I ran in front of the bandit, directly confronting him.

"Let go of her!"

"Hand me the money first, filth."

It seemed that the bandit had mistakenly assumed that the crystal was sold due to the masking effects of the pouch. The bandits would definitely attack right after that if I gave him the crystal. In fact, it was rather odd how the bandits had not ambushed me the moment I approached the house. Were they really too dumb to think of such a simple plan?

"I'll hand you the money only if you let go of her first!!"

"No, you hand up the money or I'll butcher your mother right here!"

"And how would you guarantee that she can go if I hand you the money?"

The bandit frowned, displeased by my resistance. He whipped out his knife and made a motion, moving the knife towards her neck. It was unlikely he was trying to kill her right away, but I instinctively reacted with a punch to his right hand, disarming him. It wasn't a bad choice to be honest.

"Ow!"

He clutched his dislocated hand and jumped a few times in pain, then shouted in anger.

"Kill the mother of that scum!"

He got a fist to his face for his words. Justice for me and my mother I'd say. Hearing a few thumps atop a roof, I looked up to see the bearded man I hit earlier today jumping down one of the nearby buildings. I unsheathed my hoe swiftly and swung at his forehead for the second time today as he fell towards the ground.

"Thunk!"

A loud clank rang out in the air and the rebound of the hoe almost disarmed me. I could see that a brown mana shield had appeared with perfect timing, blocking the hoe. The accursed bastard had finally learned his lesson. He landed smoothly on the ground, not making much of a sound.

"Hah! Think anyone would fall for that trick again? Only a fool would fall for the same trick twice in a row!"

He laughed. This idiot seemed oddly pleased about successfully blocking my attack, a feat that only a complete fool would be unable to achieve.

"Says the idiot who had fallen to a non-mage at rank 6."

I retorted with a nasty smirk that showed how much I looked down on him. Seeing my expression, the face of the man twitched and it started to turn red like a beet. It seemed he felt insecure about that and I viciously pointed it out. He shouted in anger.

"Die!"

Rushing forward, he launched a punch towards my head, but I had dodged to the side before he even swung his fist, making him hit thin air. I swung the hoe in my hands towards his crotch hard. The strike coupled with the momentum he had would probably have destroyed his genitalia but the shield appeared yet again. I ignored the lack of damage and kept appling pressure to the hoe.

"Hah! Yo-"

Before he could complete his sentence, I launched a powerful uppercut towards the bottom of his chin, hard enough to lift his feet off the ground, yet another blow to his pride.

"Argh!"

He fell towards the ground headfirst backwards and I readied my hoe, aiming it at his forehead just as his head was about to hit the ground.

"Bang!"

His head almost hit the ground but his spell protected him yet again, causing his head to bounce smoothly off the ground. My hoe followed with a hit to his head the second he rebounded, knocking him out for the second time today.

I smiled smugly for defeating a elite mage twice in a row today. This guy reminded me of a bull, falling for taunts so easily. I as a young boy, loved to read books about magic in the capital library. The information I could find was quite restricted but I still learned to recognise many spells.

It was a rank 3 spell, Automatic Shield. Mana shields were very important, if an enemy fired a spell you could not dodge, you needed to block it! However, the mana needed was immense as forming physical matter with mana alone was difficult.

To counter this problem, someone came up with a shielding spell that was more efficient! Instead of wasting your mana maintaining a shield the whole fight, the shield would only appear at crucial times. It still costed a lot to maintain it, but the cost was reduced by twenty times, making it more viable for a fight.

But this spell had a strong weakness, it could not activate multiple times at once! I made use his anger and that weakness to take him down.

The other bandits hiding had exited my house to watch me get crushed by the bearded guy, but were stunned at the result. How had their most powerful mage been taken out twice in a day by a peasant boy? I almost felt like laughing at them.

"Kill his mother!"

One of them shouted, whipping out a knife to stab her. The urge to laugh stopped. This wasn't funny at all.

"Stop!"

I shouted as I charged towards them.