He remained unharmed despite how strong the lightning was. Cygnus on the other hand was grinning though because he prepared something bigger. With a snap, several lightning spears targeted the shield surrounding the Magus.
With the onslaught of these spears, the shield slowly gave in as line cracks started to appear. Those cracks slowly grew in size until the entire shield broke into pieces. Cygnus used this chance to let a stronger lightning hit his master.
The Magus already knew what his disciple was planning so before the next lightning hit him, a shield surrounded him once again. This time it was a layer of a honeycomb pattern that protected him. It was stronger than the first and when one section was destroyed, a reinforcement would also appear.
Well, he was not called Magus Maximus if he couldn't defend against such a basic attack. Cygnus was impressed at the shield. It has no weaknesses and if the user of it never ran out of mana, he can maintain that shield and withstand attacks like his black lightning.
While Cygnus was amazed at his shield, the Magus also maintained his rapt attention at his disciple who could make those attacks without showing any signs of exhaustion. He couldn't count how many black lightning already hit his shield, but he was sure that it was more than an average mage could handle.
Black lightning had been written in books but no one from the kingdom was able to create it. Its destructive power was more than that of ordinary lightning magic. They had seen it from the destruction it left after the exam and from the damage the arena had suffered just now.
Cygnus wanted to test the shield strength thus he planned not to hold back. He didn't care if this plan would destroy the whole arena because he was sure that they would eventually fix it. From where he stood, he put both of his palms together with his fingers pointed towards the Magus then a dark ball slowly formed at the tip of his fingers.
Before the Magus could realize what his disciple was planning, the black ball was shot towards him. Several layers of his shield broke so he put all of the hexagon shaped parts of his shield and stacked them together then expanded them to cover himself. The concentrated black lightning pierced through most of the layers until it stopped and disappeared. Even though the energy was canceled, the tendrils that came with it were still present around him.
"Master, can you defend against this?" The Magus heard his disciple's voice and before he could answer, several explosions happened around him.
With most of his shield concentrated in front, he did not expect those tendrils of lightning to suddenly explode. He didn't have time to put out another shield so he did the next effective way to avoid the attack. The Magus disappeared from where he was standing and appeared behind Cygnus.
It was an instant teleportation magic that uses a lot of mana but was also effective with surprise attacks such as those explosions. It doesn't need a full circle to materialize. One only needs a special stone to be engraved with the spells circle then infuse mana into it.
Once the holder of the stone infuses a little bit of his mana into the stone, the spell would activate and teleport the holder to his desired location. It was an instant and fast action that could be used to launch a sneak attack against an opponent.
He appeared behind his disciple and within seconds, a golden magic circle appeared beneath Cygnus as coils of golden chains appeared below. These chains rose and formed six pillars followed by the manifestation of a golden barrier connecting the six pillars.
Cygnus attempted to escape the entrapment using his wind magic but even the top part was sealed. He also attempted to break through the side but was stopped when the pillars started to move inward. The space inside the barrier got narrower until there was no way for him to move any longer.
"That's a prison barrier I personally created to seal and destroy enemies. Since I specialize in this kind of magic, it would be difficult for you to break that one," the Magus slowly landed on the ground and walked up to the sealed young man.
"This is a nice creation master, you should teach me this one too!" His enthusiasm did not disappear even though he was defeated.
The Magus stared at him for the meantime before he dispelled the barrier and let his disciple out. "You don't have an aptitude for barrier magic. You should focus on what you have right now and hone it to be the strongest."
He couldn't teach him barrier magic because if he did, the weaknesses and secrets behind those barriers would be revealed. Even towards his disciple he was not willing to disclose everything. One more reason was that he believed that he would live long so there's no need to let his disciple inherit his magic.
"Really?" Cygnus didn't believe what the Magus had said because he had seen his mind. "That's a bit sad though." He showed a frown in front of his master.
"We have different specializations and your magic is mainly focused on attack. You didn't even bother to defend yourself from me." The Magus further explained to which Cygnus appeared to believe even though the man was only making up excuses.
With his aptitude, Cygnus could also use a shield like that, the only difference was that Cygnus could use a shield stronger and of a higher level than what the Magus could use. He could show it to him but he needed to move a little bit slow in order for the Magus to trust him even more.
After that sparring, the Magus gave Cygnus several books that he was tasked to read. He could only stare at the books then at his master who had no expression at all. He thought that after this fight, his master would personally train him.
The Magus left after leaving the books with Cygnus. "Well, this isn't quite what I expected," he mumbled to himself.
He left the books on the ground and instead called for Ari. He asked Ari to scan the whole area and he was right, just below the arena was a hidden room. It was surrounded with several protective and cloaking barriers to disguise and hide it.
That must have been the Magus's secret room where he stored all of his valuables. Cygnus grinned because he wasn't expecting anything the moment that he met the Magus. Besides, he was not interested in learning anything.
He lounged around and waited for time to pass before he finally left. Since his effort was not wasted, he would go and take the day off by sleeping. He had already instructed Ari to inform Astro of what they discovered and that he should do some further probing about that secret room.
Alastor and Meliore also returned to the tower after completing their own missions. They knew all that had happened at the tower while they were gone and were curious as to who was the Magus Maximus's disciple. One more thing that made them interested was because of the message they received from Arean.
The three of them met after only three days after their return and Arean briefed them of what happened. She was sure that Rigel was the self-proclaimed guardian of Ezio. Her voice was trembling and her fists were tightly clenched as she recounted her encounter with the man.
The embarrassment she felt that day was something she couldn't forget. She told him how he blatantly acted innocent and how her master didn't believe her. Arean won't let what happened be buried and forgotten.
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