Wizard: Scamming a Demon God

Chapter 223: Chapter 178: Privilege? Loan Master

After tidying up his manuscript, Isaac got up and headed outside. He couldn’t wait to test the power of Privilege Magic!

Although Heavy Pressure Hell was complete, it was still only in the initial creation phase—just a draft on paper. He would have to cast it to see what it could really do.

Fortunately for Wizards, as long as they understood the bulk of a spell’s information, they could cast it directly. This was unlike Knights, who had to spend a great deal of time practicing before they could master their Combat Techniques.

Of course, the time a Wizard spent studying a spell’s information was equivalent to the time a Knight spent practicing Combat Techniques.

Naturally, since Heavy Pressure Hell was a Privilege Magic Isaac had created himself, he knew all its information by heart. He could use it right away without needing to spend any time studying it.

Soon, Isaac arrived at the training ground in front of the castle. In the morning light, the Silver Knight and Lorna were sparring, one wielding a silver longsword and the other the Dragon Flame Longsword, their blades clashing back and forth.

Isaac raised an eyebrow. He glanced at the sun, somewhat surprised. ’Why are these two grinding so hard?’

But...

The grind was certainly paying off. Both the Silver Knight’s and Lorna’s Combat Techniques had become much more polished. The Silver Knight, in particular, showed very little of his former stiffness while sparring with Lorna.

’Of course, it could just be that I can’t tell,’ Isaac thought. ’After all, I’m a Caster, and I don’t know much about Combat Techniques.’

’But the improvement is definitely significant. Don’t tell me this guy is a genius?’

Demonic Puppets—a type of Mechanical Body—could have combat learning modules that allowed them to absorb experience and optimize their fighting techniques, but those were only installed in Tier Three Demonic Puppets. The Silver Knight definitely wasn’t one of them.

This change must have occurred after his Activation. It was his own unique talent.

The two were so engrossed in their fight that they didn’t even notice Isaac’s arrival. ’But that’s to be expected,’ he mused. ’One is a former Demonic Puppet with rigid, by-the-book Combat Techniques. The other is a former beg—ahem, a freelancer—with almost zero combat experience, who only knows how to overwhelm opponents with raw stats. They’ve truly met their match. How could they not be having a blast?’

’Even if they’re both terrible.’

After a moment, the two finally noticed Isaac at the side. They immediately stopped and bowed to him.

Lorna included.

Seeing Lorna kneel beside the Silver Knight, Isaac was speechless. ”What are you getting in on the fun for?”

”Hehe~ The mood just felt right,” Lorna said, still half-kneeling as she scratched her head with a goofy grin.

Hearing this, Isaac shook his head. ”Get up. Honestly... By the way, you’re a Witch. Why are you practicing close combat with the Silver Knight? You aren’t seriously planning to continue with this, are you?”

”Huh? I can’t? I think Combat Mages are pretty strong!” Lorna said, looking at Isaac with a shocked expression.

”...” Isaac stared at Lorna, speechless. ”How much of the books I gave you have you actually read?”

”...” Lorna looked away guiltily and mumbled, ”I’ve read part of it.”

”How much is ’part of it’?”

”Part of one book.”

”Which part?”

”...The table of contents.”

”???” Isaac’s eyes widened. ”All this time, and you’ve only read the table of contents?! How did you even learn Magic?!”

”Hmph, hmph.” Hearing that, Lorna, who had been feeling guilty just a moment ago, immediately puffed out her chest like a proud peacock. ”That’s something you wouldn’t understand! We Witches awaken our Magic from our bloodline. We don’t need to study at all!”

The corner of Isaac’s mouth twitched. ’What is she so proud of?’

”Sigh...” Isaac rubbed his forehead and let out a heavy sigh. ”No wonder... It seems I’ll have to teach you the importance of knowledge!”

A glint flashed in Isaac’s eyes as he gave Lorna a stern look.

Lorna’s expression turned to panic. Isaac’s gaze was inexplicably terrifying!

A terrible premonition bloomed in her heart. ’What does he mean... teach me the importance of knowledge? What is Isaac planning to do?!’

Subconsciously, Lorna took a few steps back. She wanted to flee the castle, but it was just a fleeting thought. For one, the castle contained things that were very important to Isaac, and she needed to protect it.

For another...

’It’s not like I could escape anyway...’

Despair slowly filled Lorna’s eyes.

”Hmph!”

Isaac noted Lorna’s reaction, but merely snorted inwardly without saying a word. In truth, he didn’t yet have the means to implement his plan for her, but giving her a good scare couldn’t hurt. It would help her mentally prepare.

He planned to design a maze-type Privilege Magic for Lorna—the kind she wouldn’t be allowed to leave until she had memorized a certain number of books!

He didn’t care what she liked; he was going to cram that knowledge into her head one way or another!

It couldn’t be helped. The more Isaac studied, the more he understood the importance of knowledge for Wizards, and indeed for all Casters. This was true even for Witches.

Witches might be able to conveniently draw Magic from their bloodlines, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t optimize the spells they already possessed.

