The Mysterious Black Magician

<Partner, it's coming!> 

(BAAANNNNNNGGG!)

After Sistela's warning, a loud explosion followed immediately which caused another cloud of smoke to erupt in an instance.

Cinde and Rea stared at the smoke with wide eyes and mouth agape. Crimson was nowhere to be seen. 

Basically, inside the smoke.

Rea glances at the entrance to check if Crimson had respawned. But the entrance was as empty as it used to be.

'He's still alive even with that attack?' Rea asked herself. 'The cause of the explosion…? Wait, what was the cause of it?' She was baffled.

In a sense, there wasn't supposed to be an explosion. After all, it was a charging attack using blade-like fins and boomerangs.

So the explosion was an out of place result.

Just after she thought of it: "Ella, look! Someone was sent away from the smoke!" She heard Cinde was pointing in the direction of the smoke. A silhouette was sent away from the smoke after a thunderous explosion.

They glanced at it but they could not discern who it was as it was charred and black.

When it landed on the floor together with a dull sound, the body rolled several times before it went to a stop.

Black fumes were oozing from its body.

Rea and Cinde held their breaths. Then their ears picked some sounds of steps. It was coming from the smoke. They glanced and astonished in an instance with what they saw.

"Crimson!?" Cinde exclaimed after having a clear view of the silhouette's persona.

When the smoke had fully cleared, they noticed him standing unscathed from the attack coming from his back and front.

On top of it, they saw some electrifying spheres as big as golf balls around his body. It was the same spell that was used by the Abnormality with the form of a gigantic gorilla.

It was also the reason why he came back at that time to retrieve his scout bee. Because it copied the spell of that monstrous creature.

Now it was his to use. He combined Sistela's mana and the crimson mana to create these little spheres of scattershot.

Before the enemy and the boomerangs could hit him. He fired them all at once, hitting both the dummy boss and the boomerangs.

However, Cinde and Rea had no idea how it happened.

Though he copied it, he could not use it redundantly as he could not transfer the spell to him without his Skill Modifying ability. For him to be able to use it, he needed to use the Third Version Ant-model Type B Fire Doll to inject it into him.

With this process, he could use the spell even if he wasn't in his Black Magician mode.

<Partner, we have 3 ants left that were carrying the Scatter Shot spell. Be careful!>

Sistela notified him.

"Mhm!" He just nodded to reply.

He just made a total of 5 ants carrier of Scatter Shot last night. In this regard, he could only use it 5 times. But of course, it was a different story if he could use his Skill Modifying ability.

The enemy was blackened as it was hit in a close range. The boomerangs somehow had disintegrated immediately.

He didn't waste more time and shot himself towards the boss with his body surrounded by tiny spheres that were ready to fire whenever he liked it.

The boss was still on the floor. But it was twitching and its body was glowing. Probably, started to heal itself.

While he was advancing towards the enemy, he didn't wait for it to fully heal and shot the valley of scattering shots towards it. Luckily, some of them were able to land on the boss followed by loud explosions.

Another Type-B ant bit him. Then it was followed by the formation of another group of Scatter Shot around him. They were in bright reddish and sparks of lighting were visible on each of them.

They were sticking on his body like they were glued on him.

Rea and Cinde were holding their breaths when Crimson suddenly jumped into the cloud of smoke caused by the explosion of Scatter Shot.

Then they felt a thunderous impact that shook the whole room. Not only once or twice, but it was also followed by a consecutive impact.

They were wondering what was happening inside the smoke.

The smoke seemed not going to dissipate anytime soon as they saw it thickening with the addition of dust.

(Gyeeeeeeee!!!)

They heard an ear-piercing shrill. Then it was followed by a silhouette that flew away from the smoke and crashed on the wall in a loud bang.

Cinde and Rea had their mouths shut. But soon, Rea opened her mouth. "I-Is this how the training is supposed to be?" She asked the question while having a bewildered face. But even Cinde was wondering about it.

The way Crimson fought with the training boss was like fighting it for his life.

And not just that, their battle was so unbelievable that one might think that they were watching a fight between two monsters.

Aside from that, Cinde noticed that Crimson was pulling some new skills that he never showed in the competition. Just how many spells Crimson can use? Cinde asked herself.

Every time he fought, he would never fail to amaze her. Might be the reason she... wanted to befriend him? Or is it just like that? Cinde was asking herself some questions that she never asked before.

She used to only care about playing virtual games inside her rooms and excluded herself from society. Every day she felt it was boring and only in the game that she found happiness, together with her online friends that she never met in real life.

At night, she was tasked to train her magic. As the family's successor of great magic, she could not even say no. It was also the reason that she felt life was boring for her.

Every day was repetitive.

But after meeting him. She felt there was more to life that she wanted to see.

She felt curious about him. And everything he did always amazed her. Now, she wanted to get stronger too like him. Maybe she admired his strength. His being surreal for pulling some tricks that one wouldn't expect. He seemed to be a mysterious person with so many surprises.

She wanted to see more about him. She wanted to witness all the surprise he would pull.

Cinde bit her lips when she felt her heartbeats had started to beat a little faster than normal.

(She wondered why… it has to beat like this…)

Ahead of them, behind the glass window, Crimson shot another Scatter Shot to the enemy. He would never let the enemy until it turns to light particles. 

After he fired it, it was followed by a random explosion to where the enemy was. Then he shot himself towards it, like a rampaging monster.

The enemy had no time to restore its charred body because of its unstoppable follow-up attacks. Crimson arrived in front of it. Then he was slowly lifting his arm. The enemy was stuck in the wall and couldn't move. And in front of it, he was standing while pointing his fist.

His eyes were hidden under his bangs of white hair. Then a toothy grin appeared on his face. A moment after a bead of sweat fell to the floor, he rained rapid punches to the enemy.

The enemy tried to retaliate by shielding itself using its arms. But it was useless in the face of his onslaught. In addition to multiple damages that the enemy received a while ago, his life essence had finally waned.

Until it's endurance was not able to endure all the damages it received. Then a second later, it finally broke, and its body slowly turned into light particles.

But even though it was turning into light particles, he did not stop until the last particle of light lost its flicker.

Cinde gasped in disbelief while watching him.

Rea, on the other hand, was silent while fixed staring at him on a rampage.

Immediately, silence descended inside the room after the boss was killed. Just the heavy gasping of air could be heard inside.

The training suit he was wearing was tattered all over. Even the room was littered with pits and debris, that seemingly acted as evidence of an intense battle that happened in the place.

(Tap tap tap…)

He walked towards the exit. But soon stopped when an announcement from the management of the Training Pavilion resounded inside the room.

Yman glanced above and listen to the announcements.

The first word that the announcer spoke was congratulatory towards him, for successfully defeating the boss of the first stage.

"First stage?" Yman was surprised.

<Does it mean there's another stage?>

[Yes, there's a total of 100 stages to beat. If trainee 'The Mysterious' wishes to proceed to the second stage he can choose to select the <Proceed> choices, or <Leave> to give up and exit the training room.]

Right after the announcer saying it, a box of the holographic screen appeared in front of him.

Inside the box, the text asking to proceed or not could be read. He was asked to select one of the two choices inside it.

"I wonder what Crimson will choose?" Cinde said with a big smile. She was happy that finally, their department would now earn points.

"It's good for him to rest--" Just after Rea said it, a notification saying [Welcome to the Jungle!]  

'He continued! This person is insane!' Rea exclaimed.