Although the Fire Bullets were powerful enough to easily pass through the Ice Walls, they weren't powerful enough to completely shatter them. So, Femradiel had the chance to create some concentrated Ice Bullets and cancel the Fire Bullets.

Ryan really felt proud of himself for coming up with that idea. Whatever happens now, neither of them will be able to complain about the result, which was indeed a contest of skill. Still, Ryan couldn't help but worry that Femradiel might go a bit overboard and use her reserves of mana to go all-out and win. The mana she had been saving to create a new body.

Ryan's predictions came true much sooner than he had imagined. Femradiel began to condense her mana in several points around her. Those points turned into invisible machine guns that fired endless Ice Bullets.

"Femradiel…" Ryan facepalmed.

Alissa tried to stop them by using Gravity, but as expected, it wasn't enough. So, she cast several Fire Walls to decrease the Ice Bullets' power. Before Ryan could notice, the area around them was getting covered by mist. A lot of ice melted, after all, so something like that couldn't be helped.

"10, 9, 8…" Ryan suddenly said.

"What is that?" Alissa frowned.

"The countdown for the end of the only round of this… whatever the hell you want to call this," Ryan replied.

"You never said anything about a time-limit!" Femradiel protested.

"Really? Well, my bad," Ryan shrugged. "4, 3, 2, 1. The fight is over, both of you are losers. Happy now?"

"There are no losers when there are no winners…" Alissa said and then sighed.

In the end, both sides didn't feel like taunting each other anymore. While it didn't last long, the fight served a good purpose. Neither of them could underestimate the other side. After all, their skills were more or less at the same level. A contest of brute strength could have a winner, but neither of them would feel satisfied by that. When Ryan noticed that, he couldn't help but frown. Unlike those two, he certainly liked to overpower his foes. Skill was just another factor to him.

"I forgot to mention, but it looks like your show worked," Alissa suddenly said. "I wished I had watched that."

"My show?" Ryan frowned.

"That thing you showed to everyone back in the base," Alissa explained. "Thanks to you, those idiots back there changed their ways a little bit. Upon noticing that a single human could have easily defeated them, they noticed that they needed more power to protect themselves in case you go crazy again. Now they are only guarding and training the real difficult dungeons."

"Is that so," Ryan said, trying not to look much interested in that.

It looked like Ryan achieved his goal. While it might cause some issues later to leave the low-level dungeons alone, it couldn't be helped given the severity of the situation. Humans couldn't afford to think that far ahead when god-like creatures will begin to walk on Earth in less than six months.

"That being said, with only a few exceptions, pretty much everyone at the base hates you," Alissa said.

"I couldn't care less about that," Ryan shrugged.

That was already something within Ryan's expectations. The real important thing about that whole mess is that the people there won't cause problems to Arthur and Zoe. Now that the low-level dungeons would be left alone, perhaps that was a good chance for Ryan to level up his magic class. The more low-level creatures around, the more chances he will have to use the weak spells in his arsenal.

"You said before that low-level monsters fear your presence," Ryan said. "I imagine you solved that problem by now. Do you know any skill that might attract the monsters toward us?"

"Orgar taught me how to hide his presence from other monsters, so from their perspective I am not much different from a human," Alissa said. "That being said. I know of some spells that might cause the monsters in a certain area to feel your presence and feel enraged by it, but there are several limitations."

"I know some spells that can do that too," Femradiel said.

"Why are you suddenly so competitive…" Ryan said and then sighed.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill Taunting Aura.

Effect: It makes your presence more easily noticed by all savage creatures in the area. It also entices them to attack you. The range of the skill is one hundred meters multiplied by the level of the skill. However, the skill level also increases the physical attack and the endurance of the monsters affected by it by one percent per level.

Cost: 50 mana per second.

You obtained 01 status points.

In the end, Ryan chose that skill because it seemed the more efficient. However, the extra effect was a bit troublesome. It might cause some issues for him to boost the strength and the endurance of his foes by one hundred percent at higher levels. It would be fine if the rewards could also increase by the same amount, but that obviously wasn't possible. Without wasting any time, Ryan activated it to make the skill level up as fast as possible.

"I guess I am going to clear some dungeons and make this skill level up," Ryan said.

Although he only failed a single time, Padmi's situation annoyed Ryan quite a little bit and still was troubling him. Maybe Ryan needed more intel before invading a world in order to obtain another domain, or perhaps he just needed to level up Taunting Aura to prevent the dungeon masters from controlling their minions effectively.

"I forgot to ask this as well, but how come do you have eight dungeons inside your domain?" Alissa asked. "I have been postponing the use of the domain stone, but if this is the result of using one, maybe I never will."

It was a bit troublesome, but in the end, Ryan gave Alissa a summary of the things he experienced in the last few weeks. Maybe she won't use the domain stone, but she will need to know at least that much to prevent some headaches and to solve problems instead of causing new ones by using her domain stone.