Inscribing the furnace-fire magic matrix onto Kairui's body with magic ink was a trick Ye Chui had hit on in a flash of inspiration.
Magic ink is a material that can give a magic matrix physical form; inscribe a magic matrix onto parchment with magic ink, and it becomes a scroll.
Of course, magic ink would not form a magic matrix on just any surface—the material being carved with runes had strict requirements—but luckily for him, the armor Kairui wore was enchanted armor, and that met them well enough.
Among the magic scrolls Ye Chui had set off, some were mixed with a little extra magic ink, packed inside cotton balls and wrapped in oiled paper, and with the everyday-life spell 【Breeze】 that he had mastered, Ye Chui could steer cotton balls soaked in magic ink wherever he liked. Amid the barrage of scrolls he had been pounding Kairui with a moment ago, Ye Chui had already used 【Breeze】 to guide those cotton balls into inscribing a complete furnace-fire magic matrix on Kairui's body.
This matrix was simple in structure, so getting it done wasn't hard—though for an ordinary low-grade mage, pulling off such a delicate operation would have been no easy matter either. And here Ye Chui had to offer heartfelt thanks to that Hammerhead for all his idle boredom...
Once Ye Chui fed his magic power into the matrix and activated it, it burst into flame on the spot.
Even after Ye Chui's wand left Kairui's body, the fire would not go out. The enchanted armor Kairui wore had originally contained a magic crystal, able to supply an endless stream of magic power, and on top of that, Debbie's earlier strike had already breached the armor, letting the magic power it held leak out and feed the burning of the furnace-fire magic matrix without pause—the situation could not possibly have been better.
"What kind of spell is this... aaaah..."
Kairui let out howl after howl, frantically slapping at himself, trying to beat the flames out. Abruptly set alight, he had gone completely to pieces, his whole body turned into a man of fire. A flame spell would not burn for long, yet the fire on him burned on and on, showing not the slightest sign of going out.
"This..." Every onlooker was stunned. They had assumed Ye Chui and Debbie could never be a match for Kairui with his War God state activated, and never expected Ye Chui to have a move like this in reserve.
Could this fire be the legendary high-level spell 【Specter Flame from Hell】—the inextinguishable flame that will not rest until it has burned its target to ash?
"Kairui... Kairui..."
Seeing his son turned into a man of fire, Busca hopped from foot to foot in a frenzy. He rushed helter-skelter up to Ye Chui: "Hammerhead, what have you done? Put out the fire on my son, quick!"
"Sure." Ye Chui looked as agreeable as could be. The scene just now had left him drenched in cold sweat too, and he was still a little out of breath, but seeing his plan go off so smoothly, his mood was naturally excellent. Smiling, he held out a hand to Busca. "Boss Busca, if you'd be so good as to hand me that contract."
"Contract? What contract..." Busca played dumb, all the while watching his son skip and bound about inside the flames.
"Your son may be a rank-four swordsman, but from the look of it, two or three minutes is about all he has left," Ye Chui said with a cold smile.
Sweat streaming down his head, Busca ground his teeth and hastily dug a yellow paper scroll from his pocket, flinging it into Ye Chui's hands. Ye Chui unrolled it and saw a debt contract, with Debbie's crooked signature on it. He ripped it clean in two with one tear.
"I've given you the contract, now put out the fire on my son!" Busca hurried on, still shouting at the top of his voice.
"No hurry. There's still an account I haven't settled with you." Ye Chui went on, unhurried. "These past days, thanks to you, business at Anthony's Magic Cottage has taken a big hit—and when you came to make trouble three days ago, you smashed up a fair bit of our stock. Don't you think you ought to compensate us for the losses?"
"You... you're looting a burning house!" Busca roared in fury.
Ye Chui pointed at Kairui, who was still bawling at the top of his lungs: "From the look of it, your son can probably hold out another minute."
Busca stared hard at Ye Chui, his eyes bulging as though they might pop right out, his face indescribably savage—but Kairui's screams kept arriving in his ears, and still he readied himself to give in: "You... how much do you want me to pay?"
"A hundred gold coins," Ye Chui said after a moment's thought.
"A hundred gold coins!?" Busca jumped with rage. "You... why don't you just go rob someone?"
"What do you think I'm doing right now?" Ye Chui said with a smile. He gave a light cough. "There isn't much time left, you know."
Busca was shaking all over with anger. A hundred gold coins—nearly a third of his entire net worth. Ye Chui really had opened his jaws wide enough to swallow a lion, demanding a hundred gold coins the moment he opened his mouth...
But looking at Kairui beside him with the flames still roaring over his body, and listening to his roars that seemed weaker with every cry, he clenched his teeth hard, fumbled at his breast for a moment, and pulled out a brass-colored card, which he tossed into Ye Chui's hand. With a look of pure agony he said: "This is a gold-coin card from the Goblin Bank. One of these brass cards stands for a hundred gold coins—you know that much, surely!"
The Goblin Bank was a large bank in general use across the whole Aigendas Continent, founded by goblins—upright, or you might say stiff-necked, to a fault—and its reputation was very much to be trusted. What was more, the card Busca handed Ye Chui was one of the convenience cards the Goblin Bank issued: similar to a silver note, a single brass-colored card stood for a hundred gold coins, and it bore magic traces, so that anyone with magic power or sword-aura energy could sense how much was stored on it.
Ye Chui nodded in satisfaction and tossed the gold-coin card into his pocket.
When Debbie saw that card go into Ye Chui's pocket, she went completely blank: in all her years, the girl had never once laid eyes on such an enormous sum of money...
"Now you can lift the spell on my son, can't you!" Busca said coldly, his voice trembling.
"Sure." Ye Chui nodded with a smile and aimed his wand at Kairui: "Water Flow!"
The basic everyday-life spell 【Water Flow】.
Threads of water, fine as spring drizzle, kept condensing out of the air and pouring over Kairui. With a sizzling hiss and a cloud of white steam, the flames on him went out with a fizz, and under the wash of the water the magic matrix on his body was scoured away completely.
Kairui lay on the ground wreathed in steam, gasping raggedly, a thoroughly wretched sight, his face scorched black and his once-gleaming armor battered to rags, more like a tramp's getup than armor.
And Busca was dumbstruck: "That's it?"
Ye Chui nodded: "Yep. It's that simple."
"But... but..." Busca was left speechless. He had assumed Ye Chui had used some profound spell—an ordinary flame spell was only temporary, its fire dying out once it had burned—yet the fire on Kairui had burned on and on without end. Never had he imagined that a single wash of rainwater would put it out... Had he known that, why would he ever have needed Ye Chui to lift a finger? He could have put out the fire for his son himself.
"You... you..." Realizing he had been played for a fool by Ye Chui, Busca was so furious he looked ready to lunge over and take a few bites out of him.
"I'm only a rank-two mage—where would I get some profound spell from?" Ye Chui said mockingly, his face the picture of shameless cheek. "Oh, I forgot to mention: your son was never in any danger at all. He's a rank-four swordsman, after all; he took dozens of hits from flame scrolls just now and came out fine, so a bit of furnace fire meant for cooking could hardly do him any harm. Even if it burned on him for a whole day, I doubt it would kill him... He was screaming purely because he was scared out of his wits."
Busca: "...grrch... grrch... grrch..."
—the sound of him grinding his teeth in pure hatred.