Chapter 376: You Must Be Dreaming
Unfortunately for Brooke, she would never have expected that Shye was simply all too used to being everyone's most hated rookie.
If she thought that Shye's heart would be shaken merely by people hating on him, she was dead wrong.
Satisfied with how Corey introduced him, Shye took both of his elemental staffs out.
Then, he assumed his fighting stance soon after, prompting Brooke to do the same.
"Brooke! You can do it!"
"It's impossible for someone to be invincible! This Shye Crowley has a weakness, just like everyone else!"
"Brooke! You can't do it! My boss is too strong! He's literally invincible, don't listen to these guys!"
…Brooke was in the middle of appreciating the crowd's support when suddenly, a loud young woman's voice that seemed to have the same tone as those who supported her, sounded from the stands.
Only, the young woman's words contradicted the tone of her voice.
'This little sl–...Hmmph! Shye Crowley's underling…What a hateful wench…I better not listen to this infuriating woman…'
Forcing herself to ignore Seira, Brooke's good mood was spoiled.
Still, in a great mood or not, she had to fight.
"Begin!"
Finally, under thousands of excited gazes, the referee announced the commencement of the anticipated mage versus mage battle.
Stepping away from each other, Shye narrowed his eyes.
'For starters, let's see who has the stronger spells…Fireball!'
As Shye aimed his ruby-tier elemental staff at Brooke, a roaring ball of flame suddenly materialized out of thin air, causing the temperature to drastically rise as the fiery spell shot ferociously across the stage.
Surprisingly, from the other side of the stage, the same blazing sphere flew, this time, toward Shye.
Embers roared and lingered in the air as the two fireballs clashed, illuminating the stage in mesmerizing hues of tangerine and scarlet.
However, as flashy as the collision of spells was, the results weren't as exciting as one side was utterly overpowered by the other.
Even though her fireball spell was of a superior level, Brooke lost the head-on clash of spells.
There were several determining factors at play, including the discrepancy in their intelligence attributes, Shye's overall mana reserves, and the contrast between their platinum-tier and ruby-tier weapons.
Despite his fireball being only level 4, Shye's superiority in the aforementioned aspects led to his fireball overpowering Brooke's.
It wasn't even close.
Blinking away to dodge the roaring spherical flame flying towards her, Brooke clicked her tongue in annoyance.
She expected to lose the head-on clash but…not this badly.
'Seems like I have to rethink my approach…' Brooke inwardly thought, narrowing her eyes at Shye, who was smiling as though his victory was already official.
While she didn't harbor genuine hatred toward Shye, she couldn't suppress the urge to grit her teeth in frustration at the sight of his stupid, self-satisfied expression.
Well…if she was Shye, she would also be smiling widely.
[Congratulations! You've earned 17,890 points!]
'Nice! phase one of my point extraction plan: done!'
Shye didn't expect to obtain such a huge amount of points from a simple fireball clash, hence, he couldn't suppress a smile from emerging on his face, pissing off Brooke in the process.
Nonetheless, there existed no genuine animosity between them, and as long as Brooke refrained from taking things too personally, Shye wouldn't either.
Fortunately, Brooke had no intentions of doing so as first of all, she wasn't too prideful despite being one of the top ten Balkrow rookies, fully knowing that she was nothing but a big fish in a small pond.
On the grand stage, she might discover herself to be average.
Thus, to spare herself the potential humiliation, Brooke wisely kept her ego in check, preventing it from inflating too much.
As a result, not only was she grounded in reality, but she was also consistently determined to grow stronger.
In short, Brooke…wasn't a delusional lady.
If the two of them met under different circumstances, they might have been even friends.
Maybe in the future, they could, but for now, they were enemies.
Since she wasn't egotistical, Brooke was able to easily adjust her approach.
She can't win in a head-on clash of spells? Fine, try winning in other areas!
A wise decision from someone who wasn't clouded by delusions of grandeur.
'Spell Accel!'
Casting a buff spell that would increase the acceleration speed of her offensive spells, Brooke barely dodged yet another larger-than-usual wind cutter from Shye.
She then chanted gibberish for one second, summoning violent winds and turning it into a wind cutter of her own.
The next moment blew everyone's minds.
*FWOOSH!*
The wind cutter shot across the air at terrifying speeds, catching even Shye, who had ridiculously fast reflexes, off guard.
As a result, the wind cutter cleanly hit his body, eliciting thunderous cheers from the crowd and bringing unexpected elation to Brooke's heart.
'Hahaha! You've been careless, Shye Crowley! Turns out, you're not as invincible as what your underling was saying! Hahaha!' Brooke inwardly celebrated as she watched Shye being forcefully propelled nearly ten meters back by the direct impact of her spell.
She was confident that not even a tough warrior could take her full-powered skill unscathed, hence, Brooke was sure that Shye suffered tremendous damage, with another spell or two, she would win!
Eager to upset the renowned Shye Crowley, Brooke swiftly cast another spell, only for her focus to be disrupted the next moment.
"Oh? Your spells are quite strong, unfortunately, you'll need to hit me with a lot of those before you can win." Shye said, wiping the thin stream of blood trickling down the corners of his mouth with a nonchalant expression.
Upon hearing Shye's calm voice, Brooke couldn't resist halting her incantation, her gaze shifting to him with a perplexed expression.
"How?!"
At first, she had the urge to tell Shye to stop pretending, however, such a calm demeanor cannot be faked.
This could mean only one thing: her spell...truly didn't hurt her adversary that much...
"NYAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Didn't I tell all of you?! My boss is invincible! Like, literally! How can a single spell take him out?! You guys must be dreaming!"