23 Battle

Immediately, the four figures blurred, and in less than 30 seconds, several clanging sounds echoed in the field. At this, Faykes was surprised; he hadn't thought that they were fighting using weapons.

Although as magicians, it wasn't uncommon to use elements to reinforce their physical capabilities, as everyone in the Mundane stage did that. What surprised him is seeing the reinforcements occur in a fight above Mundane class. After all, it is common knowledge for magicians to use magic reinforcement as an auxiliary thing, allowing them to increase their chances of escaping or whatnot.

Faykes began channeling water and air elements, reinforcing his eyesight. Although, if he had the light element, it would be the best reinforcement to increasing the capability of his eyes.

Upon seeing the situation, Faykes was quite shocked, with his mouth wide open for a few seconds, before closing it.

The world is unfair! This was what Faykes wanted to scream out loud.

Of course, this was all because he saw how Xander was fighting the trio that caused him to be a bit jealous, then helpless.

Xander was fighting using a single finger!

Every time a palm appeared to target his head, his chest, and his arms and legs, he deflected the palms with a simple poke.

It was this poke that was creating the clanging sounds!

One of the palms contained a metallic sheen, indicating the metal element that reinforced it, and every movement of the palm caused the winds to howl, indicating the overbearingness and weight of that palm. Xander, however, just continued poking at it with his finger, causing it to be deflected and upon closer inspection, dents were appearing on the surface of the palm!

This was what Xander had been doing in the past 3 days: Real, fatal physical combat!

He had wanted to test his physical and magical limits, and what better sparring partners than his magician bodyguards?

After they had signed the binding contract that he had modified, he had already insured a level of loyalty amongst these subordinates of his.

Joseph, Bryan and Ryan were already feeling helpless. Although two of them, Joseph and Bryan, were dual primary element magicians, Ryan was different, as he had three primary elements. All three of them were at the precipice of reaching Legendary Rank, just half a step more.

For the three of them, it wasn't just a simple sparring session - in fact, they were forced to fight like they were in a life or death battle.

How were they forced? Xander threatened them, of course, with their lives and the lives of their loved ones. Although as soldiers, they had begin regarding their lives as dispensible, they had their loved ones. Joseph was married and had 2 daughters. Bryan had two ailing parents that were undergoing treatment for their disease, which is why he joined the military in the first place. Ryan had no one, except the orphanage that took care and raised him well, headed by a kind female magician, who was around Legendary-6 stage. He had a crush on here ever since he reached 16 years old.

With the stakes at hand, how can the three be careless? Although in the first sparring session, Xander was defeated easily, it became more and more difficult to force Xander to defeat. And it has just been 3 days!

On the 2nd session, it felt like the three were fighting a rampaging magic beast that were at the same stage as they were in. Xander eventually lost, but not without a cost; Bryan and Joseph lost both their eyes, which were restored by Xander easily.

On the 3rd session, they barely won, when the three had to sacrifice one arm each to cast a spell in the Legendary stage, [The Touch of the Wicked], which coincided with the elements they controlled. Although Xander escaped quite easily thanks to his [Absolute Defense] spell, he recognized the strength of the spell and decided to end the sparring at that. He then reversed the time of the trio, forcing the lost life energy to return, with their arms restored. Of course, the trio thought this was Life Magic, and their respect for Xander rose higher.

Today however, was the 4th session. After a few minutes, Xander was already yawning in boredom as he used one finger to deflect their physical attacks, no matter how big or small these were.

Throwing Magic-infused stones towards him? With a boop, these stones shattered.

Using their bodies to physically attack Xander? After a few minutes since starting the fight, their bodies were already filled with small holes, causing blood to flow. they managed to staunch their bleeding with magic, but they could feel their bodies were beginning to weaken.

The trio eyed one another and at that moment came to a conclusion: Delay! Although both Joseph and Bryan were dual primary-element magicians, Ryan was not; he was a three-element magician, making the potency of his spells more diverse. He also had the highest amount of understanding of his primary elements and magic circles as well.

Immediately, Joseph and Bryan began to attack with increased fervor, this time casting spells while physically attacking. Xander saw this and smiled, dodging their attacks, before releasing a barrage of spells in his disposal.

Given that all of them were already at the 81st class magic circles, the strength of the spells were comparable to peak Master class magicians; and that's just because he is limited by his current cultivation level.

