The game was going about how Azura had expected. Their opponents were by no means weak, but they were out of their league. It may not be a perfect representation, but it was in fact still a magic duel, so even if she didn’t have much practice with the game Elismera was still the most dangerous person on the field, or at least that’s no doubt what the other team thought. That was probably why they hadn’t noticed their spells being weaker than usual. He had given the other 2 cards to boost their spells, but neither was using it. Which was fine he had no issue leaving it in reserve for a trump card against Kaiser, but the game was going on far longer than it probably should.
The fire dome wasn’t strong enough to burn all the thorns, and even if it had been, the water dragon from Auros would have weakened it to the point where it wasn't, which allowed some of the thorns to find their way through and hit home. In reality that probably would have been the end of the fight since the pain would probably make concentrating difficult, but this wasn’t a real fight, so there was no pain to stop them. All 3 of them played a card at the same time. A team spell huh? He smirked, that was what he was waiting for. He activated the spell he had placed near them at the start. A pulse of mana meant to destabilize complicated spells.
Funny thing about complicated magic unraveling, it only tended to have one effect. A huge explosion of energy covered their side. Of course when it faded they were all fine, but the fight was over. All the remaining cards disintegrated, and the card that showed their opponents changed a little, graying out the opponents and having a stylized v appearing over them. He rolled his eyes. The professor really was a little overdramatic. Not that he really had room to judge.
Their opponents walked over to them smiling good naturedly. “Well can’t say I know how you did it, but congrats on the win.” The one who had stood across from Elismera was probably the leader of that group, and it was him that spoke as they extended their hands.
Everyone shook hands without qualms. “Trade secret, but you guys did really well all things considered. I honestly expected Elismera to just steamroll you.” His tone was light. He said it like a joke but they all knew he was serious. Not that anyone could blame him Elismera really was just that strong.
“She probably would have normally, I just happen to have a pretty solid fire defensive spell.” The one who was across from him spoke. He laughed. It was pretty rare to find humility in a place like this. Which he supposed was fair considering it was a school for the best of the best in the first place.
“A little more than solid I’d say. To have the kind of control to cast that as a spell without having to focus to keep it rotating like that for the extra force to its burn effect, isn’t exactly an easy feat.” He spoke from experience, he had actually tried to do something similar many times, but had never quite figured it out. At least not without an enchantment to keep it doing the thing. That was one of the reasons Gareth was such a tricky opponent for him. How the man was able to get his spells to behave autonomously like that he had no idea, but he’d love to figure it out.
The older boy laughed. “Yeah that’s certainly the tricky part. I won’t reveal my spell obviously, but I’ll give you a hint. It’s easier than you think it is.” He hummed curiously. Easier than he thought it was? If it was easier wouldn’t more people have figured it out? Well he’d try and piece that together later, best to stay in the right mindset for now. They had no idea when the next round would start after all.
“Thanks for the hint, if I figure it out I’ll owe you one.” The boy chuckled, and they chatted for a little longer with Elismera staying notably silent. He supposed that made sense, with the context. Elves weren’t a very social race, even amongst themselves apparently. He hadn’t known that before speaking to her. Well even now he couldn’t say he ‘knew’, inferred was probably the better term.
“Alright! That sums up round 1! You will find your opponents for the next round on your card.” He checked the card, and smiled. Looks like Luna had joined up with Roran and Cynthia, because he was facing the other 3. Good he had been looking to get vengeance on Lily for beating him that time in the capital, and this time there was no ganging up on him. On the other bright side, knowing his opponents well meant even in a place packed with this many people finding them would be easy. He didn’t even need clairvoyance, just his mana senses were enough to find them and start heading their way.
Elsimera and Auros saw him walk off and followed him. He had his issue with his father, but the lessons on leadership definitely paid off, even if it wasn’t always easy to give off a ‘commanding’ presence. ‘Lead, and people will follow.’ That was something his father always liked to say, he had found it fairly accurate, though he and his father interpreted that in different ways.
“That was the most one-sided game of cyvran I’ve ever been in, not even counting how super strong Elismera is. Your powerset is kind of stupid for that game you know.” He did know, and if he wanted it could actually be even more so. He had a personal rule that he wouldn’t use an antimagic field on his opponents. Since unlike in a real fight they wouldn’t be able to move out of it.
