Chapter 0074: Flame Shield

Ever since discovering the remarkable benefits of dietary supplements for a wizard apprentice’s physical conditioning, the daily magic energy meal became an unshakable routine in his life. Under his subtle guidance and encouragement, Mary soon became a captive of “gourmet delights” as well, joining him in their daily indulgence of wild feasting. If not for the necessary exercise after each meal to aid the absorption of elemental active substances, Grim would have replaced all three daily meals with magic energy feasts without hesitation.

The following days fell into a steady pattern. Each morning was reserved for the rigorous study of sorcerous knowledge. Grim made full use of the chip’s assistance to pour vast amounts of arcane theory into his mind, systematically storing all he learned. Noon became the most anticipated time of day, when they enjoyed their culinary treasures. The two of them sampled nearly every magic energy meal the wizard tower offered, finally choosing those most suited to their tastes. Grim’s favorite remained the Stir-fried Heart and Liver of the Fire Hound, while Mary’s was the blood of the Two-Legged Wyvern.

Their daily expenditure of nearly fifty magic crystals yielded astonishing results. Both of their constitutions soared—Grim’s physical strength grew by 0.3 points each day. Mary’s increase was not as dramatic, but still left her beaming with satisfaction.

After their feasts, afternoons were devoted to “moderate exercise”—or so Mary called it as she dragged Grim into the arena for a thorough thrashing. In the arena, Grim became the perfect human punching bag, suffering at Mary’s hands until he was half-dead.

Facing Mary at her full speed, Grim could barely catch her fleeting figure even with the noble’s circlet enhancing his senses. The blazing streams of fire he wielded with both hands, if even the slightest bit slow, would earn him five new shallow cuts on his body.

In the first three days, each bout left Grim battered and bruised. His body, just beginning to show signs of toughness, ended up covered in a dense web of claw marks, as if a hundred cat-women’s feet had trampled over him.

Grim ruefully realized that, without the aid of a golem, facing Mary alone was nothing short of masochism. Mary could gently “caress” him down to a single point of vitality, while his wildly swinging fire pillars could not even brush the hem of her clothes.

At first, Grim could sometimes catch Mary off guard with a sudden change of direction from his fire streams. But against an agile assassin like her, the same trick failed the second time. Without a suitable defensive spell, relying solely on Burning Hands would never stop Mary’s onslaught.

As for why he didn’t use Flame Arrow or Flame Lance—there was no point in discussing it. If a spell as swift as Burning Hands couldn’t touch Mary, spells like Flame Arrow or Flame Lance, which required three seconds of incantation, were out of the question.

To salvage a shred of dignity, Grim broke his own vow and secretly had the chip scan and record Mary’s attack patterns and habits, then built a small battlefield spellcasting assistance system. With this system, the chip could analyze Mary’s combat posture and, using rapid calculations, predict her most likely positions and the areas she would target.

With the chip’s help, Grim finally managed to catch Mary once.

Unfortunately, this brief success only enraged her. In a sudden burst of speed, Mary’s crimson silhouette unleashed a flurry of savage blows, and Grim was reduced to a bloody mess in less than five seconds.

At this, Grim had to admit his admiration. Mary, without the chip’s precise assistance, could still make her attacks so accurate every time—exposing her perfect control over an opponent’s life force and her ruthless brutality.

The wizard tower’s arena was ingeniously designed, offering two modes for apprentice duels: trial sparring and life-and-death combat. In trial mode, should an apprentice’s vitality drop to dangerous levels, any further attack would trigger the arena’s defenses, enveloping the injured apprentice in an impenetrable shield. In life-and-death mode, there was no such safety net.

Mary’s brilliance lay in her ability to bring Grim to the brink of death without ever triggering the arena’s protection. This was what Grim truly feared.

Thus, every afternoon became a painful journey of self-inflicted torment for Grim. Each session ended with him skinned to the blood and dragged out of the arena by Mary, the only difference being how long he lasted.

