Lucian was now standing on the ground before the tower, one hand lowering the Wandering Merchant, the other setting down the Bloodhound Knight.
Given his physical prowess, a sudden accident like that was never going to injure him.
It was just that—without the lift, things had become slightly troublesome.
"Hah… I really didn't expect them to actually destroy the elevator," Lucian muttered.
"Repairing that later is going to cost a fortune."
Yes. In Lucian's eyes, the Academy of Raya Lucaria was already something he held firmly in the palm of his hand.
He turned his gaze toward the Nomadic Merchant and the Bloodhound Knight.
"Looks like the two of you won't be able to go up."
"So just stay down here and wait. It'll save us all from any unexpected accidents."
The Nomadic Merchant, who had just experienced something akin to bungee jumping, clutched his violently pounding chest.
That endless sensation of falling had, for the first time in a long while, reminded him what it meant to truly feel alive.
"Hah… I suddenly realized something just now," he said weakly.
"So I am afraid of dying after all."
"Even if there were a way up later… I'm not going."
As for the Bloodhound Knight, although he was clearly unwilling, the elevator was already destroyed. With no path upward remaining, there was nothing he could do but stay behind.
The Nomadic Merchant looked at Lucian and couldn't help asking,
"What about you, then? How are you getting up?"
"There's no lift anymore."
Lucian glanced at the tower that led toward the Academy, already forming a plan in his mind.
"Me? Of course I still have a way."
He walked back into the tower and looked upward.
The structure was impressively tall, far too high to reach with a simple jump.
In theory, he could try something like parkour: kicking off the walls on either side, rebounding upward bit by bit.
Or he could simply climb along the outer wall.
But neither climbing nor wall-jumping interested Lucian.
The tower was almost completely sealed on all sides, forming a straight, cylindrical shaft that led directly upward. Terrain like this was perfect.
All Lucian needed to do was conjure a storm inside it, and ascending would be effortless.
This was a form of flight made possible by special terrain.
As for flying freely in an open space—doing that purely by manipulating wind was still somewhat difficult for Lucian.
Perhaps once certain attributes reached a higher threshold, true free flight would become possible.
Within the tower, Lucian unleashed a violent storm.
In an instant, a strong gale gathered into a roaring vortex, swiftly lifting Lucian upward.
Below, the Nomadic Merchant and the Bloodhound Knight stared, dumbstruck, as Lucian simply flew up the tower.
He was wearing a sorcerer's robe, and throughout the previous battle he had only used sorcery—but this guy was very clearly not a sorcerer.
Lucian landed at the top of the tower.
There were no enemies here now; the sorcerers who had been present earlier were nowhere to be seen.
He stepped out of the structure, and at once his attention was seized by the breathtaking sight before him—the Academy of Raya Lucaria itself.
Under hazy starlight interwoven with drifting mist, the mysterious academy appeared and vanished like a dream.
Lofty spires pierced the clouds, as if reaching for the very stars. Glintstone embedded throughout the buildings shimmered softly in the night, resembling constellations scattered across the heavens.
All around the academy, warm orange candleflames swayed gently, offering a fragile warmth amid the cold, azure atmosphere.
Magic was so dense it was visible to the naked eye, mingling with starlight as it drifted through the air, not unlike an aurora.
Once, long ago, the academy must have been even more beautiful—a true sanctuary of learning.
Lucian couldn't help feeling a sense of wonder. Clearly, it was daytime below, yet here the academy was locked in perpetual night.
It seemed the academy had used some special method to fix the scenery in place.
Perhaps this eternal night was an homage to the origins of glintstone sorcery—to the scholars' reverence for the stars.
Lucian moved forward.
There was only a single path ahead, leading straight toward the grand and arcane heart of Raya Lucaria.
At this moment, the academy's inhabitants had just received word that the elevator was destroyed and the intruders were trapped below. Their vigilance had relaxed.
They had no idea that a master and disciple—more terrifying to sorcerers than a hundred thousand mad butchers, were about to step into the Academy of Raya Lucaria.
—
With his exceptional eyesight, Lucian spotted two sorcerers standing guard before the Church of the Cuckoo.
A quick scan confirmed that aside from these two gatekeepers, there were no other sorcerers nearby.
If he wanted to silence them completely—eliminating both without making a sound, it would be somewhat difficult.
After all, sorcery required casting time. After releasing one spell, there was always a brief interval before the next.
The double-casting technique he had just learned could release two spells at once, but different spells traveled at different speeds.
Hmm…
So Lucian decided to ask Sellen.
She had mentioned earlier that she would teach him other techniques as well.
This trip into the academy was perfect, he could learn from his teacher while using the academy's sorcerers for live practice.
"Teacher," Lucian asked softly, "is there any way to eliminate those two sorcerers at the same instant?"
From Sellen's Primal Glintstone came her reply:
"As a matter of fact… there is such a technique."
Sellen began explaining it to him.
"You already understand double-casting," she said, "which allows two spells with non-overlapping casting paths to be released simultaneously."
