No earth-shattering explosion.

Just a sharp, spine-chilling sound of cutting and melting.

Those five targets, forged from heavy-duty alloy and nearly impossible to break with advanced magic, were suddenly pierced clean through by blue light!!

The edges were perfectly smooth, like polished glass. That was pure force-field pressure!!

The entire arena went completely silent.

Dead quiet.

You could hear a pin drop.

Every laugh and insult froze in their throats.

Andrew’s smile completely froze. His pupils shrank fast, like he just saw the scariest monster on earth.

"Th... this can’t be..."

Andrew stumbled back two steps. His knees buckled, and he nearly fell.

No chanting??

No hand signs??

Not even a wand needed??!

That broke thousands of years of basic magic rules!!

But the craziest part was the path of those five balls of light!!

In a world where fireballs just fly straight, magic that could auto-track and dodge around corners completely blew their minds!!

"In... instant cast??"

Professor Harris’s glasses slipped off and cracked on the floor.

He was shaking all over. He looked at Arthur like he was staring at a god.

"No wand needed, just building a spell matrix out of thin air..."

"Multiple mental locks..."

"The level of control over Magic Power required for that is absolutely terrifying!!"

Sure, it was just a first-level spell. But the skill on display was even deeper and more mysterious than Elena’s fifth-level magic!!

Arthur looked at the stunned crowd, boredly shook out his wrist.

"Not bad. Tweaked the flight path a bit, and it felt pretty solid."

He turned to leave the platform, planning to head over and claim his free supplies.

But just as the crowd was still reeling from the shock...

A voice, icy cold but dripping with arrogance, suddenly cut through the air.

"This spell is pretty clever."

Everyone turned around.

The speaker was none other than the untouchable Ice Rose, Elena Klein.

Her ice-blue eyes locked onto Arthur. The cold ignore was gone, replaced by sharp scrutiny and caution.

"Skipped the long chants and just used raw Mental Power to shape the elements."

"I’ll admit, you’re a total genius at tweaking low-rank spells."

Elena walked toward the platform. With every step, frost spread across the floor under her boots.

She lifted her chin high, staring straight into Arthur’s eyes.

"But that’s where it ends."

Elena’s voice echoed through the arena, sharp and final.

"The real truth of magic comes from building up massive Magic Power and respecting the Elemental Laws."

"All those cheap Low Rank tricks of yours crumble when faced with true, raw power."

She stopped a few meters from Arthur, a cold smirk on her flawless face.

"As for that Forbidden Spell during your awakening? You just got lucky and triggered some Ancient Relic you brought into the exam room."

"Arthur Voss."

Elena said his name slowly, each word hitting like a hammer.

"You’re still a total loser with zero Magic Power."

The air in the arena went completely still.

Everyone held their breath, waiting to see how Arthur would handle the top genius’s final challenge.

But Arthur just stood there, perfectly still.

He looked straight at Elena’s cold, arrogant face.

Then, he smiled.

It was a dangerous, reckless kind of smile.

A deep blue flicker in Arthur’s eyes made normally proud Elena’s heart skip a beat.

She got a weird feeling, like she was staring at something else.

This wasn’t a double F-rank loser. It felt like she was looking at an ancient god disguised as a human, who’d been alive for millennia.

"Building up massive Magic Power?"

"Respecting the Elemental Laws?"

Arthur turned those words over in his mind and slowly shook his head.

His smile slowly grew wider, totally unapologetic.

"Miss Klein, your understanding of magic is... honestly laughable."

The whole arena went dead silent again.

Everyone’s eyes went wide. No one could believe what they were hearing.

Was he out of his mind??

He actually dared to tell the school’s Ice Rose—Grand Archmagus’s granddaughter and an S-rank genius—that her understanding of magic was weak??

Andrew stood behind the crowd, grinding his teeth as he glared at Arthur. He wished he could just stare him to death.

But he still remembered those five spells barely missing his head. Right now, not a single insult would come out.

Elena’s brows knitted together tight.

Anger flashed in her ice-blue eyes, and the air around her grew even colder.

"What are you getting at?" Elena asked, her voice ice-cold.

Arthur didn’t answer right away.

He turned and strolled over to the edge of the platform.

A few chunks of shattered Obsidian were lying on the ground. They’d just been blown up by Andrew’s "Explosive Flame Shield".

It was one of the toughest building materials in the Kingdom of Oran, usually used for high-level magical defenses.

Arthur bent down and picked up a fist-sized chunk of the black stone.

He cupped the heavy, razor-sharp rock in his palm and turned back to face the crowd.

"In this world, your so-called magic is just throwing fireballs, smashing ice, and whipping up some wind."

Arthur’s voice was calm, but it carried clearly to every corner of the arena.

"You treat Magic Power like gunpowder and spell models like cannons."

"The bigger the caliber, the louder the blast, that’s what you think is truth."

He tossed the Obsidian in his hand, a mocking smile curling his lips.

"This blunt, destructive style? It’s not even beginner level in the real arcane system."

"All that is just Evocation. And the lowest kind at that."

Arthur’s words landed like heavy slaps, stinging every genius in the room.

Professor Harris opened his mouth to argue, but realized he couldn’t find a single word.

Because in this world, magic really was just built for fighting and breaking things.

What’s even the point of magic if it isn’t for destruction??

"Then what is this real magic you keep talking about?" Elena asked, staring at him coldly.

She still didn’t buy it. A total loser with zero Magic Power couldn’t possibly say anything that would shock the world.

Arthur just gave a small smile.

"Real magic is about changing the rules."

"It’s about reshaping matter."

"It’s making the impossible actually happen."

The second he finished speaking, Arthur’s gaze turned razor-sharp and focused.

He didn’t raise his wand.

He didn’t chant a single long spell either.

He just stared dead at the rock-hard Obsidian in his palm.

In his head, a spell model from the Transmutation school of D&D magic snapped into place.

A fourth-level spell.

No giant surge of Magic Power was needed to blow things up. Just insane levels of Mental Power to break down the building blocks of matter!!

"Stone Shaping."

Arthur barely moved his lips and spoke the three words.

The next second, something genuinely creepy happened.

No bright flashes of fire. No bone-deep cold. And definitely no earth-shaking explosions.

Just a faint, almost invisible arcane ripple wrapped around Arthur’s hand, one that made everyone’s skin crawl.

Everyone watched in total shock as the hard Obsidian actually started to melt!!

Wait, it wasn’t melting!!

There was zero heat radiating from it.

The rock just lost its hard form and turned into a soft, dark gray lump of clay right in Arthur’s hands!!

"Wh... what is this??"

A noble student let out a shriek, his voice squeaking high like a startled kid.

Andrew rubbed his eyes so hard it hurt, like he was seeing ghosts at noon.

Elena’s pupils shrank to tiny dots.

She took a step forward, locking her eyes on Arthur’s hand, her breath catching in her throat.

As the Grand Archmagus’s granddaughter, she had read every book she could find and seen countless high-level spells growing up.

But she swore on her life, she had never seen any spell change Obsidian’s physical shape at normal temperatures!!

Arthur looked completely relaxed.

He worked the dark lump in his hands like it was just ordinary modeling clay.