Ascension: Strongest Fateless Mage

After Siege Defense, Zevien decided that he would let others have two tries to break existing records so they could get bonus merit points.

So, in each training center, they decided on their order of entry according to their choices.

They went to Hit & Hide training center after Siege Defense. In Hit & Hide, there was a small town that would spawn phantom magic beasts. Students had to kill magic beasts while hiding. If they were discovered, they would lose a point. Everyone had ten points and had to kill 20 beasts while keeping five or above points. This was mostly a mind game because the town structure forced students to observe carefully and stay cautiously.

Once they were done with Hit & Hide, they went to Descending Force, which tested the physical endurance and willpower of the students. They had to stay under a floating piece of a magical stone that would exude pressure on them. One must stay for one minute to pass the 1st level. The record was 1 minute and 37 seconds but was broken by Erica, Dan, Vernisia, and Zevien one by one.

Afterward, they went to One Shot Fiesta where students had to kill a magic beast every two seconds in just one attack. The existing record was nine magic beasts killed in a row with one-shot attacks.

The last one was the All-Around Everywhere training challenge. This training center was the most chaotic because they put students on a football-sized ground filled with enchantment magic formations of different types. Sometimes, they will have to save someone. Sometimes, they have to swiftly kill a magic beast before it killed a child, and sometimes, they had to defend themselves.

The students would get instructions every five seconds when a new mode would start, and they had to complete at least five instructions consecutively without failing to pass the 1st level of All-Around Everywhere.

In the end, the entire academy was in an uproar because all level one records in every training center were broken in one day… multiple times!

This was the final status-

Obstacle Race levels 1 and 2:- Zevien

Slaughter Spiral level 1:- Zevien

Siege Defense level 1:- Vernisia

Hit & Hide level 1:- Zevien

Descending Force level 1:- Zevien

One Shot Fiesta level 1:- Zevien

All-Around Everywhere level 1:- Zevien

…

"How many Skyward merits you got total?" Dan asked as he looked at Zevien and Vernisia.

"Hmm, total 700 from Obstacle Race's both levels, and 250 from the rest of the training challenges," Zevien said. "Total 2200 Skyward merits."

"It was a good idea to let us try to break the record first to get a bonus of 150 Skyward merits," Roman sighed. "Shame. We tried but failed to break all existing records except for a couple of ones."

Vernisia managed to break all records after Siege Defense once.

Dan and Erica managed to break the records of Hit & Hide, Descending Force records, and All-Around Everywhere records once.

Tigger managed to break Descending Force and One Shot Fiesta records once.

Kerolin managed to break Hit & hide & All-Around Everywhere records once.

Hemil managed to break Descending Force and All-Around Everywhere records once.

Roman managed to break One Shot Fiesta and All-Around Everywhere records once.

Jacky managed to break Hit & Hide and Descending Force records once.

Lastly, Leena managed to break Hit & Hide and All-Around Everywhere records once.

…

Everyone returned to their abodes after clearing level 1 in all training challenges.

Zevien and Vernisia continued learning their respective tier-4 magic spells after returning.

Dan, Erica, Kerolin, and Tigger also went to find suitable tier-4 spells after learning Zevien and Vernisia's plan. It was true! They indeed had more spells because of two magic labyrinths, so they could instead get tier-4 magic spells to fill in the gap of the type of spell they were lacking instead of learning multiple low-tier spells.

Now that everyone became 4th class magicians, they could learn two tier-4 spells and still have some space to learn a tier-2 spell.

Dan and Erica had learned two tier-2 spells, so they had to remove one if they wanted to learn two tier-4 spells. But they could do it later.

In the next nine days, Zevien and Vernisia spent most of their time learning their tier-4 spells and finally succeeded.

As they had finished creating spell formation of their tier-4 spells and weaved it in their magic core, they were still outside because they were testing their spells.

But after that, they decided to test their spells against each other.

Vernisia overflowed her casting of <Roving Aegis Guard> magic spell by consuming 15,000 mana. That was almost all of her mana since she possessed 1513 magic power, thus having 15,130 mana in her mana pool. When one cast a magic spell with overflowing mana, that magic spell's power increases significantly, making it worth the additional mana consumed. It could lead to the failure of a spell since it would put pressure on the spell formation and magic core, so one must be careful and cast it stably.

*****

<Roving Aegis Guard>

-Type: Defense-type tier-4 magic spell

-Effect: Consume 10,000 mana to conjure four crystal tower shields around you that will protect you. You can keep it in connecting barrier mode for 360° defense or keep them separate for higher concentrated defense.

*****

The initial spell power was level 4 physical defense and level 4.5 magic defense, but since Vernisia overflow-cast this spell by 5000 mana, their power increased by 1 level. Overflow-cast can stretch a spell formation to its limit, so it also takes a toll on one's magic core.

A magician can't do multiple overflow-cast consecutively because it could risk destroying their own magic core.

Four floating crystal tower shields appeared around Vernisia and surrounded her before they released their power and created a barrier around her. However, Vernisia controlled the shields and brought all of them five meters away from her and stacked them vertically. "Come on, I am ready!"

"Alright, hahaha," Zevien laughed as he aimed his palm towards Vernisia. "Let's see if Ruination Mist Cannon can break past all four shields."

"Try without using Shaman-seed first," Vernisia said as she crossed her arms. "I want to see which of these two spells is better at similar magic power in an overflow-cast."