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<02/12/1972 – 10:25 | Eldora Tower Fl. 500, Eldora City, Junon Region, Sprawn Valley>

There wasn't much of a difference in the ride upwards Jane had to take in the small shut room set to lift with the design of the tower. As the system began to slow its acceleration, Jane felt a mild sensation of dizziness pass her, either from the distortion created by the sudden shift in G-force or by the higher elevation above sea level now getting to her. The entire tower has air conditioning and backup life support systems on all floors, so it was rather doubtful that the air would really get too thin for her to breath. To think, Jane was now about to stop at a height only half of the entire superstructure.

Security measures were tighter than what it appeared to be. Like before, the elevator gave Jane no manual controls, something that could only be done in the event that an emergency or alarm system persists. So as she waited patiently for the automatic sliding doors to open in front of her, exposing the corridor into the next arena, Jane took another deep breath and prepared herself. She could imagine that her hair would be a mess right now. With no mirror, she already did all she could to try and fix it, which may as well be hopeless since she would be in several more fights anyway, but her dress sphere remained surprisingly clean despite the battles she engaged in earlier. The little marks from the ground came off easy, but they did not completely fade to nothingness. Jane was taken a sight of distraction by the glittery dark JDT acronym plastered in bold on the front of her dress. The names were also on the sides, but in font much too hard to read without being close enough to touch her.

Jane reminded herself about what her circumstances meant right now. She had to remind herself constantly that her fight here isn't about becoming a Leray master, nor is it about the glory of defeating the champion of Leray magic. This is about saving Lennith City from total doom and destruction, obtaining the allies and reinforcements to do just that. If it didn't work, Jane would dare try it again all by herself, but she could feel her own confidence overshadowing most other thought. Jane could practically drown in the faith in herself drawn from what she accomplished earlier, but mostly by the fact that Danny and Taylor are counting on her right now. It's more than enough reason to win the next few fights regardless of the consequences.

Jane shivered suddenly from a bone freezing chill that surrounded her the moment she was about to step forward into the arena from the end of the corridor. It was bright up ahead from the difference in the luminosity of the magical lighting of the entire structure, the dimensional area size of the arena about the same as the last one. Jane was just now stepping forward into a much different looking and unique place. It seemed similar from the corridor, but not anymore beyond that point. The entire shape of the room structure was cubic instead of spherical like the last two.

Apart from the amazing aesthetics of the arena, Jane was much more distracted by the fact that the chill around her was not a part of her imagination. The bumps on her arm solidified; if Jane had enough arm hair to show it off, all of them would be standing tall to desperately catch a hint of heat. It was like suddenly walking into the artic zone. The air temperature must have declined to about 30oF. Jane could see her own breath of a light exhale escape her in the form of a puffy mist, and covered the tops of her arms with each opposing hand.

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Chapter Theme Shift: Perpetual Blossom ~ Magia Record Season 2 OST

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"Wh-why is-s it so cold?" Jane was already shivering, even though she stepped into the room a few seconds ago. It was cold after exiting from the elevator, but not as cold as the air in the arena section. Come to think of it, the same type of mist could be seen at the edges of the cubical arena, all coming from the tops of the walls from what appears to be extra ventilation. Was the A/C responsible for this? Is it malfunctioning? Jane took another glimpse of her surroundings, daring not to move, as it would only increase how much freezing air would touch her skin through her own suit. There was an interesting staircase on the other side of the room leading up to the next elevator, and a strange circular pedestal made entirely out of frozen water with only a few small transparent steps behind it. For the moment, the room seemed to be abandoned, all except for the floating camera drones, but even the devices seemed to be inactive or in some sort of stasis, flying but not moving or aiming at anything new.

The structure of the room was so different to her. The edges were hardly fenced off by a one-foot bump in the ground lining all the way around the perimeter, also nothing but a line of solid ice. The metal floor itself may become frozen should the surface becomes moist enough. Jane stepped forward slowly and carefully to make certain she would not slip and fall, but every part of her body could feel the absence of heat affecting her from all around, her shivering becoming more severe by the second. Her long sleeves were not nearly thick enough for this type of weather. Even her suit's pant legs under her skirt didn't help very much to trap in heat. Ignoring the unique pattern and drawing on the center of the entire floor of the room Jane was standing on, she stopped dead center waiting to see or hear from someone, her patience soon answered. The clapping sound of flat footsteps echoed over three times in the entire room, likely from the crystallization that formed in a few places, turning the place into something familiar to a cave. Jane stood still and waited to see who would be walking around in shoes which sound like that, the steps so slow but perfectly spaced apart.

"Three hundred and fifty attempts have I waited for a new challenger. One thousand seven hundred and forty attempts has it taken since I was last defeated by anyone." From the voice echoing in the room, piercing in volume yet clear as the crystals surrounding her was the person walking with the same shoe clapping sound Jane heard of before. She now stood on top of the small round pedestal, elevated from the top of the stairs and just outside of the battle zone above the field where Jane was standing. She noticed Jane's eyes lock on to hers as they both got into range to speak, defusing the earlier silence. "You're late."

For a moment or two, Jane was speechless. The woman standing in front of her on the frozen rock was beautiful! Her hair was as dark as Jane's, well groomed and pulled back with a glimmering bow tie that kept it all in place. Her shoes turned out to be a very unique design of sandals that - from the looks of it appeared to be made out of crystal material, strapped onto her feet with two bars bent over the tops of the shoes. Her nails were professionally done, sparkling in the light around her with a cyan color of radiance that stole Jane's gaze from other places. The nails would match this woman's eyes should they have been painted a shade darker. Standing as tall as six feet, Mainne was also flashing what appeared to be one of her main attractions to her attire. An entire dress with the hem going all the way down below her knees and flowing outward slightly, all crystalized into some sort of unmelting ice that reflected all light almost like a mirror. She had no leggings, only partial armlets that did more for her looks than to try and keep her warm. When all put together, Jane was surprised by how amazing Mainne looked.

Mainne had to be in her upper twenties, still young and highly attractive. The frozen dress sphere she was wearing is also just as amazing. Cleo gave Jane a hint earlier about Mainne specializing in ice magic, but this was taking it much further than what he meant to her earlier. Mainne must have a passion for the cold, because it was now clear that it doesn't bother her one bit. She is probably the one who set the entire room temperature to freeze, a strategy to try and slow down her opponent and make them more predictable. Mainne has to be used to it by now, seeing as she is wearing a crystal dress with sandals. The dress isn't see through, but rather as reflective as a mirror, yet nearly colorless like crystals by design. Mainne didn't look as if she was anywhere near close to bothered by the chilling air around them. Struggling to find out where she was supposed to reply, Jane made an obvious declarative statement. "You're Mainne." Jane had her voice level high, but still didn't need to yell from how well the sound carried in the icebox of a room.

Mainne kept her legs still, but used her arms to gesture her words slightly. "You managed to defeat both Cleo and Krysta in a day's work. That's impressive if this be your first try in the Eldora championship." There was a small delay between now and her next observation. "But I'm not Cleo, or Krysta."

"Why is it so cold?" Jane knew the answer already, but wanted to delay the fight as long as possible and learn more about what was going on. Jane still had her arms covered, her hands were about to freeze already through the white fingerless gloves, and she reconsidered the temperature to be more around the lower twenties than the thirties.

"Because I like the cold," Mainne replied. Just as simply as she answered an obvious question, Mainne delivered her usual buildup of suspense prior to the battle. "My strategy involves specialization in both wind and ice magic. I like to make my opponents freeze, suffer from the harsh environment that I tend to benefit from. There can only be but one question... Are you exceptional?"

"I..." Jane found it hard to come up with an exact answer. Mainne was incredibly serious when she spoke, like she was trying to interrogate Jane for answers about whether or not the battle would even be worth it. Before she could think about anything else, a spherical projection of light suddenly formed at a distance to the right of where Jane was standing, catching her attention immediately. Just as soon as the projection of light appeared and faded, a person was left in its place, baring the mark of some sort of teleportation that was unfamiliar to what Jane had ever seen before.

The man that populated himself to the room paid little attention to Jane and more so to Mainne by turning to face her, projecting his voice to ensure it reached her. "I was not done discussing the issue here Mainne. You need to fix it prior to battle!"

Mainne glimpsed at the man she already recognized, and then back to Jane. Contrary to her earlier gravity of seriousness, Mainne covered her mouth with a slight giggle, and then let out a burst of laughter. It confused Jane too much for her to ask what was going on, but the older man seemed unfazed by Mainne's unusual response to the situation. He only interrupted what they were doing, but Jane knew only this much of the details.

As Mainne composed herself, she put the thoughts together in her head, now embarrassed by having to show her real self to Jane. Pilpy did in fact interrupt that serious conversation, but it was all an act to her. Mainne didn't have to speak so fluidly, nor did she have to prepare the challenger as much as she did, but it was fun to try. His interruption was a laughing matter to her, since he completely ruined what she had going here. Most would have found this annoying, but she knew Pilpy too well. "Jane, was it? I'd like you to meet my referee - Pilpy."

Jane stared at Mainne's referee who had glanced back at her just to show her his face. The man had to be at least fifty years old, already with spots of grey in his brown hair, slightly bald in some places. His warm robe looked comfortable though. It seemed a bit odd that a man of his age could also take the cold so well, but Jane was quickly reminded how the referees construct their own dome shield around a personal level, which may also protect them from temperatures. It wasn't confirmed whether or not that works, but if—

"As I was saying," he continued. "You know that the modifications have yet to be field tested. The spark protection level of your suit is—"

"Is the same it always has been!" Mainne finished the sentence for him, finally sounding her aggressive tone. "It's been through enough testing. My dress sphere isn't capable of melting."

"When you change the structure and layout of a dress sphere," Pilpy led on.

"So does the magical protection level on the dress sphere's factory design. I already know about this P. I made sure to be careful about how the integration went. I know how to synthesize!"

"And what would you know about spark protective integration?" he challenged. "You turned a completely ordinary dress into an entire corset of ice, and modified it from there three tiers over."

"It's my choice to make P!"

Jane was totally confused. They were arguing for sure, but with terms she has never heard of before. It had something to do with the dress sphere? All Jane was sure of is that Mainne fit the frozen suit of ice pretty well. Whatever Pilpy's concern is about wasn't something Jane was about to understand anytime soon. With a soft notion of clearing her throat, Jane managed to redirect their attention to the more important matter at hand, but it initially came with another silence that served as a big decision being made by the two of them.

"Fine," he allowed. "But if anything does happen, you must see the battle to the very end." He reached his left hand to his right arm, showing off some device he was wearing that at first seemed like a small metallic armlet band wrapped around his skin. The device was digital, and had several buttons and functions known only to himself. Following a toggle he enabled, all of the flying inactive drones above the field suddenly switched on as they began changing position.

It was already comforting enough to know that Jane hasn't been filmed this entire time, nor was that little continuation of a fight over there. Plus, the signal would still have a ten-minute delay to the audience, but Jane knew there would be some level in which it was pointless to care how she looked on screen. Right now, she could only cover her arms from how chilly she was, the air still as cold as ever. "So we're about to battle now?"

Mainne let out a slight laugh at Jane's remark. "Here's the thing I've learned about Leray battling in all of its finest forms. I want to make sure this is something you know before we begin Jane."

"I'm listening."

Mainne kept a smile on her face while delivering her lecture. "Leray battling always has a winner and a loser. However, fighting with magic isn't about winning and losing. Leray fighting was invented for the one and only purpose of having fun, as it has always been about. I'm quite confident myself that I can defeat you, and I will still put up my absolute best fight in the field regardless of all my estimations of your capabilities, but no matter what happens today, I want the both of us to have the best Leray battle I've ever had in years! Can you do the same for yourself?"

