Chapter 122 Test

The red wolf was asleep in its cage, but Lucas didn't feel the need to take a closer look. Its teeth were overgrown, sticking out of his mouth. The wolf's mouth was cut and scarred where the teeth grew out. Even its claws felt elongated and were clearly hard to actually use. The fur had some dark spots here and there. Clearly, this wasn't a normal wolf.

"This is a standard Flame Wolf but was infected by a certain disease. Right now it's being forced into a deep sleep, but any being infected with this disease have increased stamina and will go berserk. The only way to stop it is by putting it to sleep or waiting until it's forced to consume every last bit of their life force while fighting. Waiting long enough will kill them, but I don't want to see you running for hours on end, so finish this as quickly as you can."

Lucas knew this was coming, so he had already mentally prepared him to fight, but he wasn't sure how to go about it. Sure, the wolf would just rush at him, so using dark magic would be the easiest since his opponent didn't care about itself.

'What should we do?'

'Isn't it fine? He said to only use dark magic when we know it's going to hit. It's a brainless monster that's gone berserk, we'll hit it with no effort. What's the big deal?'

'We just got lectured on how we should be using it sparingly . It would be a slap in the face if we used it right after he asked us to not do so.'

'Then what do you want to do? Actually fight it without any weapon?'

'We should at least try to. If it doesn't work we can start using some tricks to make the situation favorable for us.'

Lucas didn't know what the wolf would do when it awoke, so he could only speculate. Since there was an element in the beast's name he knew what to prepare. He secretly deployed two magic barriers that contained a bit of water elemental magicules to defend him a tiny bit further.

"Hmm? Creating a defense before I said you could?", he snapped his fingers, destroying both his shields in an instant.

"I didn't even say you could start, plus that would've been useless anyway. Good luck.", as he said the cage disappeared but the beast within stayed. Awoken from its sleep the wolf had a second of conscience before its eyes turned red and it raged forward. The guest teacher had hidden himself from both Lucas and the wolf, making the wolf's target obvious.

It jumped forward with its jaw wide open, Lucas only had a second to dodge.

'It's fast!'

From sleeping to sprinting wasn't something he was expecting. Lucas didn't have a sword or any kind of weapon on him, so magic would have to do the trick. He conjured a few ice spears and launched them at the wolf.

Even though its mind was eroded to the point it could only hunt, its survival instincts were still strong. It dodged all the spears without any effort.

'Fine, plan B!'

The wolf started to rush back at Lucas, he quickly created a simple stone wall in front of him. His control had improved a lot over the last couple of weeks, making him capable of using simple spells in rapid succession.

CRACK

'Dodge!'

The wolf busted through the wall like it was paper. Lucas hastily jumped to the side and needed a second to gain his balance, a second he wouldn't get.

The wolf jumped on him, Lucas could only prevent his demise by grabbing the malformed teeth of the wolf.

'This brings back unpleasant memories. Give me control, I'll end it in an instant.'

'I'd rather not sacrifice another arm.'

The teeth started to slip through his fingers, but that was the least of his worries. He could see a glow at the end of the wolf's throat.

'Shit!'

Lucas planned to kill the beast now that it was stationary, but if he didn't defend they would both be dead.

BOOM

Before the wolf could use its fiery breath, Lucas used his legs to push the wolf off of him. Using muscle strengthening and a small explosion of fire magicules proved to be just enough to launch the wolf in the air.

While it flew a stream of fire was angled right at Lucas's head. Lucas summoned a stream of water to counter it, but it was barely enough. He got up this time to see the wolf already rushing towards him. The aggression was insane to look at.

'Does this thing never get tired?'

Poof!

Using a smokescreen Lucas hid himself from the wolf, he didn't know if it would work since it could probably smell him. Still, at that moment he made sure that he created multiple water balls. They didn't do that much harm except in certain moments.

The wolf gnarled its teeth before sprinting in Lucas's direction again, though this time he was prepared. Before the wolf got to him, a massive amount of water appeared from multiple sides. Since it was only water, the wolf didn't bother dodging.

'Great, it seems it doesn't have any intelligence besides its basic instincts.'

Lucas made sure to run out of the mist cloud before conjuring up a final spell.

'Let's see how resistant to lightning it is.'

A medium-sized lightning bolt jumped from Lucas's hands to the could. Due to all the water in the air and on the wolf, he was certain it would deal a massive amount of damage. The lighting had a field day in all the water, sadly things didn't go the way he expected.

"Are you kidding me?", he couldn't hold it in anymore. All the water in front of him started to gather into one large sphere. The caster was a strange mutated wolf with red fur. Lucas hated this, he didn't have his sword and didn't want to use dark magic to prove his strength. But the wolf was being very annoying.