“Yeah that’s true. It’s because enchantment is what I do anyway, so making the enchanted cards is easy for me, giving me a good range of versatility, rather than most who have to spend 10 or 20 minutes on each card they prepare. Thankfully Elismera’s magic is all variations of the same 3 spells, or we wouldn’t have finished it in time, even working together.” That being said, even with an incomplete deck Elismera would still be one of the strongest contenders in this event.
“I have a question about that actually. That card you snuck in while everyone was distracted that was what made their magic self destruct right? She’d caught that huh. Not surprising really, but a tad unfortunate. That was a spell he could use a bit more easily in combat than anti-magic field, but it was along the same vein of normally being impractical.
“Yeah, it’s a bit tricky to use in reality, because it only works over small areas, so I have to predict where they are going to unleash a big spell, so it’s usually more of a finisher, after I’ve gotten a hold on someone’s fighting style.” Although, perhaps he could make some cards that stored spells like in cyvran, but didn’t deploy them in a pseudo reality. If he could make his combat enchantments beforehand it would increase his versatility by a significant amount even if he’d sacrifice power and size of the spells prepared that way. An idea for later.
“I see, so that’s what you meant by being much stronger in this game than you are in reality.” He nodded, that was exactly what he had meant. Cyvran was designed as a pseudo magic duel, the idea was for offense spells and defense spells to be traded until a victor was decided. It was purely a test of one's power and skill, or at least that was the design behind it. They failed to take into account people whose fighting styles were a bit more unique than throw attacks at the problem until it goes away.
Katy was particularly disadvantaged at this game because she didn’t really have many actual offensive spells. Although she had been working on a few last he saw her. Still in a team match like this her illusions would be especially valuable. Even if in 1v1’s they are absolutely useless. Unless she managed to scare her opponent into using all their mana on defense that is. Without any real defensive options it wouldn’t take many hits before she was out of the game.
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Luna was actually much the same in that regard, but like Katy’s illusion her clairvoyance would be great for support. Predicting the opponents moves would be a major boon, and with her being partnered with Cynthia she'd be able to easily and quickly convey that to her teammates. Well he’d wish luck to her team for now, right now it was the 3 he needed to focus on.
Lily would be the biggest threat obviously. She was a natural counter to Elismera, and without physical abilities being taken into account she would most likely be able to take the win. Luckily that also meant Siara would be weakened dramatically since her magic was just a weaker version of Elismera, although she did have support magic that he’d never seen Elismera use. With Katy’s illusions messing up their perceptions this wouldn’t be an easy matchup for them. Good, he didn’t want easy wins.
He came face to face with their opponents for the round and smirked at them as they glared at him defiantly. He already had a basic idea of how this fight was going to go. “How’d your first match go?” They won no doubt, he didn’t know if it was elimination or not, but he imagined that either way if you won you’d fight against someone who also won.
“As expected. You’re not the only one that’s stronger in this game than outside. Since I don’t have to make my flames cover as much area, I can afford to condense them to make them even stronger.” He hadn’t really considered that in all honesty. He hadn’t realized her flames being that spread out was strategy on her part and not just lack of control. She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re thinking something disparaging right now aren’t you.”
“What me, I’d never.” He put his hand over his heart in mock offense. They all laughed it off, Auros more awkwardly than anything. Yeah he supposed it wouldn’t be that funny if you didn’t know them well. Elismera just looked bored. Couldn’t have that. “Well you guys ready to get started?”
“Sure are, I’m looking to get my 2nd win against you in this game, and Katy is very excited to get her first.” Said friend rolled her eyes, but didn’t deny it. He laughed, he did feel a little bad that Katy had never had a chance to really shine in this game, but this wasn’t going to be it. Friends or not he was going to crush them, or rather the person on his team they weren’t even worried about was going to.
***
Katy was actually fairly confident. They had just beaten a team with a 3rd year in it, granted it was no one on the level of Elismera, but they also hadn’t had a type advantage so they thought it would even out. Their biggest concern wasn’t even the elven girl, despite the fact she was without a doubt the most skilled one there. Thanks to the nature of the card game Lily didn’t need to hold back out of fear of injuring her opponent, not that she’d ever admit to doing that in the first place. Still she knew better than to think Azura wouldn’t have some kind of trick up his sleeve.
Lily could handle Elismera, or at least in the bounds of this game she could. That meant it was up to her and Ciara to keep the pressure on Azura so he wouldn’t have the chance to do anything fishy. She didn’t know who their 3rd member was, but that didn’t mean she intended to underestimate them. That being said, she knew how big of a threat the other 2 were, so they would have to be wary of Azura’s 3rd, but they would also have to ignore him for the most part as they put most of their focus on the other 2. If their 3rd was strong enough to turn the tables then they hadn’t had a chance at winning anyway.
