Chapter 69: Fighting a Tier 4

It wasn’t like Julius had much of a choice. Gabriel might have been teasing him, but he was right. Learning techniques and sparring while handicapped was good and all, but he would need to push himself and go all out if he wanted to see actual results.

Julius didn’t say anything to Gabriel, he just walked over to a bench where a pile of silver bracelets was lying in a container and grabbed two pairs of them. He snapped a pair over his own wrists, feeling them resize and activate the enchantments inscribed on them. Then he tossed a pair to Gabriel, who also didn’t say anything but smiled like a maniac seeing Julius’s actions.

Julius walked a couple dozen paces away and turned around, staring at Gabriel with a smile of his own.

“Why are you so far away? Getting nervous?” Gabriel taunted.

“I thought you wanted to see me go all out?” Julius asked.

“And you need to be far away do that? You act like you’re a mage.”

“Who said I wasn’t?” He said.

Gabriel’s face was confused for a moment, wondering why Julius would say that.

Julius’s smile got much wider as he saw the realization on Gabriel’s face. He hadn’t gone all out since the rift. It hadn’t even been a couple of weeks yet, but to Julius, it felt like an eternity and his blood was on fire at the thought of it.

Julius didn’t even go all out with Declan, he was too afraid of the collateral damage he might cause in the courtyard if he did. However, now that he was in a training facility that was able to handle Tier 4’s he wasn’t as nervous. If Gabriel wanted a fight, Julius would give him one.

Julius watched as a barrier much like the one during his practical exam dropped down, surrounding the area.

“On my count,” Gabriel said. “Three.”

Julius activated [Savage Dance].

“Two.”

Then he activated [Kinetic Augmentation] and [Empowerment of Will], letting the surge of energy rush through him.

“One.”

Finally, Julius grabbed ahold of a fuck ton of mana, getting ready to bombard Gabriel.

“Go!”

Gabriel didn’t allow Julius any time to create his constructs and tried to close the distance using his movement skill. Julius discharged a pulse of kinetic energy beneath his feet the second Gabriel said go, knowing that the man was going to bumrush him.

As he blasted himself across the gym, he used [Arcane Construct], [Pure Compression], and [Mana Layering] to create a dozen condensed spikes of fire and kinetic energy. They formed within a blink, his new skill making the process unbelievably quick. [Mana Layering] wasn’t that high-level yet, but Julius was able to create several hard layers of woven mana within the spikes. They were much stronger than the ones he had used to kill the trolls.

Gabriel was chasing after him and was right on top of Julius. His speed was ridiculous for a man his size. But he was still unable to close the gap in time before Julius slung half of the spikes right at Gabriel’s face and chest.

Julius saw the same mana defensive skill from last time activate. Gabriel didn’t try to even dodge, completely eating his constructs, thinking they were similar to last time, just a bit bigger. It was a mistake on his part.

The spikes didn’t penetrate through Gabriel’s defense, but they did crash into him with a ferocious bang, and then they exploded and blasted him off of his feet.

Julius was impressed that his new and improved spikes didn’t even leave a mark. If he had shot them at the chieftain, Julius suspected they would have skewered the troll even through its aura ability.

Tier 4’s were on a whole other level and Julius expected that Gabriel was still taking it easy on him.

Gabriel had already gotten back up and was wearing a toothy smile. “Damn! Those things pack a punch! Also, the speed of forming them was impressive. You might have one of the best offensive power in your year.”

“One of the best?” Julius asked with an interested expression. That would mean that there were students who could match his firepower and that was after Gabriel just saw one of his usual attacks.

“Yeah, don’t be too surprised. This is Goldencrest for a reason. I know for a fact there are several students with perfect affinities in your year who can throw around powerful attacks like that. They don’t have your close combat skills though.” Gabriel informed him.

Julius had really thought there wouldn’t be anyone who could stand with him when it came to sheer firepower, but it seemed that he was wrong.

“But you should work on creating a layer of disrupting mana so that they can break through my [Extreme Mana Resistance] and [Steel Fortress].”

“[Extreme Mana Resistance] and [Steel Fortress]?” Julius asked, forgetting about their fight for a moment

“Yeah, some of the better mages learn how to cover their attacks with disruptive mana or use other techniques that have the same result. People like me with defensive skills would otherwise easily handle your attacks. Don’t worry though, it is usually a Tier 3 technique when you can control ambient mana better,” Gabriel explained to him.

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That was something to consider. He knew about the [Disrupt Mana] skill, so it would make sense that there was a skill or technique for disrupting someone’s defenses.

“How does that work?” Julius curiously asked him.

“No idea, I’m not a mage,” Gabriel straight up told Julius.