Jane's mouth opened slightly and hung on her every word. It was surprising to see another side of Mainne this soon, but more so to see that someone else in the world actually cared for the true importance of Leray magic. Mainne was right, and Jane knew it in times where everything was good. Even a while after receiving her symbol of doom to her hand, Jane knew that Leray battles were supposed to be about having fun, not about victory. The thought of that during each fight is what made it fun every time, the same thing that made Jane fall in love with Leray magic in the first place. To this day, this rule still holds itself strong to the concept.

Jane considered the possibility that she would lose. Lennith would get swallowed up for sure. She would have failed in all of her missions, but at least she would now have the chance to take part in the most interesting battles of all time. Krysta and Cleo were both excellent opponents, but also a bit serious around the edges. Mainne however was willing to express her own similar love for Leray magic without any embarrassment about her beliefs. That could make things a lot easier. Jane could feel it happening now because of the sensation this reminded her about. The same tingly feeling in her arms and hands, the slight shivers deep in her gut, and the inexplicable sensation of excitement building inside of her as if it were its own form of physical energy. This is the sensation Jane had missed since a long time ago, a battle that actually means something to both the persons taking part. It's the way things are meant to be. Jane was thrilled to finally meet someone else with a similar sense of excitement and passion for Leray magic, the thought hitting her head was more than enough to make her smile in response too. From this moment onward to the battle, Jane knew she could be happy here for the time being. This was Mainne's gift to her perhaps.

"Thank you," Jane replied with heavy emotion in her tone. "I think the same way as you. My desire to win is probably more than your own, but the desire to have a battle with you myself, it's an honor I will always feel, something that qualifies better than a serious battle."

"Well then," Pilpy crossed his arms over his chest, a facial expression of slight surprised crossed him. "I'm glad that Mainne's next contestant shares such vision and amazing dreams about what is important in this tower. When the two of you are ready to start showing off, I will declare the battle."

Mainne focused her gaze on Jane. "I only have one rule regarding the battle." She jumped down from the height of the edge severing the connection between the height of the platform and the cold metal ground. Mainne's landing was smooth, her knees bent with her left hand hitting the ground on purpose to ease the force of her landing. Mainne continued walking closer to the center of the field in order to more clearly define the actual battle zone before it would be established by a powerful dome shield. "I ask that you give me everything you have to win. I won't be easy to defeat, nor will I hold anything back for any reason at all."

"That is always a rule in battle," Jane commented. "Anything less wouldn't really be a Leray match, would it?"

"Indeed." Mainne kept her expression, already feeling her heart rate bump up from how exciting this was going to be. She had fought many people recently, but most were not from outside of the tower or outside of general practice. Not only would the fight become interesting, but Jane has a strong glint in her green eyes, a look that was most familiar to Mainne. It's the burning desire to win, something so powerful that it has already allowed Jane to get used to those goose bumps on her arms before she's even realized it. Jane's stance had already changed, and Mainne sought that the physical distance between them was still good enough to officially start the match. With a glance back at her referee followed by a single nod, Mainne got the match underway, leading off with another statement from her thought process. "I can't wait to see which one of us is better."

"I won't accept defeat today," Jane announced. Noticeably, all of the drones in the room hovered closer just before obtaining a further and higher distance. The drones were now anticipating the imminent creation of a dome shield around the room. Jane prepared herself for battle, already enabling her energy scope above her just as Mainne was about to.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/MKc0Jgrn/S3-Mainne-N-000.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/T1dbs453/S3-Jane-N-000.png]

Meanwhile, Pilpy was messing with another control mechanism on his armlet, pressing another switch just before getting to his official duties. The control mechanism performed all kinds of tasks for him, most of which were related to the capture software in the flying drones all around them. When he had a free moment, he turned to face the battlefield after walking back a distance to avoid being placed in the same dome field itself. His voice became brittle in his age, but hardly enough for anyone around him to notice. "Both participants are ready! The match between Jane Venn and Leray Elite Mainne will now begin!" Using only a small amount of magic, Pilpy generated the Siriean dome around the entire battlefield, its size deep and massive, just as he was outside of the field. Pilpy then generated a secondary dome barely the size of himself for his own protection protocol, and watched as the battle was about to take its turn.

Jane and Mainne were both ready, but neither one of them moved for the first minute. Jane took that time to note several strange things about this fight. It turns out that even a Siriean dome does not block out outside temperatures. It was still incredibly cold in here, which Mainne didn't seem to mind at all. Jane had goose bumps all over, and did her best to remain ready and prepared to make a move on short notice.

Wearing her crystal outfit made entirely out of ice, Mainne gave the flying drones some time to recalibrate themselves to the aerial view of the battlefield, with their special zooming lenses that would block out the captured existence of the Siriean dome to the audience feed. The announcer was also muted in this room, making for a quiet moment to let the hissing wind from the air conditioning units outside of the field more noticeable. Her heart was already racing, Mainne could feel the suspense of battle already building, and Jane looked very prepared to perform action at any moment. With nothing else stopping them, Mainne took the initiative. "Don't disappoint the fans Jane. More importantly, don't disappoint me. I'm not going to let you walk all over me the way you did with the other two elites."

A confident statement left behind the hint of her strong bluff. Jane knew already that the elites she had yet to battle knew of no such methods or strategies Jane used in order to overcome her last opponents. Mainne was actually at a slight disadvantage this time, and of course, this battle would also be recorded. No symbols are allowed, she warned to herself. As Mainne clearly stated that the battle would be getting underway, Jane had her eyes momentarily distracted by the sparkles of light reflecting off of Mainne's beautiful dress sphere and outfit. It was amazing that she could pull something like that off, making her own modified dress sphere that glimmered in light only to make Mainne appear more elegant and attractive. But Jane's eyes had soon betrayed her, because the time lost in observing the brightness of her suit allowed Mainne to find the time for a first strike, already rushing in at a careful speed - soon to deliver her first Leray magical attack.

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Chapter Theme Shift: Artemis ~ Mark Petrie [Genesis]

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Mainne and Jane were already no more than seven meters apart as she crouched herself slightly one footstep in front of the other to make sure she would be in range to launch her first Leray attack spell. Whether Jane was ready to battle or not, it wasn't going to matter sooner or later. "Icy Wind!" Mainne's dark blue eyes remained focused both on the standing target and on the spell being cast from the thought process and imagination in her mind. Mainne delivered a buildup and release of magic through the aura's building in her hands in an instant moment as if to throw a physical object she was already holding. She created a powerful force of rushing wind from those auras, directing it into a wide spread rushing wave of wind blowing quickly into Jane's direction. Mainne made sure to use every last point of Leray energy at the end of her spell to leave nothing out, back stepping shortly after to maintain her current distance and strategize further.

Jane felt the sudden gust of wind shoving her at forty miles per hour. The sense of a forceful gust of air was immediately overshadowed by a more intense kind of pain, the freezing of her entire body and the nerves on the outside of her skin. The air forced her way was worse than freezing, it was immediately debilitating because of how fast the Leray magic went to lower her core body temperature. This had to be close to levels of hypothermia! Didn't this count as practically dangerous magic? If Jane were to get sick from this battle right here, nothing in the world would save her!

Perhaps that wasn't the point. Jane found herself shivering again, trembling much more than she was before and covering her arms despite the suit she was wearing protecting her slightly from the temperature around her. The point of Icy Wind regardless of the environmental standard is to slow down a target by making them cold and chilly, though the room was already cold enough. Mainne fights in this environment for a living, but Jane was left soon to freeze to death before the fight could even truly begin. That must have been Mainne's first plan; slow Jane down and take the immediate advantage. She wasn't kidding about not holding anything back; it's a brutal spell to start off with!

Mainne noticed no change on Jane's energy scope so far, which was to be expected. Icy Wind is a great and useful spell, though it doesn't deal any actual damage by design. She uses this spell on herself sometimes to cool down when on excursions outside of the tower, a feeling of freezing air all around her and inside of her is what made Mainne feel whole and complete. Jane was no doubt affected by this spell immediately, but after what had only been three solid seconds, she pulled through.

After charging up some of the magic into her own aura inside of her, Jane figured that one of the best ways to heat up her own body is to commence in physical exercise - no matter how painful. The heart beats faster, the blood distributes better, and even during an ice age can the human be susceptible to sweating. "Rush Assault!" After creating a yellow aura around her body of magic that enhances both Jane's properties of natural magical damage and speed, she shoved her arms outward as if to remove all of the cold air around her. Jane traversed her movements into an all-out sprint. She wasn't that far away from Mainne at the moment, but Mainne was also quick to react, already sliding backwards without even using any visible magic. If magic was involved just now, Jane failed to catch her using any of it.

"My turn!" she announced. Mainne was fast both physically and in her concentration of invoking magic in any particular spell. She had plenty of practice with official and non-official uses for Leray magic. Inside of a field with this much cold air with the ground already beginning to ice, she found an immediate use for Jane's weak tactical Rush Assault. Gathering the energy into her hands enough to make them glow blue with a bright aura of light, Mainne cast that invisible energy out in front of her. Out of nowhere, the air in between Jane and Mainne froze itself solid from the ground up, the process forming a solid wall of ice in a matter of milliseconds. Mainne repeated the process, again creating a second wall of ice about two meters behind the first one and three times as thick.

Jane had little time to react to the sudden appearance of a strong obstacle, and decided to use her magic from her own spell to bust right through. With all of her energy gathered into her fists and legs, Jane had no trouble smashing the block of ice standing ten feet tall in front of her into several tiny chunks of ice. In just one magical punch, Jane degraded the wall into solid chunks of frozen water, continuing to run towards Mainne. But even Jane suspected that doing so would in fact slow down her attack run slightly. She had to be careful not to smash her face into the wall instead, which would bring her to an immediate stop. Jane however was a bit surprised to see yet another solid wall of ice after breaking down the first one, only one second away by now on her feet. Jane could run around them, but Mainne was obviously trying to trap her in and around these walls, using them to slow down or impede her entire Rush Assault, which wouldn't be difficult given that the walls spread out were thirty feet wide too.

As Jane prepared to knock down the second wall of ice, Mainne continued using her magic to construct a third wall behind the second one, now only in dangerous range to where she was currently standing. Mainne immediately jumped back and slid on the freezing metal floor below her as she did before. After putting up more of a distance, she constructed a fourth wall out in front, making a very nice collection of barriers Jane would have to break through in order to get anywhere near her. At the same time Mainne waited for the right moment to turn this around for herself, she prepared herself for concentration, already forgetting her words before.

Jane punched the next wall with her left hand, but had to nearly stop running in order to get the angle of her punch good enough to carry the force through. Some of the rocks of broken ice tried to flush into her face, which made it harder to see anything momentarily, but Jane continued her pace, assuming Mainne was just trying to trick her. Even if she was, Jane's Rush Assault was already getting used up by destroying the defensive structures erected so quickly in front of her. What was worse is how the falling chunks of ice quickly began to make the metal floor below her more slippery and frozen. Jane dashed off again with the same aura around her, hoping this wouldn't continue beyond one more crystal wall. Jane used the entire force of her right arm and shoved with the additional destructive capabilities of the magical damaging aura coating her skin to amplify the force and the damage dealt to the structure of ice. Jane was once again slowed down just for a second, and met with another wall.

