While Raymond was feeling anxious and restless, Leon fished out a few cat's eye stones hidden behind the wooden crate. After circling the area to make sure nothing else was left behind, he called out to Raymond: "Raymond, come give me a hand."
Without waiting for Raymond's response, Leon walked off, carrying those well-cut cat's eye stones.
Raymond was left standing there, dumbfounded. Help you just because you say so? Do I even know you that well?
Besides, for these cheap magical materials, you actually want me, a proper mage, to help? Are you kidding me? You think mages are like cabbages on the street, sold for two copper coins apiece?
Raymond entered the Gilded Rose with a stomach full of complaints.
Just so we're clear, don't ask me for anything too troublesome. I don't have that much mana to waste. Don't think just because I'm a mage I can throw it around. The mana consumed by a mage's spell is beyond what you apprentices can imagine—hey, are you even listening to me?
Raymond grumbled for ages, but got no reaction from the other side, so he finally glanced over, curiosity piqued.
Then, Raymond jumped up in shock.
"Damn it, what are you doing? Stop right now!"
When Raymond looked up, he saw Leon shaking a test tube filled with thick, red liquid—undoubtedly a solution of Scarlet Coral. The sight drained the color from the young mage's face. Scarlet Coral solution was notoriously unstable; heat and agitation could trigger violent magical surges, and those surges were terrifyingly disproportionate to the material's cheap price. If one went off, it would be a disaster—not just for the alchemy lab, but for the entire Gilded Rose, which would be leveled.
That kind of destructive power far surpassed a mage’s level—dangerous and overwhelming.
For thousands of years, countless people had tried to harness this power. Generation after generation of pioneers hoped to master such dangerous and potent energy, but sadly, after millennia, the Scarlet Coral solution remained an unsolvable problem. Those pioneers met their ends in one accident after another—either dead or crippled.
In the past hundred years, Scarlet Coral solution had even become taboo in alchemy. Any apprentice just starting out would be repeatedly warned by their teacher: there are many ways to handle Scarlet Coral, but dissolving it is absolutely not one of them.
Undissolved Scarlet Coral was just an ordinary magical material—mediocre conductivity, plus the ability to release a faint trickle of mana for two or three days. These two traits pretty much doomed Scarlet Coral to low-end magical conductor status.
And with Scarlet Coral’s steady supply—sometimes even exceeding demand—its price had always been kept low. In the Northend World, it was one of the cheapest magical materials around.
But once it became a solution...
Just thinking about it made Raymond’s face go pale. As he tried to stop Leon, his voice even trembled: "Did you hear me? I said stop—damn it, what are you doing!"
Raymond couldn’t even finish his sentence. He saw, clear as day, that after shaking the test tube, that lunatic started courting death for real—he lit an alcohol lamp and put the tube full of Scarlet Coral solution right on top...
If he didn’t stop it now, something truly catastrophic would happen!
Just imagining the destructive power of a Scarlet Coral solution explosion made cold sweat break out on Raymond’s forehead. He didn’t care about lecturing Leon on alchemy anymore—he just cast a Frost Nova, using a shortened incantation and a moving cast. The massive drain nearly wiped out a third of Raymond’s mana in an instant; for a mage, that was practically half his life gone.
Still, that was better than losing his whole life. After expending so much mana, the Frost Nova was faster and more powerful than ever. The moment the incantation finished, a biting chill swept through the spacious alchemy lab, and a ribbon of icy blue light snaked out, instantly snuffing the alcohol lamp.
But that wasn’t all. After extinguishing the lamp, the icy blue light spread like wild vines, crawling first over the test tube full of Scarlet Coral solution, then up Leon’s right hand. In the blink of an eye, his entire hand was frozen solid.
“Good thing nothing happened...” Raymond wiped his cold sweat, still shaken. If he’d been a few seconds later, the whole lab would’ve blown sky-high. That lunatic had no sense at all—playing around with Scarlet Coral solution! If you want to get yourself killed, fine, but don’t drag me down with you...
Raymond was left rattled, his nerves shot. Truth was, with his skill, he could’ve controlled the Frost Nova perfectly—just snuff out the lamp and freeze the test tube, no need to ice up Leon’s whole hand.
That’s right—Raymond did it on purpose.
That idiot needed a lesson, plain and simple.
Otherwise, he’d really think a mage apprentice could be treated as an equal by a full mage. If it weren’t for my old man, a debt-ridden apprentice like you wouldn’t even get a glance from me—let alone boss me around. Try that with someone else, and you’d have been turned into an ice sculpture by Frost Nova centuries ago!
I’ve put up with you long enough!
Raymond had it all planned out when he cast Frost Nova—freeze that idiot for an hour or so, then play the merciful savior and let him out, all while giving him a stern talking-to. That should keep him in line for a while. If his dad ever asked, Raymond could just blame the whole thing on the danger of Scarlet Coral solution. It wasn’t even a lie—the stuff really was that risky. He’d only done it for Matthew Merlin’s safety, after all...
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The more Raymond thought about it, the more satisfied he felt—so much so that he didn’t even notice that, at the moment Leon was frozen, there wasn’t a hint of panic on his face.
Which made sense. For someone who’d witnessed the end of the world firsthand, Leon wasn’t about to be rattled by a Frost Nova-level attack. Besides, this one didn’t even count as a real attack. Raymond had no idea that the person standing here was also a mage—a freak who’d formed a Mana Vortex in minutes. Raymond might have become a mage sooner, but in terms of true power, they weren’t even in the same league.
Faced with Raymond’s mana-draining Frost Nova, Leon didn’t even bother with a spell—just mobilized his Mana Vortex and formed a thin magical shield.
That shield was crude, just a pile of raw mana without any elemental arrangement. If another mage tried it, the Frost Nova would’ve frozen both shield and caster into a block of ice.
But clearly, Leon wasn’t your average mage...
More than twenty years of surviving the apocalypse had given Leon not just knowledge far beyond his era, but spellcasting skills to match. This power had nothing to do with rank—it was earned with blood and life in the harshest conditions. In this age, no mage in the Northend World understood magical combat better than Leon. Countless escapes from sand beast claws, endless dances on the edge of death, years of hunting and being hunted had honed his instincts to something feral—he didn’t even need to think to know the most mana-efficient way to kill.
Take that magical shield, for example—it looked rough, like it couldn’t withstand a spell, but when Leon cast it, it blocked Raymond’s Frost Nova perfectly.
Not too much, not too little—just right.
Almost as soon as the icy mist faded, the shield ran out of mana. The thick layer of ice looked like it had frozen Leon’s right hand, but it was really just the shield. When the mana was spent and the shield vanished, Leon simply shook his hand, and chunks of ice clattered to the floor...
"No way..." Raymond’s eyes went wide, unable to believe what he was seeing. How could a mage apprentice block Frost Nova with just his body? Even for a mage, that was impossible. Frost Nova might be a control spell, not known for brute force, but it was still a second-level spell. No flesh and blood could withstand that—so how did this lunatic pull it off, and succeed?
Something’s not right here!
That’s it...
Even if he was down on his luck now, Leon was still Roger Merlin’s son. Back when Goldspark Trading Company was at its peak, they were richer than some kingdoms. Roger Merlin doted on his only son, even opening an alchemy shop for him—of course he’d have prepared some alchemical items. Maybe even a magic artifact!
It had to be a defensive magic artifact that blocked the Frost Nova.
That’s right, that must be it!
Otherwise, how could that lunatic come out of Frost Nova without a scratch?