcaster among the High Elves, had been born a commoner without even a surname.
Yet he had still earned the title of Grand Archmage.
Of course, none of these powerful spellcasters from outside the famous spellcasting families were as arrogant as Carl Deep Shadow.
He had lingered at the Junior Magic Academy for several months without moving on, then lorded over everyone at the Spell Tournament.
After defeating his strongest opponent, he no longer knew the meaning of humility.
He gazed up at the white clouds and taunted Herad arrogantly.
"Hey, kid, I suggest you surrender right away when we start. Don't waste everyone's time!"
Herad ignored him. Instead, he took out the cube, infused it with mana to activate it, and tossed it onto the ground.
Amid flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, a six-foot whirlwind rapidly took shape.
The whirlwind, with arcs of electricity flickering inside it, left most of the spectators thoroughly shaken.
The gamblers, in particular, began condemning Herad's underhanded decision to conceal his strength.
Had they known Herad had the strength of an Intermediate Mage, they would not have made their decisions so readily.
Yet even among the gamblers who knew something about him, quite a few had chosen to bet on Carl.
After all, Carl's dazzling performance had already proven her raw strength.
Herad did not waste any more words on these people.
He cast Flame Shield to protect himself, then gestured for his opponent to begin.
Carl hesitated for quite a while before finally taking the conventional approach: she activated Spell Shield, then attacked Herad first.
For a mage specializing in fire magic, facing an opponent protected by Flame Shield was incredibly frustrating!
Especially when that opponent practiced both arcane and fire magic, making him even more maddening to deal with!
Against an opponent like this, her only option was Spell Shield, which had no particular strengths but no particular weaknesses either.
Although Carl's situation was difficult, she did not give up.
As long as she persevered, the outcome was still anyone's guess.
But at this point, Herad no longer had anything holding him back.
Although he had not reached the final yet, this was already the final in all but name.
After all, the only contestant who could put up a fight against him was that arrogant, overbearing Carl.
Since this was the last battle, he naturally had to end it with a bang.
He raised his hand and unleashed a dense barrage of Arcane Missiles.
Normally, Arcane Missiles fired one after another.
The greater the caster's proficiency, the smaller the gap between each missile.
Earlier, Herad's Arcane Missiles had formed a continuous line as they pounded Kelson's Flame Shield, nearly shattering it on the spot.
The general-purpose Spell Shield Carl had activated was better suited to handling this situation.
Neither fireballs nor Arcane Missiles had any special advantage against Spell Shield.
But when those Arcane Missiles came hurtling toward her two or even three at a time, Carl's expression turned grim.
Spell attacks differed from physical attacks: sheer quantity could produce sheer power.
Unless someone had skin with powerful magic resistance or equipment that granted magic immunity.
Otherwise, a dense barrage of basic spells could still kill a powerful opponent.
Holding nothing back, Herad had practically turned his Arcane Missiles into a curtain of fire.
Such a dense barrage put the strength of Spell Shield to a severe test.
Spell Shield would collapse after absorbing a certain amount of damage.
If the contestant failed to reactivate it in time, the dense stream of Arcane Missiles would slip through the opening and knock them out of the tournament.
Watching the Arcane Missiles hurtle toward her like clusters of purple grapes, Carl's face turned livid, then quickly went deathly pale.
His strength was already showing signs of surpassing hers.
And the air elemental's destructive power far exceeded that of her water elemental.
The lightning orbs it sent whistling toward her covered her Spell Shield in electrical arcs.
The Water Bolts fired by the water elemental struck Flame Shield and vanished with a hiss.
The frost energy contained within the Water Bolts could do little more than tickle Flame Shield.
Without enough water, there was no putting out the fire.
Under such a ferocious assault, Carl had to devote most of her concentration to maintaining Spell Shield.
As her attacks weakened, the pressure on her opponent eased, allowing him to attack even more smoothly.
Against attacks coming this rapidly, Carl had no chance of turning the tables!
All she could do now was silently pray that her opponent would run out of mana first.
But Herad had no intention of dragging things out to the end.
The benchmark for an Intermediate Mage was a hundred fireballs.
Given advantageous terrain, an Intermediate Mage could even wipe out a small military unit!
That made ending the fight early essential.
Timing the gap between Carl's spells, he decisively unleashed the arcane spell Counterspell.
In the game, Counterspell was instant-cast and took effect immediately.
As long as the timing was reasonably accurate, countering an opponent was effortless.
In reality, Counterspell required a casting process.
Its principle was to use arcane energy to disrupt the formation of a spell.
Both casting it and completing the disruption took time.
In a battle where spells took only a second or two to cast, successfully interrupting an opponent was difficult.
But Herad excelled at analysis and judgment.
After gathering data on Carl through actual combat, he anticipated her next Spell Shield.
Under the dense bombardment of Arcane Missiles, Carl had fallen completely into Herad's trap.
Just as her new Spell Shield was about to finish forming, a burst of purple light suddenly enveloped her.
The purple shell lasted roughly 0.1 seconds, disrupting the formation of Spell Shield.
As she suffered the spell's backlash, her previous Spell Shield was also shattered by Arcane Missiles and lightning orbs.
Herad had already stopped attacking, but the air elemental failed to stop in time.
The final lightning orb struck Carl, triggering her lifesaving item and freezing her panicked expression in place.
Inside a translucent sphere, Carl lay on the ground, her entire body charred black and trembling.
By the time the lifesaving item triggered, some of the lightning orb's energy had already passed into her body.
That small amount of lightning energy was not enough to electrocute her.
But the electrotherapy experience was certainly going to be quite a thrill!
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