Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 197

Chapter 197: A Simple Plan
On a training field, somewhere in the Academy…

As countless spells flew towards him, a bubble of mana appeared, shielding Hans from the incoming attacks.

The dust raised by the impact of the spells obstructed the vision of the people in the vicinity for a few seconds before the man walked out of the cloud of dust unscathed.

“Come on… don’t tell me that’s all you could come up with after thirty minutes of planning”

Hans provoked, talking to his students.

But no reply came back to him, only a handful of annoyed gazes.

‘Tch! It isn’t that easy you damn teacher’

Many of the students thought.

Colton Hayes, who had been selected as the leader of the students for this brief training session, advanced forward, and in the meantime, raised three fingers behind his back.

As his companion saw the hand sign, they immediately realized:

‘It’s time…’

‘The third formation..’

‘Our… final plan’

The thirty students on the field had come up with a final plan of action to land a hit on Hans”

Lila Harper began her attack, spreading her skill: {mystic fog}

However, since her spell would’ve been a hassle to all teammates if she had just released like she used to, she instead controlled it and farmed it into a sphere, completely surrounding Hans.

The young man’s barrier was still keeping the fog away from his breathing area, meaning no illusion could be cast by the young {enchantress} but a fog with such a thick mana concentration was like an obstacle in Hans’s path of view… or at least it was supposed to be.

“Wonderful” exclaimed Hans.

‘Lila Harper… that girl not only has broken throughout the third circle, but she’s also almost a high tier-3 mage, and to add onto that, she has trained her skills to be more adaptable to various situations such as group fights…

What a talent, if only that personality of hers wasn’t so arrogant…’

Continuing the attack were two twins, a male, and a female, they looked exactly like each other, just the other gender version of themselves.

They both had light brown hair and eyes, and smooth facial features.

‘They didn’t stand out much during the first semester because they had awakened just a few months prior and had just barely advanced to the first circle, but they were both blessed with the same rare class: {water’s warden}

Now, however…’

Hans had made use of his mystic insight to view the status of the two people, discovering that they had both reached the middle level of the second tier.

{wave wall}

They cast in unison, raising a wall of water just beside their teacher, who hadn’t moved a bit from the spot he had taken when the battle had just begun.

“Now!”

Colton shouted.

Following his orders, ten of the students, led by Logan Archer, simultaneously cast a little wall of solidified and compressed dirt that measured up to their elbows, surrounding Hans.

“Start the second phase!”

All the mages capable of performing water magic began filling the perimeter of the wall with water, casting every water spell they could think of.

Then…

“third phase, start now!”

Colton said those words before getting to work himself with three other ice mages, freezing all the water that had been poured inside the created wall.

The pressure from the water wasn’t a problem for Hans, but since the ice that had just been created took the shape of Hans’s shield, to move out of that place he would undoubtedly have to remove his barrier.

The young man, who was now trapped in a frozen lake and surrounded by the mist that still hadn’t dissipated, talked to his students:

“A brilliant plan to make me take down my barrier, if you keep me here and I don’t take it down, my mana will be exhausted sooner or later, while if I decide to take action, the ice will force me to jump in the air leaving you a clear window to shoot me down… but have you all forgotten something?!

The time limit is one hour… I bet my barrier won’t even be scratched by these attacks in an hour, I can just sit here and wait for the test to end…

About half an hour earlier…

“Here we are”

Hans announced as he stepped on the training field.

“I will tell one of you what they want to know if they can land a blow on me, how about that?

From now on, you have thirty minutes to think up a strategy, I’ll wait for you in the middle of the field.

Of course… you can stay out of it if you don’t want to participate.”

After saying those words, Hans did what he had said he would do, and waited for them in the middle of the training grounds.

The students gathered, and Hans decided to cast a barrier around him to prevent himself from hearing their plan.

‘It would be no fun if I knew what they are about to do’

He thought.

In the meantime, a discussion was raging in the group of youngsters.

“So? Do we want to form a team or just stay solo?”

David asked, and replying to him was his friend Colton, who said:

“Why the hell do you think he gave us thirty minutes to plan if he thought we would be able to do it alone?”

“Uh… then… would we all be sacrificing ourselves just for one of us to get the answer”

Colton watched him in the eyes like a teacher watching a student who hasn’t understood anything from her lesson before saying:

“Are you dumb or are you just faking it? I honestly can’t tell”

“Huh… what do you mean?”

“You have a mouth you dipshit, you can tell the others the answer if you know it…

“Oh… shit you might be right”

“Ugh…”

Colton almost teared up from the dumbness shown by his friend.

“Well then… we need a leader, don’t we?”

Lila interrupted.

“Yeah, that’s what I think too, it would be more efficient to follow a leader with clear ideas instead of making up a plan that might not work without the right teamwork.”

Logan added touching his glasses.

“Does anyone want to volunteer?”

…

Lila tried to step up after a couple of seconds of silence:

“Well… if no one does… then I-”

But she was interrupted by Colton:

“I’ll do it”

He said with confidence.

“Huh? Who gave you the right to-”

Lila was interrupted once again, this time by Colton’s mana release.

He stood at the peak of the third tier, almost at the bottleneck for a breakthrough.

No one in the whole academy was at his level when talking about sheer magic level.

“Th-that’s not the only thing a leader should-”

As if he didn’t want to let her speak on purpose, Colton interrupted Lila for the third time:

“I have a plan, hear me out before you decide”

‘This fucker… won’t he let me finish!!’

Thought the pink-haired girl.

Colton began explaining the plan:

“Since the task he has given us is to land a hit on him, there are two possible types of battle, in the first one he focuses on evading our attacks, and in the second one he just uses a defensive barrier to shield himself from all of our spells.

Since if he fights back it would be impossible for us, I doubt he would do that, and evading is not as reliable as his own spells, so I think it will be the second type.

Meaning… We will have to smash open a seventh-tier barrier.

First of all, Lila”

“Huh? Me? What do you want?”

“You will have to cast that mist of yours, but it would be a problem if you were to obstruct all of us, you have to cast it solely in the zone where the teacher will stay, can you do that?”

“Oh… what a coincidence… that’s exactly what I’ve learned to do”

Lila replied, and then swung her hand in the air, leaving behind a trail of pink mist that didn’t disperse but remained in place

“Perfect” commented Colton.

“Then, we will create a little lake, and someone has to cast a water wall just beside him”

“You can leave that to us isn’t that right?”

A girl said smiling, before hitting her brother’s shoulder.

“Yeah… Don’t worry about the wall”

“Good…

Then, we will freeze the water, forcing him to either expose himself in the air or remain stuck a few meters below us.”

“Apart from the fact that this plan won’t work if we don’t break his shield, I think you are planning on using the illusion mist as a way to block his vision and mana perception, but the teacher is a high-ranking mage, his senses can perceive through a simple third tier spell, even if it’s special.

also… what the hell do we need the water wall for?”

Logan interrupted since he pictured the situation in his mind and thought they wouldn’t stand a chance with such a simple plan.

“Of course… he will see through the mist.

But… the more he sees, the more it will be effective when he’s fooled”