Manaless Mage

Despite his pitiful loss during the duel with Dan, it seemed like he had still managed to gather a team of his own; a team which included Ace and Nell, the Elementalists who used to bully Harry together with him.

Harry was actually quite surprised when he saw them on Han's team, since he expected them to have deserted Han when the news about his mana core regression became public.

What made it shameful was that his team wasn't even matched against another elite student's team, talk less of one that was in the top five.

Instead, his team was matched against another team filled with stage one Elementalist.

However, due to the duel Han had with Dan a few weeks back, his mana core hadn't completely healed, and his spell-casting speed became even slower.

Apart from that, he had also lost most of his 'fans' who admired him, and was referred to as the elite Elementalist who didn't deserve his position.

While the match was ongoing, he had another one of his episodes with his faulty mana core, and the headache he always felt became even worse.

At first he tried to hold back the pain, however, this still affected his performance, as his mana core wasn't able to properly function.

This was what cost his team their win, due to Han's slow spell-casting speed, their opponent's team was able to easily break through their defenses and grab their flag.

The elemental power of his teammates weren't that high to begin with, so thru couldn't do much to defend their domain.

Despite trying so hard to claim it back, they failed at the end of the day, as Han kept slowing down the team even further, until their opponents successfully planted the flag into their own domain, thereby eliminating Han and the rest of his team from the ranking competition.

Harry's brows furrowed slightly when he remembered how Han completely broke down after getting eliminated.

Due to the way Han bullied and made his academy life worse in the past, one might expect that he would feel very happy about all the bad things that were befalling Han.

But to his surprise, he didn't feel that excited about it, and didn't even care about it the way he thought he would.

He remembered when he used to pray about things like this, and hope that one day Han would also be disgraced like he disgraced him.

However, when something like that did happen, he just didn't feel as gratified as he thought he would.

While he didn't feel pity for Han, since the Elementalist was basically suffering from the consequences of his actions, he didn't feel as happy as he thought he would about it also.

'Whatever… I don't really care,' Harry thought.

***

A few minutes later,

A slight smile appeared on Harry's face as he stared at the mana beast standing in front of him.

At his sides were a pair of silver daggers that he had borrowed from the academy beforehand resting in their sheath.

The beast was about a feet tall, with two thick fangs jutting out of its mouth. body was covered in thick black fur, and had two thick horns on top of its head, making it look like a goat, except that it had fangs.

It growled as it stared at Harry with its horns pointed at him.

'Probe.' Harry thought.

===========

[Name: Black Goat]

[Race: Mutated goat]

[H/P: 100/120]

[Beast Core: 2nd Stage]

[Mana: 65/85]

[Strength: 70]

[Agility: 62]

[Stamina: 81]

[Perception: 52]

[Endurance: 85]

===========

From the beast's stats, it was clear that it was one that excelled in endurance.

Harry had actually been fighting it for a few minutes now, and despite landing a lot of attacks, he still hadn't been able to bring the beast down.

However, as annoying as this may be, fighting against the mana beast wasn't that difficult.

Harry's stats were a lot higher, and the beast's method of attacking was too simple and predictable.

Just then, the beast growled once more, except this time louder, before suddenly charging at Harry with its horns pointed forward.

Mehnnn!!

It let out a loud bleat as the sound of its hooves running across the ground reverberated in the air, the beast rapidly closing in on Harry.

The smile on Harry's face widened a little as he watched the beast close in on him.

Unlike how he usually fought, when he would quickly activate [Accelerate] and ran away from the trajectory of the beast, this time he simply remained in the same position.

Despite the smile on his face, there were beads of sweat rolling down his cheeks.

'Energy control!' Harry hurriedly activated the skill, however, he didn't close his eyes. The moment he activated the skill, he could sense the 'white flame' stirring within him.

Harry hurriedly channeled his energy to his legs, he ignored the refreshing sensation he felt and instead focused on the power flowing through his legs from the energy.

Just as the mana beast was about to close in on him, Harry suddenly bent his knees slightly, before jumping him, using the energy flowing within his legs to power his jump.

This caused the beast to miss him completely as its horns crashed into the tree behind Harry, drilling into the tree.

A chill ran down Harry's spine as he imagined himself in the place of that tree. He was sure that hit would have done some serious damage to his body, and that was if it didn't claim his life.

Though he had a healing skill, he still wasn't planning to go through that.

Few seconds before he landed on the ground, while the mana beast was still busy removing its horns from the tree, Harry pulled his hands backwards.

'Lightning Whip!' Immediately, blue sparks appeared in the middle of his palm, before forming into a long, thin whip made purely of lightning.

***

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