Cultivators at the third transformation of energy refining have a mind power of 4. So they can split their minds into two and still barely maintain enough mental power to cast a spell.
Even then, it would slow down their individual casting speed. So cultivators at the second mortal coil with a mental power of 3 shouldn't be able to multitask, and even if they could, they shouldn't be this fast at casting spells.
However, despite being startled by the strange development, the golem didn't panic. Not that it could since it didn't have emotions.
It simply filed away this information and put it in Arthur's file while preparing to retaliate. Now that Arthur was getting close to it, it felt that it could move on with its initial plan of action.
The two fighters got close to each other. As they did, they shot arrows at each other. Because the two of them were getting closer to each other very quickly, it quickly became impossible for them to dodge the arrows.
The golem was the first to give up. It was slower, so it was the first to reach its limit of dodging. Not even its ability to track all of Arthur's movements and predict the trajectory of its attacks could help it make up for the massive difference of 60 in their power.
The golem put away its bow. Then it picked up its shield and sword.
It used its shield to protect itself from Arthur's arrows while closing the distance between the two of them. Its eyes were locked onto Arthur as it advanced towards him.
10 seconds later, the two of them met each other in close quarters combat. This was mostly thanks to Arthur. He was three times faster than the golem, so he was responsible for covering most of the distance between them.
When they got close to each other, the golem raised the forearm of his sword-wielding arm at him. A second later, the crossbow formed, but the crossbow didn't fire.
The golem had feinted with its crossbow. Maybe it would have worked on others, but it didn't deceive Arthur because he didn't care if the attack was real or not.
Arthur's mind was focused on giving instructions to his phantoms and controlling the wines to swing at the golem. Since he didn't take the bait, the golem had to give up its plan to catch him off guard and resist the vines.
The golem swung its sword and cut down the vines whenever they approached it. Nothing could touch it because its sword was too sharp.
After two such failed attacks, Arthur was able to identify the problem. What he discovered had very little to do with the sharpness of the sword.
He realized that even though the vines were powerful, they couldn't bring down the golem because they were too slow. They were slow because they were being controlled by his phantoms.
His mind was busy moving his body while reacting to the situation and sending commands to his phantoms. His phantoms can help him cast a spell and even maintain it. But they can't control the spell for him.
He has to be the one to give them instructions to act. But by the time he gives them instructions, the golem will have reacted and resolved the attack.
He had to eliminate the lag, so he took over the maintenance and control of the wood control spell. Then he gave the free phantom the instruction to cast the flight spell.
With his mind now preoccupied with the Wood Control spell, he couldn't control his life seed and move as well as he could before. The golem noticed this flaw immediately and took advantage of it.
The golem shot its crossbow at him. Two bolts sailed at him from a close distance. Considering his current reaction speed, there was no way he could dodge the attack.
Just like before, he didn't care about the bolts. But this time, he had more confidence.
Before, he would have controlled his body to dodge the attack, but this time he controlled the vines to block the attack. He stood still while two vines struck the bolts before they reached him.
The success of this move filled him with confidence. He decided to drop the control of half of the vines and focus all his mind on just three of them.
He stood still like a tree and folded his arms against his chest while he dedicated his mind to the vines. The three vines elongated and enlarged thanks to his ministration.
With more spiritual energy and mental energy, each vine could do more. Now instead of only one vine attacking at a time or all six vines attacking at once and in the same way and from the same direction, the three vines could attack at different times and with different moves.
He gained variation in timing and form of attack. So even though the number of vines reduced to three, it became more difficult for the golem to resolve them.
A vine struck the golem's head from the left. The golem raised its shield with its left arm and blocked the attack.
While it was doing this, another vine attacked from its right. It had to raise its sword to cut it.
But the vine dodged the sword slash. The vine wasn't severed, so he didn't need to use spiritual energy to regenerate it. So even though he was using the same amount of spiritual energy to control the three vines as he was using to control the previous six vines, in the long run, because of his better control, he was saving more spiritual energy.
The golem failed to cut the vine. Its swing was in vain, but not for Arthur. As its hand fell down after its strike, the third vine slithered forward to grab its hand.
The golem pulled its hand back, but the first vine was already slithering for its left leg while the second vine was raised into the air and poised for another strike.