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The tournament staff walked up on stage and with the help of a mage threw up a projection, then with the aid of a magic tool to amplify his voice, he spoke, “Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention please.”

When all eyes were on him, he proceeded, “As per Argus kingdom’s ordonnance on magic, I am required by law to inform you on the rules to abide by when using magic in this dual. First and foremost, Mages, before we begin this contest of arcane skill, heed well the laws of this duel. To break them is to invite dishonor… or worse. I’ll not repeat myself twice.”

“Firstly, all offensive spells must be directed at or around your opponent, and only your opponent. The arena wards are in place to shield the spectators, but stray magic will still be judged as reckless conduct.”

“You may use shields, wards, and any form of arcane defense to protect yourself, the mana bracelet you were issued will not override the activation of your equipment. Counterspells are encouraged, display your mastery of mana.”

“Summons are permitted but you can only start summoning after the match begins, creatures, elementals, golems, or otherwise will only be allowed if you somehow manage to summon or deploy them after the match starts, but they must not target the audience or any structure beyond the stage boundary.”

“Victory will be declared when one of you is incapacitated, submits, or your issued mana shield deploys, or when the referee deems it necessary to intervene for your safety.”

“Under no circumstances are you to attempt space/time manipulation or death magic, which includes curses during this tournament. The laws of the kingdom are clear, such spells are banned.”

“No magic that influences the mind of your opponent beyond basic illusions. This is a duel of skill, not a battle of wills.”

“Movement spells that bring you outside the boundaries of the stage is forbidden. If you leave the stage by any means, intentional or not, you forfeit the duel.”

“No use of magic that alters the fabric of the Arena itself, keep all spell effects within your stage. The wards are strong, but there is no good reason to put them to the test just because you can.”

The tournament staff went on with a few more rules, we proceeded with the same tournament sorting process I experienced with the Swordsmanship Duels. But this time, when I received my number, I did not get any exaggerated reaction, nor did the person who drew a number to be my first opponent.

I guess I am not well-known for my magic, not that I openly display my spell casting. Throughout the year, I have stuck to the curriculum and did not cast any spells that deviated from the subject in class.

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No, all the fun stuff was only done when I was away from prying eyes with Professor Sageira, where we could say and show things that are meant to be kept secret.

Shortly after everyone got their placement on the tournament board, the first batch of eight was ushered out to throw magic at each other, and soon enough, it was my turn. So we were led out before the king to complete the greeting formality and were split up into our dueling pairs.

My first opponent was a meek-looking girl who had her fringe almost covering her eyes and no coat of arms anywhere on her uniform, so it is safe to say she was not from a noble house, if I remember correctly, her name is Elise… I think I recognize her from my Advanced Spell Theory… if I am not wrong, she is always the quiet one in the corner.

Soon enough, once we were all ready on our stages and the mage referees used a magic tool to make sure we were not preemptively weaving any spells and that our mana was relaxed, the announcer gave the signal to begin.

I immediately mentally weaved a spell and a quick wave of my arm to send an opening wind blade spell flying across the stage, but to my surprise, Elisa had the same plan. This ended with both of us simultaneously making the split-second decision to make our wind blades cancel each other out.

The moment that happened, we both burst into action. While I started bolting to the side in order to avoid being a stationary target while mentally spinning up more spells in my head, Elisa was making hand signs while chanting at the same time, no doubt in a bid to increase the pace of the big spell she is prepa-... wait… something is not right, the spell she is chanting is fire-attributed, but her hand signs will end in an Earth Wall spell.

The moment that thought finished, she squatted down, touched the ground, and her spell activated. A thick chest-high wall sprouted around her in a circle, and shortly after that, she peeked over the wall and shot a firebolt she had been holding on to at me.

Unfortunately for her, I do not suffer from the un-exercised bodies that most mages possess and was easily able to spin out of the way the moment the firebolt got too close, I always need to wait till the last moment to dodge spells due to the caster being able to have some influence in homing the spell in on the target.

Only after I dodged the firebolt and kept myself on the balls of my feet, did I have some time to truly appreciate what took place. To the laymen, they just saw that she could cast two spells in quick succession, big whoop, any mage with a few years of training under their belt could do that, hell, even I could easily overwhelm people in a torrent of first and second circle spells.

But what Elise did was true dual casting, it is like doing one of those left-brain and right-brain exercises where I need to pat my head and rub my belly at the same time, but with magic. Unlike her, me and most other mages around the world perform multicasting by weaving one spell at a time and caching it in our minds to unleash when needed.

We are still at the stage of testing each other out, so I do not really know how good Elise is yet, for all I know, she is weaving spells twice as fast as normal mages her age while hiding behind that wall and is just waiting for me to get in close enough to blast me with a torrent of spells she has cached in her mind.

On the other hand, I wonder how good she really is, now would be the best time to test her. I just hope nobody picked up on what I just discovered, it would be nice to have such a talent as a retainer, and it is never too early to start poaching young talent for my house.