The once orderly conference room had descended into chaos. Several teachers widened their eyes, staring at the large magical screen in the center, gripping the tables as they shot to their feet!
"…?"
The spacious room echoed with murmurs of confusion and shock.
Unless someone had mastered chantless casting—
Otherwise.
This 【Friendly Exchange】 spell card was an absolute nightmare for every traditional mage!
Due to the casting convenience and flexible combinations provided by magic cards, modern mages, even if they studied spells to expand their skill repertoire, rarely trained extensively in chantless casting.
"Did the Magic Engineering Institute secretly develop some new technology again…?"
Even Vice Dean Roan, who had been silently holding his pen this whole time, couldn't help but twitch at the corner of his eye.
He knew.From now on, "Chantless Casting" would have to become a required course at the Sage Institute.
This disgusting card would spread like a virus—starting from Ikrit Academy, then to the Royal Capital, the entire Hetton Kingdom, and eventually to the Southern Continent, even the whole world…
And its creator remained unknown.
There were always card crafters with inexplicable talents who, when crafting their cards, failed to realize how disruptive their creations would be to the environment. Only after their work had been circulating in the market for a long time could their identities be traced.
It seemed that once the exam was over—
Regardless of whether Lance passed or not—
Someone would definitely approach him to investigate the origin of 【Friendly Exchange】.
Or perhaps, they would try to obtain the card from him directly, reverse-engineer its poison magic, and attempt to replicate its casting principle as quickly as possible!
"There's no way he made this himself… right?"
Vice Dean Roan rubbed his temples.
Although there were some students at the Sage Institute who knew how to craft magic cards, it was mainly the Magic Engineering Institute that specialized in card crafting.
A card crafter capable of creating something like 【Friendly Exchange】—even in the entire card crafting industry, that would be considered an explosive existence.
Now, it seemed—
Rather than letting Lance, who held the clues to a "mysterious master card crafter," leave, it would be far more beneficial if he joined the Sage Institute instead.
With Dean Loren around, no one would dare to mess with Lance.
And if 【Friendly Exchange】 started spreading widely in the market, it would become a massive headache for the Sage Institute.
Just where did this newcomer come from?
Lost in thought, Vice Dean Roan flipped through the documents in his hands.
The blank, paper-like résumé only became more suspicious the more he looked at it.
If the previous round’s performance had been a fluke—
Then this was now the second time Lance had completely caught them off guard.
And he still hadn’t even displayed his core abilities as a White Mage.
His entire skillset remained a mystery.
According to the documents—
Lance himself didn’t actually know any spells, and his White Mage designation had been granted by the Magic Tower.
That meant most of his spell slots should be filled with healing magic cards.
At most, he could have two or three pure function-based spells like 【Friendly Exchange】.
But what Roan couldn’t understand was—
Why would someone with such low mana capacity load so many healing cards?
A person's soul had a limit on the number of magic cards it could bind.
The higher the tier of a bound card, the more soul space it occupied.
For example, at Tier 2, Lance could only soul-bind a total of 20 tier levels worth of magic cards.
And he could only bind up to Tier 2 magic cards.
If he advanced to Tier 3, his maximum would increase to 30 tier levels, and he would be able to bind Tier 3 cards.
On the other hand—
If a Tier 2 mage only bound Tier 2 cards, they could only carry ten cards before hitting the limit.
But by mixing in Tier 1 cards, they could bind a larger quantity of spells.
In a way, a magic card’s tier could be seen as a "cost" system.
Lower-tier cards required less soul space.
That’s why high-quality, high-utility lower-tier magic cards were still useful even at higher tiers.
At this moment, Vice Dean Roan thought—
If Lance was actually carrying a full set of function-based spells like 【Friendly Exchange】, and combined that with his high mental energy, which gave him a massive mana pool and high sustained casting ability—
Then he might actually be a terrifyingly effective pure support specialist.
"Even if Lance has shown impressive results, the real challenge is coming next."
"The tier gap is just too massive."
The teachers in the conference room focused intently on the unfolding battle.
What had originally seemed like a one-sided fight had now taken an unexpected turn, sparking a faint glimmer of anticipation.
However, they were also well aware—
The base stats between Tier 5 and Tier 2 or Tier 3 were like an insurmountable chasm.
Even without spells, Flat could effortlessly pummel Lance and Huberian to death with just his fists and basic attack magic.
Not to mention, Flat still had a few small, instant-cast spells at his disposal.
Conversely, the two examinees had almost no way of dealing any significant damage to him.
At most, the odds had shifted from 10 to 0…
To 9 to 1.
On the magic screen—
The battle at the Eleven Great Plains continued.
Flat, momentarily stunned, had now fully grasped the unnatural situation preventing him from chanting spells.
At that realization, a sudden chill ran down his spine.
Instantly, his instincts screamed at him—
Something was coming!
A sharp slicing sound tore through the air.
A silhouette had appeared out of nowhere—
And when she reappeared, she was already lunging straight for Flat’s chest!
Huberian had closed the distance in an instant.
The dagger in her hand was mere inches from piercing Flat’s heart.
And that scorpion-tail-shaped blade gleamed with an eerie crystal light—
Clearly, it was poisoned.
Get lost!!
Flat wanted to roar—
But all that came out was another garbled, strangled sound.
At the same time—
A deep crimson burst of heat exploded from around him!
Even if he couldn’t chant spells, he still had low-tier, small-scale, instant-cast magic available!
The moment the fiery shockwave blasted outward—
Huberian was violently launched backward.
"Haah… Haah…"
Despite taking the full hit, Huberian quickly flipped back onto her feet.
Aside from a few minor burns, she was mostly unharmed.
And the Huberian who had been standing next to Lance had already vanished like an illusion—
Nothing more than a decoy left behind after she cloaked herself with invisibility magic.
“Bastard, you actually dodged it.”
Huberian’s expression was dark as she muttered under her breath.
High in the air—
A thin line of blood had already appeared on Flat’s cheek. The fresh crimson slowly trickled down along the wound, dripping to the ground.
In that split-second, realizing that she wouldn’t be able to land a fatal strike to Flat’s heart, Huberian had thrown every ounce of her strength into hurling her scorpion-tail dagger as a projectile—aiming straight for his head!
But with his extensive combat experience and lightning-fast reflexes, Flat instinctively turned his head, barely managing to dodge the attack.
Yet, at such close range, there was no way to come out completely unscathed.
A searing pain spread from the gash on Flat’s cheek, the veins on his forehead throbbing violently.
Clearly, despite it being just a scratch, the poison had already taken effect. The wound refused to close, even though Flat had already applied Delayed Regeneration on himself before arriving.
And right now—
Flat was still under the Gag Order Lance had inflicted on him, which meant he couldn’t use purification magic to cleanse the debuffs.
On top of that, he had to endure the excruciating throat pain from the spell, leaving him no choice but to rely on his Tier 5 resistance to outlast the poison’s duration.
Granted, the Tier 3 poison on Huberian’s dagger wasn’t lethal to a Tier 5 mage like him.
But Flat could already feel his rage boiling over!
Those two weaklings on the ground—they weren’t even working together properly.
But they were both utterly insufferable.
One was a bleeding, poison-laced, stealth-using rat who couldn’t even be found on the map.
And the other was a damn spell-sealing freak with no telling what other bullshit he might pull next.
These two cursed fools must have been punished by the heavens to end up as teammates!