And that step required a certain mastery of magical knowledge.

Moreover, Lorna herself was living proof. If she possessed sufficient knowledge, she would know that the vast majority of Combat Mages eventually abandoned the path of close-quarters fighting, unless they were content to never progress further!

Close combat and Wizardry were a terrible match. It meant fighting an opponent’s strength with your own weakness—a senseless strategy. Not everyone was a savant who could master fighting against their own inherent disadvantages.

Isaac glanced at the despairing Lorna, whose face had gone pale, and walked past her onto the training ground. With a casual flick of his wrist, several targets for testing the power of his Magic appeared in the center of the field.

In addition, given the unique nature of Heavy Pressure Hell, he also set up several flying targets.

The Silver Knight turned, watching Isaac’s actions with curiosity. Lorna, however, didn’t react at all, frozen in place like a pale stone statue.

Taking a couple of deep breaths to clear his mind, Isaac extended his right hand toward the targets in the center of the training ground. His lips parted slightly as he recited a string of mysterious and complex Spells.

Instantly, a massive purple Magic Array materialized in front of him. Smaller arrays appeared around its perimeter, then slowly merged into the larger one, transforming into intricate and esoteric Magic Texts.

Three minutes later, the smaller arrays stopped appearing. The preparations for the Casting were complete!

”Privilege Magic: Heavy Pressure Hell!”

Isaac shouted, clenching his fist.

BOOM!

The three targets on the ground were instantly pulverized. The ones in the air slammed into the ground in the same instant, gouging out several large craters. Their construction was slightly better, so they weren’t completely crushed by the immense Gravity, but they weren’t much better off.

The blue energy streams beneath the few intact flying targets were already flaring at maximum power, yet they still couldn’t overcome the Gravity and lift off!

Of course they couldn’t break free. This wasn’t simple Gravity, but a special power that mimicked the [Gravity] Authority. The only things capable of resisting it were another Privilege Magic or an Authority with opposing properties.

Of course, the [Gravity] Authority itself would also grant Immunity to this effect.

Simply put, the gravity produced by Privilege Magic: Heavy Pressure Hell wasn’t a ”force” but the very Concept of ”Gravity.” Merely applying an opposing force was not enough to counteract this special Gravity; one had to break the Concept itself.

Of course, as a powerful Privilege Magic, Heavy Pressure Hell could do more. It wasn’t a one-and-done spell, but rather a special buff applied to Isaac himself. For the duration of the buff, Isaac could control this special Gravity at will.

This made its combat applications extremely flexible.

Furthermore, he could gather all his Magic Power to end the buff prematurely, unleashing a burst of unparalleled gravity to deal a devastating blow to his enemy!

Of course, it also had its drawbacks—and quite a few of them.

The most significant was the casting time. A full three-minute wind-up rendered the spell practically useless in a real fight, regardless of its power.

In actual combat—forget fighting someone of a higher tier, even against an opponent of the same level—finding a three-minute window to cast was a complete fantasy, unless you could launch a surprise attack.

But Privilege Magic created such a huge disturbance that a surprise attack was out of the question.

On top of that, there was the cost. This single cast of Heavy Pressure Hell had consumed nearly seventy percent of Isaac’s Magic Power!

That was a terrifying amount.

It was important to remember that Isaac had always focused on increasing his reserves of Magic Power, selectively using both advancement rituals and Relics to boost it. His Magic Power was now more than double that of a typical Wizard of his tier, yet a single cast could drain seventy percent of it...

The most troublesome part was that neither the casting time nor the Magic Power consumption had much room for optimization.

Yes, while it was a newly created Privilege Magic with plenty of room for refinement, that refinement wouldn’t do much for the casting time or Magic Power consumption. All Privilege Magic was like this.

Take the casting time, for instance. Isaac estimated that at the absolute most, he could only optimize it down to a minute and a half.

That was already a massive improvement, but it would still be incredibly difficult to use in a real battle. The same went for Magic Power consumption. Even Magic had to obey the law of conservation of energy; such a powerful spell would always require a tremendous amount of Magic Power.

Unless he extended the casting time to draw more Magic Power from the outside world.

But that would be foolish.

Of course, that wasn’t to say there were no solutions. Magic was hardly so impractical.

The spell itself couldn’t be optimized much, but the problem could be circumvented in other ways. For instance, if the Magic Power cost couldn’t be lowered, he could simply increase his total Magic Power. As for the long casting time, there was a Casting Technique exclusive to Privilege Magic—Privilege.

Privilege was a Casting Technique used exclusively for Privilege Magic. Its principle was simple: ’Since I don’t have enough time to cast during a battle, can’t I just prepare the Privilege Magic in advance and use it when I need to?’

Or, if the prepared Privilege Magic had already been used up but a new enemy appeared, one could ”borrow” a future casting of the spell and then pay the price for it after the battle was over.

This Casting Technique wasn’t originally called Privilege. It was a name given to it by the world, and just as the name implied, it was a veritable privilege in combat!