Chapter 297: Exploring The Deep Underground

[Island]

When Sephiria saw Lorius and his group in this underground tunnel and learned that they had been exploring this place since the start of the exam, she couldn't help but be curious on why they did such a thing, seemingly since this place has really bad ventilation and somewhat sickening to people who don't like enclosed space. Additionally this place was really deep underground.

"Why are you guys here anyway?" Asked by Sephiria

Hearing her question Cynthia, one of the members in Lorius group then answered her.

"Well remember when all the professor said that we should atleast find the hidden treasure in this island as one of the way to get a high score in this practical exam? Well if we say treasure, wouldn't it be natural that it should be buried deep underground?"

"... well yes... but this is too deep though"

"It can't be helped, after all the moment we started digging to find the hidden treasure, we somehow dug through the ground and discovered this underground passageway by accident" replied by Rekka

"And since then we begun exploring this place in hope to atleast find the treasure laying on the ground" added by Mario

"Anyway just relax, your too tense... its not like we will eliminate you here..." said by Cynthia

".... well"

However before Sephiria could finish her reply, Cynthia inserted another few words, causing her to somewhat sweat in nervousness.

"In fact the way we are now, anyone of us could take you out.... we're just letting you be since we know that you can't do anything agaisnt us"

In that moment Lorius called out from the front, as he overheard what they were talking about.

"Anyway exploring this dungeon is more fun if there are more people... plus you don't have to worry about the enemies, after all the only enemies here are ants"

"Ants?!?!"

The moment Sephiria said those words, a horde of ants discovered the group, as the screeched out loud, before charging towards her.

"Incoming! Rekka! Cynthia! Just as we practiced!"

Hearing Lorius command, both Rekka and Cynthia went to the front. As they casted a shirt spell and launched it towards the horde causing its formation to be disrupted.

"Strengthening! Magic penetration! Overload! FireBall!!!"

With both of them simultaneously casting three initial spells to strengthen their follow up magic, they then released a fireball spell which is about 3 times more powerful than the original spells without buff. With both of this attack were thrown at the horde of ants, a huge explosion then erupted which literally took out the middle of their formation easily.

Due to this the ants formation was disrupted and no direction as they all came to them like a rain with no flow.

Upon seeing this both Mario and Lorius switched positions with both Cynthia and Rekka, as thei casted out a mana sword and begun attacking the horde of ants.

"Mana wave!!!"

In just one slash, Mario easily took out the Frontline of the monster horde, giving way for Lorius to charge towards the middle of their formation and begun the massacre. With no one to overpower him, the ants one by one fell by Lorius attacks without even making break a sweat.

When Sephiria witnessed this, she couldn't help but realize that had gotten  stronger than he ever was before. The same could also be said towards his teammates.

In that moment as she was amazed by the performance of Lorius group, which can be clearly seen since they are literally working uniformly to the point that they had no opening, a giant ant suddenly appeared behind her, causing her to quickly snap out of her daze and quickly defended herself using her ice elemental magic.

"Ice barrier!!!"

Barely defending against the bite from the giant ant, Sephiria then quickly circled her barrier as she manifested a staff made out of ice on her hand and shot out an attack which pierced through the ants head.

"Ice Lance!!!"

After killing one ant, she then realized another two ants charged towards her on the right, as she quickly flipped her staff, to touch the ground, and immediately froze the ground in front of her.

"Frozen floor!!!"

Due to these, the two ants lost their footing as they slipped on the floor, giving chance for her to deal a fatal blow.

"Ice chasers - 10 bits!!!"

The moment Sephiria launched that spell, she easily blew the two ants into smithereens as it fell to the ground completely dead from the ice chasers that rattled its body with holes.

But the moment she took out the two ants, she suddenly noticed another huge horde of ants coming towards them from the back, as she quickly look back towards Lorius group and saw that they were still pre-occupied by the horde at the front. If this goes on, they will then be surrounded on both sides with nowhere to retreat. With that she had to stop the horde on the back all on her own.

The moment she put that into mind, she then begun to recollect on how she uses her magic back when her life was in peril in the kingdom of Avalon, and use her own ice magic the way she see fit. She may not believe it, but among Shun's peers, she is by far the one who had grown considerably.

Gathering the freezing mana from the surroundings towards her, the ants that were attacking Lorius group stopped in place, as it looked towards Sephiria's location, as if they were attracted by the amount of mana that is being absorb by a single individual. Alongside it, even Lorius and his group members noticed the monsters reaction and glanced towards Sephiria's direction in shock.

Soon after the mana in the tunnel begun to freeze causing Rekka, Cynthia, and Mario to notice ice forming in the surroundings and their breathing becoming heavier as it grew colder. As for Lorius, he couldn't but be surprised and excited, as he was witnessing a person from modern time using magic of the ancient times.

According to what he know, magic in the ancient times are created for the sake of war against the dark forces, due to that the scale of such magic are far in comparison to this peaceful era. At this moment he was witnessing someone using ancient war magic on an era created in peace.

After gathering a huge amount of mana towards her, Sephiria's gaze becomes cold as she released a spell which completely changed the terrain.

"Throne of the Ice Empress!!!"

In just one spell, ice surged outwards to the surroundings, as it completely changed the terrain they were fighting unto and completely morphed the dark tunnel, into thr throne room of the ice palace.

Reality Warping, the moment the ice throne appeared, Lorius realized that Sephiria used a war spell which launched a reality warping space and brought them all into a different plane.

Upon seeing Sephiria sitting in the high ice throne like some kind of an empress of a frozen kingdom, Lorius team members realized that Sephiria was far stronger than they had ever imagined. Just like that they also realized that this version of her, posed an even greater threat towards their team than Shun and Akito combined.