"What I'm going to teach you next can tentatively be called Split Casting."
"It involves gathering and circulating magical power only once, letting it travel along a single trajectory, and ultimately releasing two identical spells at the same time."
Lucian instinctively felt that it sounded impossible.
After all, double-casting, at its core, was merely a matter of making use of otherwise idle circulation channels…
But this technique was entirely different.It required magical power to circulate along a completely overlapping trajectory, only to then split into two spells at the very end.
Sellen seemed to sense Lucian's disbelief and deliberately put on an exaggeratedly wounded expression.
"Ara… my dear apprentice," she sighed theatrically,"you truly don't trust your teacher's skills."
"This really breaks my heart… boohoohoo…"
"Back in my day, you know, I was hailed as a once-in-a-millennium prodigy of the Academy."
Lucian shook his head repeatedly, insisting that he had never doubted her.
Sellen let out a soft sigh and decided to demonstrate it personally.
"Hmm… I suppose I'll just have to let your body remember the feeling."
"My apprentice, entrust your body to me."
Once again, Lucian relinquished control over his body's manipulation of sorcery.
"Feel carefully," Sellen said.
As her voice faded, she began to guide and control the flow of magical power within Lucian's body.
Lucian focused intensely, not daring to miss even the slightest detail.
Inside him, a single current of magic flowed slowly forward.
Just by sensing the circulation path of this magic, Lucian already knew what spell Sellen was using.
It was a sorcery from Sellia, Town of Sorcery—Ambush Shard.
A spell designed specifically for assassinating sorcerers, it was exceptionally effective in infiltration scenarios like this.
Yet everything about the flow and manipulation up to this point was exactly the same as what Lucian already knew.
This was just a standard Ambush Shard.
That made Lucian increasingly puzzled.Could two spells really be released by circulating magic in this way?
It was only when the spell reached the moment of final formation that Lucian truly grasped the depth of Sellen's mastery.
When the magic completed its circulation and gathered into a finished form—
At that very instant, Sellen delicately divided the nearly completed spell into two perfectly identical portions.Then, with flawless precision, she supplemented each portion with a small amount of additional magical power.
In the end, two Ambush Shards—each identical in power to a normally cast spell, formed simultaneously.
The two invisible shards locked onto their targets and were released from behind the sorcerers.
With two dull, flesh-piercing sounds, the glintstone projectiles pierced straight through their hearts.
From afar, Lucian gently stirred the wind, allowing the two corpses to collapse soundlessly to the ground.
Not a single noise was made.
Just like that, the two gatekeeping sorcerers were dead.
"How… is that even possible?"
Lucian was utterly shaken, unable to comprehend what he had just witnessed.
Sellen didn't rush to explain. Instead, she spoke gently to him.
"This is what precise control over magical power looks like."
"In this regard, you truly lack accumulated experience."
"After all, in your past battles, once you successfully cast a spell and hit the enemy, that was already enough to secure victory, wasn't it?"
"Of course, raw output is also an important factor and cannot be ignored—that is undeniably part of your strength."
"But if you can combine that power with precise control and refined technique, only then can you reach a deeper level of sorcery."
"My dear apprentice, you still have much to work on~"
Lucian nodded.This was indeed one of his shortcomings.
Once he had enough power to defeat his enemies, he tended to expand his options rather than specialize and refine—a lingering side effect of his identity as a player.
Only after analyzing Lucian's current state did Sellen begin to explain the underlying principle.
"As for the theory behind it, it's actually quite simple," she said.
"You divide the spell evenly at the very moment it finishes forming."
"But you don't cut it left and right—that would damage the structure of the spell. Instead, imagine slicing it horizontally, into two thin layers."
"By replenishing magical power afterward, both spells can then be released at full strength."
"This technique doesn't increase total magic consumption, but it saves casting time, which gives it real combat value."
Sellen paused, then continued.
"There's actually another, simpler approach."
"That is, from the very beginning—while the magic is flowing, you introduce two equal masses of magical power."
"Throughout the spell's trajectory, maintain them as two parallel currents. They advance side by side, each completing its own formation."
"That achieves the same result."
Lucian thought it over.
This explanation was, in fact, fairly straightforward.
It was merely a matter of dividing magical power, but the actual execution was extraordinarily difficult.
It seemed that either method would be far too demanding for him at his current level.
Still, a sudden thought occurred to Lucian.
"Teacher… can these two techniques be used together?"
Sellen sounded slightly surprised.
"What's this? You haven't even learned how to walk yet, and you're already thinking about running?"
Lucian shook his head.
"I'm just curious."
Sellen laughed softly.
"Fufu… very well, I'll satisfy your curiosity."
"Yes, it can be done."
"But dividing a spell even once is already close to the limit of maintaining magical stability. After all, you're not cutting a physical object, you understand?"
"That's why the two techniques must be combined in order to release a single spell four times simultaneously."
"However, opportunities to use something like that in actual combat are rare, so it's not particularly practical."
Hearing this answer, Lucian was stunned.
Multiple casting…
It was truly terrifying.