Encountering the Mysterious Magic System in the North, Powerful as a Monster

Broken Gold Town, Public Martial Arts Arena.

As a major stronghold in the Northern Territory, this was usually the place where town guards drilled and mercenaries of all stripes sparred. The arena was spacious, surrounded by tiered spectator seating. Today, however, the entire arena was enveloped in an extremely high-profile, even arrogant atmosphere.

Two people stood in the center of the grounds.

One of them was an old acquaintance very familiar to the residents of Broken Gold Town: the eldest young master of the Ice Wolf Family, Claude Moretti. Ever since he was blasted into the branches of a tree by Aria's air cannon outside the castle last time, this young master had not dared to show his face in public for a long time. But today, he was like a fox borrowing the tiger's might, holding his head high and puffing out his chest, his face written all over with the rampant arrogance of a petty man who had gotten his way.

And what gave him such confidence was the middle-aged man standing beside him.

The man wore an extremely gorgeous dark blue mage robe, the edges of which were embroidered with complex magic patterns using expensive mithril thread. He held a crystal staff inlaid with a huge ice-blue magic crystal at the top. With his chin slightly raised, he swept his contemptuous gaze over the surrounding townsfolk with the look of someone viewing country bumpkins.

Howard, a specially appointed Evocation Department tutor from the Capital Advanced Magic Academy, and a Tier Six Ice Grand Mage.

In order to regain face in the upcoming Capital Young Talents Assessment and completely trample the Nolent Family underfoot, the patriarch of the Ice Wolf Family had spared no expense. He spent a heavy sum to invite this highly renowned high-tier mage from the capital to the Northern Territory specifically to provide special training for Claude.

Tutor, it is in that direction.

Claude pointed at the hill where the Nolent castle was located and said through gritted teeth, That wild girl named Aria used some unknown crooked means to instantly release an extremely high-intensity wind magic! You must properly vindicate our Ice Wolf Family today!

Crooked means? Heh.

Howard sneered, stroking the magic crystal of the staff in his hand. His tone was full of the arrogance belonging to the capital's elite. In a remote backwater like the Northern Territory, without even a decent magic tower, what orthodox inheritance could there possibly be?

True magic is elegant. It follows rigorous magic circuits and the noble laws of bloodlines.

Howard deliberately raised his voice, ensuring that the surrounding townsfolk watching the spectacle could hear him clearly. He raised his staff high and began to chant a lengthy and ornate incantation.

Following his chanting, the temperature above the arena plummeted.

The moisture in the air rapidly condensed, transforming into dozens of frost spears as thick as an adult's arm. They hovered above his head, radiating a chilling aura that made hearts palpitate.

Go!

Howard waved his staff, and the dozens of frost spears poured out like a torrential rain, bombarding a massive sword-testing stone a hundred meters away.

Boom!

Accompanied by a deafening shattering sound, that hard granite sword-testing stone was forcefully blasted into icy slag!

The spectating townsfolk let out waves of exclamations, and many were forced to retreat continuously by the freezing aura.

Did you see that? This is the power of high-tier magic!

Seeing this, Claude immediately jumped up in excitement and shouted at the crowd, Go back and tell that crazy girl from the Nolent Family! With Tutor Howard here, she can forget about showing off in this capital assessment! If she has the guts, let her come out and spar with the tutor right now!

Claude's provocative voice echoed across the spacious arena, sounding extremely grating.

...

Meanwhile, at the Nolent Castle, Rose Courtyard.

Aria had just returned from the commercial street.

Today, not only did she eat an entire oversized stick of candied hawthorn and two skewers of roasted meat, but most importantly, she dragged along that innocent, black-framed-glasses-wearing nerd Asik and strolled down the street for a whole hour and a half!

At this moment, Aria felt as if she were simply invincible in this world.

Because she had eaten too much high-sugar and high-calorie food, combined with her extremely excited mood, her blood circulation had sped up, causing the circulation speed of her magic power to be more than just a little faster than usual. However, in her perception, which had been brainwashed by Lokina's charlatan-style education, this was not a blood sugar spike at all, but rather...

The Love Resonance Bandwidth had been completely established!

I feel it! I feel a continuous stream of power!

Aria stood in the training room, her fists tightly clenched and her face flushed red. She recalled Asik's sweaty hand caused by his nervousness. Although it was slippery, this was clearly the so-called magic intercommunication medium!

Teacher Lokina did not deceive me! My Happy Mood Aura has definitely stacked to the max level now! My casting speed and my magic power have all broken through their limits!

Just as Aria was preparing to fire an air cannon at the wall to test the waters, Kuma came running in hurriedly.

Eldest Miss! This is bad!

Kuma said, panting heavily, That peacock young master from the Ice Wolf Family has brought a high-tier mage from the capital and is wrecking the scene over at the public martial arts arena! Not only did they blow up the sword-testing stone, but they are also calling you out by name, cursing you as... as a country bumpkin who uses crooked means!

