Wizard: Starts with Advanced Meditation

As the water sphere hurtled towards him, Pikulin's eyes flashed with green light, and a sinister smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

"Is that all you've got?! You're getting worse and worse—Cyrus!!"

He roared, and the green light around him surged and condensed in front of him. With a hum, a green staff appeared in his hand.

At the top of the staff, a rhombus-shaped crystal floated silently, surrounded by several bands of light woven from green runes.

"Buzz—"

With a gentle wave of his hand, Pikulin instantly created a semi-transparent green light shield in front of him. The runes flowing on the shield writhed like living things, radiating a chilling energy fluctuation.

"Bang—!"

The water sphere collided violently with the light shield, splashing water everywhere. The violent water flow impacted the light shield, and the runes on its surface moved to the light shield, attempting to disintegrate it.

But the green shield was like an impregnable fortress; no matter how raging the water or how the runes tore at it, the energy on it did not diminish in the slightest.

Cyrus's expression grew increasingly grave. He clutched his chest, enduring the discomfort in his body, his fingertips flashing with runes as he prepared to unleash a more powerful spell. Suddenly, Pikulin sneered and pointed his staff at the light shield.

"Bang—crash—"

As the crystals flickered, the light shield shuddered violently, and the water sphere was instantly dissolved by the power of the light shield, along with the runes on its surface, and broken down into tiny specks of light.

"You—deciphered my runes?!"

"Sylvain," Seiler said in a deep voice, the runes on his fingertips disappearing and turning into a few wisps of clear, transparent water.

"Hehehe... That's right—I'm improving too!!"

Pikulin roared, and the crystal burst forth with intense green light. The green light around him transformed into several vine-like energy beams, which snaked and coiled towards Cyrus like venomous snakes.

"Die!"

Pikulin shouted sharply, and the green vines suddenly contracted and whipped Cyrus.

"Heh...you don't have that talent."

Cyrus muttered to himself, a sudden flash of blue light in his eyes, and in an instant, the water from his fingertips wrapped around the green vines, binding them instead.

As a blue light flashed in the water, several blue runes emerged and wrapped around the green vines.

"Useless—huh?!"

Pikulin sneered, waving his staff, about to manipulate the green light vines to shatter the water flow, but suddenly found that the green light vines in front of him had already been disintegrated by the runes, turning into specks of green light.

"Is it that good-for-nothing apprentice of mine again? I held back a little when I was teaching him, but I didn't expect to trick you into revealing your secret."

A mocking glint flashed in Cyrus's eyes. With a wave of his hand, several light arrows bearing blue runes appeared and shot towards Pikulin.

"Whoosh whoosh!!!!"

Feeling the power of the light arrow, Pikulin realized that he had only deciphered Cyrus's earliest decomposition rune.

"hateful……!!"

Pikulin gritted his teeth and summoned several green orbs in front of him, which crashed into the arrow.

"Bang bang—bang bang bang!!!"

The light spheres and light arrows collided one after another, and the two equally matched energies collided wildly, turning into blue and green light spots.

"laugh--!"

But one of the light arrows still struck Pikulin, easily piercing his sorcery and penetrating his abdomen, causing a burst of blood mist behind him.

"don't want--!"

Pikulin looked horrified. A large hole had been ripped open in his abdomen. Looking down, he saw blue runes spreading around the wound, disintegrating his body.

"Whoosh—Pfft!"

Just as Cyrus was about to cast another spell to finish off Pikulin, his body suddenly stiffened, blood spurted from his mouth, and the blue light on his body dimmed abruptly.

"Buzz—"

Without Cyrus's support, after a faint hum, the blue runes on Pikulin's abdomen suddenly dimmed, then turned into specks of light and dissipated into the air.

"Um?"

Pikulin was overjoyed at the sight and quickly summoned several streaks of green light to seal his wounds.

Then, he abruptly looked up, gazing triumphantly at the weakened Cyrus:

"Hahaha... Cyrus, you're destined to fall to me!"

Pikulin smiled smugly, and with a swift wave of his staff, a green beam of light appeared in front of him and slammed into Cyrus.

"Buzz—Boom!!!"

At the critical moment, Hughes pointed at Cyrus in the air, and a deflection field suddenly appeared in front of him. The beam of light collided with the field, and although it shattered the field in an instant, it was still managed to be deflected by a slight angle.

Cyrus used this angle to narrowly dodge the beam of light, which grazed his waist and shattered a small piece of flesh there.

"Where did these ants come from?!"

Pikulin looked down and saw that it was just a third-class apprentice who had disrupted the battle. He was furious and threw several light bullets at Hughes.

"BOOM BOOM BOOM—!!!"

The light bullet suddenly crashed to the ground, and in an instant, a green energy wave swept over, enveloping Hughes.

Unable to teleport in time, Hughes simply waved his hands, and the helmet of the Living Silver Armor emerged from his neck, enveloping his head. His Dark Absorption Robe glowed, and two black orbs quickly transformed, firmly enveloping Hughes.

"Click-click—snap!"

Formal wizard-level magic should not be underestimated. Even with double protection, Hughes's dark energy and living silver armor were mostly shattered under the impact of the green light.

Fortunately, despite several rounds of impact, Hughes's vital parts were not seriously damaged, but his body was still severely injured by the light stream, and he collapsed helplessly to the ground.

"Gurgle gurgle—"

The tattered silver armor on its body wriggled and spread towards the broken areas, absorbing the surrounding magic power and automatically repairing the armor.

Seeing that the apprentice below had actually survived, Pikulin's heart sank, but just as he was about to turn around and deal with Cyrus, he found that the other party had already disappeared.

Unexpectedly, while Pikulin was searching around, Cyrus had somehow appeared above him and pounced on him.

"Ugh—you!!"

Before Pikulin could react, he suddenly felt a weight on him as Cyrus grabbed his neck and pulled him downwards.

"Aaaaaah—you're asking for it!!"

The two plummeted through the air, Pikulin roaring angrily, his body radiating green light as he relentlessly pounded into Cyrus's body.

The severely injured Cyrus was unable to mobilize his magic power and could only rely on the magical artifacts on his body to temporarily defend against the attacks, but he was soon covered in wounds.

Even so, he gritted his teeth and endured it, tightly gripping Pikulin's neck, before finally crashing heavily to the ground.

"Bang—bang—"

Two muffled thuds followed one after another as the two crashed to the ground. At that height, even a fully trained wizard would suffer minor injuries, let alone Cyrus.