Chapter Ninety: Trial

Rainbow the Wanderer had never expected the jinx to be Yoyo, but Midsummer?

At first, everyone had only asked out of admiration for Midsummer’s knowledge. Later, curiosity had driven them to press the matter to the end.

Who could have imagined that Lady Luck herself, in the form of the goddess Nara, would favor them so much as to stage a live lesson within minutes?

By then, everyone still remembered what Leo had said: the runic cannon tower’s effective range was forty meters, and they were probably less than forty meters from the demon-faced structure.

If they retreated quickly enough, perhaps they would only suffer a single volley.

Yet no one stepped back, because behind them yawned a trapdoor pit.

Even if they were willing to gamble on their jumping ability, they would first have to run toward the runic cannon tower to build up enough momentum; otherwise it would be no different from simply walking into the pit.

“Either into the pit. A cornered beast has no choice but to fight for life,” said the poet, Frog, decisively. “Or we charge forward.”

The runic cannon tower in the demon’s face had already finished gathering power; at any moment, a devastating strike could crash down upon them.

As the party’s leader, Roy knew he had to make a decision. Staying here and taking an endless barrage of spells meant certain death.

But the place ahead ended in a turn, and no one knew what lay beyond it.

Even if they rushed around the corner, they would still suffer at least two rounds of attack.

As for leaping into the pit behind them, death was certain, but at least some of them might survive.

Roy, who had once stood at the judgment point of life when deciding which of his brothers could be saved with limited first-aid supplies, found himself there once again.

“Into the pit—” he began, but before he could finish, a roaring fireball shot toward them.

Roy recognized it at once. His party was finished. Instinct alone drove him to keep retreating madly.

In the blink of an eye, the fireball struck the spot where he had first been standing, smashing into the ground with brutal force. Then the surrounding area erupted like a sealed room packed with leaking gas.

Countless waves of heat burst forth from the fallen fireball, and the ground within a radius of six or seven meters was swallowed by exploding flames.

Even the old pedants who believed that “mages should not become mere turrets for hurling damage spells” would not deny the power of the third-circle arcane spell Fireball.

Unless specially specialized, ordinary mages only truly qualified as damage dealers once they reached fifth level and gained Fireball, a spell with real killing power.

Yet when the flames subsided, the party, still stunned by the spell and having failed to jump into the pit, discovered that they had not been harmed in the slightest.

A faintly glowing magical sphere now enveloped them directly.

The air seemed to thrum with mysterious energy. No matter how violently the Fireball had exploded, the endless waves of flame could not penetrate that enigmatic sphere.

“What is this?” Roy exclaimed.

The force of that Fireball had already brought him to the edge of the crushing pressure that strong magic could exert.

No one had expected that there was always a higher mountain beyond the first.

Now everyone’s eyes fell on the staff in Leo’s hand.

It had once been nothing more than an oak staff set with crystal, yet now it looked like something out of ancient legends, brimming with mysterious power.

“This is a Lesser Spell Immunity Ward,” said Leo calmly. “Within this barrier, spells of third circle and below are nullified.”

Then he looked at Roy and smiled. “This one costs extra.”

He had just activated the fourth-circle arcane spell Lesser Spell Immunity Ward with his protective staff, consuming two charges from it.

But he had no choice. The 5d6 damage of Fireball was something he could never have dodged.

Even if he had used Resistance to Energy, which required only a single charge, it would have held off only one wave at most.

That runic cannon tower would keep attacking without end.

So this time, Leo was both rescuing others and saving himself.

“Oh, here it comes again,” Yoyo said suddenly, noticing the demon face flare with light and then go dark again.

At once, a ripple passed over the magical sphere.

[System prompt: The runic cannon tower’s spell Suggestion cannot penetrate Lesser Spell Immunity Ward; the spell has failed.]

After his information panel refreshed, Leo explained, “It’s fine. That was the second spell, Suggestion. There are two more still to come, and only on the fifth round will it stop to recharge.”

“But this tower can only cast third-circle spells, so for the entire twenty rounds of the spell’s duration, it is safe inside this sphere.”

A Lesser Spell Immunity Ward lasts for a number of rounds equal to the caster level of the user.

Leo’s staff had a caster level of twenty, so it could last for twenty rounds.

If Antinoya had cast it herself, with her caster level stacked beyond seventy-two, it would last for more than seventy-two rounds.

“Mr. Midsummer, you must be a disciple of some hidden school, aren’t you? Could this be your order’s selection trial?”

By now Roy had understood that the wooden staff in Leo’s hand was by no means the simple “wand” he had assumed.

Having seen the world while following their leader Is, he could roughly grasp the value of that staff.

If such a thing appeared in the hands of a native of Arthur, then that person would likely be some noble’s or royal’s child, or even the heir of a mage family out on a journey of training.

But appearing in the hands of a Earth adventurer, and at this extremely early stage, with only a month having passed since the beginning of the limit period—there was only one remaining possibility: Midsummer was a candidate of one of the hidden schools.

Roy had heard from his leader that when hidden schools chose their next inheritor, they would have the candidates challenge and kill one another, and the one who ultimately endured would naturally become the school’s heir.

At the thought of that, Roy no longer cared about the third spell that was about to strike.

He lowered his head. “Mr. Midsummer, I have offended you greatly before.”

The four members of the Maple Leaf party were utterly dumbfounded. They had never expected that Leo, a caster from a fallen school merely fulfilling his mentor’s last wish, would be mistaken by Roy for the direct heir of some mysterious power.

Even now, the four of them still could not estimate the true value of the staff in Leo’s hand.

In their eyes, a fourth-circle spell scroll was worth roughly seven hundred gold pieces—hardly an astronomical sum.

Under such circumstances, even if Yoyo had a slight tendency toward moral alignment, she knew enough to keep her mouth shut and not undercut Midsummer.

Lying might push her alignment toward neutrality or chaos, but the price of silence would ultimately be far lower.

Leo merely nodded indifferently. Although Roy had not guessed correctly that he had come here only to complete the training task assigned by Antinoya, he had indeed been relying on the hidden means behind him, capable of overturning everything, to walk in so boldly rather than for some cruel selection trial like a culling of gu.

Still, Roy had stumbled onto the edge of the truth, albeit at a distance many levels too low.

“Mr. Midsummer, you may choose first from the spoils of this adventure,” Roy said, bowing further.

The four members of the Maple Leaf party were left staring blankly. They got this treatment too?