[Don’t worry. You won’t die, because I’ll be supervising this session. Of course, you should be able to handle the situation, just fine. In the very worst case, you’ll have these.]

A breath mint box was deposited into his hands. James opened them and found some latent potential pills.

“Weren’t these supposed to be dangerous as hell? I took one and nearly killed myself.” James complained, but he knew that these pills had also saved his life. Unfortunately, he remembered all too well the pain of shredding his muscles, even with the pain-numbing properties of the pill.

“Wait, there are two types of pills in here. What are they?”

[One of those is the one you already took - the physical type. The other one is a magical variant which greatly increases magic sensitivity and power. Although, the side effects of the magic pill are usually quite serious, including breakdown of the core. I do not know how that will affect you. It could be better because you don’t have a core, or it could be worse because your mana is dispersed throughout your body.]

“You’re not tempting me.”

[Then I advise you to not get yourself in a situation where you need to use these. Oh, we have something for your tamed beast as well.]

Through their connection, James felt Leo leave the card - or rather, felt Leo wake up from his slumber. But, he didn’t appear next to him as usual.

“What are you doing with him?”

[Well, if you’re going to train, so does he. Really, all I’m going to do is give him the opportunity to hunt. It’s in his nature, so he’ll learn what he’ll need to on his own. We won’t need to train his battle thinking skills until later.]

James couldn’t help but be a little worried, but he figured Leo would be fine. He would get to eat more.

[So, have fun!]

“Waiiiiit!”

He was pulled into the boss room. He didn’t know how he had been moved, but he gained his bearings quickly, understanding that there was nothing he could do to get out of his predicament except fight.

His opponent for this boss battle was something he hadn’t had the chance to fight before. It was a 4 foot tall wolf.

Its mana presence was on another level compared to the smattering of goblins and imps James had been leisurely killing. Also, its physical body was impressive too: it had extremely sharp fangs and claws, as well as muscular limbs. Its coat was a shade of deep gray mixed with silver streaks.

“Damn that looks cool.”

James would have admired it more if it hadn’t growled at him.

The wolf threw itself at James as hard as it could, fangs bared, and James reacted immediately.

2 months of training paid off. James was able to fire off the spell before the wolf was able to close the distance of 20-ish meters, in only a few seconds. This would have been impossible previously.

The wolf saw the ice lance, but it didn’t stop moving forwards. With a swift stroke of its left paw, it shattered the lance into pieces.

“I should have seen that one coming,” James said to himself. He was able to tell what had happened. “The wolf gathered mana around its claws, which reinforced its claws. The mana may have interfered with the mana in the ice spell as well. Either way, my spell was canceled.”

It wasn’t like the spell was completely useless, as the wolf did pause to cut down the ice spear. This gave James ample time to leap away from the wolf, which landed on the ground surprisingly lightly and rocketed towards him again.

If magic wasn’t going to cut it, then James would have to beat it down the old fashioned way.

He whipped out his knife and faced the approaching wolf, not backing down.

The claws came first. Because he was physically weaker than the wolf, James didn’t try to fully block it, instead sidestepping and deflecting the strike to his side in a smooth maneuver. In the same movement, he swung his knife downwards, aiming for the wolf’s arm. It pulled back just in time and retreated a few steps.

“He’s fast. And he’s not brain dead. Not completely, at least.” James twirled his knife in his hand. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

The wolf’s paw met James’ knife, but it was not even scratched after the clash with the sharp edge.

“It’s the mana. It’s reinforcing its body parts. But from what I can tell, it’s only gathering mana in its claws and jaw. Which means, I just have to attack the weak parts!”

James darted towards the wolf, throwing a knife. Then, he swung his right arm in a horizontal arc, aiming for the wolf’s upper arm.

The wolf batted the throwing knife away with its paw and opened its mouth in the direction of James’ arm.

“Shit! It is planning to meet my attack with a fucking bite? This wolf has balls of steel!”

Had James continued with his attack, he might have been able to stab the wolf in the neck, but he might have gotten his arm bitten off.

He didn’t take the risk, and instead circled around to the wolf’s side.

