Chapter 78: Frost Needle

Fortunately for Jay, he didn't have to hold on for long trapped by the Aqugas snake's tentacles, since before it could pull him towards the lake, a strong current of cold wind filled the surrounding area, freezing everything in its path except for Jay.

'What control!' Jay thought as he broke the now frozen tentacles holding him and fled in the direction the wind current had come from.

As for the cut on his side, he paid no attention to it, after all, it would only take a couple of minutes for it to fully heal thanks to Noah's useful ability, Passive Regeneration.

While the strength of the spell had also been somewhat surprising, the area of effect is what truly left Jay shocked.

After all, to use a spell with such a wide area of effect while avoiding a specific target was something considerably difficult, even Jay wouldn't be capable of something like that with his wind control.

Unconsciously, this made Jay think a little better of the young mage.

*BAM!*

Seeing its prey again slipping away from it, the Aqugas snake lashed out at the nearby trees, the gelatinous mass that made up its body changing color very slowly, becoming a much more noticeable green color than before.

This was not the only change in its body, but all the tentacles that were in the lake and inside the forest returned to form part of the snake's body, also assuming that green color.

"...Just great, it's a f*cking variant!" Said Jay when he saw what the snake was doing, without stopping running even for a second.

Although normal Aqugas snakes always inhabited lakes and couldn't move around too much as they depended on water, there were always variations between these, with snakes being able to absorb a huge amount of water into their bodies and thus move on land.

However, because not all snakes had a body tough enough for it, those variations were much rarer to encounter than a rank (B-) Aqugas snake.

Unfortunately for Jay and the young wizard, they had just happened to encounter one of those rare Aqugas snake variations.

Though what they didn't know was that in reality, until just moments ago, this snake had only been an average Aqugas snake.

What had triggered this sudden change in it was nothing more or less than the anger that the two of them had provoked in it by escaping so many times.

In all its life, this was the first time that the snake had encountered prey that was so annoying, even the other predators on the island, those huge panthers and bears that were over 10 meters long, monsters that the snake wasn't sure it could defeat, even they weren't as annoying as these 2.

Although at the beginning its goal had only been to devour them in order to become stronger, now it no longer wanted that, but simply to finish them off, without caring about the consequences.

As a result, its body achieved something it had not done before, and that was to adapt itself to be able to advance on land.

In that way, the snake began to quickly move towards where Jay was fleeing, its massive body effortlessly sweeping through every tree it came across.

"If you had warned me instead of running away, none of this would have happened!" The young mage also shouted as he prepared a spell similar to the previous one, while he also was shocked to see that the Aqugas snake was a variant, he could not simply stand still as it approached.

Although he was at a considerable distance from the lake, it was not a problem to hear what he was saying because of how loud he was shouting.

Unlike before, this time the wizard was inside a magic circle made entirely of snow, around him there were three circles also made of snow which were connected to the one he was in.

This was also a spell to create an elemental zone, only this one was much more complicated than the one he had tried to use in the lake.

Because water and ice were extremely compatible elements, the young mage had not had to create overly complex magic circles or invest large amounts of mana to turn water into ice.

However, in order to turn the entire surrounding wooded area into an environment suitable for the use of his icy magic, he had to use three different types of magic circles, one to collect mana from the surroundings, one to convert that mana into icy mana, and one to be able to spread that mana in the surroundings.

As for the one in the middle of those three, that is, the circle in which he was standing, it served for him to be able to coordinate that everything worked correctly, since a single mistake could make him have to start all over again.

But thanks to luck, or rather, to the young man's experience with these types of spells, everything had gone perfectly. Proof of this was that around him, specifically about 20 meters around, all the trees had a bit of snow on their leaves, as for the ground, it was no slouch either, as there was even some ice here and there.

This was the effect of his elemental zone being half complete, although it was not so visibly impressive, the benefits it gave him at the moment of using his spells were already noticeable.

*SWOOSH!*

Another strong stream of wind blew right past Jay, landing directly on the Aqugas snake and slowing its movement for about 2 seconds before it returned to normal.

"Don't you have something stronger!?" Jay asked as he saw that this hadn't had much effect on the snake.

This spell was actually considerably more powerful than the ones he had used before, being even above the spell he used to freeze the tentacles that were holding trapping him when he was in the lake.

The reason he had not used it so far was simply because he was incapable of doing so without first forming an elemental zone, as this spell relied quite heavily on the icy mana in the environment and not so much on the mage's control or mana.

However, right now Jay was asking him to use something stronger, and while he was right, the young mage couldn't help but get a little annoyed.

