This game is pretty unbalanced: Chaos Desert mops the floor with everything else. Unfortunately the mysterious hermit is a Chaos Desert mage. The only way I've found to beat him was either with a fully offensive Chaos Desert Mage with Chaos Desert Orb or with a Poison Water Mage, with a lot of mana and Poison Wave/Paralyze spam. Great Sea might be possible too but you'd be in for a very long fight. I can't see any way with the 3 others. That's pretty much the tier list: Chaos Desert>>>>Poison Water>>Great Sea>Dark Wood>Ice Land>Burning Hill.
 "Book of Mages: The Dark Times"){kind=icon}