She could see the very top of the ice wall constructing itself upward just before it finished, which meant Mainne was right behind this one right here. Jane gave it no further thought, rushing in one more time to break through and attack Mainne immediately after. Jane took off in another fast spring, preparing to jump up into the air. Jane would use the flying force of her shoe to break through the fresh crystal wall in front of her with no difficulty. But as soon as Jane lifted herself off the ground in order to try it, the glass wall shattered by itself, the shards of frozen water all plummeting in the opposite direction Jane was heading. Before Jane could figure out what happened, before she could feel herself get annoyed by the flying rocks of ice now bouncing off her skin, and before she came anywhere near landing back on the ground, Mainne was there under her.

Mainne was running after breaking through the last wall of ice herself, something Jane would not have expected a moment ago. In her right hand, Mainne held a long and large solid blade that glimmered with similar properties to that of her entire dress sphere. The blade she was carrying was also made entirely out of ice, but the properties of this blade were permanent, designed to be a literal weapon made of ice chosen specifically for battles like this one, unlike how the Frost Blade spell coats a sword for a time period. She swung upwards into the air, assuring the sharp edges of the saber to cut right through Jane's skin and suit just as she was soaring in midair. The sudden unexpected attack and pain from the critical slash of Mainne's saber was enough to break Jane's ascent and the fall to the ground. She fell on her stomach and face, holding the skin under her chest since it was the section of which Mainne managed to score heavy damage on. Mainne found herself standing behind Jane now, their places swapped.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/8P8cs3zJ/S3-Jane-N-053.png]

Jane cringed on the floor as the pain of a deep cut in her body quickly transformed into a powerful sensation of a quick and sudden freeze. It was like someone shoved a pound of icy water inside of her own body, burning with a cold right where the bloodless wound was exposed beneath her dress sphere. Jane felt electricity inside of her. Her entire body was shivering so hard on the inside and against her own control that it was impossible to try and get over it. Yet because the pain was replaced by a staggering sense of cold air, she at least found her focus again, enough to try and recover. Jane did her best to try and stand back up, but she couldn't accept how cold it was right now. She could see her own breath, even feel her own blood near her wound crystalizing in this environment. Mainne wasn't even in plain sight, which meant she had to be standing behind her.

Mainne let the memories of her long past resonate in her head, brought about by the intense battle before her. Mainne was already winning against Jane, but this isn't as easy as it looks. Fighting with a strong style of ice-elemental properties took so much time and training, and so much heavy hinging from her heart. Jane has no idea what Mainne has been through, and because of that, Jane cannot win this fight! "Ice Bolts!" Mainne's holler of her special skill echoed multiple times in the room around them. A bright blue glyphring appeared around her arm well above her wrist as she prepared to use more of her magical power against Jane. What's worse for Jane and better for Mainne is that she managed to keep all of her skills and spells related to ice elemental factors the entire time. It was amazing so far that Jane has not figured out some kind of counter or defense against this property. Mainne wanted to comprehend how it was possible that Jane surpassed the skills of both Krysta and Cleo, but instead focused on releasing her stored energy, firing a bright and blue bolt of frozen water set to explode on impact into a mist of both water and air that becomes ice instantaneously as its low temperature allows it to do this. Mainne was firing more than one Ice Bolt though, also natural for her specific spell that is slightly different from an original Ice Bolt ability.

Jane knew she needed to at least turn around to see what was coming, but Mainne's chant of anything indicated more immediate action. So Jane charged Leray energy into her hands again while trying to shift direction. Before she was completely certain of what was happening, Jane noticed at least three glowing balls of magic coming her way, and reacted by shoving her arms and hands outward in the act to protect herself with a power shield. Using the energy she had just stored, Jane effortlessly constructed a powerful aura around her body extending about six inches from herself despite being trapped to the ground, its bright translucent bright blue light making this forcefield visible to the naked eye. It didn't matter what Jane understood before trying it, but as she was now protected from the unseen magic in front of her, it gave Jane time to figure out in the back of her mind what Mainne just attempted.

Obviously Mainne meant to hit Jane while she was already down, which had nothing against the rule of battle or anything against honoring invisible standards to fights. Jane analyzed the spell as the bolts of energy were absorbed into her shield, some extended form of Ice Bolt. Ice Bolt is in itself a weak spell used alone, but she fired five of them in total in short of a single moment, all of them homing in onto Jane and falling short of her at the shield she constructed for herself. The hexagons appearing afterwards were large in size, so the obvious objective here wasn't scoring damage as much as it was designed to literally turn Jane into a sculpture of crystal. Jane was trying to battle her own way, and Mainne was trying to make it impossible. By the time it was over and Jane dropped her shield, she noticed on Mainne's energy scope that her MP reserves only dropped by ten percent since her use of Icy Wind, which meant that shooting five Ice Bolts rapidly like that costs her so little. Mainne was indeed in good practice.

There was a short moment of no action. Mainne was stone still as she tried to comprehend what Jane just pulled off. Obviously, she wasn't expecting such amazing use of a power shield, her spell made useless in damage or affect while Jane now had the time in such a shield to recover herself a little more, which is exactly what she used to her advantage. Jane took the next initiative - it was her turn to attack. It didn't matter what spell she thought up of. Anything was better than nothing at the moment. Jane ironically chose a spell that may very well be ineffective against her opponent, though easy and fast to invoke in the first place. "Ice Needles!" Already strong on her feet again, Jane created the glyphring around her wrist as her magic did the rest and formed a barrage of flying frozen needles flying in the direction of Mainne on a linear path for each projectile. While Jane was performing her spell, she could feel her entire body trembling, but did her best to ignore it. Hypothermia or not, Jane knew she could last for at least some time despite how cold she was.

Just as soon as Mainne was faced with the barrage of over a hundred ice needles going everywhere in her direction, she lifted her blade back up again, swinging through the air in front of her like a maniac. Mainne knew only she could tell what has happening at first, as her slashing seemed quite random at the time. But given more thought to the circumstances, it didn't take long for her opponent to realize that she was slicing down all of the frozen needles before they could stick into her skin. Mainne quickly began slashing them all down piece by piece, disabling the entire spell's effective radius with the end blade of her frozen sword. Just as predicted, Jane was once again rushing in towards her as if she believed the distraction would hold up to her expectations.

After having cast an additional spell for forming an Ice Blade into her own two hands, Jane rushed in towards Mainne, who also had a ready sword to defend herself. Jane wasn't the best at long blades in close combat, but her maneuverability in her physical exercises was top notch. Just as Jane whooshed her sword downward on top of Mainne, her metal was blocked by the collision against the frozen blade of her opponent. A very loud cling scattered through the air echoing a hundred times, the brute force of each blade held up to each other as Mainne blocked the hit from Jane, but the force almost made her shoes slide on the slippery floor. Even with all of her own training, Jane has the physical strength equal to her own!

Mainne quickly reacted to this by sliding her sword upwards, knowing it would shove Jane's hand up at the same time. In order to leave her open for another slashing based attack, Mainne shifted the direction from her hilt once again, taking the offensive by swinging sideways at Jane. But Jane was just as fast to expect this, already spinning to her right while directing her own sword to the point of impact to block Mainne's hit this time. Jane was faster than what Mainne was expecting, and she soon overcame the quick motion of clinging swords to eventually swing sideways and score a direct hit on Mainne's stomach.

As the blade should have sliced right through her skin, it instead acted as some sort of blunt force that pushed her far back while allowing her feet to come off the ground. Just like that, Jane scored a hit while pushing Mainne away, using just one sideways slash of her frozen sword that would soon disappear as part of the spell to create it in battle.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/SNw6SVwD/S3-Mainne-N-001.png]

Before Jane had a chance to determine how successful she was, Mainne landed on her feet regardless of the pushback, keeping her momentum and balance well enough to aim her left hand at Jane with MP energy already charged up, releasing the magic as soon as she was stable, and long before Jane could possibly react to the scene. "Radial Stars!" Mainne created an orange glyphring native to Radial Stars, shooting small yet powerful magical star shaped projectiles towards Jane. The projectiles were both small and unguided in its own cluster, but Mainne was close enough to Jane that only a couple of pieces of the spell missed Jane by an inch or two. As Jane was pierced by the non-elemental magical attack from the lowest power level Leray spell there ever was, significant damage was scored in relation to it.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/ZKrRNcWf/S3-Jane-N-054.png]

Jane only felt pain for a moment before it had gone away. At first, she was surprised that Mainne would suddenly use one of the weakest attack spells of all time. It should have done only 1% damage to her own health or less. However, Jane could sense that this was intentional. Mainne must have never ceased practicing her own Radial Star spell, which ultimately made her version of it the most powerful one in all of Sprawn Valley. So misleading, yet effective! Jane clenched her teeth and continued her next idea of a counterattack, one Mainne would not be expecting. Jane had yet to try it out in the tower until this very moment. She charged her MP energy again into her hands and feet, similar to the free-form version of magical build up in Power Attack. This however was going to be more unique.

"Telepower!" As Jane's hands and feet began to glow with a blue radiance, she had to concentrate completely on her own use of magical invocation, because this trick wasn't an easy one to pull off. Jane began shoving her hands and shoes into the air while aiming at Mainne, as if to hit her from the distance even though Jane wasn't in close range to physically attack her opponent. Jane further focused on the transference of magical energy as it was being released, moving the damage from her hands and feet through the dimensional space in order to make the impact point reappear to Jane's own will of location. Basically, she began punching and kicking Mainne from a distance with a power similar to telekinesis, all of her hits additionally infused with magical energy to ramp up her damage scale.

Mainne was defiantly taking hits as well, several of them right to the face as the force of each painful bruise knocked her back and sideways, Mainne struggling to keep her feet planted into the slippery floor below her. She had no way to block any of this out either, because Jane wasn't attacking Mainne at close range. Jane realized a while back that it was this ability right here that gave her other similar ideas that she used in her refined version of Dark Strike, her unofficial Return and Inversion spell, and some of her other new abilities yet to be tested. Telepower is an amazing official Leray skill, but it can be refined in so many different ways that it has become the basis of her own new ideas and style of tactics. Right now, Jane was using that to beat Mainne down without the need to get too close, a strategy that took her opponent by surprise. Mainne suffered several clean hits to the face, chest, and stomach as Jane forcefully shoved her arms and legs in a similar motion to hit from a distance. The entire spell cast was amazing even for Jane, since it was the first time she tried to use it in the tower thus far. By the time it was over, Jane calmed herself down and checked the damage level to Mainne. At the same time, her quick movements were doing something to help keep up her body temperature, Jane's heart pounding was like the script to a musical beat; she would soon find herself sweating.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/dVr8LrFv/S3-Mainne-N-002.png]

Jane gasped at the unsatisfying results. Telepower has a power level for damage at nine! Even though Jane delivered a physical attack, there was magical damage involved too. Was Mainne's dress sphere making her resistant to physical damage or magical damage? Was it simply something Mainne was used to? Did Jane screw it up? Telepower should have inducted much more damage. Jane was left in question to figure out why her spell didn't work as well as it should have, but there was only a short moment before Mainne would take the initiative again and attack.

Mainne quickly brushed her hand over her own blade as if to do something to it without touching the saber. Mainne had indeed just infused additional ice elemental magical energy into her blade, making it thicker and stronger than it was before despite already having unmelting ice around the weapon. As soon as she did, Mainne darted forwards towards Jane, who wasn't very far away at the moment. She would soon have the chance to strike Jane once again with her own enhanced blade, and Jane's hands were empty of any long swords, so she couldn't block it out again like last time.