It was too fast so just throwing things at it wouldn't work, trapping it also didn't work since the wolf could just control the surrounding magic. He thought a mud trap might slow it down, but if a wolf that dedicates its strength to fire can control water almost better than he can, what chance did he have. If he had a sword he could dodge while countering or block some attacks that reveal a few openings, but he didn't have anything.

'Can I take control now? You clearly don't know how to fight against this thing.'

'Sigh, I'll start researching a more powerful healing spell. Go for it, I'm tired.'

The wolf had a massive sphere of water above it fueled with electricity and was ready to strike again.

"First, a defense.", Lucas's arms started to catch fire. Simultaneously he started to create fireballs and didn't wait a second before throwing them to the sphere of water. He couldn't miss his target since the sphere was pretty much stationary, but surprisingly the wolf was as well.

"So you can only focus on one thing at a time? Good."

Lucas rushed towards the wolf, for once the wolf was surprised by the sudden aggression from its prey. Like Lucas assumed, the wolf wasn't in a right state of mind. Its instincts were still active, and it had to protect itself from the lightning attack, making it collect and combine every bit of water to avoid the damage.

But the sudden fireballs and aggression made the little bit of what's left of the wolf's clear mind delirious. Letting go of the water ball would make it fall on both of them. Attacking or running away would result in getting hit by the sphere. The wolf was trapped by its own attack!

The creepy smile and confidence on its prey made it clear that he wouldn't back away even if the wolf let go of the sphere, but standing still would also result in getting attacked. Every second the wolf hesitated, its inevitable demise came closer. Due to its berserk state it couldn't think clearly, but its life was in complete danger now.

The madness took over, and it came rushing at Lucas, both were about to be covered by the sphere, but Lucas kept his grin.

"Dumbass mutt!", Lucas stomped the ground making a pillar right where the wolf was at. The sudden change in elevation and attack on its belly made it stunned for a moment, but the sphere of water was right above it now. Due to the fire, the sphere lost some water, making to that Lucas could avoid getting the water splashed on him.

The wolf couldn't escape and was struck with a massive amount of electricity. After which it fell back to the ground. Lucas didn't stop though, he moved closer to reach his hands on the wolf's neck.

"I knew you wouldn't be dead yet.", calmly he used a bunch of energy to strengthen his muscles to an extreme. The fire on his hands singed the beast's throat. There was barely any resistance, it was still stunned from the previous combined attack.

CRACK

"There ya go. Now sleep."

'Good job, I'm actually impressed.'

'What? Did you think I couldn't fight without sacrificing something?'

'Kinda?'

'When you fight against a human, you need tactics and a good strategy to win. When I fight against the wild, I need to embrace that wildness to overcome our fear. If we kept our distance and never took a risk we would just be running away until it collapsed. We'll need both to succeed.'

'I wasn't expecting such wise words from you.'

'Hmph! Don't underestimate me.'

Lucas sat down and started to meditate. The guest teacher reappeared without a sound and looked at the wolf's carcass.

"So you won in the end, though I have a few questions for you. Why didn't you use dark magic?"

"Huh? Didn't you say we weren't meant to use it minutes ago?"

"I only said to use it when you're certain it would land, I never forbade you from trying."

Lucas put his head in his hands, but then remembered he wanted to ask something himself.

"Wait, hold on a second, you said this was a Flame Wolf, right? Why did it have such a strong control over water?"

"Hmm? Since when do you base your strategy on a name? I did give you the wrong name, but why trust your opponent? It was indeed an Aqua Wolf, but even then, do you think a human with a red core can't control water? I don't think I ever taught you to be careless."

"Dammit, fine."

"For my other question, why did your fighting style change midway of the fight? I was expecting a more... what should I call it, less harmful and risky style?"

"Hahaha, it just seemed to be the best option at that point. Since the aggression was too much to handle I needed to boost my own. Though it did become a bit dangerous, it wasn't as if I didn't have any backup plan."

"Ah, I see, then that's fine. Since you were victorious, I'll give you something good. This is a meditation method to gather more energy while you're meditating. It will simply fasten your recovery speed. I know it might not seem like a lot, but if you win every single duel tomorrow, I'll tell you how to reach the next circle."

That opportunity was very tantalizing to Lucas, especially since he had no idea on how to make any progress with his core. But that would mean standing out and winning against some of the best students in the school.

'We have an annoying day tomorrow.'

'At least I'll have some fun.'

'Sigh, oh well. We should make the best of it.'