Should the て form or dictionary form be used in this relative clause?


> あの人は千の魔法を使いこなす最強の魔法使い

I took this sentence from a manga. in this sentence the noun that follows
使いこなす directly is not the one that it directly modifies but 最強. In such cases
should the て form or the normal form be used? I am under the impression that
if the word following it are nouns/ adjectives, it would be the dictionary
form while if it's another verb it should be the て form. Is it correct?




Here 魔法使い ("wizard") is modified by a no-adjective 最強の ("greatest"), forming a
_noun phrase_ 最強の魔法使い ("greatest wizard"). 千の魔法を使いこなす is a relative clause
that modifies the following noun, and this "noun" can be a noun phrase having
more than one word. Here, the relative clause modifies not 最強 alone but
最強の魔法使い as a whole.

  * (千の魔法を使いこなす)→(魔法使い)  
(a wizard) ← (who has mastered a thousand spells)

  * (千の魔法を使いこなす)→( **最強の** 魔法使い)  
(a **greatest** wizard) ← (who has mastered a thousand spells)

You don't have to change the conjugation of 使いこなす because it is modifying a
noun after all.

