"It looks like we have to take her out first!"
Leilin pointed at the cloth doll that was still clutching its face, his expression blank.
All three of them seemed to have selectively forgotten the moment when the other two had abandoned Leilin just now.
Leilin understood perfectly well that turning on them at this point would be entirely counterproductive. Against the wraith doll, they had to work together to defeat—if not kill—their opponent.
As for what had just happened, there would be plenty of time to settle that score later!!!
"Fire! Alice hates fire the most!"
The enormous cloth doll before them had already smothered the pink flames on its face. The doll's once-pretty visage now bore a patch of scorched black, and one of its eyeballs was missing entirely.
But the doll still smiled. "Let's all play together!"
With a wave of its hand, the tables and chairs inside the room sprang to life. The lamp, the wardrobe, and the rest grew a pair of tiny legs each, singing nursery rhymes and dancing as they gradually encircled Leilin and the other two.
"Shadow Hand!"
"Corrosive Flame!"
"Acid Splash!"
…
Leilin and the others kept casting spells at the tables, chairs, and other creatures closing in, but there were simply too many of them. Felling one or two made no real difference.
Moreover, even striking the cloth doll's main body with Magical Items left only faint scratches—practically useless.
In the end, the three apprentices stood back to back, hemmed in by the dolls into a tiny patch of ground.
"There's no other choice!"
Bosain looked at the pale-faced Jiamen and Leilin, a hard glint appearing in his eyes.
"I have a high-power wizardry spell that needs time to prepare. Stall the monsters for me!"
With that, he pulled a gray scroll covered in strange patterns from inside his robe, sat cross-legged on the ground, and began chanting an incantation.
A glimmer of hope flickered across Jiamen's and Leilin's faces as they mustered what spells they could to hold back the onslaught.
*So he's finally been forced to use it!* Leilin thought to himself.
Jiamen's exhaustion was genuine, but Leilin was merely feigning it. Still, the situation had been genuinely perilous—he had been on the verge of activating the Falling Star Pendant's defensive ability.
From Bosain's perspective, however, both Leilin and Jiamen were newly advanced Third-rank Apprentices whose Spiritual Power and mana had been drained to their limits. Jiamen had already used his Magical Items multiple times.
And Leilin? A mere Potionology apprentice who had held out this long already exceeded Bosain's expectations.
He had no idea that although Leilin had only recently advanced, the assistance of potions meant his Spiritual Power was in fact slightly superior to that of a veteran Third-rank like Bosain—one who had already met the threshold for promotion to Wizard.
Leilin was also concealing a defensive Magical Item.
"One healing amulet, used earlier. One offensive scroll, one contract scroll, and one Magical Item capable of assuming any form for everyday offense and defense."
Leilin tossed out a potion, chanting spells and gasping for breath between incantations.
"Bosain may be from a great family, but he's still just an apprentice. Having these things is already extraordinary!"
Beneath the cover of the violent magical fluctuations, Leilin quietly calculated Bosain's remaining strength.
After several dozen seconds, Bosain finally completed the activation of the wizardry scroll. The originally gray parchment now hovered in midair, radiating rings of fiery red light.
*This kind of fluctuation—it's a First-level Wizardry Spell! No wonder it took so long to activate!*
Leilin's pupils contracted. The powerful energy waves emanating from the scroll not only forced the bizarre creatures encircling them to retreat, but also made it difficult for Leilin and Jiamen to breathe.
Bosain's family had actually given him a scroll inscribed with an official First-level Wizardry Spell as his ultimate life-saving trump card!!!
*Truly worthy of being one of the three great families of the Academy—filthy rich!*
A scroll inscribed with a First-level Wizardry Spell was not only staggeringly expensive in materials—equivalent to dozens of First-level Spells cast by a full Wizard—but also required the intervention of an alchemy master well-versed in magical arrays. Each one was astronomically priced.
The value of a single scroll was at least one hundred thousand Magic Stones!!!
Expensive to produce, troublesome to activate, and largely useless to full Wizards who had no need for them—these factors combined to make such scrolls extremely rare. Only major Wizard families like Lilisite's would keep one or two in their vaults.
Having paid such a steep price, the scroll's power was nothing short of astonishing!
Rings of fiery red energy rippled outward as the scroll spontaneously ignited within the glow.
Amid the blazing golden-yellow flames, a colossal three-legged bird of pure gold materialized.
The three-legged bird preened its feathers with a lively, almost lifelike grace, letting out a few clear, ringing cries.
It looked exactly like a real creature, and its black eyes gleamed with a spark of intelligence, as though it possessed a mind of its own.
"Go!!!" Bosain's face was ashen white. His lips had cracked in several places, and beads of sweat trickled from the corners of his eyes, but his gaze burned with fierce excitement as he pointed at the cloth doll opposite them.
It seemed that casting an official Wizardry Spell ahead of schedule had given him an enormous sense of satisfaction.