Jane noticed that Mainne was about to be on top of her in seconds, and immediately took action by infusing a low amount of MP energy into her hands, then rushing them through the air in a cross, holding them out and projecting that energy all around herself. In just short of a moment, Jane cast another power shield around her just before Mainne was in range to slash at her with that powerful blade of ice. As Mainne took her chances anyway, her blade simply bounced off of Jane's aura as if it were a solid metal brick. The force of Mainne's hit left several small hexagons behind at the impact sight, as well as a sheering sound of a shield taking damage, the sound Jane referred to as anti-aura reflection, but the shockwave of the force that went back into the blade lifted Mainne's sword high into the air over her head, leading her backwards because it was just too much for her to cut through. In the same moment Jane knew she was safe, she immediately lowered her own shield, charging energy into her right hand again as quickly as she could to prevent being interrupted.

"Tri-Fire!" Jane created a fiery glyphring around her wrist, taking no time in between to try and imagine her spell happening in her mind. There wasn't a need with how many successful invocations she performed of Triple Fire so far. As Jane aimed at Mainne and unleashed her magic, she knew that Mainne was still going to have no time to try and block or evade the projectiles, who had still been stumbling to keep her balance after nearly losing her ice blade from the knockback of the shield. Three Fire Bolts all separate from each other slammed into Mainne at a high speed, immediate to hit because of how close in range Jane was to her. The second hit carried more force, knocking Mainne into the air again while flying back with a slight spin as the third one impacted on her dress sphere and left a fiery mist of heat damage on the side. Jane checked out how effective her ability was this time before even considering the possible effect this skill had on the environment around her.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/bvP1brYn/S3-Mainne-N-003.png]

Because of the intense heat of three Fire Bolt impacting near one particular area, Jane soon noticed that the frozen water accumulating on the metal floor began to melt rapidly, but only in a particular area. What became more noticeable was the change in Mainne's situation. As she tried to stand back up, Jane was locked onto the damages done to her actual dress sphere. The fiery element of magic was enough to somehow burn a large chunk off the bottom section of the crystallized dress, while placing small solid holes in a few other places. From the side, Jane could see more of Mainne's upper leg, and from the front - though difficult to make out due to Mainne's natural skin tone and choice of clothing, Jane could also see through the hole which exposed a small visible piece and dark color of her brassiere. Despite remaining ready to defend herself, Jane was a bit shocked at whatever was happening.

Mainne noticed what was wrong with her dress sphere as Jane was noticing it too. The missing piece on the side allowed more airflow closer to her upper leg, and she was still lucky enough that much of her frozen dress remained undamaged beyond that point. A near fist sized hole in the front of her left chest of the frozen material revealed a small piece of her brassiere, which from a distance might be invisible, but the damage was done, filling Mainne's head with impossible considerations. Jane might be wondering right now how it was possible to damage the dress sphere. Then again, Mainne already knew deep down that this was an unfortunate possibility.

Instead of showing any sign of fear or backing down, Mainne aimed at Jane with a glowing glyphring, capable of using this spell really quickly. "Ice Needles!" Mainne began firing a barrage of needles while keeping a closer eye on Jane. It wasn't a powerful spell at all, but there was more to it than what Jane currently realized.

"Power shield!" Jane crossed her hands again, bringing up her shielding aura before processing which magical spell Mainne was trying to cast. When Jane realized it was only Ice Needles, she wanted to curse at herself for wasting her energy on a spell with a weak power level. Instead, she kept her shield up and going anyway, waiting out the barrage of frozen needles being absorbed into her aura creating hexagons, or just zipping by her without getting to close to hurt the shield. For a long moment, Jane was fine, and the needles were all going away. But Mainne's hands were still glowing with a bright blue glow around them, charging yet another spell...

Jane waited a long time with her shield still up, but Mainne still had not released the energy in her power. What was she waiting for? Five more seconds passed... Was Mainne charging up her most powerful spell of all time? With the sudden sensation of lightheadedness taking over, Jane dropped her shield intentionally before it was to fail on its own, running out of power from how long she had it going. Just as planned, while Jane was weakened and trying to recover her stamina from the prolonged use of a shield, Mainne took immediate action seeing the aura fade away.

"Ice Glave!" Mainne released all of her magic at once, creating a spell similar to Earth Glave with its own enhancements. As the ground began shifting upward in front of her in the form of a wave, large frozen pillars drilled through - shooting out of the ground all to shove the icy boulders of sharp and jagged edges of rock right into Jane's face. It all happened so quickly with no possible way in which Jane could have avoided the collision to her body. Without ability to track what was happening through the painful sensation of cuts and bruises on her forehead and jaw, Jane also felt herself leaving the ground while the room did a full vertical flip. The landing wasn't soft on her back, but it hurt a lot less than when Mainne's Ice Glave hit initially, something Jane has never heard of or seen before.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/t4pgNxP9/S3-Jane-N-055.png]

Mainne grinned at the result before her. Ice Glave doesn't take long to charge at all, but her delay in the spell was intentional, and Mainne could feel the superiority in her strategy. "I knew you would try to shield against Ice Needles!" she announced. "But even your power shield must have a time limit on you as well. You've already become more predictable." She didn't need to explain what Ice Glave was capable of, since Jane would not be repeating that spell backwards. With a power level of 8.3, the modified version of Earth Glave adds ice elemental damage with the earth elemental magic to create a more deadly spell, but as far as anyone is concerned, only Mainne and Danton know of the ability's existence.

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Jane felt numb in a lot of areas, which helped with some of the pain. Her hands were freezing, and her arms and legs were so cold that she felt a new wave of discomfort come over her. Still confused as to what just happened; Jane could only assume that her opponent surprised her with some kind of speedy magical attack, one with a lot of knockback and force. Even her right shoulder was burning from the pain done to her by the hit, but her face was too cold to feel anything either. Oh well! Jane coaxed herself into shaking this off and getting back up. That alone wasn't difficult to perform because of how much less she could feel, but whatever spell Mainne just used left the floor underneath Jane's feet frozen over again. The ice growing there wasn't thick enough to make Jane slip or slide, but it was more amazing to see the ground come undone and then be completely fixed before her eyes.

Jane shook her head and focused on Mainne with her fists up and ready. They were quite a distance away by now, but Jane had plenty of new skills and abilities she could use to turn this around. Mainne wasn't exactly as good at dodging as she was with physical endurance. This one would have to hurt. "Laser Rain!" Jane immediately invoked her spell, lifting her arm up and down in a similar motion she does when using Photon Burst. Just out of nowhere, red beams of light spawned from the upper level of the room and zoomed downward into the ground where Mainne was standing. Without making much effort to dodge, Mainne was suddenly swallowed by a haze of red light that disappeared just as quickly as it came. It didn't seem to hurt by the look of Mainne's expression, but the damage done from the burning red lasers actually targeted something other than Mainne, despite herself taking the damage too.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/tgzWzb7M/S3-Mainne-N-004.png]

From the very top of her entire dress sphere, Mainne noticed several dozens of small holes drilled in by Jane's last attack. Laser Rain literally drilled tiny sized holes into her frozen dress sphere, causing more damage from the top frame of her shoulder lines and more holes in a few places from the front. Despite her dress being made entirely out of ice, Mainne's entire suit of flashy armor was being destroyed piece by piece!

Was it only a specific type of damage? Why is this happening now? Pilpy! Mainne glanced over at her referee, first in anger, then in understanding. He was the one trying to warn her about this before. It has to be something that Mainne herself had done to her own dress sphere. Though the suit passed initial simulation tests, this was the first field test since the latest modification. Initially, Mainne's dress sphere was an ordinary dress sphere of very high expense. But she modified it several times to make it colder by design, until it was a dress made entirely out of ice, while remaining invulnerable to Leray damage, but something obviously isn't right.

Item synthesis is another confusing Leray term, and mostly applies to specific items used for battle, either weapons or specific dress spheres. All physical weapons designed for battle, including all official dress spheres are coated with a protected layer of Leray magic to prevent physical damage from occurring all of the time. This means that two swords colliding with each other cannot destroy one another regardless of strength put behind either blade. Additionally, the most powerful of all Leray attacks cannot damage dress spheres, but magical synthesis can change this rule. Synthesis is the process in which special magical properties are added onto a protected item to gain an additional effect. You can infuse an existing weapon with a property of damage addition. The frozen blade that Mainne wields now is her main weapon of choice into battle, but it was made like this by design. Other mages can synthesis their weapons to have the same effect. In in the case of her dress sphere, Mainne can alter the physical properties and the natural elemental protection level for battle through the process of synthesis.

However, there are risks involved. Synthesis is hard to control, and adding on just one effect to an item can accidentally disrupt or permanently destroy the natural coat of protection the item was designed with. Adding one special effect is tough, but the difficulty of making it work successfully without losing natural damage protection becomes exponentially harder if synthesis to the same item is applied more than once. Mainne has modified this dress sphere three times in total to get this effect, which must have finally removed its protection layer from the Leray veil. This must have been why Pilpy was so concerned earlier. He knew this was a possibility. Simulation tests just aren't enough - it seems.

Jane didn't look as if she knew what to do from here. Either that or she was slowly forming a new strategy. Mainne didn't have the time for this, and decided to throw another powerful spell at her opponent. So far, the battle wasn't as interesting as it should have been even with Jane's power shield in play. She was too predictable now; that was the problem. Jane may as well have a high endurance rating too, but it wouldn't save her from one of Mainne's most secret abilities. "Prone Strike!" With a power level of nine and a most unusual formation of magical attack damage, Mainne remained confident that this would work. After releasing the energy from her hands into the slippery floor, the remaining light of a visible and moving magical shadow formulated where she was.

Jane could see from here what was going on, but her eyes lost sight more than once already on the Shadow Wave attack. This wasn't a Shadow Wave though, it had different properties that were noticeable well before getting anywhere near her. The Shadow Wave Mainne sent virtually had no height above the ground, and its very dark auric color made it hard to see even in this bright room, much more difficult to track. Before letting the rest of Mainne's spell trick her out, Jane prepared more Leray energy to project another power shield around her, throwing her hands around her at the right time again.

Jane managed to protect herself again from an attack she had yet to see in action. As soon as it seemed like the darker version of the Shadow Wave was about to slam into the bottom of Jane's feet, the entire aura of magic in front of her lifted up into the air high over her head, ending the sequence with a big explosion of magic that clouded a darkness of dust and mist everywhere. Jane couldn't see anything past the new smoke screen, but several tiny hexagons formed everywhere during and after the big explosion in front of her. The blast of magical damage was sudden while the dark mist took more time to fade away. Jane could already feel weaker from her shield soon to fail from the incredible damage level alone. Prone Strike must be designed to deal a ton of damage in HP reduction, making Jane lucky to have blocked it out.

Jane dropped the shield, leaving her entire body unharmed by the intense explosion of magic, which failed to do anything for Mainne. She must not have expected Jane to protect herself from something that powerful, because Jane failed to see any particular action after the dust cleared from her side of the field. Mainne wasn't trying to trick anybody this time, it was simply her showing off true power. Now it was Jane's turn to attack, the time taken in her own shield was enough to give her one of many potential ideas. Jane considered them to be more experimental in nature. For instance, Mainne is still human after all. No matter how used to the cold she is, there has to be a point in which Mainne can no longer withstand that temperature. The frozen dress sphere likely has her some protection from the extreme levels of temperature changes, but now that the dress sphere has taken some damage and left small holes going to her skin, the idea of water damage became the next vulnerability to exploit.

Jane aimed both of her hands at Mainne and quickly fired a steady beam of water from her glowing palms. "Water Blast!" While it expended about zero MP, the spell splashed over a gallon of water all over Mainne's body in a steady stream coming from a water based glyphring around Jane's right wrist. While it wasn't designed to cause any damage, the effect Jane had in mind took a noticeable effect rather quickly.

