I Swear I'm Not a Demon Masquerading as a Human

The conference room was now in disarray. Many teachers stood up, gripping the table, their eyes wide with shock as they stared at the magical screen suspended in the center. The spacious room was instantly filled with a chorus of bewildered and astonished murmurs.

Friendly Exchange would be an absolute nightmare for any traditional mage unless they also had the ability to cast spells without using an incantation. Thanks to the convenience and versatility of enchanted cards, most mages nowadays, even those who expanded their repertoires by learning new spells, rarely bothered to painstakingly master the art of spell casting without incantations.

Did the College of Magical Engineering cook up something new behind our backs again... Associate Dean Ron was silent with his pen in hand, but his eyelid twitched. That did it. From now on, Incantationless Casting would have to become a mandatory course at the Sages’ College.

This infuriating card would spread like a virus, starting with the Ikerite University where it first appeared, then sweep through the capital and the Kingdom of Hutton. Eventually it would reach the rest of the Southern Continent and the entire world...

Yet, no one knew who had created it. There were always card makers with uncanny talent who, while making a card, failed to realize the disruptive impact it would have on the landscape as a whole. It often took a long time for their creations to circulate on the market before their true identities could be traced.

Once the exam concluded, regardless of whether Lance passed or not, people would inevitably approach him, seeking to uncover the inventor of Friendly Exchange. Or perhaps, they would try to get their hands on that specific copy of the card, reverse-engineer the toxic magic within it, and attempt to rapidly replicate the underlying casting mechanism!

Surely he couldn't have made it himself... Ron rubbed his temples.

Although students at the Sages’ College did learn how to craft enchanted cards, the students of the College of Magical Engineering were the ones who primarily specialized in the craft. A card maker capable of inventing Friendly Exchange would be considered a sensational figure even within the professional card making community.

As things stood now, rather than sending Lance, who held the key to finding the miraculous card maker, back home, it would actually be ideal if he could join the Sages’ College. With Dean Lawrence here, no one would dare mess with Lance. If Friendly Exchange were to flood the market rapidly, it would undoubtedly become a massive headache for the university.

Just where did this person suddenly come from? Puzzled, Ron flipped through the dossier in his hands. The more he looked at Lance’s information, the stranger it seemed. If the previous test had been a fluke, then this marked the second time Lance had delivered a performance that left them utterly dumbfounded.

Moreover, he hadn't even demonstrated the core abilities of a White Mage. His entire repertoire remained a mystery.

The records indicated Lance himself possessed no innate spellcasting ability, even though his status as a White Mage had been officially certified by the magic spire. Logically, the vast majority of the card slots he utilized should be filled with healing spell cards. He should have, at most, two to three purely functional spell cards like Friendly Exchange.

Yet, what Ron couldn't fathom was this: given Lance's remarkably low mana power, what was the reasoning behind carrying such a high proportion of healing cards? After all, there was a limit to the number of enchanted cards any individual's soul could bind with.

The higher the tier of an enchanted card, the more space it occupied within the soul once bound. For instance, as a Rank 2 mage, Lance could only equip cards with a combined tier total of no more than twenty.

Furthermore, he was limited to binding cards of Tier 2 or lower. Should he advance to Rank 3 in the future, his capacity would increase to thirty, and he would gain the ability to bind Tier 3 cards.

On the other hand, if Lance were to use only Tier 2 cards, he would hit his capacity limit after binding just ten of them. By incorporating some Tier 1 cards into his repertoire, he could bind a larger number of cards overall.

In a sense, a card’s tier could be viewed as its usage cost. Lower tiered cards effectively had a lower usage cost. Consequently, higher quality, lower tiered cards that were versatile didn’t necessarily become obsolete even as a person advanced to higher ranks.

In fact, if Lance were to equip himself entirely with targeted utility spells like Friendly Exchange, with his high mana pool and sustained casting stamina derived from his exceptional Spirit stat, he could play the role of a purely utility-focused support capable of pulling off surprising, game-changing maneuvers.

"Even though Lance has managed to pull off an unexpected surprise, the real challenge lies ahead. The gap in their ranks is simply too vast." The teachers in the conference room now focused their full attention on the screen. A match that had initially seemed to be a foregone conclusion was suddenly showing a hint of a variable. Anticipation began to spark within them.

On the other hand, they were keenly aware that the disparity in base stats between a Rank 5 mage and those at Rank 2 to 3 was an unbridgeable chasm.

Ferrat could easily take down Lance and Hyperion using nothing more than his fists and some basic offensive magic. He even had a few minor, instant-cast spells at his disposal. Conversely, the two examinees would struggle to inflict any meaningful damage on the examiner.

The odds had merely shifted from ten to zero to nine to one.

***

The battle across the vast Ilaiven Plains raged on. Ferrat had come to an alarming truth: he was unable to chant the incantations required for spellcasting.

A chill shot through him, making him instantly go on high alert. He suddenly heard the whistle of something moving at high speed. A figure had appeared out of nowhere and they were already thrusting a blade viciously toward the center of his chest!

Hyperion was now mere inches away from him. The dagger in her hand was on the verge of striking home, ready to pierce his heart. Moreover, the strange, scorpion-tail-shaped blade shimmered with an eerie, crystalline light, a clear sign that it was coated in deadly poison.

Ferrat tried to roar in anger, but only a guttural, distorted sound came out. Simultaneously, a ring of searing crimson light exploded outward from him. Even without the ability to chant spells, he still had access to low-level, small-scale instant-cast magic.

The ring of light expanded rapidly before vanishing. Hyperion was instantly sent flying backward by the force of the fiery blast.

"Haa... Haa..."

Although she had taken the full brunt of the counter attack, she quickly scrambled back to her feet. Aside from a few minor burns, she was unharmed. Meanwhile, the Hyperion who had been standing beside Lance, dissolved like a bursting bubble. It had merely been a decoy left behind by her invisibility spell.

Hyperion muttered, her expression dark and menacing, "You dog... So you managed to dodge it."

A thin line of blood had already appeared on Ferrat’s cheek, and the crimson fluid trickled down the wound and dripped away. In that split second when she realized she wouldn’t be able to stab his heart, Hyperion had poured every ounce of her strength into hurling her dagger at his head.

Due to his vast combat experience and lightning-fast reflexes, Ferrat had instinctively tilted his head to dodge the follow-up attack. Ultimately, however, he couldn't completely evade something launched at such close range.

Agonizing pain radiated from the gash on his cheek, causing the veins in his forehead to throb violently. Clearly, even a mere graze had been enough to poison him. The wound refused to knit shut, despite the delayed-healing spell he had cast on himself before the fight began.

To make matters worse, he was still muted by the spell cast by Lance earlier. There was no way for him to use his own magic to cleanse these negative statuses. He had to endure the sensation of a knife scraping against his throat, relying solely on his Rank 5 resistance to weather the duration of the poison.

Although the Tier 3 poison on Hyperion's dagger posed little real threat to Ferrat’s Rank 5, anger began to boil within him.

Those two weak rookies on the ground lacked any semblance of teamwork, but were absolute pieces of filth. One was a stealthy rat who inflicted poison and bleeding while concealing herself. The other was a spell-sealing bastard, who kept pulling out unorthodox tricks from the safety of the backline.

He was being cursed by the heavens to encounter such a terrible combination!

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!