"Fine, but you better dodge this!" He shouted as his eyes began to glow and he gathered all the mana in the vicinity into the tip of his wand.

Although it resembled the moment he used the spell to freeze a portion of the lake he used earlier, this time the movement of the mana was much more violent, even going so far as to put a considerable amount of pressure on his body.

*Shhk*

Ice began to appear on the ground around the wizard, spreading slowly until it reached the trees, causing them to crackle, their bark breaking slightly.

He then raised his arm, at the tip of his wand appearing a small but complicated magic circle that seemed to be the cause of all the changes in the forest.

Time seemed to recede for a second, as all the ice and icy mana in the surrounding area was absorbed by this small magic circle, leaving the forest as it had been before this young wizard had begun to form his elemental zone.

"Frost Needle."

Immediately, an extremely thin and short needle of ice, barely reaching 2 inches in length shot out from the magic circle, heading towards Jay, or rather, towards the huge snake coming up behind him.

After firing, the young mage could not help but wince because his fingers had turned a blue color, which was a side effect of having used so much icy mana at once.

Seeing this, even though he didn't know exactly what it was, Jay had a feeling about what would happen if that ice needle  touched him... and he didn't like it at all.

However, for that very reason, he kept running as if nothing was happening, even slowing down, all so that the snake could get closer and he wouldn't have time to dodge it.

Finally, just as the needle got close enough, Jay used the third and fourth step of the Phantom Trace, dodging the needle by the distance of a hair.

"!"

At that moment, even though he had clearly dodged the needle, he lost sensibility in his left cheek, which was the part that had been closest to touching the needle.

'Just being near it causes this effect...?' Jay thought as he lightly touched his now frozen cheek.

Although it hadn't completely frozen over, there was a layer of ice on top of it.

However, Jay was fortunate.

*BOOM!*

Due to the sheer size that the Aqugas snake had, the needle not only made contact with it, but even embedded itself deep into its body, turning a large part of its body to ice and causing it to crash into a nearby tree, knocking it down in the process.

"Great!" Jay said, glad to see that the spell had apparently worked.

However, before more than a second had passed, something incredible happened. Now not only had the snake frozen, but this process was being transmitted to the tree the snake had collided with.

"...Oh no..."

At the same time, Jay felt a small crunch on his cheek, the product of it turning to ice at an incredibly fast rate, causing him to worry a bit.

"IMBECILE, I TOLD YOU TO DODGE!" The young wizard shouted after seeing that the needle almost made contact with Jay, "Get your ass over here before your whole face freezes off!"

Although he had let out a rather loud scream, the emotion that predominated within him was not one of anger, but of concern, after all, he was the one who really knew best what the effects of the spell he had just used were.

While the name of the spell might be simple enough, its effects were anything but that, besides its ability to turn everything it touched into ice, what truly made this spell dangerous was that the icy mana contained in the needle would begin to spread itself in the surroundings when it reached its target, only stopping when the mana had run out.

While the power varied depending on the amount of icy mana contained inside, because the young mage had used all the icy mana he had condensed to create his elemental zone, there was no need to mention how dangerous this needle was.

In Jay's case, although he had not made direct contact with the needle, he had been close enough to absorb a small but significant amount of the mana surrounding it, resulting in his face freezing more with each passing second.

Fortunately for him, there was a quite easy solution for this, which was to extract the icy mana inside his cheek, stopping the process while allowing the young mage to regain some energy.

"!"

However, just at that moment, the mage felt a terrible tiredness weighing on his body accompanied by a sudden dizziness, causing him to stumble and fall to the ground.

"Sh-shit..." He said as he tried to get up, his eyes unfocused due to the dizziness he felt, "Just now I have to run out of mana...?"

While he had thought that this might happen, it still caught him off guard.

Although "Frost Needle" mostly used the icy mana of the surroundings, the price of using such a spell was simply too high, coming to also use a large amount of mana from the mage using it.

While this would normally have only been enough to take 50% of mana from him, right now his reserves had already been severely affected thanks to all the spells he had used so far, so the use of "Frozen Needle" had left him completely depleted.

Jay again started running to help him, confirming that the mage had run out of energy thanks to his little ones.

"Hey, are you o-"

*BOOM!*

Before he could even finish speaking, a solid object suddenly crashed in front of him, leaving a small crater in the ground.

Then, without the dust resulting from that crash dissipating, Jay jumped backwards at the same time his previous position was invaded by the same object in front of him.

Or rather, the part of the Aqugas snake that had separated from the main body, now taking the form of a small miniature Aqugas snake.

With enemies behind and in front of him and his ally temporarily out of combat, in addition to the ice that was rapidly freezing his face, the situation was not looking good for Jay.