What?!

Aria's eyes instantly lit up. It was not the light of anger, but the bloodthirsty gleam of a berserker seeing a top-quality whetstone!

A high-tier mage from the capital? Excellent!

Aria excitedly grabbed Kuma's hand. Kuma, I was just worrying about having nowhere to vent this body full of Love Buffs! A mere old ice geezer dares to act arrogant in front of this young lady?

She suddenly turned around, rushed to the corner of the training room, and pulled off the dust cloth covering that special weapon.

That was the ultimate weapon Lynch had spent two days and all the high-level forging materials on hand to just finish modifying for her:

Nimbus 2000 Custom!

The tail of this broom had been fitted with two thick, copper-colored exhaust pipes, while the front was wrapped in a streamlined metal fairing. Even at the handle position, a mechanical dashboard for monitoring wind pressure had been madly installed!

Brother Lynch said this is called aerodynamics!

Aria straddled the broom and madly injected the wind magic in her body into the compression array at the tail.

Today, I am going to let them witness what is known as the terrifying power blessed by both love and science!

Whoosh!

Aria was like a green cannonball, catapulting directly from the spacious balcony of the training room and taking off. She pulled a white slipstream trail in mid-air, heading straight for the martial arts arena in the center of town!

...

On the top floor terrace of the castle.

Lynch was sitting on a lounge chair, holding a monocular telescope in his hand. On the small round table next to him sat a plate of freshly sliced chilled watermelon.

Hmm, the thrust of the dual exhaust ports is even more stable than imagined, and the fairing effectively cuts through the air resistance. It seems this girl's comprehension of fluid mechanics is getting deeper and deeper.

While eating the watermelon, Lynch commented on the speeding afterimage in the sky like a professional aerospace observer.

And beside him, Lokina was clutching a piece of watermelon, her face covered in juice from gnawing on it, while she earnestly gave on-site instruction to Kuma standing nearby.

"Did you see that, Kuma? This is the power of love!"

Lokina pointed at the majestic figure in the sky, her face full of pride. "Yesterday this girl was like a frostbitten eggplant. Today, she went and held hands with that boy named Asik, and instantly she's fully revived. Her combat power has directly soared by three levels!"

"This proves that my Love Combat Power Amplification Theory is completely correct! So-called high-tier mages are nothing but paper tigers in front of a maiden nourished by love!"

Kuma stood to the side, the corner of her eye twitching madly.

She looked at the violent girl in the sky, who was producing deafening roars while riding a jet broomstick, then at the idiot charlatan beside her spouting nonsense, and finally at the mastermind who was leisurely watching the show through binoculars.

"The hell it's the power of love!"

"The flames shooting out from its tail are about to set the clouds on fire, alright?! This is clearly a mechanical monster created by Lord Lynch!"

"How exactly are the neural pathways in you humans' brains wired? Why do you always forcefully explain such pure physical violence in such a romantic and absurd way?!"

Kuma roared madly in her heart, but on the surface, she could only force a stiff smile: "...Yes, Teacher Lolo is wise. Love... is truly terrifying."

...

Meanwhile, at the public martial arts arena.

Instructor Howard was closing his eyes, enjoying the awe-filled gazes of the surrounding townsfolk. He felt that in a rural place like the Northern Territory, casually showing off a couple of moves was enough to intimidate these ignorant bumpkins.

"Instructor, listen, what is that sound?"

Claude suddenly frowned and looked up at the sky.

An extremely muffled rumble, like the roar of some ancient behemoth, was rapidly approaching from the distant skyline.

Howard also opened his eyes.

As a sixth-tier mage, his eyesight far exceeded that of ordinary people. He could clearly see that beneath the high clouds, a small black dot was diving toward the arena at a terrifying speed that defied all magical logic!

Moreover, as the black dot approached, a ring of visible white airwaves actually appeared in the air!

That was a sonic boom cloud generated when breaking the sound barrier!

"What kind of flying magical beast is that? No... that looks like a person?!"

Howard's expression changed.

Such speed—let alone an ordinary flying broomstick, even the most elite mounts of the Royal Griffin Knight Order in the capital could never achieve it! With this kind of terrifying kinetic energy, if it crashed down directly, the entire arena would be leveled to the ground!

"Enemy attack!!!"

Howard was a high-tier mage after all, and his combat instincts were still intact.

He violently raised his staff, and the magic power within his body poured out like floodwaters from opened gates.

"Absolute Defense: Extreme Cold Ice Shield!!!"

Accompanied by his hoarse roar, a massive shield a meter thick, composed of high-density profound ice, instantly formed above their heads. This was a high-tier defensive spell capable of withstanding a direct hit from a siege ballista!

However, what he was facing was a supersonic girl who had no regard for martial ethics and was severely brainwashed by a fake buff.