Mainne's jaw dropped from the sudden unexpected blast of water from Jane. Her hair was dripping down wet with pure water, soaking herself all the way down to her shoes. Because of the holes that were placed into her own dress sphere, much of that moisture seeped all the way down into her cloth-based undergarments as well. Mainne was soaking wet through everything she was wearing, and just a second afterwards did this suddenly make her more sensitive to the freezing air around her. It now felt thirty degrees cooler than before, all because of the adhesive properties of the water stuck on her skin. Wet socks, wet clothes, wet hair and skin, Mainne was attracting a cold temperature to her body. Jane's Water Blast was an impressive idea, designed to try and make Mainne freeze under her own environment, and it was already making her shiver and chatter her teeth together against her wishes. The unbelievable idea worked against Mainne, who only wanted to be dry right now.

Despite how rude Jane realized it would be to soak an opponent in this freezing environment, and potentially giving birth to the medical condition of hypothermia, she understood at least just how cold this would get Mainne's body temperature to. If she really is an elite fighter, she should be able to handle her own medicine. Even though she didn't expect to be able to throw in an additional spell right away, Jane glinted in the direction where Mainne was now strafing. She pulled out both of her daggers from the hidden sections in her dress sphere, Jane held on tightly to the hilt of each small blade in wait for the right moment.

Mainne was going backwards though, as if to attain further distance from Jane. She didn't back away more than ten feet before infusing her magic into another unknown spell. Her glowing arms ceased their light quickly as the magical spell took effect shortly afterwards without any appearance of a glyphring. "Sentinel!" Upon the release of her Leray magic, the area in front of Mainne was suddenly populated with six glowing spheres of translucent light all in different colors. The spheres all grew brighter and transformed into solid objects instantly. Now with only a slight glow, there were circular objects that appeared to be technological drones, all six of them different in their light as they revolved in a vertical circle in front of Mainne.

Jane wouldn't be able to understand what this spell is about. Mainne didn't bother having to explain herself, as the spell was rather simple. Sentinel is a high-powered spell that summons the Leray properties of elemental sentinels, the devices now floating and spinning in front of Mainne. The sentinels are here in the form of a summon spell, each one of them consisting of their own range of health and magical based parameters. On top of being able to attack targets, the sentinels are all designed to work together in order to reduce the overall damage done to Mainne while shooting down all incoming projectiles. The damage reduction comes in the form of a protective magical aura that is stronger based on the number of sentinels on the field, with the maximum number of six at one time. Additionally, all sentinels are present until they are destroyed, consisting each of their own elemental weaknesses and strengths.

The red floating sentinel is the Flame Sentinel, meaning it consists and is made up of fire elemental magical properties. This means that while normal attacks can cause damage to this sentinel, fire elemental damage done directly to this sentinel will be absorbed and raise the health, while water or ice damage will obliterate the sentinel since that is its weakness. The cyan blue sentinel known as the Frost Sentinel has ice elemental properties, which means it can jump in front of the Flame Sentinel to protect its other respective ally. Then the jade color sentinel acts as the Bolt Sentinel of electric elemental properties. The dark blue device is the Marine Sentinel, consisting of water-based properties. The yellow glowing sphere is the Air Sentinel, consisting of wind elemental properties. Finally, the pink glowing device is the Ethereal Sentinel, consisting of spirit elemental properties. On top of all this information related to the summon spell, all six sentinels follow the person they are protecting. As interesting as all of those facts are, Jane will have to find some way to take into account all of the multiple changes to the sudden battle style Mainne just created for herself. With all of these floating spheres of elemental magical summons protecting her and attacking Jane, the tide of battle would be sure to turn at a moment's notice. While Jane was stuck trying to figure it all out, the sentinels were all forced to briefly display their own multi-colored energy scopes around Mainne's position, which had more of a transparency than usual.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/JnMw9Nrh/S3-Sent-Fire-N-000.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/X7pMS7b9/S3-Sent-Frost-N-000.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/Gh5CHTQM/S3-Sent-Elect-N-000.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/qv39qbgR/S3-Sent-Water-N-000.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/Y28kBsmB/S3-Sent-Air-N-000.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/wBKYkKnL/S3-Sent-Ethereal-N-000.png]

Jane had never seen anything like this before, but decided to ignore Mainne's current plan. It could be some kind of distraction, but there were six mechanical spheres all floating around Mainne in orbit, likely to protect her from damage somehow. For what Jane already had in mind, it wouldn't work against a high-end area attack. "Stalagmite!" On cue of her energy usage, the spell Jane chanted created massive pillars and stalagmites of ice the size of small glaciers to form on the ceiling of the building, already in free fall to the ground in Mainne's general vicinity. The area of effect was wide, but Jane and Mainne were both already a long way away from each other, so this was a sure thing she wouldn't be able to avoid at the moment.

Mainne snickered in response to the falling stalagmites, confident that Jane's plan was as braindead as her battle style. While taking off in a rushing sprint in Jane's direction, Mainne infused some of that energy into her feet to lift herself off the ground. Instead of targeting Jane directly, Mainne was leaping high into the air, planning to land just on top of the closest falling ice pillar. The sentinels she summoned followed her closely as if attached by invisible strings. As Mainne landed, she gave the order in her own head to have her sentinels begin attacking the rest of the field. While standing on a falling rock of ice, Mainne expended some of her magical energy to shoot off a solid sphere of magic aimed directly at one of the ice pillars to her right, the impact smashing it into several smaller pieces and quickening its descent to the solid ground below. At the same time, Mainne jumped off of the pillar to rise to one even higher in the air, all while getting closer to Jane by a horizontal position.

Jane could only growl and watch as Mainne took complete control of the situation, jumping on all of the stalagmites just like Krysta did with her own Stalagmite spell, but Mainne wasn't trying to gain altitude. She was trying to destroy all of the ice pillars falling down before they could even hit the ground, which didn't make as much sense to her since they would fail to fall on top of her regardless of each decision. The sentinels all nearby Mainne took off in their own direction, incredibly maneuverable in the air as they freely targeted falling chunks of ice to destroy them as Mainne commanded. There were a lot of falling stalagmites large in size though. So much time passed while Jane watched the show, her own skill being shot down before her eyes.

The Flame Sentinel shot a Fire Bolt from the fire glyphring it formed in front of it, invoking the spell immediately without delay. The Fire Bolt, being made out of fire elemental magic slammed into the large stalagmite in which it targeted, crushing the structure to pieces while burning the smaller fragments down into condensed water. The Frost Sentinel aimed at another pillar, but somehow failed to do anything useful. Using its own ice glyphring, the sentinel fired a steady beam of ice, the spell similar to Ice Beam in nature, but instead of damaging any of its targets, the ice spell simply made the stalagmite of falling ice somewhat bigger in size. There wasn't a point to it at all, which means the sentinels must not be sentient enough to detect for vulnerabilities and resistances when auto-attacking.

The Bolt Sentinel made use of itself by sending electrical charges of small Lightning Strikes to destroy the falling stalagmites. The damage of each bolt wasn't enough to cause any harm to the larger frozen rocks, but it disintegrated the smaller ones caught in the field of the electric shocks. The Marine Sentinel fired water magic at random stalagmites, which had no purpose or use. The Ethereal Sentinel was just as useless, as spirit elemental magic has no effect on solid objects. The Air Sentinel however managed to help Mainne directly by creating a powerful gust of wind under where she was, a gust powerful enough to periodically lift Mainne and the stalagmite she was standing on at the time - higher into the air and negating gravity itself. Mainne jumped off of the current stalagmite in hopes to reach one that was falling just above and in front of Jane's current position, though the leap was far in distance with a lesser difference in the height nearby.

Jane could feel how bad this was, and sought the need to take immediate action to stop Mainne at all costs. There wasn't much she could do, but the sudden jump Mainne just took left her vulnerable in the air, giving Jane the opportunity to try something. With the daggers already in her hand, Jane came to a quicker conclusion about which distant attack spell she should use right now, and aimed at where Mainne was going to be in the next second. Jane also noticed a large chunk of ice about to slam into the ground on top of her, but first focused on her spell. "Splice!" Jane cut her daggers through the air while expending magic, aimed high above her. Just after creating solid lines of magic that would drill through just about anything, Jane jumped backwards as hard as she could, naturally forming a backflip. Her landing was sloppy, but she managed to keep on her hands and feet after narrowly avoiding the hit from the stalagmite in front of her.

Mainne didn't see it coming before she could do anything about it, and her sentinels were too far away to assist the immediate situation. A crossed line of light traveling to her from below quickly made its way through her, drilling through her entire body from the chest and underneath her arms. The sensation felt like being whipped in several areas with a laser grid burning beneath her skin, the pain immediately disrupting her entire concentration as she let out a painful scream that echoed in the room.

Just after avoiding the rock, Jane watched one of her own stalagmites smash into the ground right in front of her, followed by the sound of Mainne's painful scream above. The Splice managed to work if that was the next sound that came through. As Jane tried to relocate Mainne in the air, she did so just a moment before her body slammed face down into the ground. Jane clenched her teeth and winced in sympathy for how badly that had to hurt. Before it was even possible for Mainne to move a muscle to prove she was still alive, two more of the last falling stalagmites crashed into the ground where Mainne crash-landed. Mainne was suddenly hit in the back of her head and below by both crashing pillars dispersing in to smaller pieces of ice from the force of impact. At the same time, two of the sentinels exploded into pieces of bolts and circuitry, while another one was hit and damaged by a smaller piece of rock that would have been harmless to a human being.

Jane was suddenly dead still. Despite everything she knew about the properties of Leray magic and even the capabilities of stamina and life energy, it seemed almost impossible that anyone could have survived that crash to the ground. Jane only meant to stop Mainne in her tracks, and accidentally ended up causing more mayhem than she ever imagined doing. Was Mainne okay? The energy scope still reported her as active, but for three solid seconds, she was stuck motionless.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/50gc1XyS/S3-Sent-Fire-N-001.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/Yq97rz1G/S3-Sent-Air-N-001.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/DzqkjjKD/S3-Sent-Ethereal-N-001.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/qRMnbF3M/S3-Mainne-N-005.png]

Jane remained still as much as she could. She had every opportunity right now to keep on attacking, but seeing Mainne take so many hits in critical places all in one swoop had her afraid of what she just did for a moment. The wait also granted both Jane and Mainne some additional MP from the passive regeneration. All of that complexity Mainne was going for was all over-done. Such a simple skill disrupted all of it! Just when it seemed that P was about to stop the match and check on Mainne's vitals, Mainne finally moved.

Mainne struggled to do anything, and pushed as hard as she could to stand up. Despite all of the areas in which she was hit, the stinging sensation from Splice affected her the most, causing Mainne to hold her left arm over the line of where the damage was caused in the first place. Her entire dress sphere had not taken any additional damage though being of a solid object, but Mainne felt like she would lose this battle at any moment. She was freezing, trebling inside from the cold and how soaking wet her body was from the earlier blast of water. She felt so weak too, but wondered why Jane wasn't doing anything in particular. Perhaps she thought it unfair to keep pounding on her, but Mainne had never felt so close to defeat before in her life, all from one unexpected skill set. How did Jane account for all of those variables? How did she see this coming a moment before her own defeat? Was Mainne losing her edge after all this time?