If he was in the Master class, the power of his spells would reach the same level as Legendary Spells; if he was a legendary magician, his spells would be as powerful as a mythic class powerhouse, and so on. With this, he could easily dominate those of the same cultivation class as he was, and fight on par with 1 class above him.

Joseph and Bryan now had to bear the burden of evading the spells while casting their own spells and attacking Xander. Meanwhile, Ryan was a few meters away from the three, his fingers moving and creating runic signs in every step he takes.

After a minute, Joseph and Bryan were quite tired already; they could only hold for another minute. The problem was, Ryan had only managed to complete two-thirds of the spell circle, and needed roughly 2 more minutes.

Upon noticing the progress Ryan was undergoing, the duo looked at each, and nodded. They both bit their lips, letting it bleed, and using their thumbs, they marked their forehead, and both their cheeks with their blood. They then performed hand signs that created runic writings in thin air, quickly moving towards their bodies.

Immediately, they began exhibiting a power beyond their level: Legendary Power!

Upon seeing this, Xander couldn't help but be pumped up; this was truly testing the limits of what one can reach! Although he already saw what Ryan was casting, he just smiled inwardly, since he could easily use his spell [Void Rejection] to cancel all spells being cast in the area. This was the weakness of large, forbidden magic spells; as long as you can identify what is being cast, you can plan ahead by removing or disturbing the essential elements of the spell.

Of course, it's a different story when one can cast a forbidden magic spell instantaneously. Forbidden magic spells were also known as legendary magic spells, and at minimum, if one wanted to cast it at a lower class than Legendary, one needs to have a profound understanding of the elements involved in the spell, as well as the magic reservoir for casting the spell. The latter was why forbidden spells were cast by two or more magicians that has a primary element matching the spell.

Given the runic signs he had seen, there were traces of Fire, Decay, and Death elements in the spell; a tri-elemental forbidden spell is quite potent... if there were other casters beside Ryan who was casting the spell, that is.

At most, Ryan would be able to showcase Legendary-1 strength of spell.

Xander took no more notice and began evading the attacks of the two in front of him, while casting spells that targeted weakpoints in their bodies.

During this fight, he realized a big problem: The only attacking spell he had was [5 Elements Foundation], which can only be considered as boosting the affinity of 5 elements in the user, and using this increased affinity, he could manipulate the elements in the configuration of elemental magic spells. Meaning, he really has no attacking pseudo magic circles. However, this was one way for him to evade the limitation of having no 81st class magic circles in the Elite class; since he could make the spells from his control of the 5 elements and its derivatives, the spells he make were of 81st class, since his primary elements of Space and Time ensures perfect understanding of the elements under its control.

He decided to make the last three advanced magic spells he had to be purely offensive spells. Currently, he had 7 advanced spells:

[Instaneous Regeneration (no limit)] falls in the domain of Life-Death, specifically the Life System

[Absolute Time] falls in the domain of time.

[Absolute Defense] falls in the domain of space.

[Elemental Dominance] falls in the domain of the 3 Ordered Elemental pairs.

[Lifeblood] falls in the domain of Life-Death, specifically the Life System.

[Heavenly Divination] falls in the domain of Life-Death, specifically the Fate System.

[Void Rejection] falls under the domain of Void. The spell, however, does not completely remove Chaos and Order elements.

Once he breaks through to Master class, he would instantly elevate to Master-7, and that's if he doesn't complete his advanced magic spells at Elite class. If he did, he would instantly jump to Master-9, and all he needed to do was breakthrough by creating a vessel from all his magic circles.

Wait... Xander seemed to realize something that made him confused yet excited at the same time. He decided to end the fight quickly.

Immediately, the aura Xander was exuding changed, causing Joseph, Bryan and Ryan's faces to change drastically. Even Faykes noticed the abnormality and visibly shivered.

If earlier, Xander had a carefree, dominating aura, right now it was frenzied, like an asura from the depths of hell wanting to seek destruction.

Ryan, who was 95% close to casting the spell, didn't hesitate to expend some of his life essence to complete the spell ahead of time.

A guttural growl came from his mouth, signaling his two companions to leave the spell matrix. Immediately, Joseph and Bryan left the spell circle, making sure to cast spells at Xander to force him to stay in the area.

