Evan’s Technique

Staring at the backs of the heads of Noah and Mia, both of whom were too spaced out to respond, Evan delivered two firm knocks to the backs of their heads.

"Don't think too much about things. There's all the time in the world for your useless thoughts later."

With that, he ran back to his position, expecting the two to pick up the slack. Seeing this, Emma, also in the backline, wryly smiled. Evan was usually hardheaded and stoic, but he had his moments.

Living up to Evan's blind belief in the two's ability to get their heads in order, they jumped back into the fray. Of course, their movements were still a bit dull. Fear could not be overcome so easily with just a few magic words from a comrade. They did however, now manage to fight without holding the others back.

Evan and Emma then started to shine. Being on the backlines, Emma was under lesser stress, and Evan was a man used to high-stress situations even back on earth. The two had learned to work together quite well over the last month, and they were currently picking up the slack that the other two were leaving and more.

Emma's illusions turned the ogre into a stumbling mess, as it saw swords slice it where there weren't, saw powerful attacks from the adventurers where there were weak attacks, and saw weak attacks when it was powerful. Her illusions also employed an ingenious refractive trick that bent light to prevent adventurers from seeing her illusions. Understanding that if the actions of the ogre became too erratic, the adventurers would be unable to predict its movements to pace their attacks, she slightly held herself back from throwing the full might of her illusions at the ogre. With the help of the warrior encirclement, her mana control, only second to Mia's within the group, perfectly controlled the ogre's movements, such that she seemed almost like a puppeteer on a stage. Evan did not miss his chance to capitalize on Emma's feat. If she was the web that held its prey, he was the spider that came for its meal.

Magic in this world used magic seals engraved on catalyst materials, often various gems, to funnel magic into, which would lower the mana cost of certain spells while also boosting casting efficiency. 

The material would suffer spell strain and slowly be worn away to nothing, but this was a better solution than using magic nodes within the magic nodes of one's own body to cast magic.

A marked difference would be noted in the combat capabilities of a mage that did so anyway, as it would also deplete the caster's stamina as well, instead of just depleting mana, as the magic node that was a part of the caster's body would suffer a spell strain due to the magic spell cast from the seal imposed on it. Of course, such a technique had its advantages, such as quicker casting times.

This was because external materials required mana to be funneled into pre-existing engravings on the material, while casting using an innate magic node did not require an engraving, though it was necessary for the mana flow of the seal to be imposed on the node to be used for casting by the caster.

Evan had discovered a method to capitalize on the mechanic of spell strain as a combat technique. Utilizing his supreme dexterity that effectively transformed his hand into a printer, he would concentrate his mana into his hand to accelerate his drawing speed, then carve a magic seal on darts or pebbles, which carried the property of ridiculously high mana resistance. The object that had the mana concentrated on his hand rapidly transferred to it would invoke the spell and explode at the same time and lead to a compound effect of the spell and the object's explosion.

To denizens of this world who spent a ludicrous amount of money to ensure the seals engraved on their gem were perfect, to craft perfect seals within a second was insanity; to craft them onto an object of high resistance just to immediately dispose of them was incomprehensible. A person on Earth could liken it to hiring NASA just to build a cheap car from 2010, only to use said car as a grenade. Put simply, it was idiotic. Yet Evan had made this practical.

The moment the warriors encircling the ogre created a small window of opportunity for the mages to work their magic, Evan decided to use one of the 20 darts tucked away in a bag strapped to his thigh. The darts were limited in quantity due to the size of the thigh bag and were crafted with obsidian, a fairly inexpensive material of high magic resistance, crafted at his request to the palace craftsman. He scribbled a seal on a dart and threw it, a process that took a short 2 seconds.

Then, an explosion of ice and flames ensued. The magic seal drawn on the rock was the First Circle- Ice Needle spell, and the immense mana that Evan possessed as a quirk of being an otherworlder turned the small ice needle into a large ice spear. Immediately following the formation and launch of the ice spear was the explosion front eh speel strain on the rock, which propelled the spear to immense speeds right into the ogre. The results of the finishing move that Evan had been growing fond of spoke for itself.

As the dust cleared, what was immediately obvious was the spear of ice in the flank of an astoundingly not-dead ogre, though on the verge of it. 

However, the adventurers were stunned by such a sudden explosion and were reeling from it. Evan's spell was certainly powerful, but he did not choose the right time to use it, and this undoubtedly broke the meticulous formation the adventurers had developed. Evan realized what he had done out of his moment of inexperience in magic combat and frantically made an effort to throw out another dart and was about to throw it before freezing, realizing that such a move in this situation would only do more damage.

He hurriedly tossed the dart to the ground without activating it, pulling out a pebble to draw another seal. But he was too late. The ogre, though still severely hurt and crouched over, intelligently determined the one who had reduced it to such a state through bloodshot eyes.

The ogre had never experienced such intense emotions or such an intense battle before, and thus it let itself fall prey to its emotions and began to sprint towards Evan in reckless abandon. The ground reverberated with every powerful step the ogre that had lost its rationality took, almost exclaiming the ogre's refusal to hold anything back to unleash its full, unreserved strength and more in a desperate strike.

This was the worst-case scenario for Evan. Although the ogre most definitely had not made the decision to charge at him after careful consideration, it still ended up taking the optimal choice for its survival—a desperate charge towards the highest damage dealer's weakness.