It didn't matter. Mainne clenched all of her muscles tightly while concentrating. The fight wasn't over yet; she could still move, the pain slightly disappearing with each second passing. Mainne charged up what was left of her energy into the area above her while staying on the ground through that moment, chanting the name and hoping to give Jane a taste of her own medicine. "Stalagmite!" Despite being much closer to Jane this time, Mainne could still rely on her four remaining sentinels to protect her from her own spell, being as the two destroyed devices were the most useless ones anyway. At the same time the spell was invoked, the same formation of large frozen pillars and chunks of ice began to fall from the ceiling, showing to Jane that the fight wasn't over yet. Jane could potentially avoid every hit, but it would leave her open and vulnerable, and there had to be a limit to the amount of times she could power shield herself for protection.

Without chanting the name of the familiar spell, Jane gathered the energy into her hands again, and projected an aura of protection around her like before. As soon as her power shield was up, Jane waited out all of the collisions happening on top of and around her. The aura protected her without difficulty, leaving behind several phasic hexagons in the aura to indicate where the damage was being done. The falling stalagmites forced Jane to keep herself protected for several long seconds while Mainne was stuck at a slight distance determining what to do next.

If I can't find a way to disrupt that power shield, I'm going to lose this fight before I even get a real chance. Jane Venn, how did you come up with such an elaborate defense without having to consume much MP? Mainne knew already that the shield had its own limitations by damage and time for it to run, but what about before that? Jane didn't actually shield everything. That has to mean that Jane uses more than just concentration to perform it. Her arms are spread out crossing each other, palms open, as if they are the conduit for such powerful magic. It would be hard to interrupt the process before it begins, but timing has to factor into a new strategy.

After Jane dropped her shield while the air space was finally clear, she aimed her arms back at Mainne again with additional Leray magic already built up there, a jade color glyphring already forming in front. "Thunder Flare!" Though the spell usually takes a while to cast after chanting the name, Jane managed to form the sphere of electricity faster than usual, spawning and growing with Mainne already inside of the sphere. Though the damage of the sphere wasn't currently active, the position in which Mainne was in and how surprised she was by its speed of appearance, it was already too late to be avoided.

Mainne was trapped by the field around her, already being constantly electrocuted in place as the energy began to disperse. The pain of Thunder Flare was very intense, as was the burning sensation brought on by the electrical magical energy. All of her sentinels remained just outside of the sphere, thus remaining undamaged. Except, the Flame Sentinel suddenly happened to float too close to the electrical sphere entrapping Mainne. It too was beginning to take electrical damage to itself, sparking in response. Mainne couldn't care about any observations at the moment, as the level of damage was intense and painful, too much for her to move as all her muscles were forced to cramp tightly in response. The sphere then faded away completely, leaving Mainne dizzy and drained of her usual energy. Her limbs felt tingly in every location, and she tried to struggle to return her attention back to reality.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/NFj30Qrq/S3-Sent-Fire-N-002.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/fL2d6vc7/S3-Mainne-N-006.png]

Jane kept herself on guard, since it seemed that Mainne wasn't as damaged as she should have been. Was Mainne already dried off by now? Or did the passive protection of her sentinels have something to do with this? She looked like she might collapse at any moment, but it might just be a facade. Jane noticed some static electrical zaps and occasional sparks jumping out from the Flame Sentinel, which took a fair amount of damage from other previous attacks. Jane wondered if destroying those other sentinels should be of a priority, since there was no telling what they could do to her.

Finally back in her zone, Mainne glanced at Jane and came up with a better idea, which happened to be the original plan that she veered away from since the beginning of the battle. Without much of a warning, Mainne placed her sword away into a contractible hilt, and began sprinting towards Jane, who wasn't more than twelve meters from the present distance. Before getting close range to Jane, who already had her hands glowing blue in indication of another power shield, Mainne launched a quick attack by shooting an Ice Ball spell from her left hand, immediately hitting Jane from a short distance mid-sprint. The unexpected damage from Ice Ball wasn't enough to stop Jane, but the fact that she was hit from that attack did confuse her long enough for Mainne to step in and grab hold of Jane's arms, just as she was about to use them.

After twisting both of Jane's arms painfully and folding them around to make her attempt to shield useless, Mainne shifted her feet and began punching and kicking Jane in place. All of this happened as fast as the blink of an eye, but felt slower for Mainne, as it might have been for Jane too. Jane's movements indicated that she was trying to get a hold of herself and interrupt Mainne's cycle, but Mainne kept her close combat fighting style less predictable by blasting water magic in Jane's face, followed by a few more kicks to her gut and the Ice Beam spell to the center of her chest. Little by little, Jane was taking on more damage with no ability to stop Mainne's relentless assault. Because Mainne was using ice elemental magic, Jane's body temperature would get even lower than it was before.

Mainne hit Jane in the face again with her elbow, then used another blast of water, drenching Jane as much as possible just before stepping back to conduct another frozen spell. Chanting Ice Beam once more, Mainne shot a steady beam of ice while aiming to spray all over Jane's cold body, already making her immobile. Jane covered her arms and ducked her knee down slightly from how cold the sensation was. If this kept up, Jane would simply freeze to death, or freeze to a near death, since Leray magic wouldn't allow death to occur in this nature, but Mainne hadn't stopped performing her action just yet. She got close to Jane again, and performed a special backflip, which enabled her to kick Jane with the tip of her shoe at the same time, carrying enough force to knock her down and back as she ascended away from her target. By the time Mainne landed, she continued her combination by adding in one last gust of Icy Wind, blowing a fast gust of sheer cold air in Jane's direction.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/9QbQ8QtZ/S3-Jane-N-056.png]

Though Jane knew her energy scope wouldn't report it, she felt everything hazing out, as if the world around her were stopping. Everything was too cold, but as much as it hurt, she began to feel everything with less intensity. She was on the ground, her face hurting from all of the kicking Mainne inflicted to her, and impossibly cold gusts of wind shearing the skin off her limbs. Jane stopped shivering, as if her body had simply given up on that mechanism to try and warm her. It felt as if she jumped into a lake frozen over with ice and was stuck inside with nobody to save her.

But despite that - she could still move her arms and legs. Jane held her hand above her face, examining whether or not the symbol would directly appear on her skin. She could simply force it to happen, but with Mainne and P as a witness added with all of the flying drone cameras, her entire plan would fail. JDT! What would Taylor and Danny do if they were here right now, if they were allowed to fight with her as a team? Jane ran through the scenarios in her mind quickly, as she could feel the circulation in her limbs dying, her blood thickening. Danny would simply stand guard like a bowling pin. But Taylor would do her usual thing, offering some kind of support spell, or at least find some way to warm Jane up as she was fighting...

"That's it!" Jane's voice was a soft whisper despite the fact that she was trying to shout. The breath that escaped her mouth was visible for several seconds, as if the air itself may ice over and drop into a crystal. Jane held her hand up higher, trying to concentrate on sending her energy out into this limb, aiming at the ceiling above herself. Jane knew what needed to be done. It wasn't going to take a symbol or willpower alone to win this fight. She needed the leverage she should have come up with a very long time ago. Jane whispered the name of her spell to ensure its success, not caring whether Mainne was aware of her ability being cast.

Mainne could tell Jane didn't want to move. She didn't want to sit or stand up at all. Soon enough, Jane will give up and announce defeat without losing all of her health. Instead, Jane raised her hand higher into the air, likely to invoke some sort of support spell. It wouldn't be an attack spell, since she was aiming it at the air above her. Mainne kept on her guard backing away from Jane slowly to be certain. For several seconds, it didn't seem like Jane was doing anything in particular. Mainne didn't hear any words escape her mouth, but Jane's right hand was glowing with an orange aura as if to release a lot of magic. As it stopped glowing, it was only a matter of time. Mainne waited out the seconds, wondering when she could expect anything to change.

For a long paused moment, Jane didn't feel very different. Eventually, every nerve in her body finally obtained the relief they craved for. Jane thought she had somehow drifted from a frozen ice land into a warm lodge. There was suddenly heat all around her, like a fire close enough to warm her hand and toes, and much more beyond that. In mere seconds, Jane felt better than ever, capable of getting back up and standing to her sense. Her limbs were tingling from the radical quick shift in temperature, but the pain was absent now. When she realized how quickly her spell worked, there were suddenly a lot of changes happening in the battlefield. The iced floor became a warm metallic puddle of water. All of the snow and ice at the edges of the field also began melting away. And aside from all of that, an orange haze began to form at the ceiling. Jane felt so comfortable and warm again, finally out of that brisk freezing air that surrounded her.

Mainne clenched her fists and teeth, unable to respond to the situation quickly. It was a surprise she should have been expecting one moment or another. Up until now, Jane had not fought much with the element of fire, but now this! Jane managed to raise the temperature of the entire room to an unprecedented heat, still in the process of rising, already past 70oF. The spell she cast could be none other than Blaze Storm.

Jane managed to breathe in deeper and deeper, as if she were waking up from a dead sleep in the middle of the fight. Her body and dress were still soaking wet. Mainne blasted her with water twice already, and though the heat made this less of a problem, Jane knew she had to be cautious about the fact that her vulnerability to electrical attacks has come out again. Mainne on the other hand seemed somewhat dry... Wait, something else was happening, something Jane did not expected to see. It had both herself and Mainne in a shocking pause.

Mainne felt water dripping down on her shoes, as if something above her was dripping a leak, but after checking beneath her, she let out a horrified shriek as her entire crystalized dress sphere began to liquefy. It only happened at the edges for now, but the environmental temperature was still rising rapidly. Blaze Storm is designed to make the environment go all the way up to 150oF without fail, and that means that anything frozen Mainne had on her would melt away too! Her shoes were still fine, but they were not technically made out of ice, nor were they synthesized once. Her dress sphere on the other hand, the one she had been working on for weeks was being destroyed without a thing she could do! Damn you Jane! Did she plan this? It's a clever trick to say the least. Jane has been suffering of a cold temperature for this entire battle, and held back on using the element of heat to her advantage. Only now would she go as far to melt the entire room that was freezing over, making this her advantage to step back up and get into the fight again. Mainne had to deal with Blaze Storm several times, but she always held some way of pulling through them regardless. Her ice dress made it through those previous hell storms just fine, but only because it was robust to damage. Mainne wasn't exactly weak against heat, but wearing all models of her iced dress sphere made it that way. However, this particular model that Mainne wore was modified outside of the special boundaries of Leray infusion, which means exactly as P said before. Field-testing it now would be a risk to the suit itself.

Jane didn't perform any additional action. The sentinels all floating around Mainne began to sink, their health all declining rapidly. Even the Flame Sentinel wasn't able to withstand a temperature so high, as all four of them imploded from the damage they suffered.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/FzC2dwjf/S3-Sent-Fire-N-003.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/J4gf1Vrv/S3-Sent-Frost-N-001.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/L8gMf4Qm/S3-Sent-Elect-N-001.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/Pqn0wW8M/S3-Sent-Water-N-001.png]

As Jane noticed all of their energy scopes fading away leaving Mainne by herself, she could feel the discomfort returning to her in a different form. It felt like she was being baked inside of an oven. The air got harder to breathe, the sweat accumulating began running down her face from her scalp. At this rate, her clothes would end up dry in no time, except for the sweat she was leaking already.

