The Golem Mage

The rest of the team made their way into the underground training room, their eyes widening in shock at the spaciousness and advanced design.

When they had heard about a training room in the basement of the inn, they had pictured a rundown and makeshift space, however, the reality was far from their initial expectations.

It became evident that the training room and the inn occupied two entirely different dimensions, highlighting the stark contrast.

As they surveyed the large space, they finally locked eyes with Butcher and Legion, who stood guard in front of Alec at one edge of the training room, however, looking down towards Alec, they realized that he was actually fast asleep.

A wave of nervous tension hung in the air, uncertain of how to address the situation, it seemed comical to them that Alec had taken a break to sleep amidst making training plans for the team.

Lost in their own thoughts, they were suddenly interrupted by Lucas’s voice.

”When will you all get ready to come at me?, we don’t have all day, let’s get started!” Lucas spoke confidently, adopting the posture of a master with one hand behind him and a wooden stick in his right hand, his gaze fell upon the remaining six members of the team.

”Don’t tell me you actually took my words seriously, i was just kidding, we can all take turns fighting you, that way, we will easily understand our flaws and improve,” Pale was the first to speak, expressing his concern as he felt that Lucas was trying to prove himself after his previous challenge to defeat him with the rest of the team.

”Well, I wasn’t playing around, and you all better start coming at me with your strongest moves, as this is the only way you’ll understand and learn how to defend against Tier 5 Mage attacks at the next battle, it will prepare you for any encounters you may face.” Lucas responded, his tone serious,

While Sophie, Pale, and Katie exchanged worried glances, unsure about launching their attacks at once .

Meanwhile the members of the Gordons clan present already assumed their combat stances, ready for action.

”Tell me, Alec was the one who asked you to do this, right?” Arthur asked the question on his mind,

”Yeah.” Lucas confirmed with a nod, while Arthur sighed with a hint of exasperation.

”That guy never changes, always pushing us to our limits, i was expecting him to summon his golems to fight us again, but it seems he has other plans this time for us.” Brandon mention as

He swiftly dashed forward, swinging both hands with remarkable speed, Arthur and Knight followed closely beside him, their movements in perfect sync, as if they could read each other’s minds.

Lucas, however, did not make any moves to disrupt their synergy.

Instead, a serious expression etched upon his face as he slowly raised his sword to face Brandon, as a sharp and brilliant sword Qi materialized and shot towards him.

In response, Brandon slapped his two hands together, causing sand to rise from the ground, forming a sand barrier to lose in on both the left and right sides, instantly imprisoning the large sword Qi, simultaneously, Knight disappeared into the shadow of the colossal sand wave.

Undeterred, Arthur continued his long strides towards Lucas, leaving Brandon to deal with the emergence of the sword Qi.

As beads of sweat dripped down Brandon’s forehead as his clenched palms began to shake, struggling to maintain the sand imprisonment over the Qi sword, however, he eventually lost his grip, resulting in a loud bang as Lucas had pushed his index finger forward exerting more strength on the Qi blade.

The Qi sword shattered the sand pillar, sending sand scattering in all directions as it continued its trajectory towards Brandon.

It was evident that Lucas perceived him to be the most troublesome opponent among them, and he aimed to neutralize him directly.

Using his left-hand index finger to control the Qi sword and giving chase to Brandon, made Brandon jumped onto a patch of sand on the ground.

In an instant, the sand reshaped itself beneath his feet, transforming into a sand board, as he bent his waist, spread his arms, and accelerated at an even faster speed away from the sword Qi.

Meanwhile, Arthur, who had closed the distance between himself and Lucas, launched his right fist coated in the Stone Fist spell, seeing the spell, Lucas felt a sense of relief it was not an explosive attack, as he moved his wooden stick to defend against Arthur’s attack.

Bang!

But upon impact, Lucas was forced to move back three steps, feeling the transparent energy burning on Arthur’s hand.

”Qi Manipulation, cool,” Lucas muttered.

As Arthur dashed in again to fill the gap between them , Lucas swung his wooden stick burning with Qi, striking him precisely on the middle of his head and rendering him unconscious.

Simultaneously, Knight appeared behind Lucas, aiming for his neck, without even turning, Lucas swung his wooden stick, repelling the dagger strike with half his power.

Using the shockwave from knight’s powerful strike, Lucas created distance between them, but to his surprise, Arthur, who he thought had been knocked out, suddenly awakened.

As he swung his right hand from left to right, emitting a large golden metal slash towards Lucas.

From behind, knight, was covered in black tattoos, as he swung his dual daggers, sending streaking dark slashes towards Lucas.

With attacks coming from both the front and back, Lucas found himself forced to stay in place, as he could only defend against one attack, leaving himself exposed to the other.

However, Lucas remained more curious about Arthur than worried about the impending attacks.

In reality, Lucas had struck Arthur on the head with his full Qi output, an attack meant to keep him unconscious for a prolonged period, yet, after spending only about ten seconds on the ground, Arthur stood up again, seemingly stronger, and healing the cut on his head.

”You all have surprised me, but this is the end,” Lucas declared, swinging his wooden stick covered in bright, flashing Qi from a downward to upward motion.

As the thirty-meter-high blade slash sliced through the golden slash, effortlessly breaking it into pieces, and it continued its path towards Arthur.

The two black slashes from behind, which had finally reached Lucas while he was attacking Arthur, failed to cause any damage.

Though they were mere inches away, but they quivered violently in the air, seemingly unable to harm him.

Bang!

Arthur, having infused his hands with Mana and transformed them into gold, attempted to halt the massive slash.

He managed to withstand its force for around forty seconds before being sent flying towards the wall of the training room, sliding down and falling unconscious once again.

”It’s our turn!” Pale proclaimed, throwing a small shard of black ice towards Lucas at a slow speed.

In Lucas’s eyes, such an attack appeared inconsequential as he swiped his left hand to dismiss the ice shard, he believed it to be a new power awakened by Pale, but he doubted Pale had full control over it, given that he could only generate a single shard.

Little did Lucas know that Pale was secretly smirking, anticipating the outcome as he realised that Lucas would attempt to touch the black ice with his hand.

Unaware of the danger lurking behind the ice, Lucas made contact, intending to swipe it away.

However, a problem arose as the black ice absorbed his released Mana upon contact, swiftly growing in size and enveloping his entire hand.

The black ice moved from there to even covering half of his face, which added to the weight pressing down on his left side, causing him to restrict his use of Mana.

However, it was already too late, he could feel the immense burden, as though he were bearing the weight of an entire mountain solely on his left hand.

With a resounding crash, Lucas’s left hand struck the ground, still encased in the heavy black ice.

The weight forced him into an awkward, bent position, as if he were contending with a powerful gravitational force, but only on one side, but despite this predicament, he maintained a faint smile as he observed Pale, Kate, and Sophia closing in on him.

Even from the corner of his eyes, he caught glimpses of Brandon skillfully executing numerous hand signs. Lucas assumed that knight had already taken advantage of his vulnerable state, to positioning himself strategically behind him.