The wolf lunged, attempting to bite a sizable chunk out of him. James narrowly avoided it, and he ended up on the side of the wolf.

James stabbed the knife into the wolf’s side.

“What?”

The knife didn’t sink into the wolf’s flank as he expected. It met a lot of resistance and barely even cut the wolf’s side. James put in more strength, but wasn’t able to make any more progress before the wolf yanked itself away and struck at him with its hind leg.

This caught James slightly off guard. He evaded slightly late, and the wolf’s claws grazed him, leaving a cut in James’s thigh.

“What the hell is that fur? That shit is not fair.”

The very tip of his knife was red, meaning that he did pierce the wolf’s skin. Thus, it was probably the fur that was giving him trouble. It was like stabbing a piece of chainmail that was made out of metal wires instead of thicker loops.

Hard, but not impossible.

“I suggest using magic along with fighting physically.” Ajartum, who had been quietly observing James’ struggle, quietly gave some advice.

“But how?” James ran away from the wolf as he replied using telepathy. “It’s not like magic can do anything against it.”

“Right. Your way of injuring the opponent is mainly going to be combat. Thus, magic should be used as an auxiliary method.”

“Ugh.”

The beanie was right, but it was easier said than done. James wasn’t sure he could pull it off.

“I guess I can kind of see why the announcer woman told me I was weak but could grow fast.”

James covered part of the floor between him and the approaching wolf with ice.

The wolf simply jumped over it.

“Okay, this is harder than I thought it would be.”

Maybe he was relying too much on ice. It was his strongest element, with wind as a close second. But he could use all of them, and they all were useful in their own ways.

After retreating a suitable distance away from the wolf yet again, James cast another spell.

Spikes formed on the ground, facing upwards.

He would have used Direction on the ground to control the already existing earth instead of using Conjuration, which cost more mana, but he couldn’t affect the walls or floor of the dungeon.

Here, James simply hoped that using a different element would cause the wolf to hesitate, but it immediately once again hopped over the “trap”.

That was okay, because James was expecting this anyways. He had already been casting his second spell.

A powerful ball of light appeared in James’ hand and shot towards the wolf.

The wolf was confident in its physical and magical reinforcement prowess, and once again planning to dissipate the spell with its claw.

James didn’t let that happen.

The ball of light lost its concentrated density and spread out fluidly. To its surprise, the wolf’s claw passed directly through the spell without meeting any resistance.

“It’s a simple spell, but quite unbreakable. You can’t cut light.”

Well, the truth was a little more complicated than that. The elements of Light and Darkness were quite peculiar. They could be both manifested as a physical material and as an ethereal form of energy, like the light James knew. However, James purposely did not use a physical Light spell such as .

James poured quite a bit of mana into the light he generated, causing it to become blindingly bright.

The wolf stopped as it ran into James’ magic equivalent of a flashbang, minus the bang.

He himself was not completely immune, but because it was his magic and because he was a light magic user, the effects were diminished on him.

Despite having temporarily blinded the wolf, James didn’t relax just yet, because he knew that canines had a sharp sense of smell.

The wolf was being cautious towards its front, so James leapt a few feet into the air, intending to launch a more powerful and unexpected attack.

However, before James could come down, the light he had made was swallowed by an unnatural darkness.

“It can use dark magic? It doesn’t matter, since I got the time I needed!”

James brought his knife down on the wolf’s torso despite the darkness. This time, with all the extra momentum, he was able to bury the knife all the way to the hilt.

The wolf roared. James felt the mana in its body begin to move chaotically.

Unexpectedly, the wolf ignored the knife in its body and used its hind leg to pin James to its side. James couldn’t move in this position, but the wolf couldn’t attack him without releasing him either.

Or so James thought, until the wolf began casting a spell, imposing darkness on the surrounding area. It seemed to have accepted its own death and was aiming to take out James no matter the cost.

This was the scariest type of opponent.

James chose to use wind because even though the power of his wind magic was less than his ice magic, it could be conjured faster.

After hastily summoning wind as fast as he could, James threw it at the spear of darkness that the wolf had launched at him.