As for Mainne, the frozen dress sphere simply crumbled apart off her own chest, splashing down in its own puddle as Mainne could only mourn the loss of her own experiment in horror. Now she was left with the only unmodified clothing left, a thick layer of a dark colored bikini. Both pieces of clothing are still technically fit for battle since they are also infused with the protection of Leray magic, that and they were not made of any destructive material. On top of that, they're not any more revealing than a standard beach bikini found at any local store. It seemed now as if Mainne was set and ready to head to the beach at Tilsit Port, but the surprise on Mainne's blushing face was unavoidable. This would normally be okay within a battle with two woman. Even P had seen his own share of some exposure. While wearing a bikini in battle isn't all too much to get worked up about, the reaction from others was less bearable to think upon. Mainne knew it would be that way; the audience of an entire nation is watching this through the cameras! Everyone must be laughing at her mistake right now!

Pilpy caught that worried look in Mainne's eye, already aware of what she was getting embarrassed about. Then again, she might be even more devastated by the loss in months of work on her dress. With only a second of delay, he picked up his arm, the one with the device wrapped around it. He pressed a single button, something that toggled a switch to place all cameras in standby mode only. In standby mode, all cameras remain active, but only send a feed to the video editing team without keeping an open channel. Not that Mainne wanted to or was trying to, but showing someone even equipped with a non-revealing bikini on this channel could result in a massive variety of problems and potential lawsuits. Young kids watch this channel after all. On top of that, Mainne would now have to decide whether it was up to her in order to battle to the end. If she forfeits now, even to declare that the match is no longer fair, P would have no choice but to let Jane win by default. After all, it isn't Jane's fault that Mainne was messing around with an untested experiment mid-battle.

With another confident nod in Pilpy's direction, Mainne got a hold of herself. It actually felt a little freer than before to lose all of that heavy weight and fight without any kind of armor. All of that ice was heavier than she realized. Though this also carried its own risks. Mainne would now be completely susceptible to all types of damage. Even if she continues to fight Jane, it would feel odd to battle wearing just the minimum amount of clothes. Jane would never dare try anything to make it worse than this, but the battle still isn't over yet.

Jane didn't know what to do. Was Mainne seriously going to fight like this? What was she nodding at P about? And how was she able to keep from freaking out given the new situation? Jane considered Mainne very lucky to be wearing this much under that frozen modification of armor, rather intelligent to be.

Noticing Jane's caution, Mainne reassured her from afar. "We're not finished yet Jane. I won't give up that easily, and having a suit that melts in the heat is my fault. Blaze Storm wasn't a bad choice."

"Okay." Jane's response still sounded awkward, but there wasn't any way to make it seem normal. Jane held her daggers carefully, making sure to have room to use magic from her palms should the need arise. It was hard to still maintain any balance, as Blaze Storm is still currently running.

"Alright then." Mainne rushed forward for only a few paces, giving some additional speed to her forming spell. A glyphring appeared around her arm instantly, and she released the magic out of her hand as soon as she was able to aim it at Jane. "Shock Wave!" She sent Shock wave, the most refined form of Electro Ball, which still used such little amounts of MP energy.

Jane saw the flying ball of electrical light coming dead at her face while there was no time to try and shield herself. Instead, Jane held out her hands and took a step to her right to see where she was aiming. "Return!" she shouted as her hands began to glow again. Jane immediately used her telekinetic power of the unofficial Return spell she mastered earlier to take control of Mainne's Shock Wave projectile. When she did, Jane allowed the sphere to keep its speed while changing the course, making it miss Jane by inches while turning around full circle to redirect the flight path back to Mainne.

Clearly this was something new! Mainne had never seen someone take full control of her own Shock Wave before and send it back. Mainne was so amazed at this new development that she didn't managed to dodge what should have been an easy evasion for herself. The sphere collided in her chest, zapping her with her own electrical energy as she was forced to take in all of it.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/rsD4ctjB/S3-Mainne-N-007.png]

At about the same time Jane noticed Mainne take a hit from her own spell, the orange haze from above faded quickly, with a noticeable temperature change on its way. Oddly, it ended up returning the air temperature back down to about 76oF, even though the thermostat was set to a much lower condition. Either the spell had overstressed the entire A/C system, or Blaze Storm found this space to be the optimal temperature setting under normal conditions.

Jane didn't waste a single moment between then and now. Mainne would be momentarily weak from the drain of an electrical attack such as that, mixed in with the confusion that it was now getting colder. She held her blades tightly, infusing both of them with a slight magical glow. "Splicing Vengeance!" Jane rushed in to where Mainne was standing. It took little time to reach her, as Jane leaped into the air and plunged the glowing blades into Mainne's chest again. Jane was aiming for the shoulders, but ended up hitting Mainne right below her neck. Of course due to the protection of Leray magic, this felt like nothing more than a stabbing pain for Mainne in that area, followed by a slight decrease of health potential on the energy scope. Jane backed out immediately, trying to return her distance before Mainne could try and get back to her senses.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/Wzxk4bfh/S3-Mainne-N-008.png]

The low damage potential did not surprise Jane, as Splicing Vengeance has a low power level to begin with, and she never found a way to refine such a physical attack spell. As she put some distance back between herself and her opponent, Mainne was already about to take some action. Whatever set her MP levels up must have come from taking a hit from her own attack spell. Jane never fully tested the conditions of using the Return control spell on other individuals. Seeing strange effects on them afterwards was to be somewhat expected.

"Ice Needles!" Mainne quickly got over the pain of Jane's last attack, since it didn't last very long or cause a large amount of damage. After expending about 10% of her own MP energy, Mainne created a large ice glyphring in front of her and fired a barrage of Ice Needles.

On cue, Jane invoked another power shield, the aura of blue light surrounding her entire body as the frozen needles disintegrated into the shield. Jane didn't think anything about this was odd until several more moments passed. Mainne was still standing on the other side, needles firing rapidly through the glyphring. The spell of Ice Needles doesn't last half this long, and yet Mainne was still making it go. As the seconds ticked by, Jane began to feel weaker and weaker. The battle damage from the prolonged Ice Needles flying through the field was hardly a cause for concern, but Jane could feel her shield slipping because of how long she had it up to begin with.

Mainne showed her confident smile while continuing her spell, cautiously walking forward in a continued invocation to reveal terrifying dominance. By using more of her Leray energy, she managed to manipulate and modify the original ability of Ice Needles in order to make it last for a longer duration. If damage wouldn't break through Jane's shield, then maybe forcing her to keep it going for a long time would. So far, her theory proved to be successful.

As Jane's shield failed and collapsed around her into nothingness, the ice needles landed into her skin a dozen times over, with Mainne shutting down her glyphring at the same time, obviously proof that this was just a diversion for her. The needles stung with pain, but it wasn't enough to stop Jane from regaining her stamina and preparing to defend herself. Mainne was sure to try something else right now.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/VNNL3PDT/S3-Jane-N-057.png]

It seems that Jane took some damage from the attack as well. Mainne used this opportunity to attack again with a better spell, under the assumption that Jane couldn't possibly invoke shields one after the other so quickly between the iterations. "Ice Bolts!" After creating another ice elemental glyphring, Mainne conducted a spell she tried to use once before. If it works, Jane's body heat will go down again, despite how slowly the air conditioning units were lowering the thermal build up. She fired five Ice Bolts from her glyphring all separately with a rapid fire, prompting Jane to do something else.

Seeing five frozen projectiles of magical ice heading her way, Jane kept to some more of her original ideas and held her hands out to take control of them again. "Return!" she hissed. The drain on her own energy was high, because unlike before, Jane had to suddenly and quickly take control of five moving projectiles all at the same time, as opposed to just controlling one. Such a thing should have been impossible, but using additional energy while multi-tracking five items at once, Jane barely had the concentration necessary to make this work. Instead of increasing their speed or changing their direction, Jane simply forced all of the Ice Bolts to stop just four meters away from hitting her. It would have taken too long and too much of her focus to try and spin around with the course correction like last time, and Jane decided to cease the movement of the energy spheres. With full control after stopping them and freezing their position in mid-air with telekinetic magic, she swiftly pushed with a similar force, sending all five of them back again.

"No!" Mainne didn't expect Jane to try another Return attack, let alone control more than one projectile at a time, but because of her method, it gave Mainne just enough time to pull up her hilt and reactivate her frozen sword. The blade shot out of its hiding place, immune to melting from the proper infusion of Leray magic. Mainne at least knew that her own spell was once again sent back to her this time, and she attempted to cut them all down, but as she raised her saber up as an attempt to block the path of the first Ice Bolt, this left the rest of herself vulnerable to the other Ice Bolts that were clustered closer together in the same process. The Ice Bolts all slammed into Mainne, who was unable to block the attacks with her sword. The sheering cold sensation of a brute ice attack sent shivers through her entire body. The ice spheres hit her chest, shoulders, and legs. Without her dress sphere there to protect her and absorb cold, Mainne had indeed felt the full power of ice attacks like never before. Goosebumps formed immediately all over her skin, unable to provide any layer of cover since the only thing she had on was swimwear. The force of each hit however was not nearly enough to disrupt her balance. The damage caused to her wasn't too bad, and Mainne managed to stay fairly conscious because of how freezing she was, making her alert.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/nVW720cp/S3-Mainne-N-009.png]

Mainne refused to give up this match. Jane could still be defeated against the odds. She was running out of MP energy too, most defiantly the ability to continue shielding herself. Sticking with common ice attacks, Mainne held out her hand again, repeating more deadly skills. "Ice Glave!" As the ground shifted in front of her and continued forward, massive shards of ice similar in formation to that of the stalagmite were shooting out of the ground. It wasn't on top of Jane just yet, but it would be there any second now.

"Farshield!" Jane held out her hand aiming right at ground in front of the advancing Ice Glave, creating an auric barrier from the ground up spreading wide and stopping the movement dead in its tracks. But the pillars from Ice Glave continued forming, slamming and smashing rocks into the field, creating tiny hexagons everywhere during the process with the solid sounds of anti-aura reflections. Jane could feel this shield failing immediately, and came up with a different way to shift her strategy. As she began to charge energy into her legs while dropping the power to her Farshield, Mainne was confused into believing that the shield was no longer working, her reactions too slow to keep up.

The field collapsed quickly, allowing the Ice Glave spell to continue its ground based movement. At the same time, Jane leaped high into the air and far above the proximity of the Ice Glave and its pillars. While in midair, after having avoided such a deadly attack in a simple manner of anti-gravity magic, Jane accumulated about the rest of her entire Leray energy, forming a multi-colored glyphring in front of her as the rest of her magic kept her floating for a few more seconds. "Prism!" Jane didn't think or wait anything out, leaving Mainne to be stuck with no way to keep up with what was going on. As soon as Jane launched her combination of elemental magical attacks, it was already too late to stop her. Jane started her chain swapping between fire and Ice Bolts before sending out two consecutive Thunderbolts. She threw the magic down at Mainne alternating each hand, as if to casually pitch balls to someone without much effort for aim. Jane continued the combo with an Ice Bolt, followed by a Thunderbolt, two additional Fire Bolts, thunder, ice, thunder, thunder, and finally one more Fire Bolt before the glyphring's magic was used up. As Jane descended to the ground, the blasts of magical light that surrounded Mainne faded away, leaving behind obvious signs of damage.

