Chapter 172: Hollow

The Storm Scar Vulture came at Jaxir one final time with half its feathers burned away and blood trailing from the underside of one wing, desperation replacing the careful sweeps it had used throughout the fight. Jaxir slipped beneath the last wind scythe, twisted his staff toward the opening beneath its chest, and drove one final concentrated Cast straight through it as the creature passed overhead.

The vulture’s shriek broke apart with the impact before its body crashed into the far side of the nest.

[You have defeated Storm Scar Vulture (Elite) Lv25]

Jaxir barely had time to enjoy the notification before the second screen appeared in exactly the same irritating fashion as before. His expression flattened the moment he recognized the wording. Apparently fighting an Elite thirteen Levels above him and then another one sixteen Levels above him still wasn’t enough to earn so much as a consolation prize.

[Experience and rewards have been claimed as sacrifice.]

[Recipient: Mage Conjurer God]

"You know, sacrifices usually come from the person making them." Jaxir stared at the dead vulture and then at the enormous eggs behind him, feeling increasingly annoyed. "Stealing my shit after I almost die..."

Jaxir sighed, not even finishing the thought.

White light answered by swallowing him.

The nest disappeared and Jaxir found himself standing inside the black crystal cavern again, where the Mutated Black Gem Alpha had lifted its head and was watching him with the same calm eyes as before.

Jaxir pointed his staff toward the wolf while still breathing hard from the battle. "You better be worth it, dammit, because I’m slaving away over here—"

The light took him again before he could finish.

Jaxir didn’t even bother hiding the groan this time. Two Tier 3 Elites back-to-back had already taken considerably more out of him than he wanted to admit. Ordinary Tier 3 creatures were dangerous enough, but Elite creatures were something else entirely, carrying stronger abilities, better instincts, and enough raw reserves that it almost felt like every one he had fought until now quickly turned everything into a battle of attrition.

To make matters worse, if the difficulty kept climbing at the same rate, the final Mage target might very well end up sitting in Tier 4.

Maelis had already shown him what a relatively small Level difference could look like when the person on the other side had a strong foundation, and these creatures were proving the same point in a much less polite way.

Worse, the Mage Conjurer God didn’t seem interested in giving him even five minutes to sit down, restore himself properly, and think about what came next. There was nothing divine about this guidance, it was just slavery and bullshit wrapped into one.

When Jaxir’s vision cleared, however, he didn’t immediately see anything awful.

He stood in the middle of a wide oasis surrounded by low green hills, with grass brushing against his boots and flowers spreading in loose patches through the field. Clear water wound through the center in several shallow streams before gathering into a bright blue pond, while tall trees leaned over the banks with pale leaves shifting beneath a warm breeze. After cliffs, screaming vultures, and mountains of animated stone, the place looked quite pleasant.

Then Jaxir noticed the spirit.

It floated more than fifty meters away above the pond, its body shaped roughly like a person but made entirely from pale translucent mana. It wasn’t particularly large, standing around Jaxir’s own height if its feet had actually touched the ground, yet the longer he looked at it, the less its physical size seemed to matter. Something about its presence filled the oasis in a way its body didn’t.

Jaxir’s gaze flickered.

"Oh."

He didn’t know exactly what he had understood yet, but the feeling reminded him of the difference between simply possessing mana and actually knowing what to do with it. The spirit didn’t wear mana like armor or gather it around itself before attacking. Its entire existence seemed built from the same substance Jaxir had spent months learning to Cast, Channel, and Attune.

Whatever ancestral connection this thing had to the Black Gem Alpha, Jaxir was suddenly far more interested in the Mage Conjurer God’s choice of target.

The spirit noticed him.

Its head turned until a smooth face without eyes pointed directly toward Jaxir, then a line split where its mouth should’ve been and the lower half of its jaw unhinged far beyond anything human. The scream that came out carried no ordinary sound behind it, only a violent pulse of mana that pressed across the oasis hard enough to flatten the grass around Jaxir’s boots. A status screen opened across his vision.

―

Name: Hollow Mana Spirit (Elite)

Level: 30

―

Jaxir’s eyebrows rose as pressure gathered around him.

The spirit lifted both arms, and mana points began appearing throughout the air with such speed that Jaxir initially thought he was looking at sparks. Each one condensed into a Cast almost identical in principle to his own, until dozens of pale projectiles surrounded the spirit from different angles. Then they all moved.

"Holy shit."

Jaxir swept his staff upward and three Casts formed in front of him out of instinct, colliding with the first wave before it reached him. Explosions of raw mana filled the air as projectile met projectile, yet there were too many coming from too many directions for triple casting alone to cover them all. Jaxir ducked one, redirected another with a quick Cast, and watched a third tear through the earth where his shoulder had been.

The spirit screamed again and another field of Casts appeared.

Jaxir’s grin slowly spread.

He hadn’t pushed dual and triple casting much lately because there hadn’t been much reason to do so. His ordinary Cast had become fast enough that firing one after another often accomplished the same thing with less effort, especially when he could shape their trajectory after release. Standing across from something casually filling the air with them changed that calculation, though.

"I can do that too, fucker."

Jaxir raised his staff and stopped treating each Cast as something that needed its own separate moment.

Mana gathered around him in points of silvery-blue light, three becoming five before five became eight, then finally twelve distinct Casts suspended around his body. Keeping all of them stable at once felt completely different from firing rapidly. Each needed its own shape, position, and direction held inside his mind without allowing the others to collapse. Jaxir’s grin only widened as the pressure built.

"Let’s dance."

Both sides released.

Pale and silvery-blue lights tore across the oasis before crashing into one another above the streams, through the trees, and across the open grass. Jaxir shifted two of his Casts around a collision to strike from the sides, only for the spirit to answer with three more that intercepted them before impact. Another four came toward Jaxir while he was still controlling the first exchange, forcing him to form new Casts without releasing the ones already in motion.

He laughed.

The next wave became less about avoiding damage and more about proving a point, with Jaxir curving one Cast around two of the spirit’s attacks while another struck from beneath and shattered both.

The spirit answered by splitting its next volley across different heights, forcing Jaxir to send his own in intersecting paths so they could cover one another.

Every collision taught him something about the way it controlled raw mana, and Jaxir was having the time of his life.

The Hollow Mana Spirit was Level 30, sitting at the very peak of Tier 3, and its control over Cast was unlike anything Jaxir had faced from another creature. That only made the question rising inside him more exciting.

Which one of them was the better mage?

Jaxir’s smile sharpened as another dozen silvery-blue lights formed around him, and somewhere deep in his chest, something far less restrained than confidence began to bloom.

Arrogance. Almost as though he would only allow one answer to that question.