Ever since the first training session, Hilia’s magic puppet was shattered, and Doris compensated her with an almost brand new one. After that, during training sessions with Doris, Hilia acted quite casually.

Especially after accidentally damaging the magic puppet somewhere.

It was not an ordinary hope for Doris to break the magic puppet again.

Unfortunately, Doris was not foolish; she never got angry afterward and everything stopped short, unlike the first time when the magic puppet was shattered.

She instead noticed Hilia’s lack of seriousness and felt very discontented.

This time was no different; she sneered, "Target? You should hit seriously first. Afraid of losing, you don’t dare to hit it seriously. You might as well give up your qualification early."

"You make it sound like if I give up, you will succeed," Hilia glanced at Benovia not far away; she wasn’t training with anyone, just practicing magic alone with a dummy.

Perhaps feeling Hilia’s gaze, she raised her head, locked eyes with Hilia, and offered a smile.

Hilia suddenly had the idea of training with her.

But quickly recalled the other’s usual stance and guessed not much would come out of it.

Besides, the other never sparred with anyone; it might be rejected, better forget about it.

There’s a ready target nearby, why go further away.

"I’m casual because you simply can’t beat me; that’s why I’m casually training with you. You wouldn’t think you could actually beat me, would you?" Hilia said carelessly.

She knew Doris would definitely be angered by this crude provocation.

"You? Come on, let’s see if I won’t smash your magic puppet to pieces!"

Doris stepped directly into a training ground and beckoned Hilia.

"Come on, this time no matter how casual you are, I’ll smash your magic puppet! I’ll scatter the Heart of the Magic Puppet everywhere!"

Hilia chuckled and stepped into the training ground.

Their magic puppets stood in front of them, like dueling little elves and trainers.

"Come, you attack first so you won’t say I’m bullying you," Doris snorted.

"You’re the one who said it."

Hilia had already ordered her magic puppet to charge towards Doris’s magic puppet.

The fastest way to test spine performance is to let the magic puppet melee.

In melee mode, each part of the body must transmit reactions to the Heart of the Magic Puppet in the head through the spine, and similarly, the Heart of the Magic Puppet must transmit coping methods to the body through the spine.

In this back-and-forth, the quality of the spine is revealed.

A poor spine will react a beat slower, leading to untimely responses in melee combat and being defeated by the opponent.

Generally speaking, natural Hearts of Magic Puppets can handle most sudden attacks; what limits the magic puppet’s combat are often the insufficient strength of materials across its body and information transmission delays.

Hilia did not use magic, only used Mage’s Hand to assist the magic puppet in judgment. After nearing Doris’s magic puppet, she threw a casual punch, waiting for the opponent’s magic puppet to dodge and start counterattacking, then focused on dodging the attack to feel the spine’s performance.

"Very fast!"

In Hilia’s eyes, Doris’s counterattack seemed slowed, just like the first time facing Doris.

The difference was, back then her magic puppet was bad, even merely dodging was very difficult.

This time, when the Heart of the Magic Puppet computed the opponent’s attack, it transmitted the avoid directive to the body swiftly, not only responding quickly but even able to scratch Doris’s magic puppet playfully.

"Feels like Doris’s magic puppet attack speed is slower?"

"Nope, my Mage’s Hand has improved!"

Mage’s Hand transformed spiritual power into threads, securely locking onto Doris’s magic puppet’s every joint, leaving no subtle change unnoticed by her.

No matter how Doris commanded her magic puppet to attack, she couldn’t hit Hilia’s magic puppet.

"Using this trick again?" The familiar eel-like slipperiness made Doris hum, "Then let’s get serious; don’t tell me you haven’t downloaded any magic into the magic puppet yet."

"Remember to really get serious, don’t hold back." Hilia replied with a smile.

Doris’s magic puppet drew a longsword, the sword flipped as before, enveloped in flames, accompanied by Wind Magic that made the flames on the sword leap to 2.5 meters.

Then, the magic puppet’s speed doubled, instantly arriving beside Hilia’s magic puppet.

Previously, when Doris used this move, Hilia felt the magic puppet’s speed exceeded the limits of Mage’s Hand’s perception, preventing her from transmitting information to the magic puppet in time, and the magic puppet’s sluggishness couldn’t automatically avoid such speedy attacks, leading to being destroyed by a single stroke.

It’s different now.

Although Doris’s magic puppet was fast, Hilia still felt it within her perception level.

Everything sensed by Mage’s Hand was quickly transmitted to the magic puppet’s Heart of the Magic Puppet, which instantly calculated the opponent’s attack trajectory and devised countermeasures, transmitted throughout the body by the spine.

Practically instant transmission, the magic puppet’s limbs responded.

Raising hands, an ice wall appeared at one hand, merging in the middle without hesitation.

It just caught the charging magic puppet’s longsword!

Yet the impact force was not so easily countered, Hilia’s magic puppet was dragged back three steps by the sword’s momentum before stopping.

"Just trying to block my flaming sword with an ice wall?"

The sword flipped.

Bang!

The ice wall shattered explosively.

Hilia did not transform the fragments of the broken ice wall into Ice Blade Impact or Ice Spikes.

Because it was shattered by the enemy, not shattered actively by her.

An ice wall shattered passively can’t be transformed into other magic spells.

Of course, you could actively shatter it upon sensing the opponent’s move to break the ice wall, creating the illusion of the opponent breaking it, thus triggering other magic spells.

But Hilia didn’t do that.

After the ice wall shattered, she had the magic puppet retreat two steps, and directly launched Ice Blade Impact.

"Ice Blade Impact can’t compare to my combined magic!"

Facing the ice blade, Doris’s magic puppet raised its longsword and easily destroyed the ice blade with a swipe.

Yet just as the magic puppet shattered the ice blade, Doris suddenly felt a surge of power from behind her magic puppet.

It was actually a fireball, appearing behind the magic puppet at some unknown point, lazily hitting her magic puppet.

A single fireball was hardly painful to a magic puppet, especially from an opposing attribute magic puppet.

Doris felt she was being mocked.

"Who goes around chopping others’ magic, isn’t that just offering a chance?"

Hilia’s voice floated over.

"I underestimated you, but with just that little trick, even if you switch to another magic spell, the extent you can achieve is only that much."

Doris retorted, but her magic puppet’s attacks became more ferocious.

However, the seemingly powerless Hilia magic puppet was now nimbly dodging any melee attacks under her assault.

Even for wide-area attacks, it could timely even predict in advance, using magic or finding a weak point to resolve.

The more Doris watched, the more shocked she became.

She knew that after compensating Hilia’s magic puppet with materials, Hilia’s magic puppet would become stronger, but not so much stronger.

There was only one possibility, Hilia had grown stronger.

Just then, Hilia’s breezy voice came.

"Miss Doris, hurry up and get serious, why are you still holding back?"

Doris’s face turned red on the spot.