Elementalization (Third Update)

"You sure took your time, Noah."

Inside Kamar-Taj’s grand hall, Mordo was leading Noah and his group toward the awards hall.

The Kamar-Taj Magic Award ceremony was actually being held within the Mirror space.

The reason was much the same as with Kamar-Taj University: Kamar-Taj simply could not fit that many people at once.

It might not have been the world’s first public magic award open to the entire world, but it was undoubtedly the most watched and most generously rewarded magic award. Its level of attention was extraordinarily high.

Whenever the awards were held at the end of the year, this place would be packed with all kinds of people.

There were mages eliminated during the earlier preliminary selections, mages from organizations around the world, and countless local Kamar-Taj mages and university students.

Not to mention all manner of reporters, as well as mage teams handling livestreams and filming.

It could be said that there were currently two liveliest dates in the entire magical world: Kamar-Taj University admissions, and the Kamar-Taj Magic Award ceremony.

The crowds these two events catered to were different, but both were opportunities capable of changing a mage’s fate!

"If you account for the time difference, you’ll realize we’re not actually late." Noah shrugged indifferently. "By the way, why are you handling all these projects now?"

"Can’t be helped. The teacher arranged it." Mordo smiled faintly. "You ran back to London for a ‘vacation.’ Don’t look at me like that—the teacher said it herself. And to make your vacation even more comfortable, you even took Wong away with you, so a lot of things have fallen to me."

"Come on, I did plenty of Sanctum work too, okay?" Noah rolled his eyes. He certainly did not think he had been vacationing at the London Sanctum.

"Really? Aside from receiving the Ministers of Magic from various countries at the beginning, you spent the rest of your time in the laboratory. Dennis and Wong handled most matters. Did you think I didn’t know?" Mordo shot Noah a contemptuous glance. This guy had been living far too comfortably.

Noah did not refute him. It was close enough to the truth anyway.

Noah’s work at the Sanctum mostly involved handling internal matters. Whenever something happened outside, Wong or Dennis would be the ones sent out.

The only time Noah had gone out, he had even crossed into someone else’s territory—he had taken action in New York and killed Obadiah.

Although the guardian of the New York Sanctum had not said anything, and had even thanked Noah for it.

Noah himself still felt rather embarrassed about it. But as far as he knew, the New York Sanctum Guardian also seemed to be planning to retire.

That Guardian had passed the first batch of Archmage examinations and was now striving toward Tier 7.

Perhaps unlike Noah, that Guardian was not thick-skinned enough to leave everything to others and insisted on handling all matters personally.

By now, he probably felt that his magical level could no longer keep up, so he planned to step down and properly cultivate his magic.

"All right, you can go in yourselves. I’ll escort you this far. I still need to check on things outside."

When Mordo brought Noah’s group to the spatial passage leading to the awards hall, he chose to leave immediately. But before leaving, he turned back and added, "Remember to save me a seat, got it?"

"Go on, we know." Noah nodded at Mordo, then headed straight into the spatial passage.

The awards hall was already full. At a glance, excluding the reporters and Kamar-Taj staff, there were already nearly a thousand people present.

This surprised Noah greatly. Though he knew that many of them had come merely to watch.

After glancing at his number plate, Noah led the group straight toward their seats.

Noah and the others were seated in the front row, practically the closest seats to the awards stage. There were at least three other small teams in the front row as well.

Clearly, these teams were all participating in the final selection.

What surprised Noah was that he actually knew the leader of the team nearest to him. It was William Moore, the Archmage from the York Magical Association.

"Archmage Phileas, it’s a pleasure to see you again." William Moore naturally noticed Noah’s group and immediately greeted Noah with a smile.

In truth, he was not the only one who noticed Noah’s group. Nearly every mage present had noticed them.

Noah was extremely famous, though he was somewhat difficult to recognize—his childhood appearance had left a deeper impression on people.

There were only a few research teams or individuals who could be escorted in by Mordo and head toward seats in the front row.

Clearly, Noah’s participation in this Kamar-Taj Magic Award had long since been announced. As he was also among the last to arrive, the other mages naturally recognized him.

Quite a few mages discreetly took out their phones to snap photos. Noah truly could be described as legendary.

Leaving aside everything else, at only around twenty-eight years old, he had already reached the level of a high-level mage.