Mainne was on her knees, her arms just as weak. After unexpectedly being blasted with several elemental bolts, freezing, burning, and electrocuting her skin on contact, she felt so weak from a number of elements, but the low stats on her energy scope was one of her more final warnings. She could get up and try something else, but Jane just wasn't letting up at all.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/WbJZHghr/S3-Mainne-N-010.png]

After Jane landed, she didn't take much time to decide on another long-range attack. It would use up the last bit of her remaining magic, but she needed to get Mainne's health as low as possible to make this victory official. "Lightning Strike!" Making her spell more official with a jade colored glyphring around her wrist with just 3% of her last MP energy, Jane aimed dead on Mainne's slumping body, sending out an electric bolt of power that quickly began to degrade Mainne's health while zapping her for damage. The shock really looked as if it hurt judging by the painful expression on Mainne's face. By the time it was over, Jane was also breathing rapidly after having no MP left, but her health was still halfway up, giving her plenty of reason to stand still and rest while her opponent makes up her mind.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/JzVXV0kF/S3-Mainne-N-011.png]

Mainne finally managed to look up, studying Jane's still determined stance and her energy scope. It was obvious by comparison right now that Jane has won this battle. Someway, somehow, Mainne lost to what appeared to be this really energetic young girl. And worse, here she was half-exposed and humiliated in the arena. That bit was her own fault, but it was finally time she formally gave up. After trying to stand and balance herself through the dizziness, Mainne found her voice and declared an official announcement. "I can't believe I've been defeated. I forfeit the match!"

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Chapter Theme Shift: The Reunion ~ X3 Reunion OST

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As soon as it was spoken aloud, the entire Siriean dome became brighter and emitted a shocking sound. It was as if the field was collapsing due to damage instead of a formal discontinuation of service. P disabled his own force field as well, standing to attention of the scene. He would soon announce Jane as the victor any second now. "The match is over. Jane Venn is declared as the victor of the third battle, and the chain has moved to level four on her behalf." With that done, P pulled out a supply sphere he was holding onto. This time, he had several things to give to Mainne. First, he gave Jane and Mainne the same modified healing orb as before, capable of instantaneous regeneration of each subject. With the energy scopes filling up nicely after usage, Jane and Mainne weren't slow with putting away those magical scopes, making the field of view clearer to everyone.

Well before Jane recovered, Pilpy was handing a rounded cloak to Mainne, allowing her to slip into the material as she buttoned up each section in the front. Mainne could easily open her personal supply sphere and change into anything else of her choice, but it would take up some time nobody had at the moment. Jane was left wondering about that particular problem ever since the incident. Why would Mainne's dress sphere be vulnerable to damage by Leray magic? And how did she not freak out when continuing to battle? Jane imagined a thought in her head that gave her tremors in her nerves, the thought of battling in her underwear with a thousand or more people watching.

"Thanks P," Mainne spoke softly. She could feel with and without the cloak that the entire room was still at a temperature above sixty degrees, caused by the A/C struggling to bring it back down to the optimal settings she had the device locked to. In front of her stood Jane, who looked a little winded from the fight, but not nearly as much as Mainne felt. Jane won her victory, despite all of Mainne's efforts and struggles to change the way the battle went. It was all over from the moment Jane hit her with Splice as Mainne was jumping from airborne glacier to glacier. It wasn't exactly how she expected to go out losing, but Mainne knew she gave the fight everything she had. The same could be said for Jane too, who nearly became frozen solid from the previous strategy. Where does she get that energy and spirit from? Even now, Jane has a confident stance about her, like she was already prepared to battle against the next elite without a fifteen minute break... Danton.

"I can't begin to tell you how stupid that was." Pilpy's aggressive tone drove away Mainne's attention from Jane. "I tried to tell you earlier that you can't go messing around with Leray based properties on tactical dress spheres without field testing it extensively. Your synthesis failed because you got too carried away."

Mainne crossed her arms with her head tilting away from her referee. "You're still going on about that? I already figured out my mistake in battle."

"What happened anyway?"

Noticing Jane's question in the matter, Mainne kept an eye on her while explaining the full situation. "My dress sphere melted into oblivion, and I have no one but myself to blame for that. Even though I made it out of ice for design, I didn't carefully ensure that it was still protected by Leray magic. I modified it myself, which risks sacrificing that natural aura of protection. Since it was under a third tier of modification, it was more prone to losing protection."

"Really?" Jane thought back to her own situation. The dress sphere she was wearing now had been completely modified. It was the black and blue suit from Lennith Academy, but Taylor did a lot of interesting things to change the overall appearance of the special suit. It really didn't have an official name anymore, but Taylor recolored the entire elastic battle suit to white, adding on green stripes and designs to various places, making sure the dye matched the hue and vibrancy of her own eyes. Plus, instead of keeping the suit as a suit, Taylor somehow managed to add on a top skirt as an extra layer, making the entire dress sphere much more attractive. The inner layers of the material were changed too for a different more comfortable fabric. The modifications were not obvious either; this was professionally remade, something she would only expect to witness from one of the Eldora clothing stores, or from an actual fashion designer. From the outside, one would simply see a girl wearing a powerful dress with leggings and an overskirt, though colored in a method that blends the material all together in elegance. Combine that with special white shoes and white leather fingerless gloves, and she has an amazing outfit designed to look formal and use for battling, equipped with natural resistances that are actually quite low in total sustenance. In all of that time and process, Jane hadn't noticed a single stitch out of place ever since she began fighting in this tower, which must mean that the Leray coat of protection still applies. How did Taylor know in which ways to modify the JDT dress sphere without sacrificing its natural form of damage protection? And how has she not set her sights on being a fashion designer in this country?

"It'll be fine though," Mainne reassured. "The audience won't know what happened."

"Huh?"

Addressing Jane's confusion, Pilpy held up his armlet in front of Jane without pressing anything on it. "I made sure to shut down active transmission to the live feed, and made note of changes that needed to be made to the editors. We aren't going to show Mainne wearing that little of anything on television, so we continued showing you battle instead, editing the fight as best we can while blacking out the rest. There is no doubt that people watching will know that something was up momentarily, but the end result of the capture software will be the same."

No wonder Mainne was so calm! Jane had forgotten to consider this. The drone cameras all have a live ten-minute delay to resolve little issues like this. Mainne knew the entire time that nothing too embarrassing for her would have been shown to any particular audience. That must be why she chose to continue the battle anyway. Jane was amazed at herself for how well she did in the end, her skills getting better each time.

"Anyway," Mainne focused. "I was totally amazed by how well you battled today, and now I understand how you managed to beat the other two. Most importantly, this was a lot of fun!"

In this very moment, Mainne appeared to Jane as a younger, happier person, like she had traveled back in time and brought out the brightest side of herself. But Jane suspected Mainne was always this way. It seemed like she really does care about the principles of Leray battles, the things that truly matter about having fun in a fight. Jane and Mainne both fought their absolute hardest a moment ago, and at the same time, Jane felt the same sense, the same buzz she always felt after winning a battle. It's exactly why she was so anxious to battle the next opponent right away. Mainne isn't the only one who loves to fight using Leray magic.

Failing to control her expression at loss to a smile, Mainne stepped a pace closer to Jane, wanting to imprint that face into her memory. "Jane, I'd like to have another battle with you!"

"What?!" P turned and glared at Mainne, judging her intentions. "Mainne, you can't seriously—"

"I didn't mean right now!" Mainne turned with her arms held down to gesture her sudden frustration. After calming Pilpy's misinterpretation down, she focused on Jane again, eager for her answer. "Some time after your championship battle ends, whether it be next week or next month, I'd like to test myself against you over and over. Hell, I might even try to get you a position here as an elite trainer. I can tell that you have plenty of potential. What do you say?" She extended her arm to Jane as well, palm open -awaiting to be shaken for the trust of a deal.

Jane was frozen for a second. Having been asked for a rematch in the future certainly wasn't expected. Jane didn't think she could have made an impression on anybody else, having been so focused on what to say to Danton come the time, but Mainne was asking for all the right reasons, accompanied to everything Jane knew about it from the beginning. She could sense just how incredible and wonderful Leray battles are. Even after forgetting about that the moment Jane left her friends, and after they reminded her what it really means to have a real Leray match, Jane exhaled excitingly to see someone else who shared the same understanding. The look in her adult blue eyes, Mainne was more than just happy or jumpy! Jane could see herself reflected from this person again. Mainne wants to have a rematch. As coming from an elite, it most likely isn't something that happens regularly, and as a Leray wielder, this was an offer Jane knew she shouldn't refuse. After allowing herself to comprehend the emotions they both shared, Jane clasped her hand into Mainne's, hefting her arm up and down firmly. "I'd be honored to conduct a battle once again with someone who enjoys this as much as I do."

Mainne wanted to let everything go right then and there, but since Jane was still the primary contestant, she couldn't get too carried away. "Excellent. Now we only have about twelve minutes before the next break ends. We should talk about your next opponent."

"Okay." Jane put her arms by her side, waiting patiently while her heart pounded in her chest from the ongoing anticipation of action. "I'm all ears."

P had something to say first, but it wasn't much of a deviation for what it pertained to. "For winning this match, you have been rewarded with 25,000 credits, automatically loaded onto your license card by digital transfer. You will also retain the previous credit rewards from your previous victories. And now that you have accumulated a chain of four in the Eldora championship, Mainne will give you the details of your next opponent; the fourth elite."

"Brock currently has level four status," Mainne began. Before Jane could ask for a more formal identity, she sped up her words in hopes she wouldn't have to explain this twice. "He and I are about the same in skill level, so sometimes we end up swapping between elite levels. But as you witnessed from the moment you entered this particular arena, the environment has been manipulated for the purpose of my own specialization."

"It was cold," Jane remembered.

"Yes. It was cold. The A/C was set to twenty-seven, and I like to fight in cold environments, using the elements of ice and wind to my advantage of slowing opponents down. Brock however has the opposite strategy." Jane tilted her head to the news, but ever so slightly as to go unnoticed. "Instead of battling with ice, Brock sets his A/C heating settings much higher, as he specializes as a heat warrior."

Jane sighed stressfully, after just having overcome an immense cold. Now she has to suffer a heat stroke to move on? "Fire and Ice huh?"

"Yeah." Mainne sounded a bit defeated in tone as she continued. "Brock and I have both fought each other a lot. I managed to beat him a couple times, but mostly he takes the win. Since fire is strong against ice, I typically have the constant disadvantage against him. Maybe I should learn a thing from you regarding the next time we go at it." After a short silence, Mainne realized she was getting off track. "As I was saying, Brock will likely prefer to use fire elemental magic that also tends to be very high on a scale of potential power. He won't hesitate to harm you at all, and he insists on making each attack painful like Cleo does if given the chance. Fairness and mercy are not concepts he uses, so don't be expecting that. If you have some sort of defense against fire, I suggest you put it to use in the next field."

After swallowing all of the information useful to Jane, she nodded and prepared to make herself mobile again. "I got it then. I should get going." Jane followed to the direction where P pointed her to, the next elevator that would take her up to the 750th floor of Eldora Tower. With as much preparation as she could bare, Jane put one foot in front of the next knowing what had to be done.

She loved people like Mainne, people who show so much high hopes for the example of Leray magic in Sprawn Valley. That love for Leray magic is important, and it is something else that will die with the city of Lennith and all of their dreams if Jane cannot save it from destruction. There is still only one sure way to do that. Three down and two to go? Jane felt deep down that she was capable, but now she was proud and more confident than ever in herself.

No, not just herself. JDT is making all of this possible right now. Jane knew she would have never made it this far without her friends here to support her. She could have been left in the dark zone to be eaten alive by another feral behemoth. Or even after being saved, Danny and Taylor could have simply abandoned her at Lennith and parted ways to leave this only on her own shoulders. But they didn't leave her behind. Danny and Taylor both helped Jane get this far. They are still helping her right now; the very thought of them kept Jane going further than she believed possible. That is something worth protecting just as much as Lennith City, and she claimed it to be her one and only true strength, her trump card in any situation, not this retched symbol. Danton? You and I have a few things to talk about. I don't care how tough Brock is. Even if he does wipe the floor with me, you are not getting away from me.