"Hahaha! Old man from the capital! Die!"

In the sky, Aria's excited roar was even more deafening than the sonic boom.

She gripped the broomstick's handle tightly with both hands, and when she was less than fifty meters from the ground, she fiercely pressed the compression release valve at the front of the broom.

"Let me show you the ultimate secret technique born from synchronizing my heart rate with Asik—"

"Love Resonance: Double Air Cannon!!!"

Boom—!!!

As Aria's incredibly embarrassing and chuunibyou-filled lines exploded above the entire arena.

An air bullet, compressed to the extreme by the magic array at the front of the broom until it almost became a tangible high-pressure storm, carried the diving momentum of the broomstick and smashed fiercely into the profound ice shield below with the crushing weight of a mountain!

This was no longer a simple magical clash.

This was the ultimate kinetic energy brought by fluid mechanics, a dimensional strike against the fragile molecular structure of ice crystals!

Crack—Bang!!!

There was no suspense whatsoever.

That high-tier ice shield that Howard was so proud of, capable of resisting siege weapons, shattered inch by inch the moment it touched the high-pressure air bullet, just like a glass mirror violently smashed by an iron hammer, and then exploded into pieces!

Ice shards filled the sky, splattering everywhere like a torrential rain!

"No—this is impossible! What the hell kind of spell name is that?!"

Howard only had time to let out a desperate, miserable scream.

In the next second, that devastating torrent of air blasted into him and Claude without losing any momentum.

The dignified sixth-tier instructor from the capital and that arrogant eldest young master of the Ice Wolf family were like two fallen leaves fluttering in a hurricane, directly blown away by that terrifying airwave!

The two of them drew an extremely ungraceful parabola in midair, flying a full dozens of meters away, before landing with two loud splashes, accurately crashing into the foul-smelling moat surrounding the arena.

They kicked up two massive green splashes.

Silence.

Deathly silence.

In the entire arena, hundreds of townsfolk, mercenaries, and even the guards maintaining order all had their mouths wide open, staring dumbfounded at the scene before them.

In the sky, Aria pulled up her broomstick, circled in midair in an extremely flashy manner, and hovered steadily above the moat.

The exhaust pipe at the tail of the broomstick was still emitting faint green smoke.

"Hmph, so much for a high-tier mage from the capital. You couldn't even handle a single Love Basic Attack from me."

Aria looked down at the two people desperately flailing in the moat and smugly tossed her green curly hair. "Go back and practice for a few more years before coming to run wild in the Northern Territory! Next time you dare to mess with our Norlent family, I'll have Brother Lynch... ahem, I'll use my Affectionate Embrace Cannon to blast you into the sky!"

After saying that, Aria twisted the handle, and a tongue of flame shot out from the tail of the broomstick once again. With a swoosh, she flew gracefully back to the castle amidst a sea of awe-filled gazes.

...

In the moat.

"Glug glug... Help, help..."

Claude swallowed several mouthfuls of algae-filled river water, desperately grabbing onto the water weeds on the bank.

And beside him, the noble Instructor Howard had a rotten cabbage leaf on his head, and his crystal staff had flown off to who knows where.

At this moment, Howard was staring blankly at the sky, his whole body trembling violently. It wasn't just because the river water was freezing cold, but more importantly, his entire worldview had completely collapsed in that single instant.

"Love Resonance... Double Air Cannon..."

Howard muttered to himself, as if he had lost his mind. "What kind of bizarre casting medium was that? What kind of unreasonable energy structure was that? My Extreme Cold Ice Shield couldn't even hold up for a single second!"

"Monsters... these mages from the North... they are all mutated monsters!"

At this moment, the high mage from the royal capital was left with severe psychological trauma, tag-teamed by the North's "scientific alchemy" and "delusional love-struck brains."

...

Meanwhile.

In the distant Buena Village.

That innocent, black-framed-glasses-wearing nerd, Asik, was sitting on the steps of the workshop, looking in the direction of the castle with tears of emotion welling up in his eyes.

Just a moment ago, he heard passing mercenaries say that Lady Aria had charged into the martial arena single-handedly to face a formidable foe from the royal capital.

"My lady... she had just finished shopping with me, and without taking a single moment to rest, she rushed straight into battle..."

Asik clenched his fists tightly, his mind automatically conjuring up a poignant melodrama of "a noble heiress facing down an evil dragon alone to protect her commoner boyfriend."

"She must have been afraid that the terrifying mage would catch me in the crossfire! She must have converted all the 'bandwidth' we established by holding hands just now into the power to protect me!"

Asik took a deep breath, his gaze becoming more determined than ever before.

"No! Asik, you can't keep being such a useless loser!"

"Starting today, I am going to stay up all night studying advanced enchantment theories! I will invent the most powerful magic staff! Only by doing so can I ever be worthy of the profound and magnificent love the young lady has for me!"