No More Pain For This Villain.

"Where the hell did you learn that?" Marylin was quite surprised by the accuracy of my attacks and the damage they inflicted on those dummy targets. She walked towards me as her eyes still wandered in the direction of the tarnished dummy targets.

"It's not that impressive, right?" I tried not to get too deep into the question about where I learned this since she wouldn't believe me if I were to say that I taught myself.

"It is!! "Or else, why would I give you multiple chances to hit the targets if it was that easy, and for a beginner like you, I expected you to miss even with that many chances?" Marylin explained,

"So she expected me to fail even after giving me all those nine hits in total."

I thought, it's not a pleasant feeling when you know that someone is not taking you seriously.

 Rub rub

Marylin rubbed on her spatial ring, and two human-sized targets again stood in front of me; unlike the previous ones, these dummy targets have a white coloured gem stone embedded onto their foreheads.

"This time you have only three chances; use other spells than the fireball." Marylin said that this time she gave me three shots for two targets, and I think it's fine for her to think that I'd miss one or so, unlike before, where she thought that I'd miss almost very short.

"Inferno-bolt is the only spell that I can use besides fireball," I said. The previous owner learned only two spells, and I didn't have enough time to explore new spells.

"Then just use that; you'll learn other spells eventually," Marylin said, and I nodded along. 

Fireball explodes when it comes in contact with its target; the radius of damage caused by it is pretty limited, and it does not consume much mana.

On the other hand, the inferno bolt is a much more complex and effective spell. You have to make a very compact lance of fire in your hand, making sure that the fire does not change its designated shape, and then you launch it towards your target.

Then the inferno-bolt, like an intentionally heated metallic rod, pierces through the target smoothly if the target is not ready or is pretty weak; in this case, dummies are like corpses, so it shouldn't cause much problem.

Marylin once again stepped back a little and observed me carefully. I, on the other hand, closed my eyes to focus. I know in a live battle I won't get leisure and time to prepare myself, but this is not a live battle; this is a test, and I can take as much time as I need to prepare myself.

I slowly led my mana from the core to adjacent mana veins, circulating the mana throughout the body. Mana reached for the palm. I've been doing the same when forming the fireball, but this time I have to gather the ambient fire element particles to conjure a desired shape. Bringing the burning sensation to my right palm, the fire collected itself as I kept compressing it into the small space to increase its density.

Once the high-density fire orb was hovering on the top of my palm, I created another one on my left palm,

I imagined the desired shape and began moulding them while trying to keep their high density intact. I shaped them like construction iron bars. I opened my eyes, and then,

Zoop

 Zoop 

I simultaneously threw both of the inferno bolts at their respective targets, and luckily they passed right through their sternum, like cutting butter with a hot knife, and they fell down.

"How's that?" I asked, and I could feel myself smirking. Last time I was able to surprise her, and I once again was confident in my skills, so I waited for her to praise me, but to my bad luck, the words that followed were,

Silence

"Slow, your casting speed is slowwwwwww," Marylin said with half-opened eyes. Her expressions clearly describe how she feels about my performance, which is "boring. How can you take so much time to create such an easy spell?" Marylin said without looking at me as she walked towards the lying dummies,

"That which I am" I tried to make excuses by saying something. I can feel my face heating a little. I thought that she was going to praise me, but I never thought about her criticising me.

Marylin squatted down near the fallen targets and began doing something around their heads.

"Huhhhhhhhhhnn???" She let out a weird kind of sound. Marylin gently pulled the embedded gem from the forehead of the target dummies, and for some reason that gem was no longer white like before.

"What happened?" I ran towards her,

"Look at this," Marylin said as she shoved the gem stone nearly into my face. Taking the stone from her hand, I observed it, and with the help of my intelligent brain, I found that the stone was now bright yellow in colour.

Wow, I am surprised by your vast intellect, master; you must have been a scholar in your previous life, right? What a load of bullsh*t, even a grade schooler can tell that much," Blaze teased me; he was pretty silent through all the training sessions, but it looks like he broke it off just to ridicule me. What a jerk.

"They changed their colour from white to yellow," I said as I returned the stone to her. Even with all that teasing, I was sure that this was the only change that occurred in this gem stone; if not, then it'll be pretty embarrassing.

"Yep, but do you know what it means?" It means that the impact of your attack was on par with a one-star mage. Marylin said as she crushed the gem stones in her hands,

"What are those gem stones?" I asked, but I think I've gotten a hint about their function and use, but I still asked to confirm,

"They measure the impact of an attack that lands near them and turn their colour according to it," Marylin said.

She also explained that it's pretty useful for us to measure one's strength without having to go to the adventurers' guild, and since these gemstones were mid-grade items, it can only measure power up to four-star mage; it turning yellow means one star, while it can also turn orange, red, and blue respectively as the power goes higher with each.

"Is there anything surprising in that? Isn't it obvious that I am at least a one-star mage? You don't have to be that shocked." I said, to which Marylin showed a kind of defeated expression,

"Well, I'd be pretty shocked when the snotty little brat I used to know, who grew up in front of me all these years, suddenly shows me such extraordinary skills at once, right?" Marylin said as she stood up at her place while dusting off the dirt on her clothes,

' she called you a SNOTTY BRAT HAHAHA,' Blaze has found a new way of teasing me. Thanks, Marylin.

"What star is Mary on?" I tried to change the topic by asking Mary's current strength,

"If I remember correctly, then it's a little over a three star; she'll soon become a four star though, why do you ask?" Marylin replied to me in the most generic manner, but I could feel a bragging mom aura around her when she said that Mary will soon cross the line between three stars and four stars.

"Nothing; I just thought that I should work hard." I said and returned to my original position. Mary was always ahead in her swordsman skills, so it's not surprising that she is a three-star fighter, but I know if I have to survive then I'd have to be a lot stronger than required.

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 Author's Note .

 [A/N: Well, well, well, I have great news for everyone: our novel has successfully signed a contract with Webnovels, and I am truly happy about it. It was not possible without your help, sniff, ahem*,

So I'd like to thank all those readers who talk to an introverted writer like myself through comments.

 - by your friendly neighbourhood author.]