On the first day, he lasted half a quarter of an hour.
On the second, a full quarter hour.
On the third, he might have managed longer, but he provoked Mary and was finished off in five minutes.
On the fourth, he survived half an hour—his most perfect coordination with the chip.
On the fifth day, he endured the full scheduled hour unscathed. For his Flame Shield had finally appeared.

It was utterly unexpected.

Under the pressure of the terrifying Blood Queen Mary, Grim mastered all the prerequisite knowledge for the Flame Shield a day ahead of schedule and managed to cast it before battle began.

Flame Shield was a defensive spell, manifesting as a shield forged of elemental fire. Once cast, it hovered one meter from Grim’s body, circling him constantly. The shield stood one and a half meters tall and a meter wide, boasting excellent resistance to both physical and magical attacks, and inflicting counter-damage in melee.

Mary tried to exploit her incredible agility to close in on Grim, but her razor-sharp claws could not penetrate the shield’s defense. The seemingly small shield was, in fact, intelligently reactive; it would shift to intercept any incoming attack.

Thus far, Mary had yet to master any renowned melee techniques. Her attacks remained primitive—relying on her swift movements and resilient body for brute force. If she had any special technique, it was channeling her blood magic into her claws, enabling her strikes to drain an enemy’s blood and feed herself in return.

But lacking powerful techniques, her attacks were not strong enough, inflicting only 9 to 13 points of damage each time. The Flame Shield, however, offered a defense of 35 points—far beyond what Mary’s typical attack could break.

Once Grim mastered the Flame Shield, the tide of battle turned. Before, Grim had struggled desperately to defend himself, whittled down by Mary’s relentless assault. If he focused solely on defense, he might last longer; if he dared attempt a counterattack, he would be toyed with to death.

But now, with the Flame Shield in play, Mary’s close-range attacks not only failed to breach his defenses, but scorched her claws black with the shield’s retaliatory flames. Even her red dress, lacking magical protection, was burned through in several places.

Rarely holding the upper hand, Grim was overjoyed. Leisurely admiring Mary’s fiery, explosive figure, he loudly chanted the incantation for Flame Arrow, sending bursts of flame chasing her elusive silhouette. For the first time, he no longer feared that a moment’s distraction would leave him with five new claw marks.

Grim’s relaxed, strolling attacks only enraged Mary further. On the thirty-seventh second of his gloating, she once again reduced him to a bloody mess. But this time, the arena’s defenses triggered—a transparent shield enveloped him, repelling Mary far away and exposing her charred, blackened front.

Gazing at Mary’s scarlet eyes glaring at him from behind the shield, Grim could not help but sigh. Mary was as strong-willed as ever.

With Mary’s melee strength, breaking the Flame Shield was theoretically impossible. Yet, faced with her indomitable competitiveness, even the chip’s calculations became unreliable. In a furious burst, Mary withstood the shield’s retaliatory flames and Grim’s dual fire attacks, focusing a triple strike on the same spot and, by stacking damage, managed to shatter Grim’s tortoise-like protection.

And so, Grim was “Spartanized.”

The agony of elemental fire roasting flesh is not something ordinary people can bear. Though Mary’s formidable body allowed her to heal and rejuvenate by drinking blood, she could not escape the pain—it could only be endured through sheer will and determination.

All this, just to avoid being bested by Grim even once in daily training. She was willing to endure such torment rather than let him prevail, even briefly. Her fierce resolve and stubbornness moved Grim deeply.

If their roles were reversed, Grim admitted he could never do the same.

Faced with a woman ruthless to her enemies and even more so to herself, Grim could only concede defeat in his heart.

Still, Grim quietly assigned a new research task to the chip: how to control Flame Shield with his mind to avoid cumulative, multi-pronged attacks from an enemy.

But, regrettably, after the fifth day, Mary no longer dragged Grim to the arena for "exercise." Instead, she became a fixture in the wizard tower’s public library, searching day and night for ways to penetrate elemental shields.

This, of course, made Grim apprehensive all over again.