Bigarm was initially stunned by what he saw, but anger soon replaced it as he saw how incompetent the underlings he had chosen are. He yelled at them, "use a pincer move, you morons! Why are you letting him kite you around like fools?! Split up and catch him from both sides!"
The basic healing potion had healed most of his lost HP, the Ranger nodded to the Fighter after hearing Bigarm's scolding. "You go left, I go right," he said. The Fighter nodded and they split up accordingly.
Jack was not too bothered by their change of tactic. He let them split away to the furthest distance of his two sides before he ran towards the Ranger. They had conveniently split themselves up, why did Jack not use this opportunity? Had they seriously forgotten just a moment before that he beat them up in melee? They were already back to the old mindset where the melee class just need to approach the magic class into melee range in order to secure victory.
The Ranger seemed to have realized it when his face became pale. Jack shot range attacks at him while he charged towards him. The ranger turned around and flee. Their roles were strangely turned around. Now the ranger was running and Jack was chasing, the same thing was that Jack was still the one throwing range attacks.
The spectators didn't know what to make of it. They were used to seeing kiting tactics where the range player shot at melee player while backing away to maintain distance. This was the first time they saw a range player was shooting and chasing a melee player, they did not know what was the term to use for this situation.
Bigarm was also speechless, he never expected the method that he had instructed his underlings would put them in such a position.
The Fighter tried to come to help, but due to his slow movement, he had trouble trying to keep up with those two fast players.
The Ranger could only continue to suffer the bullying. When he saw that his HP was near critical, he lost his mind and turned around to charge at Jack. "Ah! Screw it!" He screamed. He did not even bother to evade Jack's range attacks, he just kept on charging. He was determined to land at least one hit on this detestable Magician.
Jack didn't return to his kiting strategy, he kept on moving forward. The two players soon came into close range. When the Ranger was about to attack with a frantic expression on his face. Jack pointed his staff with a mischievous grin. He cast Mana Bullet which had already gone off cooldown some time ago. The spell blasted the remaining HP of the Ranger. He fell down unwillingly. Could he not at least stab this guy once? It was the thought in his mind before his vision went black.
Jack turned around and faced the Fighter who had just arrived and was slashing his sword at him. Jack used his staff and blocked the sword. The sword stopped dead on its track, unable to move an inch further after meeting Jack's staff. The Fighter was staring at Jack with wide eyes, not only his speed was fast, his strength could also rival his? What kind of Magician was him?
Jack made a push and threw the Fighter away. The fighter had to backstep a few times to balance himself from falling back. He looked at Jack like he was looking at a monster. His strength was actually higher? He then glanced at the body of the Ranger who had died. He was the only one left now. He looked around. Weren't those all his guildmates? Why weren't they helping him? Oh, wait! This was a test. Wait, were they testing this magician? Why did it feel like it was the other way around?
Jack took a step forward. The Fighter fell to his knees. "I surrender!" He shouted.
Jack stopped. This was unexpected, he thought. Well, since the guy had surrendered. He looked at Bigarm, who was wearing an ugly expression.
"So, did I pass?" Jack asked.
Bigarm mouth twitched again hearing Jack's question. He was having the urge to just give the order for all his guildmates here to swarm this guy. See if he could still be arrogant or not.
His guildmates had also turned restless after witnessing two of their friends got killed. But there were others watching as well, people who had followed them out here out of curiosity. If they swarmed this guy after he had won, their reputation would plummet. They would have more trouble recruiting people in the future. However, Bigarm just could not allow himself to give this guy his victory just like that. The guy's attitude was too aggravating.
As he was unsure of what to do, a voice was heard, "that was just a preliminary test to see if you are indeed what you said you are. Now, let's see how you fare with the real test."
A bald man walked out from amongst the crowd. He was wearing a crimson robe and carrying a long staff that looked as if it was made from intertwining vines. There was a long scar on his left cheek. Everyone from Death Associates settled down their restless murmur after seeing the bald man.
When Jack saw the man, he recognized him as well. So, he had managed to attract enough attention after all, he thought in his mind.
"High elder!" Bigarm exclaimed, and then hurriedly came forward and bowed.
Scarface waved him away. "I will take it over from here," he said.
Scarface stepped into the middle of the space that the crowd had created, standing in front of Jack. The Fighter from before was still kneeling on the ground. Scarface looked at the Fighter and frowned. The Fighter looked down with shame. He knew he had performed disappointingly.
Scarface showed an expression of disgust and cast a spell. A ball of light crashed onto the Fighter and it created a forceful outburst on impact. The Fighter lost 121 damage and was blasted away due to the spell. His body rolled a few times before coming to a stop.
"Get the hell away from my sight! You are not worthy as Death Associates members!" Scarface exclaimed.
The Fighter hurriedly pulled himself up and ran away.
'What the hell was that spell?' Jack asked Peniel in his mind. 'It looked like Mana Bullet? But why does it have the effect to strongly knock people away like that? It's almost like the effect of Power Strike.'
"It's possible that he had found an evolve seed for his Mana Bullet skill," Peniel answered.
'Evolve seed? What's that?'
"A rare consumable that allow your skill to have new or extra effect. Never mind about that, it depends on luck for you to find it. I'll let you know if you find one."
Scarface looked at Jack with a smile. "It appears that my damage is still less than yours. How do you get such high damage? Is it due to your equipment?"
Jack shrugged, "it's my secret." He Inspected Scarface using his God-Eye monocle, as expected, the man was already an advanced Mage at level 17.
"What's your level? I couldn't seem to Inspect your information. Is that a secret as well?"
"I'm level 15," Jack said truthfully on his Mage level.
"Hm…" Scarface seemed to be in thought. He had a hard time believing Jack's claim. He was two levels higher but his damage, speed, and strength were below the man? Never mind, he would test the man himself. Direct combat was the best way to gauge a person's skill.
"Shall we begin?" Scarface asked.
"Are you a high echelon of Death Associates?" Jack pretended to ask.
"You can say that," Scarface replied.
"Then sure, I will entertain you," Jack said as he twirled his staff.
Jack started the exchanges with a standard range attack. Scarface jumped back to dodge. Jack moved up to shorten the distance.
Scarface had seen Jack's style of fighting, the guy was not shy at close-range fight despite being a magic user, so he kept on stepping back to keep a distance. It's not like he had never fight anyone in close range, but as a pure magic player, close combat was not his forte, and he was not going to risk it just to prove that he was not any less than his opponent in a close-range fight.
As he continued to step back, he used range attacks on Jack as well. But unlike the previous Squid, he did not orthodoxly aim his staff when making the attacks. He made a short but fast motion swing with his staff, but accurately shoot out the attack in between the swings, making it difficult for Jack to predict the shot's trajectory.
Scarface's shots also targeted different part of Jack's body. Sometimes his torso, sometimes his legs, another time at his head. He also often made feign attacks, tricking Jack to dodge to one side while another shot was heading that way already. Jack could not dodge the shots as easily as in his previous fight. In fact, he needed to use his shield to block most of the attacks, which slowed down his advance significantly.
An expert truly fought differently, Jack thought in his predicament.