Immediately, Ryan closed his palms together, looking like he was praying, his face solemn.

"Burning Naraka: The Decay of Morality!" Ryan shouted, his face red and yet at the same time, had a pallid texture as if he was a corpse.

The are covered by the magic circle became strange. Within the span of seconds, the environment in it rapidly changed 8 times, and with every change, screams and wails changed as well, causing anyone to hear it shiver and some breakdown.

Xander, who was at the center of the spell circle, didn't bother casting [Void Rejection], since he already recognized the spell after Ryan shouted it.

This was one of the spells that proved to him that there were other transmigrators from his world in other periods of time: The existence of Buddhist spells.

How would such spells and visualization exist if there was no such thing as religion in this planet? Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, etc. all those beliefs didn't exist here in some form or another.

Naraka, after all, was Buddhist hell. And as the spell progressed to its peak, he recognized that these were the 8 Hot Narakas described in the Abhidharma-kosa. The existence of this spell shows that the buddhist transmigrator was talented in the realm of Death, and Fire. However, this was only the first set, meaning this spell had a counterpart: the 8 Cold Narakas.

The first level of Hot Naraka, Sanjiva. In that split second, multiple attacks attempted to land on his body, but couldn't pass through [Absolute Defense] that automatically activated. All these attacks were from illusory fiery weapons, containing molten metal and even the ground temporarily turned into burning iron.

The second level was Kalasutra, which focuses on cutting up the target through predetermined lines and experience Sanjiva stronger than before.

The third level, Samghata, focuses on crushing the body with flaming boulders into bloody jelly.

The 4th level, Raurava, the burning shelter, where one is trapped to looking for a shelter and is trapped in one, burned over and over again.

The 5th level, Maharaurava, is an upgraded level of Raurava, with the kravyada tormenting and eating their flesh.

The 6th level, Tapana, impales the targets with a fiery spear until the flames exit through their noses and mouths.

The 7th level, Pratapana, is experiencing Tapana again but this time, with a trident.

The 8th and last level, Avici, culminates every experience as you are continuously cooked, butchered, quartered, and impaled over and over again.

This spell, although it made you experience all 8 levels of suffering and torment, wasn't that refined. It didn't take advantage of space-time elements to force the targets to experience it over and over again over a long period of time. It only focused on death, fire, and decay elements. He barely noticed the decay, since the element appeared on the flames attempting to pass through his space spell.

After a while, everything returned to normal, with the field scorched to the point that the metallic sublayer was showing.

Xander came out unscathed, slowly clapping at the performance of the trio.

"Great workout. Rest up. The next training is next week. I hope there are more diversity and firepower when we fight!"

After saying those words, what Faykes saw caused his eyes to bulge out of his sockets.

It was like watching a movie that was played in reverse; the soil in the field slowly restored itself to its previous self, and the physical and mental states of the trio returned to their peak respective states. It was Ryan who gave Xander a surprise; he could faintly detect that he was already beginning to merge the magic circles.

He turned to Ryan and smiled.

"Congratulations. I expect stronger attacks from you, especially." Ryan quickly nodded, and disappeared from his current location. He was excited, since he was about to breakthrough to Legendary Level!

Joseph and Bryan benefitted as well, with their understanding of the rules deepening, decreasing their distance from Legendary Class. They only needed an opportunity and they would breakthrough as well. Both of them bowed and disappeared as well.

All that was left in the area were Xander and Faykes, who had raised his finger at Xander, his mouth opening and closing without saying a word. IT seemed that he wanted to say something, but he just couldn't find a word for it.

Xander moved towards the villa, and as he passed by Faykes, he stopped for a moment and asked,

"So, did you enjoy the show?"

"I-" before Faykes answered, he was stopped by Xander, who shook his head.

"You can tell your elders that you already visited the villa where the magic circle phenomenon happened. To be honest, I never expected signing sprite contracts to be that much of a hassle." He then continued to move, and Faykes used this opportunity to follow him.

Faykes' eyes were twinkling before asking tentatively, "Can I see them?" before hurriedly gesturing his hands and saying after, "If it's convenient for you and the sprites, that is. If not, never mind." He hurried shaked his hands as gesture, as if worried Xander would get mad at him and his nosiness. Xander was a bit puzzled and interested at Faykes.

How could he not be afraid of me? After all that action, he could still talk normally? Interesting.