The road they followed didn't take them straight to the source of the smoke, but it got them close enough that Shim agreed to check it out, not just because Maura asked but because it could be a good learning experience for the other students.

After a short trek through the forest, they found themselves standing in front of what looked like a ranch. One of the buildings had flames and smoke rising from it.

"Using magic, what do you think is the best way to suppress the fire?" Shim asked.

Ticka Highfield raised a hand.

"I can use my earth magic to suffocate it, Sir."

"Do you know Earth Dome?"

"No, Sir, but I can create an Earth Wall and tip it over the building."

"What if there are people inside?"

"Ah…" Ticka lost her enthusiasm and lowered her hand.

"I can target the areas on fire with my ice, Sir."

Shim nodded.

"Without using magic, how would you go about suppressing this fire?"

"A bucket relay from the nearest water source, Sir," Benjamin answered, determined to make a good impression.

"Where is the nearest source of water?"

"It looks like a farm, so it should be nearby, or there might be a well."

"And if there is no well or stream nearby?"

Benjamin frowned and turned toward the burning building. The flames were spreading slowly.

"I would use a shovel or something and throw dirt to suffocate the flames."

"Inefficient, but if there aren't any other options, it's better than nothing."

"..."

Shim looked at the noble students crowded around him. He tried to ignore the intense gazes from the commoners behind him. With a sigh, he turned around.

"Do you lot have anything to add? If you repeat anything that's already been said, I'll make a deduction."

"I'd raze the building to the ground before shoveling dirt on it," Erio said confidently with crossed arms.

Shim raised an eyebrow.

"How would you do that without magic?"

Without answering, Erio grabbed one of his hatchets and swung it straight at a nearby tree. With a loud bang, he felled it in one go.

Shim wrinkled his nose but didn't say anything as he glanced at the others. His gaze lingered on Maura, who didn't seem to have any interest in anything but the burning building.

"May I give multiple answers, Sir?" Alec asked.

Shim sighed again

"Fine," He said as if he was already tired of hearing Alec's voice.

"Water Spout is one option."

"I assume you can use that spell since you mentioned it." Shim frowned in displeasure.

Alec nodded confidently.

"You already mentioned Earth Dome. Then there's Flamedrain, Burst, and Waterfall, Sinkhole—"

"Stop, stop, stop!" Shim interrupted with an angry shout.

"Do you take me for a fool?!" He growled.

Alec's eyebrows rose in confusion.

"There's no way a mongrel like you can cast all those spells! If you were hoping to show off your knowledge of spells and make a good impression, you were sorely mistaken, boy! Not to mention how wrong you are. The others might work, but Burst…?!

"I told you to suppress the fire, not accelerate it! Do you not know how fire reacts in contact with the wind, moronic fool?

"You might be uncultured and uneducated, but to think that you don't even have a lick of common sense. Tsk." Shim clicked his tongue and pointed at the burning building.

"Deal with that using Burst."

Alec blinked and stared at Shim's rosy face for a second before turning toward the building. He started walking.

Words wouldn't work against Shim.

Taryeon was about to intervene when Isidore grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. Taryeon quickly realized that it was more likely that Alec was right than Shim.

So, they watched as Alec walked up to the burning building and started casting Burst.

Alec closed his eyes and focused on the spell formation for Burst. It was a spell that created an explosion of air. In theory, the shockwave should be enough to put out the fire if the spell was powerful enough.

However, Alec had already noticed that his spells weren't the most powerful, especially not the ones he was casting for the first time.

That was why he needed to make a slight modification to the spell formation's Regulator and Frame parts.

Most air-attribute spells were surprisingly cost-efficient. That meant he could increase the cost a little.

But just increasing how much mana the spell formation devoured wouldn't change the spell. He also needed to change how the mana was used.

It took a couple of tries, despite being just the smallest of tweaks since the runes were so sensitive to change, but Alec eventually had a spell he was satisfied with.

It was just in time for Benjamin to snicker and Shim to start thinking this was a waste of time. Alec should have just owned up to his boisterous lies and accepted the punishment.

Fortunately, Alec was too far away to hear Benjamin tell his friends that he was probably scared stiff.

He was also too focused on drawing the most complex spell formation he had drawn so far. Although he had the formation in a holographic outline in front of him, he still had to be careful not to make any mistakes.

His formless mana changed into air mana and shaped into more than a hundred and fifty intricate runes.

When he came to the Regulator part, he felt a sudden spike in the rate his mana drained.

'That change was a success, at least.'

He drew the rest of the formation. As he neared the end, a baseball-sized sphere of swirling wind appeared in front of him and the spell formation. And when he finished, the sphere shrank to the size of an eye.

Shim's eyes narrowed to pinpricks as the rapidly spinning marble of condensed wind tore through the air to unleash a high-pitched whine.

That wasn't the Burst he knew of.

Without hesitation and fear, Alec released the Burst toward the building that looked like something between a shed and a warehouse.

The moment the sphere made contact with the wall, all the forcefully compressed air was unleashed in one big burst of wind.

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