"Please, Magister," Teresa said, her voice strained with forced politeness. "The road is too narrow, and the tree line is too close. With your earth mana, a stray shockwave could cause wanton destruction to the carriage and the forest. There is a better place to fight."
Roderick let out a booming laugh that shook the leaves on the trees. "Fine, fine! Let's move."
He stepped off the dirt road and into a wide, grassy clearing bordered by dense pines. The moment his boots touched the soil, the golden-brown aura around him flared. The earth beneath his feet rumbled.
He didn't use a high-tier spell. He simply cast Stone Bulwark, a basic E-rank Earth spell. But infused with the bottomless, gravitational mana of a B-rank Grandmaster, the spell mutated. Thick, hexagonal plates of compressed rock and solidified earth mana rose from the ground, interlocking to form a massive, floating shield around his torso and arms. It looked less like a defensive spell and more like a portable fortress.
"Here are the rules," Roderick announced, crossing his massive arms behind the shield. "Crack this shield. You can do it alone, or you can do it together. If you can leave a single scratch on the earth mana, you pass. If you can't... well, we'll see."
Toshi cracked his knuckles, his eyes burning with competitive fire. "I'll go first! Stand back, guys."
Without waiting, Toshi charged. He drew his sword—a Refined Artifact capable of channeling mana—and coated the blade in his strongest E-rank Holy spell: Radiant Blade. The steel erupted in blinding, golden-white light, the pure, unnatural aura making the air hum. He leaped into the air, pulling the glowing sword back for a devastating, two-handed cleave aimed right at the center of the shield.
Roderick didn't even shift his stance. He simply rotated his wrist.
The hexagonal plates shifted, angling themselves to catch Toshi's momentum. Toshi's sword connected with a deafening CRACK. The Holy light flared brilliantly against the earth mana, but instead of breaking the shield, the immense kinetic force rebounded instantly.
Toshi's eyes bulged as the shockwave traveled up the blade. The mana structure of his artifact groaned, and a visible, jagged crack formed along the edge of the steel. He was thrown backward, tumbling head over heels into the dirt.
"Too much wasted motion," Roderick lectured, his voice echoing over the groaning boy. "You're burning mana to push against a mountain. Earth doesn't yield to brute force; it absorbs it. Next!"
Verdehile stepped forward, her expression icy and focused. She didn't charge. Instead, she raised her hands, drawing moisture from the air and flash-freezing it into a barrage of razor-sharp Ice Shards. She fired them in a continuous stream, aiming for the gaps between the hexagonal plates.
Roderick stomped his foot. A localized Tremor rippled through the ground, throwing Verdehile off balance mid-cast. The ice shards struck the shield and shattered harmlessly into snow.
"Ice is brittle. Earth is patient," Roderick scolded, shaking his head. "You're fighting my element on my terms. If you can't melt it or shatter it with sustained pressure, you're just throwing snowballs." He flicked his finger, and a pebble infused with earth mana shot forward, smacking Verdehile squarely in the forehead and sending her sprawling.
Elycia was next. Everything had been so sudden, but her fighting spirit was ablaze. This was her first time facing an actual B-rank Grandmaster. She drew her bow, channeling wind mana into her arrows to create Wind-guided strikes. She fired three shots in rapid succession, trying to curve them around the shield's edges.
Roderick's shield suddenly grew a jagged, uneven outer layer of swirling dust. The rough, abrasive surface completely disrupted the flight path and trajectory of Elycia's wind arrows. They spun wildly out of control, embedding themselves uselessly into the surrounding trees.
"Wind needs a smooth surface to glide," Roderick called out, not moving an inch. "My earth is jagged. Adapt or fail!" He kicked the ground, and a wave of mud erupted, splashing across Elycia's boots and rooting her firmly to the spot.
Finally, it was Clei's turn. He knew his attack might not work, but against overwhelming defense, he could only try to meet it with overwhelming power. He burned through almost half of his mana reserves, sprinting forward, and unleashed his strongest D-rank spell.
"Firestorm!"
A roaring, concentrated blast of white-hot flames washed over the fortress-like shield. The heat warped the air, and the grass around Clei's feet turned to ash.
When the flames cleared, the shield hadn't even lost its luster.
"Strong output for a D-rank," Roderick commented, stepping through the fading embers. "But not enough."
Before Clei could react, Roderick swept his leg in a low arc. A pulse of earth mana tripped Clei, and a heavy, localized gravity wave pinned the boy flat onto his back in the dirt.
From the sidelines, the complaints were immediate.
"It's completely unfair!" Toshi whined, rubbing his bruised shoulder. "He's a Grandmaster! We're E and D-ranks! It's like asking us to break a castle wall with our bare hands!"
