Chapter 126 - A Draw

Rynold was too busy dealing with his wound. He hadn't even looked up since the fight between X and Wilfred started.

As the sound of metal clashing against rock emanated throughout the battlefield, Rynold didn't even feel the need to be concerned. That was because Mech Boost was an overpowered skill.

[Mech Boost]

Active Magic Skill Lvl 1

Upon activation, increases all Attributes of the targeted Mech by 200%. Lasts for 30 seconds. Depending on the target, the generation of additional skills may occur.

Cost: 50 Mana

Cooldown: 3 hours

It was an extremely fraudulent skill that Rynold had for a while now but never really used. For the most part, it was a skill that required a specific target. So, using it on himself was never really an option.

As to why Rynold never used the skill was rather simple.

For Rynold, Mana was a rather precious resource. Even though he had gotten his Class for quite some time now, Rynold never really pondered too much into using the skill. Mana was a huge bottleneck for him as he constantly used Augment spells which constantly drain Mana.

During his fight against the Behemoth Ghoul, Rynold didn't dare use that much Mana in a critical battle. At the time, he even thought that 30 seconds was barely long enough to make a difference. As for Rynold's fight against Shado, X was barely able to hold his own. At the same time, Rynold was also actively fighting.

But, now, the situation was entirely different.

Rynold had been incapacitated while the enemy was just a few feet away from him. It was undeniable that he could die if he didn't do anything that would change the tides of the battle.

He was able to summon X from where the Mech Knight was. Rynold waited until the most critical of moments because he initially didn't want to summon X, only ever calling upon the Mech Knight in the direst of situations. The reason for doing so was because Rynold had left X to train in a pocket dimension.

It was about 2 months in since Oliver and Chris had left for the other dimension to cleanse the dark Mana. At the time, Rynold was conflicted as to what to do with his Mech Knight. Most of the time, X was lingering around the Tree and spending time with the young Eileen.

Rynold, in the most obvious nature, didn't really want the growth of his familiar to stagnate due to his indecisiveness. The best he could do for the Mech Knight was to bring him to someplace to get stronger. In which Rynold, following Margareth's suggestion, did just that.

Fast forward to today, Rynold could feel X's strength. It was obvious that leaving him to a pocket dimension was the right thing to do. And, what's more, it seems that the Mech Knight didn't detest him for doing just that.

However, the sounds of a fight seemed to have abruptly stopped.

Rynold immediately looked up to see what had happened. It was then that his mouth opened wide. He was amazed at the sight that within a 2-meter radius of Wilfred everything was starting to float. Chunks of debris and even X himself were floating as if they were weightless.

'The hell?'

What was happening right now?

X weighed a ton last time Rynold had checked. Even if the metallic frame had gotten smaller because of [Mech Boost], the Mech Knight would still be heavy.

Gravity magic.

It was a farfetched assumption, but it was the most sensible one. Rynold had read up on this type of magic before. Gravity magic was classified as one of the top magic out there. There were only a few pieces of literature that referred to it, but it all seemed to follow a common theme.

Taboo.

Gravity magic was considered at the very top, but using it would cost too much. Activating it too often or for a prolonged period of time would cause irreversible damage to the user's body. Thankfully, it seemed that Wilfred didn't use it to its limit.

"X! Get back over here!" Rynold didn't hesitate to yell out the command, which caught both Wilfred and X's attention.

Struggling, Rynold raised his left hand and shot the grapple, hoping it would reach the Mech Knight. However, as soon as it entered the 2-meter radius, it effectively slowed down. The persistence of gravity magic was affecting its trajectory. The only hope now was for X to grab onto the thing.

Realizing what his Master was after, X tried to find whatever leverage he could to get to the grapple. However, X's body was currently in suspension. He had nothing to use as leverage to move closer to the grapple.

It was then that X's training finally bore its first fruit.

Being alone in a pocket dimension required some self-sustenance. Something that was never really evident in a peaceful environment. Having experienced living by himself in a dimension full of unknown dangers, X had grown. Both physically and mentally.

X put the tip of his right shortsword on the ground. From there, he tilted his body to where he wanted to go and, using the shortsword as leverage, moved in the weightless environment.

With a little push, X finally moved in the direction he wanted to go. Horizontally spinning 180 degrees, X reached out his hand and grabbed on the grapple. As soon as the Mech Knight held on to the grapple, Rynold retracted it without hesitation. It all happened in one smooth motion.

As soon as X reached the 2-meter radius, he crashed down. The weight of the Mech Knight was too much for a lowly grapple to pull. But, they were successful in getting him out of the weightless zone.

"We're leaving! NOW!" Rynold yelled as soon as X got up on his feet.

The Mech Knight dashed towards Rynold and lifted him up from the ground. Carrying him as they ran away, X asked, "Why didn't he stop us?" The Mech Knight's buff was slowly dissipating.

"I can't say for sure," Rynold answered as he pointed to where they needed to go, "I'm guessing that Wilfred's Mana Reserves finally hit a wall. Using so many spells at once and casting a Taboo spell would only get you a backlash, even with the shrine's support."

As the two slowly escaped his grasp, Wilfred was in massive amounts of pain.

The Everlasting Stone Shrine was a great spell that he had learned early on. It was a support tool that buffed a spellcaster's ability to multicast and had a reduction in the costs of Earth-Attributed spells. But, even with the bombardment of spells that he had used, the two still managed to escape.

'Shit.'

Wilfred spat out blood as his Mana reached zero. The backlash from activating the gravity magic was too much for him to bear. The worse thing was that he wasn't able to control it.

Gravity magic was too powerful, even for a Mana Core of Wilfred's stage. He can't easily turn it off once he activated it. The only way for him to deactivate the spell was to run out of Mana. Which, in this case, just did.

Collapsing on the courtyard ground, Wilfred swore that the next time they would meet, Rynold would die. He swore with every ounce of his being that he would enact his revenge on the only person to have opposed him and lived.

As his consciousness started to fade, Wilfred could barely hear the sound of the guards coming to his aid. The guards were a little too late to the fight. They only reacted when one of them spotted something happening in the courtyard.

The guards rescued Wilfred and brought him to the castle infirmary, all the while Rynold and X managed to escape.

"Over there," Rynold found an open door that led to the hallway entrance of the dungeon. From there the two moved without being noticed and soon arrived at Rynold's cage.

Rynold opened the door and was greeted by Lissa and Leo training while Prominence Alpha was instructing from the side.

"I see you guys are back at it again, huh?" Rynold sarcastically greeted, his voice now losing its strength.

Leo was the first to react and immediately approached Rynold.

"What the hell happened, man?!" Leo ran up to X and offered to carry Rynold to the underground cave.

"Ha ha," Rynold weakly chuckled, "I don't know what to tell you..."

"Oi! Stay with me!" Leo panicked as he let him down on the ground of the cage.

"He's losing a lot of blood," Prominence Alpha moved towards Rynold and took a look, "Get that stone out of his leg and let me cauterize the wound."

Leo pulled the sharp piece of stone off of Rynold's leg and let the Spirit of Fire put his hand on the open wound. Increasing the flame in order to seal the hole in Rynold's leg, Prominence Alpha's hand singed at the burning flesh.

Rynold's face contorted in pain as Prominence Alpha attempted to cauterize the wound.