Regardless, the time for strategizing had long since passed. They had planned their positioning carefully. Katy wouldn’t be able to do much to directly affect Azura, but she could make it hard to focus, so she took the position across from him, while Siara was on his side so she’d be closer to interfering with him. Of course Lily was taking the middle spot so she’d be across from Elismera.
Surprisingly Elismera played right into their strategy by immediately shooting vines at Lily, who quickly unleashed a wave of searing flames. She cast an illusion flipping all of Azura’s senses trying to keep him distracted while Siare shot a smaller group of vines at him. It seemed like everything was going well… that was until the giant water dragon descended from the rain clouds that had been forming above them while they were focused on their offense. She had been watching Azura’s 3rd member, but apparently not close enough as a veritable downpour started. Water formed into various creatures as it combated Lily’s flames.
She threw various illusions at him trying to break his concentration as Siara had to lay off Azura to try and help Lily combat Elismera who thanks to the large quantity of water keeping her plants safe, had swiftly retaken the advantage. She used most of her mana mana to play 1 of her physical illusion cards creating a glass dome around them that blocked out the rain. Azura, now freed up to cast spells more than for just defense, threw a card at lily. The card swiftly shifted into a beam of energy not much different from his arrows except that it burst, splitting into 4 beams going for her from different directions.
Lily played a card shooting a veritable wall of fire across the field. All 3 members of the other team managed to defend themselves, but it evaporated all the water on the field, and destroyed Azura’s attack. Siara played a spell she had been working on, flowers bloomed around her and Lily. These special flowers helped increase their mana regeneration rate, and also could heal minor injuries. Siara said that the spell wasn’t quite ready, but for now it was a godsend. Normally their small range of effect made them very niche, but that wasn’t an issue here.
She Decided to focus on recovering mana for now, since none of the spells she could currently cast would really affect the battle. That was when she was struck from behind by a spear made of water. Thanks to her level of enhancement she wasn’t taken out of the game, but it was still a good chunk of her durability. She looked up to see a magic circle on the side of the glass dome that was behind her. When had Azura managed to cast a blink spell there? And How was their teamwork already this good?
***
Auros had felt a little bad attacking the girl from behind, and had to admit he didn’t really understand why Azura had decided she would need to be taken out first. He had thought the fire girl was the bigger threat, but Azura knew them better than he did, so when Azura had made his little portal so he could access the water that had been gathering outside he did so without hesitation.
It turned out to be the right call, because right after the attack Azura had played something that shattered the dome, giving him a lot of water to work with. He would begrudgingly admit that in terms of power output the fire girl far exceeded him, but with this much water he could easily match her, and with that freeing up their heavy hitter that was more than enough. Elismera focused on the other plant user as he kept the fire girl occupied.
Azura was once again playing support, helping their spells bypass defenses, or defending them from enemy attacks. The illusion girl was the first to fall, and with the distraction gone they were able to focus their mana much more clearly, turning an even fight into a one-sided affair. Without the illusionist the other 2 quickly buckled, and Elismera dealt the finishing blow with a storm of thorns.
Still, they were ridiculously impressive for first years. Honestly even with type advantage he wasn’t confident he could beat the fire girl in a normal fight, and the other 2 would be all kinds of tricky too. “Good match guys, I didn’t expect it to be that close at all.” Azura was the first one to walk over to the other team. He followed with his hands on his head. He had used a good chunk of mana in that fight, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little tired. Even if attrition was his strong suit, using that many high level spells in that short a time would get to anyone.
“Don’t patronize us, you knew what our strategy was going to be the whole time.” Azura chuckled guiltily. He wisely chose not to say that Azura had made a few different strategies based on who would end up on what team of his friends. The 1st year had even gone so far as to say there was an 80% chance that his friends would be grouped exactly the way they were, and he had perfectly guessed almost every move they would make. Azura hadn’t told them about the glass dome, but the quick solution made him doubt the mage hadn’t considered the possibility.
“I mean yeah, but I knew what it would be, because I knew you guys were smart enough to come up with it.” He narrowed his eyes as the girls smiled at Azura. Oh that just wasn’t fair. The guy was apparently super talented, and popular with girls. Some guys get all the luck.