Clei sat up, spitting out a mouthful of grass. "He's not even using his real strength," he muttered in frustration, feeling the massive, suffocating gap between a D-rank and a B-rank more acutely than ever before. The gap between him and Teresa felt surmountable; at the very least, he just needed time to reach C-rank to stand on her level. But against this old man, it felt like he was facing an actual mountain that was completely unclimbable.
A few yards away, Teresa had conjured a small stone table and chair. She sat comfortably, sipping hot tea from a thermos, watching her students—along with Clei and Elycia—get systematically dismantled.
"Complaining won't refill your mana pools," Teresa said dryly, taking another sip. "Listen to his lectures. He's giving you the foundational lessons of elemental counters that usually take a semester to teach. Now stop whining and try again."
For the next hour, the clearing echoed with the sounds of impacts, shouts, and groans. Roderick repeatedly let them attack his shield, countering each attempt with effortless, humiliating ease. The four students were completely exhausted, covered in varying degrees of bruises and mud. Toshi, in particular, had taken the worst of it; his face was plastered with dirt after Roderick had repeatedly swatted his Holy sword aside and smacked him directly into the ground.
As the sun began to dip below the tree line, casting long, orange shadows across the clearing, Roderick lowered his arms. The golden-brown aura around him dimmed slightly.
"Alright, kids. Sun's setting," he said, his gruff voice taking on a serious edge. "I'll give you one last chance. Perhaps a combined strike? If you don't crack this shield right now, tomorrow morning, you'll be running the last four days to Anatolia on foot, while I ride the carriage."
The students paled. Four days of running? Their legs would fall off.
Clei stepped forward, wiping sweat from his brow. His eyes were locked on the shifting hexagonal plates of the shield. He had been watching silently, his highly sensitive mana senses analyzing the flow of Roderick's earth magic.
"His shield isn't a single, solid block," Clei said, his voice cutting through their panting. "It's layered. The mana flows in a continuous cycle from the bottom left to the top right to absorb impact. We can't break it with one element. We need to overwhelm the entire structure at once."
He turned to the others. "Toshi, flood the left with your Holy aura to destabilize the flow. Verdehile, don't strike it—freeze the right side to make the earth brittle. Elycia, use your wind to clear the dust and guide the final strike."
"And you?" Elycia asked, catching her breath.
"I'll use all my strength to deal the final blow," Clei said, his eyes narrowing.
The three of them nodded, falling into position. After two days of Clei's stoic silence, his sudden, commanding presence made him feel like an entirely different person. An hour of getting systematically battered had forged a raw, amateurish tacit understanding among them. Roderick watched them set up, a glint of genuine interest in his eyes as he crossed his arms behind his fortress.
"Now!" Clei shouted.
Toshi surged forward, unleashing a blinding slash of Holy mana against the left side of the shield. The earth hissed, the hexagonal plates shuddering as they violently rejected the purifying light. Simultaneously, Verdehile thrust her hands forward, not to strike, but to unleash a wave of absolute-zero cold, flash-freezing the right side of the shield. The fortress groaned, caught between the structural collapse of the Holy rejection and the extreme thermal shock of the ice.
Elycia drew her bow, firing a concentrated wind arrow that sliced through the dusty air, clearing a perfect path down the center of the destabilized shield.
Clei stepped into the gap. He compressed his remaining fire mana into a single, hyper-dense, pointed Fireblast. It was no larger than a spearhead, but it spun with terrifying, drill-like intensity.
He thrust his hands forward. The pointed fire blast shot down the path cleared by Elycia's wind, striking the exact center of the weakened, brittle earth mana.
PING.
The sound was sharp and high-pitched. The massive fortress shield didn't shatter. It didn't even crack.
But right in the dead center, a minuscule, coin-sized dent was pushed violently inward.
The golden-brown mana flickered, and the shield slowly dissolved into the air.
Silence fell over the clearing. Even with all their combined strength, they still hadn't broken through the shield. The power of a Grandmaster was truly terrifying.
Roderick stood perfectly still, physically unharmed, but his eyes widened slightly. He could feel how violently the earth mana around him was still churning from the impact. The raw, concentrated power behind that final strike had far exceeded the limits of a D-rank.
Slowly, the old man threw his head back and let out a booming, hearty laugh.
"Well I'll be damned!" Roderick grinned, clapping his massive hands together. "A small dent! You kids actually have potential!"
In truth, he had already been preparing a stern lecture about how they needed to train twice as hard just to become half as strong as him, but looking at that tiny, undeniable dent, he happily trashed the thought.
He turned and began walking back toward the road, waving a hand dismissively. "Now go clean up and rest. We continue the journey tomorrow."