Chapter 17: Rapid Progress

“Fireball?”

Nami, sitting in the front half of the boat, noticed the Fireball appearing at the stern. She turned her head and blinked; she was a little surprised.

Although Ron’s ‘’self-abuse’’ made Nami unwilling to approach, but after suddenly seeing the Fireball exploding, she unconsciously got closer, with eyes filled with excitement.

But then she remembered that Ron had taught her magic before, but she couldn’t use it. According to Ron, the reason was that she wasn’t descended from a magician’s bloodline. Nami couldn’t help bulging her cheeks, and feeling a little unhappy.

Nami was getting a little emotional, but Ron didn’t notice it. All his attention was just drawn to releasing the Fireball.

“Powerful… well, it seems pretty good.”

Watching the Fireball being launched to the sea, Ron touched his chin.

Compared to the wind blade, this magical Fireball was undoubtedly classed as another category. Wind blade was a must kill skill, with strong penetration and speed, while Fireball had a larger range. It was also more difficult to resist or dodge and could deal continuous damage.

For instance, when Ron faced Captain Crewe, the pirate barely blocked the Wind blade strike with his serrated blade. If he was stronger and the serrated blade in his hand was harder, he would be able to completely resist Ron’s blades.

In contrast, facing this Fireball, he wouldn’t have the chance to endure it.

Either dodge it or try to split it forcibly with the sword. However, it was impossible to block the Fireball with a simple sword, he would’ve been swallowed by the Fireball in a moment.

Of course.

It’s true that the Fireball is unstoppable, but its speed was way slower than that of the Wind blade.

Both magics’ superiorities and shortcomings were obvious. Wind blade was more suitable for fighting in open areas, while Fireball was more suitable for fighting in narrow places.

“I’ll try again …”

Ron thought for a while. His eyes flickered a little, he started concentrating again, condensing the basic fire rune in his spiritual world.

The Fireball was once again released by Ron.

But this time the situation was a little different. After the Fireball was condensed, it didn’t burst out immediately, but stopped in the top of Ron’s open palm.

However, Ron couldn’t keep the Fireball in the air for a long time. He just used his mental strength to delay the fireball release a little bit, but this delay was enough.

“Wind blade!”

A flash of light arisen again in his eyes, Ron focused his strength in the spiritual world, and the wind rune was condensed instantly.

While the red Fireball flew out, Ron also released a blue wind blade, catching up directly with the Fireball in front.

Boom!

The wind blade smashed into the Fireball, and the entire Fireball was ignited in an instant, expanded to nearly half a meter, and its speed was also suddenly increased. It was like a spear entangled with flames.

The combination formed by the fusion of the wind blade and the Fireball fell into the sea surface and exploded. At the same time, as the flames disintegrated, a huge hole rose in the sea.

“Sure enough!”

Seeing this scene, Ron’s eyes were filled with excitement.

Wind and fire were originally two magics with compatible features. Wind blade and Fireball were naturally combined, didn’t collapse nor scattered. They could be merged together to form special magic of wind and fire.

And the Fireball’s lacking in terms of speed became the crucial factor of success to the fusion. Otherwise, even if Ron could delay the Fireball for one second before being released, the wind blade wouldn’t be able to reach and hit the Fireball, who had an early start.

“This fusion magic … is called Fire blade!”

Ron was in a good mood.

Although the combination of the wind blade and Fireball was still the same as the power of Fireball or the wind blade, the shortcomings of both techniques were covered up, and their strengths were added together.

The overall speed has extremely increased, it was entangled with flames, and it was hard to hide from or even block.

Only by facing it head-on and cut through it or dodge it with extreme speed, someone could stay intact after being hit by such an attack. Otherwise, doom will fall on its taker.

Ron was sure that Captain Crewe, would be heavily injured in one blow, or even be burned to death on the spot if he used such ability against him.

“Pirates with three to five million Berries bounty won’t be able to defend themselves against this, and they will be killed immediately. Even 10 million bounty pirates will barely manage to stop it.”

Ron made a general estimation based on the strength of Captain Crewe.

Still, it was not enough to deal with Arlong.

Arlong was a Fish-man. In case that he dove in the sea, fire magic won’t reach him. Even if he didn’t, as long as he stood in the water, the fish-men could manipulate and use water attacks. Hence, he would unleash water waves to counter these flames.

If Ron wanted to kill Arlong, mastering second-level magic was a must. He should finish him with a single attack, otherwise at least seriously hurt him, to prevent the fish-man from having any chance to jump into the sea and escape.

Putting that aside, with some practice and improvement in his spiritual attributes, the 10 million worth pirates would be an easy target for Ron.

Thinking of that, Ron felt satisfied.

Shortly after, Ron returned to practice Fireball again.

At that moment, Ron’s proficiency in dealing with runes was much higher than the first time he started to practice magic, which made it much easier to master the Fireball.

In his third attempt, Ron’s release time was shortened to less than 3 seconds. The fourth time was directly released in about 2 seconds.

After meditating for a while to recover his lost mental power, Ron practiced launching Fireball again. After seven or eight times, its release speed was about 1 second.

For Ron now, remember a rune clearly was an easy task, it didn’t take him much time. Even the whole process of condensing the rune, was mastered after just five or six times. His proficiency almost reached its limits. As for the speed was naturally to improve with practice.

In less than three hours, Ron decreased his release speed of Fireball to a level similar to that of the Wind Blade.

In the process, Ron completed another achievement and made steady progress.

The condition for this achievement was to reach 100 hours of practice. Ron was practicing continuously since he came to this world, that he was able to complete the 100 hours practice in no time.

The steady practice achievement brought Ron 2 points, as the ‘Unfortunate Man’ one, which was considerate as a slightly higher achievement.

It was no surprise that Ron cast the new 2 points to his spiritual attributes, as he used to do. This improvement brought Ron’s spiritual attributes to 27 points, close to 30 points.

As his spirit gradually became stronger, Ron’s normal recovery speed, mental-wise, also increased a bit. The mental strength recovered almost every ten minutes was more than enough to release a single wind blade.

It’s not considered as very fast; still, it was still very effective, which means that Ron would be able to release one more ability in a battle that lasts for more than ten minutes.

In addition, Ron estimated that after his spiritual exceeds 30 points, his recovery speed would be further improved. At that time, the impact would be more and more obvious.