Traveling back and forth proved to be trivial and a matter of less than a minute, when one took the Ethereal highway. I attended Class on Thursday normally, Mirina doing her best to make sure I knew how displeased she was. Isengar's knights watched my every move while on campus for two days, to keep me from escaping.
Finally, the time for my duel arrived. I originally planned on letting Isengar's pet mage kick my butt. That was before I knew he was involved with Torgo McScrooge. Now, I wanted to make him bleed as only Royalty could. The metallic kind of blood.
Our duel was sanctioned by the Academy, what a wonder. Corruption seeped into all places and the Academy enjoyed too much independence. I was sure the gears of bureaucracy were properly greased. Maybe they even used gnomish cogwheel lubricant.
After class, everyone went to an arena built into the Academy campus. I wondered how many houses they demolished to make this ridiculous spectacle venue. Was the Academy planning on gobbling up all of Windemere one building at a time?
What these idiots don't realize was that their peace and calm came at a price. Windemere kept trade flowing, housed their servants, and protected them from banditry. Their first mistake was to take it for granted in a world that was basically still barbaric. Their second mistake was doing whatever they did in my beloved Windemere.
The Arena had state-of-the-art enchantments for dueling. The two contestants and the referee would input their magic signature into the enchantment, and the barrier synchronized to these signatures. Any compatible magical energy that struck the barrier was absorbed by it, fueling the magic ward as if it was the caster's intention. This synchronization made it almost impossible for one to break the dueling barrier with their magic. It also used part of the energy to weave the same protection around the duelists and the referee, reducing the real damage taken and tallying it against the HP pool of the contestant.
And that's when I finally figured out why they authorized this duel, no, massacre, of a high third-rank professional against a first-rank freshman student. The fuckers want to analyze my magic and my combat modifiers.
They were in for a surprise.
Me and Isengar's bodyguard mage, whose name I didn't bother to learn, walked into the arena. Professor Ibarin, of all people, was the referee but I later learned that it was custom to have the class teacher as the referee in a duel between students. The grandstands all around us were as full as the seek-the-stupid-gold-ball-bug-game finals in the magic-school-named-after-pig-moles, and the crowd here would make perfect extras there.
"The contestants can now make their speeches. Remember, this is an educational contest. Play by the rules. All spells must be chanted, and only [Wizard] magic can be used. No physical attacks of any sort, melee or projectile. You can't use enchanted items either. Remove all your items including storage rings if you have any."
Neither of us wore any enchanted item. The reason would become obvious soon enough.
The henchman went first. "Prince Isengar wishes you can learn a valuable lesson from this duel, miss."
Strengite looked at me and nodded. I found Isengar sitting on a private box near the middle of the oval arena but high up. I projected my voice there and everywhere. "Prince Isengar. I feel lucky today, and I think I have a shot at defeating your pet mage, Your Highness. What do you say?"
The students went wild with my declaration. Mirina hid her mouth and nose with a fan but I knew she was smiling behind it. We had a chance to talk earlier today and I arranged a little entertainment for the masses.
"Not a chance in hell you can defeat him!" Isengar boasted. "Unless you are not who you claim!"
"That's a dire accusation, [Prince]. I hope you are ready to back it with your honor if you are so inclined to tarnish mine."
"Silence, peasant!" He roared.
"Alas, I can't. Again, are you sure your mage will win?" I taunted.
> Contested Charisma test Won.
"This mage is among the best Leondirac has to offer! I'll give up a barony of mine if he loses!"
"I'm not interested in land grants elsewhere, Your Highness. What about a little wager? What odds do you give poor me of winning?
> Contested Charisma test Won.
"Ha! Twenty to one!" He shouted.
"Seriously? Twenty to one a freshman student that awakened not two months ago on the first rank against a seasoned veteran of Leondirac? I now understand why he attends classes along with you, Your Highness. He is in dire need of a refresher on basic {Wizardry}."
> Contested Charisma test Won.
"What odds do you think fair then, filthy beast?"
"Why don't we let a neutral third party, or better, two, decide? Your Highness Mirina Luwens, Your Highness Euric Fairfax, what odds do you think are fair in this case?"
"A hundred to one!" Euric shouted and earned an angry glare from Isengar.
"I think forty to one is more like it," Mirina declared. "After all, Haru is a prodigy among our class."
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"Seventy to one then, Your Highness Isengar? What do you say?"
> Contested Charisma test Won.
"So be it. How many coppers are you willing to bet?"
"Five Kingmetal coins," I shouted. "I'm in dire need of new grimoires."
> Contested Charisma test lost.
"As if you have this kind of money!" He scoffed. "I won't accept anything but live coin for this wager. Cough up the money or give it up!"
"She can borrow from me, for twenty percent of the winnings!" Euric offered.
I had talked with Mirina but the bookish prince had a soft spot for the downtrodden. A rare trait among his kind, especially when you consider he's a purebred human.
"I can loan her the coin, for only ten percent of the winnings. If she loses, she'll owe me anyway," Mirina turned our wager into an auction for yours truly.
"I'll take only eight percent then," Euric insisted.
"Five," The [Princess] didn't hesitate. "I'll still win seventeen and a half kingmetal coins, that might be enough for a new dress."
Some students laughed. Isengar's glare silenced everyone.
"Mirina, allow me to join you in sponsoring this bet. It is only fair." Euric requested.
She giggled, "Granted."
And just like that, the shrewd and self-serving [Princess] won one favor from one of her rivals. I had to keep myself from laughing.
