BOOM!!!!
The gale turned into a true hurricane, wrapping the firebolt at its core and blasting it out over a hundred meters.
In the blink of an eye, it slammed into the area around the man-eating flower.
But the commotion was too big. By the time it reached that distance, its speed had clearly dropped. A vine intercepted it, and the two collided.
Thwack—!!
At the moment of impact, the vine melted clean through.
The Hurricane Flame Bolt's power was reduced somewhat, but it kept surging forward.
A second vine struck in to intercept—melted again.
Only when it was about to hit the flower's root stalk did another vine finally slam into it and end it in mutual destruction—burning that vine while dispersing the Hurricane Flame Bolt completely.
The remaining scattered flames were swarmed by vines and extinguished.
"Wow… that spell is incredible!"
Iris, still chewing White Unicorn meat, gaped at Leon, eyes full of shock.
She couldn't help it.
A few beginner spells combined together—not only could they reach 120 meters, the power was still strong enough to melt through several thick vines with ease.
Sure, the maximum power was clearly below true intermediate magic.
But based on what she just saw, it was practically a hard counter to this man-eating flower!
If it were only a bit stronger, wouldn't it be able to strike the flower's main body directly?
Feeling Iris's gaze, Leon gave a restrained smile.
"Leon… come to think of it, last time you beat me, you used combination magic like this too, didn't you? How do you always time it so the spells combine successfully? Normally, the timing is insanely hard to control."
Iris couldn't help asking.
"True," Leon said. "If you pick the timing wrong, your spells collide and interfere with each other. But those problems are mostly caused by one thing—casting speed not being fast enough."
"That's for same-type spells," Iris argued. "But what about combining different types? Even if you cast fast, wouldn't they interfere?"
"Of course. Combining different types requires a trick," Leon said. "You pre-set a spell image that can 'accept' other spell images."
Leon gave a simple explanation of the principle.
It was straightforward:
For same-type spells, if your casting speed was fast enough, the power simply stacked.
For different types, if you planned the spell image in advance—including how it would change and interact with other spell images—you could still produce effects.
In other words, you used your imagery to constrain the interference process ahead of time, forcing the combined result to evolve in the direction you intended.
The logic was simple, but in practice, chantless casting and high-speed casting were still the core.
And you needed a basic understanding of physics and chemistry, too.
Even so, Iris still looked a little lost.
But since Leon made it sound so simple, admitting she didn't understand felt embarrassing.
So she rubbed her chin and put on a thoughtful face.
"I see. That really is a good method. Leon… you're a genius."
"Iris, it's fine if you don't understand," Leon said. "You use light magic anyway—it doesn't matter whether you apply this principle."
"Who says I don't understand? It's just using a third spell image, isn't it?"
Iris grew flustered and embarrassed. She didn't want Leon to treat her like an idiot.
"Iris," Leon said, "do you realize your eyes have already betrayed you?"
As he spoke, he reached out and tapped Iris's smooth forehead.
"Keep firing. Don't stop."
Iris puffed her cheeks and turned her head away, exposing the back of her long, pale neck.
She waved her staff and resumed chanting.
The two began a long war of attrition against the man-eating flower.
The routine was simple: take turns casting until mana dropped, then rapidly eat White Unicorn jerky to replenish, keeping mana above half at all times.
At this distance, the flower couldn't move its main body—it could only lash vines.
As long as they didn't step into vine range, they were nearly unbeatable.
Leon also used this chance to refine his pseudo-intermediate Hurricane Flame Bolt into the true intermediate spell version.
In essence, his pseudo version was based on the real intermediate version from the start.
And he had already practiced the Hurricane Flame Bolt spell image beforehand—so repeated casting steadily improved his familiarity.
Meanwhile, Iris's Light Radiance compression kept getting tighter, and the burn temperature kept rising.
Before they knew it, the two had spent more than seven days outside the man-eating flower castle.
…
"We've been in the dungeon for almost ten days now, haven't we?"
Sitting in the corner of the side-branch passage, Iris chewed White Unicorn jerky, looking bored.
It couldn't be helped—no matter how tasty something was, you couldn't eat it forever.
Even foodie Iris was sick of it. Leon's mouth felt dead too.
And they ate a lot. To replenish the high-frequency casting drain, they ate like monsters—dozens of pounds a day.
The Minotaur and White Unicorn jerky combined now totaled only about fifty pounds.
At this rate, it would last only another day or two.
Of course, ten days of nonstop eating and casting had its upsides:
Both of their mana caps had risen by different amounts.
Leon's panel now read:
[Primary Stats: Vitality 30 / Mana 31 / Stamina 31 / Strength 32 / Agility 41]
[Intermediate magic "Hurricane Flame Bolt" mastery increased to 50%]
Over this week, Leon's mana cap rose by 3.
Early on, White Unicorn meat raised it fast—almost one point per day. But the last point took five days of eating to finally gain.
Clearly, as time passed, the unicorn jerky's effect faded—it wasn't remotely as strong as fresh-kill meat.
With the few other stats he'd gained on earlier floors, his personal growth speed in this dungeon run was already very fast.
If he could persist for months and hunt more powerful monsters, he might even achieve the human feat of reaching double-cap mana (40). Of course, that was because he had three classes and a higher bottleneck—if it were anyone else, even eating like this, the growth rate would be painfully slow.
Also, though it had only succeeded twice, Leon had truly managed to cast the intermediate fire spell Hurricane Flame Bolt, reaching the threshold that marked "learned": 50% mastery.
At 50%, you could reliably cast it with chanting.
The higher the mastery, the higher the efficiency and power.
For a first-tier mage to accomplish that—this utterly stunned Iris. She couldn't believe something so legendary could happen right in front of her. And the more Leon displayed spell talent, the more she felt he probably wasn't plotting anything dirty.
Of course, his success rate was still low. He needed more repetitions.
But in terms of spell imagery, he had become extremely familiar with Hurricane Flame Bolt.
Before, it took him over ten seconds of focused visualization to form the spell image.
Now it took three.
Insane improvement.
Casting the same pseudo-intermediate spell nearly nonstop for a week had created an accumulated breakthrough—he'd become intimately familiar with the imagery.
If he kept this up longer, he might truly build the foundation for high-speed casting of that intermediate spell.
As for Iris, her mana cap had also risen substantially:
[Name: Iris C. Forlorn]
[Primary Stats: Vitality 55 / Mana 69 / Stamina 33 / Strength 38 / Agility 43]
Over the week, Iris's mana cap rose by 5—two more than Leon.
In mana-cap growth speed, Leon still couldn't match Iris.
As a pure-blood elf and a light elementalist, three-times cap—around 90 mana—was "normal development" for her.
If Leon wanted to surpass her, he'd need to awaken one or two more extraordinary classes.
And Light Radiance proficiency—under these extreme conditions—had advanced far beyond what Iris ever expected.
"Hey, Leon—don't you have to report in at your Court Mage Corps office?" Iris nudged him with her shoulder. After seven days and nights together, she was starting to treat Leon as a real teammate.
"Our corps gives paid leave as long as you're exploring a dungeon," Leon replied quietly. "Of course, you have to show exploration logs or loot records from the Adventurers' Guild."
Then he looked toward the castle in the distance and said:
"Iris—let's finish that man-eating flower today. Honestly, I want a change of menu too."
~~~
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