And in the Archmage examination, known for having the highest difficulty, he had actually taken first place.

It was easy to imagine that this Archmage might very well become the Sorcerer Supreme in the future!

"It’s a pleasure to see you too, Archmage Moore." Noah smiled and nodded to William Moore. "You can just call me Noah."

"All right, Noah. Then you can call me William." William wore a broad smile. "Everyone in our association went to see your movie. It was fantastic! Though it was also a little unexpected—because of your movie, quite a few of our youngsters now want to attend a magic academy."

"That’s a good thing too, William." Noah spread his hands. "The kids can make more friends at a magic academy and have a better childhood. I met the teacher during the summer break of my first year. She asked whether I wanted to come to Kamar-Taj, but I refused because I thought I was too young."

Noah answered without so much as blushing, but only he knew how much of that answer was true.

Back then, Noah had not been in a hurry to come to Kamar-Taj because of the Mage Alliance, not because he wanted to make friends.

But no one knew that, so Noah could make up whatever he liked.

William Moore, however, seemed to fall into thought. He apparently felt this was indeed something worth considering, which made Noah find it rather amusing.

If William Moore really allowed the youngsters from the York Magical Association to enter magic academies, perhaps they might even join the Mage Alliance.

If that happened, the Mage Alliance might become even more terrifying in the future.

But after thinking for quite some time, William Moore ultimately shook his head. "It really is a good idea, but I can’t make that decision either. Still, thank you for the reminder, Noah."

"It’s fine. I was only saying." Noah was a little disappointed, but it was understandable. "By the way, do you know who the final contenders are this time?"

"You don’t even know that?"

William Moore looked at Noah strangely. He truly could not understand how Noah, a Kamar-Taj Sanctum Guardian and one of the award’s final candidates, did not even know his own opponents.

"I’ve been too busy lately, and I may be going to Asgard soon, so…" Noah felt somewhat ashamed, but he did not pay it too much mind.

He genuinely did not know about it, mainly because his attention had not been on this.

More importantly, Noah was not all that enthusiastic about the Kamar-Taj Magic Award either.

He had already won it once. Although the ceremony back then had not been nearly as grand, as the first Kamar-Taj Magic Award winner in history, Noah had already entered the annals of magical history.

"I see."

William Moore nodded. He also knew of Asgard. To be honest, he rather envied Kamar-Taj’s relationship with that race which, from ancient times until even now, had been regarded as gods.

Shaking his head, William Moore immediately forced himself to forget such thoughts.

Did mages not already appear like gods in the eyes of ordinary people?

High-level mages in particular were simply unimaginable beings. Why should he envy a foreign civilization and race?

Wasn’t it merely their long lifespan? As mages grew stronger, they could achieve that too.

After steadying himself, William Moore said, "There are four final candidates this time. One is your magic called Dragonborn. Another is Life Extraction Magic developed by mages from China. There’s also the improved Magic Core Technology created by the American merchant mage Ryan Hossman. As for us, it’s a modification to Elemental Magic."

After saying this, William Moore began to explain the characteristics of these magics to Noah in detail. Noah immediately understood what kind of opponents he was facing.

Take the man before him, for example. His magic left Noah astonished.

The York Magical Association was originally a Magic Organization exceptionally skilled in Elemental Magic, and their entry was actually Elementalization!

Noah had seen this sort of thing in games. Overall, it had seemed rather ordinary, but the magic created by these mages was anything but simple.

As everyone knew, mages were generally considered poor at close combat—Kamar-Taj excluded—and physical damage could sometimes be even more deadly to mages than magic.

The Elementalization created by the York Magical Association was meant to save lives!

When one suffered a fatal injury but could still cast magic, this spell could turn the caster into an elemental form before reassembling them.

This way, it could negate one fatal injury. Of course, doing so consumed an enormous amount of magical power.

And according to William Moore, this trait had been discovered by accident. Their original goal had been to allow mages to become more attuned to natural elements after Elementalization.

That would make the Elemental Magic they cast even more powerful, though Noah had no idea whether that was truly the case.

I went out on Friday today, and since tomorrow is my day off, I had dinner with my girlfriend and got back late. Sigh, sorry, everyone.

As for the recent plot, Iron Man has already begun, so everything else will not be far behind. It’s just that some things need to be built up gradually, otherwise Thanos would show up in ten chapters or so.