"The bet is set, Isengar," I shouted. "Unless you don't trust your fellow Royals to stay true to their words," I taunted.
> Contested Charisma test Won.
"I heard it. Lonid and Ekar's coins are accepted after they're weighed and tested. The bet is on," he couldn't avoid sneering back at the two Royals that basically humiliated him.
"Haru, Mokiav, synchronize your signatures to the ward," Strengite ordered.
The mage put his hand on the ward core and the ward pulsed with the color red, indicating his fire affinity. I smiled. Wagging and flicking my two tails behind me, I touched the core as well. Waves of blue and pink soared over the arena. They were garbled, however.
> Resonance Tuning
>
> Resonance Dampener
After I learned what the ward did, it was a matter of doing the math to understand how. It was rather simple. They used a particular property of Resonance along with the contestant's magical signature to dissipate the structured magical energy of the spell with what was basically magical white noise. That's why we couldn't wear any enchanted item because it would distort our resonance signatures. I still hadn't figured out how they measured the modifiers, but the theory behind the protections of the ward was a solid exploit of Resonance mechanics.
And as a highly skilled enchanter, I could fork my Resonance signature and distort it while interacting with the barrier. That would make its measurements go all over the place because it wasn't properly calibrated. It would also reduce the protection granted but I was oh-so-worried about it. Not.
"My lord Isengar has a message for you, beast-midget. I commend you for not running away," the mage taunted in a low voice.
The ward buzzed and solidified. It also blocked external sound from entering but magnified when leaving. The crowd could hear us but we were acoustically isolated.
This ward would make a good mage prison too. They only needed enchanted restraints on the mage tuned to the ward. But enough. The fight was about to start.
"Begin!" Strengite waved his hand.
The same aura of the dome protecting the spectators appeared around our bodies.
"Gente Winds, protect this Damsel!" I started with a rapid-cast body enhancement spell that used wind magic to give me more evasion.
"O seething fire that burns in the heart of the world, come forth at my command! Lava Spray!" The mage cast his spell. His spell circle came into being fast. The combined Fire-Earth spell was a vicious one that dealt instant and damage-over-time wounds. Worse, the lava clung to the target.
"Stirring abyss from where I was born, obey thy lady! Smother and quench as is your nature!" I cast my second one. However, I used a few Abilities and Perks.
> Path Least Traveled ( use up to 2 perks from other magical traditions as Wizardly ones)
>
> Grand Fermata (charge spell)
>
> Glissando (Increase effect and MP cost)
The vocalizations of the spell-song started at C12 and rose to C13, above 100kHz. Nobody could hear it. I sustained the note and dodged his lava spray by going around and near the barrier. The magma that touched it was unraveled and vanished. This caused most of his spell to disappear.
The blue magic circle shone in front of me as I kept my Grand Fermata for as long as my shapeshifted elven vocal cords in my bronchi and the air in my lungs could sustain it.
He shot another two lava sprays. Once I felt my chest caving in and my diaphragm burning, I shouted. "Overcharge Magic! Abyssal Pressure!"
The moisture in the arena vanished. Then the grandstands, the sweat of the spectators, along with their saliva and eye moisture. Not enough water yet. I felt the spell reach down into the water table and angrily take hold of the element therein. It rose, eroding the bedrock and seeping through soft rock and soil wherever it found purchase.
It was akin to shale oil extraction with pressurized water. The arena rumbled. Half my Energy pool vanished to feed the hungry and overpowered spell. The spectators felt the vibrations and some stood up.
Then the floor broke and water spouted all around like angry geysers. It picked up the dirt on the ground and became muddied. All the water snaked toward the mage like an army of angry lamias. And just like the snake-ladies, they wrapped around him and started to compress as the spell attempted to imitate the pressure found in the oceanic abyss where I fought Carcinodon.
The mage started to gargle. A spell circle started to form. Another formed in my hand, faster.
> Path Least Traveled
>
> Anthem (Sorcery: Counterspell)
"Magic, you're over! Counterspell!" I shouted. The magic diagram for this spell formed at the speed of sorcery as I blurted the words out. The ultrasonic musical notes flew out of my mouth. His circle broke.
The air in his lungs was forcefully expelled, a tiny bubble that grew and burst out of the coils of water with not an unassuming pop but a great bang like a firearm going off.
Finally, the barrier secondary function activated and the water spell was drained of its energy. I shifted my resonance signature and dismissed the magic. The whole arena flooded up to my knees. The mage flopped in the water and floated on his stomach.
Strengite was too busy trying to decipher the ward's notifications. The water seeped down into the cracks in the ground, returning to where it came. Since it was called and not created, it didn't vanish like the leftover solidified magma from his spells.
"Stone! Obey my call, rise up and grant me succor! Earthrise!" I used an Earth spell to lift him from the water on a dais of stone. The duel was over, the ward said as much but since the referee was too busy with his secondary hidden objective, he hadn't called it.
A glance told me Isengar was fuming on his box. He'd just lost a fortune. I wished to see how bottomless Torgo's pockets really were and if he'd bail out his partner. Worse yet, even if Isengar killed me, he still owed both Mirina and Euric.
"Wind hear my voice and carry it to the four corners of the world! Amplify Sound!" I cast another spell. "PROFESSOR!" I shouted with all my might.
That shook Strengite from his calculations and machinations. He stared at me, the water now ankle-high, the mage lying on the stone dais. The lack of an aura around us.
"Winner: Haru!" He announced.
Round one was over. Now, let's fleece the stooge-of-the-day a bit more.