Wizard: Starts with Advanced Meditation

After a month of practice, Hughes's control over the Shattering Impact has become increasingly refined. Now, he can condense an energy ball the size of a washbasin, enough to directly shatter the head of a frost-skinned dwarf.

However, while anchoring a target to spatial coordinates can ignore defenses, the anchoring process takes a relatively long time.

This isn't because Hughes isn't familiar with coordinate anchoring; rather, wizards naturally radiate magical particles to interfere with others' magic and harm themselves. This is also why formal wizards can largely ignore apprentices' magic—in layman's terms, "magic resistance."

Especially when facing these frost-skinned dwarves who are about to be promoted to third-class wizard apprentices, Hughes's anchoring will be greatly disturbed because their souls and magic are more powerful, and the time required will also increase significantly.

What's more troublesome is that even though the energy cluster of "Shattering Impact" itself is not easy to dissipate, powerful magical attacks can still affect it or even break it apart directly.

Therefore, Hughes simplified his sorcery runes, making the simplified Shattering Impact faster, but it was still just a regular shockwave. As for the Shattering Impact that ignored defenses, he would save it for a fatal blow.

With the simplified version of Shattering Impact, Hughes dealt with these frost-skinned dwarves with ease, like cutting melons and vegetables.

The Shattering Impact was already incredibly powerful; even if the released energy ball only hit their Frost Iron Armor, it could easily shatter it.

After dealing with the Frostskin Dwarves, Hughes intended to take a closer look at the artifacts they had crafted and, incidentally, restore his magic power.

Unexpectedly, a muffled loud bang suddenly exploded from nearby. Hughes looked up and saw Soya and Elena fighting not far away.

Hughes crept up quietly, intending to ambush Soya and also test how effective the current Shattering Impact would be on a third-class wizard apprentice—the last time he encountered Reber had long since become an undead creature, and the interference with anchoring coordinates on him was very weak.

Just as Hughes was about to launch his attack, a gaze suddenly fell upon him. Hughes looked up and saw that the gaze came from Irena, who was constantly dodging.

She glanced at Hughes indifferently, and for some reason, Hughes understood the meaning of her gaze—that she was telling him not to make a move yet.

"Is it some kind of psychological suggestion from the Mindset school?" Hughes wondered.

Although puzzled, he withdrew the simplified version of the Shattering Sphere Impact he was about to unleash and instead anchored spatial coordinates on Soya, wanting to see if he could successfully anchor on a proper third-class wizard apprentice.

Anchoring a third-class wizard apprentice was indeed very difficult. Hughes observed the duel between the two while anchoring the coordinates.

Gradually, Hughes's gaze fell on the black greatsword in Soya's hand—he recognized that the runes on the edge of the greatsword seemed to have the effect of amplifying lightning magic.

As for the magic runes of the sorcerer, although Hughes couldn't understand them at all, one of their uses was probably to store lightning elements—which is why Soya dared to cast lightning element magic so recklessly.

So Hughes instead anchored the spatial coordinates on Soya's right hand...

Just as Hughes completed the spatial coordinate anchoring, perhaps coincidentally, Elena suddenly made a move from afar.

Ice mist enveloped her again, but this time, instead of protecting her as before, it gathered around her and shaped into a bat.

The ice mist bats nimbly dodged streaks of lightning, flying swiftly towards Soya's head. Soya raised his left hand, a lightning serpent conjuring in his palm, and suddenly darted towards the ice mist bats in the air.

However, the ice mist bats nimbly dodged the incoming lightning snakes. Unexpectedly, the lightning snakes suddenly exploded, shooting out fine bolts of lightning from their bodies. But the ice mist bats were surprisingly powerful; the lightning failed to destroy them.

The ice mist bats suddenly accelerated, pouncing on Soya's face in an instant. The next second, the ice mist exploded, and a layer of frost instantly formed on Soya's face, temporarily obscuring his vision.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Hughes unleashed the World Shattering Impact he had prepared beforehand. A ball of energy the size of a washbasin shot out, heading straight for Soya's head.

Soya had clearly prepared for his vital areas, immediately gathering lightning in his palm to protect his head. Unexpectedly, the energy ball suddenly changed direction and slammed into his unsuspecting right hand.

"Bang—clang!"

The energy ball exploded with a deafening roar, the terrifying energy shattering his hand into pieces, and the jet-black giant sword also slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground.

"Ahhhhh—"

The excruciating pain in his hand enraged Soya. Taking advantage of the situation, Hughes swiftly unleashed a simplified version of the Shattering Impact on the black greatsword, the powerful impact immediately propelling the greatsword toward Elena.

Elena instantly understood and was about to put the black greatsword into her storage bag when a ring of electricity suddenly appeared around Soya. He roared, and the ring of electricity instantly shot out dense lightning in all directions.

A barrage of lightning struck Hughes and Elena, both of whom promptly cast defensive spells. Although they did not suffer any real damage, they were momentarily stunned.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Soya extended his left hand, and saw white runes light up on the hilt of the giant sword. The entire sword then slowly rose and flew automatically toward his left hand.

The greatsword returned to his hand, and Soya also conjured a giant purple lightning claw at the wrist of the severed hand.

The giant claw took the greatsword from its left hand and gripped it firmly. Immediately afterward, lightning from its right claw surged wildly into the greatsword, instantly covering the entire blade with raging lightning.

Soya slammed his greatsword into the ground, and instantly, several pillars of lightning erupted from it. Elena and Hughes leaped and dodged across the ground, avoiding the frequent bursts of lightning beneath their feet.

Although the lightning stored in the greatsword could greatly reduce the magic power consumption when Soya mobilized the elements, after these few intense attacks, the lightning stored in the greatsword and Soya's own magic power were almost depleted. He quickly stopped and ceased releasing lightning pillars.

He turned and charged at Hughes, intending to deal with the relatively weaker apprentice first. Soya raised his greatsword high and slashed at Hughes with its sharp blade.

Hughes hastily dodged backward, his greatsword slamming heavily into the ground, leaving a deep crack. Soya then extended his lightning-struck claws, poised to grab Hughes.

Hughes unleashed a deflection field, and an invisible force instantly swerved Soya's giant claw to the left. Hughes narrowly avoided it.

Soya was horrified. His giant claw was made of lightning element that had been solidified, and it could have easily broken through level zero defensive magic. However, he did not expect to be defeated by spatial magic.

Seeing that Hughes's deflection field had dissipated, Soya gritted his teeth and detonated the lightning claw he had painstakingly condensed.

A dense bolt of lightning instantly enveloped Soya and Hughes, accompanied by a series of crackling sounds and a strong smell of burning.