Azura was exhausted, he didn’t have to use any of his stored mana, but he probably should have, his reserves were dangerously low now. He was relieved when he was able to sit down back in his seat. His friends all congratulated him on his victory.
“That was amazing!! I didn’t know you could multiply! That’s such a useful ability, now I know how you study so fast! Or is that how it works, are they sentient?!” He felt a small headache forming as Roran barraged him with questions about his unique magic.
Luckily he was saved from responding. “Let him rest Roran, he can evade answering your questions later.” Well it couldn’t be said that Katy didn’t know him well.
“Awww, but it’s so interesting. I’ve never heard of magic like that.” I mean that’s why it’s called unique magic, but he supposed it was an unusual power even for unique magic.
“I just want to sleep to be honest, but I feel like I should probably watch the rest of the fights.” He wanted to know what kind of abilities his future classmates might hold afterall. Roran narrowed his eyes, but thankfully accepted the obvious subject change.
“I doubt there are going to be any as intense as yours was.” Luna sounded a little disappointed. “You, Gareth, and Lily are almost definitely the top 3. If they were going to make two of you fight, it should have been the last fight.”
“It’s to test the nerves of everyone else. They did a bunch of one sided fights first on purpose. They are showing off the disparity at play in the individual powers of the hopefuls. Lily’s opponent wasn’t weak by any means, but he was completely hopeless against her. He only got to showcase his abilities in his fight against Cynthia.” It also got the strong ones out of the roster quickly, which made the fights easier to choose.
“Ouch you saying we aren’t very strong.” Katy immediately raised an eyebrow at him.
“I didn’t say that, besides objectively everyone still here is strong for their age. I just meant Gareth and Lily are inhumanly strong already, and I’ve got a lot more tricks up my sleeve than a normal mage.” In terms of actual combat ability he was far below both Lily and Gareth, but ability wasn’t everything. Sometimes the victor was decided by who could be the most creative.
“So you’re not saying we are weak, just weaker than you 3?” Ugh Katy was in an obstinate mood apparently, she was a better melee fighter than he was, but she excelled more in her stealth.
“In terms of open one-on-one combat, yes. You have your own skill set, and this isn’t really your specialty. Like how Cynthia is really more of a healer than a fighter.” Katy seemed to be mollified a bit and finally let the topic drop.
“I mean my specialty is combat though.” Luna looked down. What? No it wasn’t, she was a skilled melee fighter no doubt about it, but he would hardly say that was her most impressive skill.
“What are you talking about? Aren’t you a scout? The range on your clairvoyance is nuts, you can search vast areas in seconds, and you can even see beyond most barricades, your melee skills are nothing to scoff at, but it’s the information gathering ability that I would say is your claim to fame.” Luna turned bright red and shook her head quickly. It seemed she was unused to receiving praise, or at least praise for her magic skills.
“Oh… I guess I never really thought about it that way. My magic is more like support.. For combat, but I guess it could be used like that.”
They chatted amicably as another fight got started.
“So what did I miss? Gareth was brought to the med bay as I was leaving. Please tell me I didn’t miss the coolest fight.” They all looked back as Lily walked up to them from behind.
Katy gave her a pitying look. “Would you prefer me to tell you what you want to hear or the truth.”
Lily looked scandalized. “No fair! I did a good deed and this is how the world repays me. At least tell me who beat him.” Lily clearly noticed as all their eyes fell on him. He definitely looked the part of having just been in a fight. He was visibly exhausted and there were some singe marks on his clothes from the fire and lightning attacks, wet splotches, and dirt also covered a good portion of his clothes.
“If it’s any consolation I’m sure the fight wasn’t anything too special.” Lily clearly didn’t miss the skeptical eyes of the others and kept pouting.
“Yeah, nothing special about animated magic, and you showing off your unique magic, and your most powerful weapon. It’s not like you do your level best to hide your abilities all the time or anything.” Roran and Luna laughed at Katy’s tirade.
“I don’t appreciate your tone.” He narrowed his eyes at her playfully.
“Sarcasm isn’t something the target typically appreciates anyway, but thanks for your feedback.” Lily chuckled softly at their banter, but she was clearly still unhappy.
“That’s so unfair. You guys better at least tell me what went down.”
***
Regaling Lily with the details of Azura’s fight didn’t take very long, but her increasing complaints about missing it were starting to drive Katy a little nuts. “Yes yes, you missed the coolest fight we get it. Can’t you just focus on these new ones?” She knew none of the upcoming fights were likely to be as exciting, but her, Roran, and Luna hadn’t fought yet. Besides, all of the fights were much closer than they had started out with. Just as she thought that Luna and another name she didn’t recognize were called up.
“Wish me luck.” Luna said as she went down into the prep area.
“I don’t think you need it.” Luna smiled at her before disappearing down the stairs leading into the actual building. “Anyone know anything about her opponent? I hope this one isn’t boring.”
“Actually yeah, her opponent is decent. He was in my team for the first trial. He was a jack of all trades master of none kinda guy.” She hadn’t actually expected anyone to have anything, but Lily’s response made her relieved. A master of none would have a hard time dealing with someone as aggressive and straight forward as Luna was.
“Well that’s good. Luna shouldn’t have much trouble with an opponent like that.”
Azura gave her a strange look. “I wouldn’t be too sure. Keep in mind it was Lily who said master of none, and her view of mastery may be a little skewed.” She hadn’t considered that. She still wasn’t too worried and even chuckled as Lily stuck her chest out with pride.
“Still in terms of close quarters combat, Luna's probably the best of us, so unless he manages to keep his distance he’s toast.” At first she thought he was just subtly saying to be careful not to underestimate the enemy, but his frown suggested there was more to it.
“That’s why I’m worried. Jack of all trades means options, he probably has multiple viable strategies for keeping his distance. It’s not as bad as a field control specialist, but adaptability is nothing to scoff at.” Despite Azura’s protest she was still pretty confident in Luna’s victory. Azura had a habit of over-estimating the danger of things. Which was good, because things inevitably got worse than they started when he was involved. “Besides, her luck is even worse than mine, so not getting her worst possible match up actually worries me more.”
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She laughed. “That’s literally impossible, no one could possibly survive having worse luck than you.”
He gave her a dry look. “Wow thanks, that’s so kind of you to say.” If he tried to make his sarcasm any thicker it would start physically dripping out of his mouth.
She smiled, pointedly ignoring the sarcasm. “You're welcome, it came from the heart.”
He snorted at her. “It came from somewhere, but I’m almost positive your heart wasn’t it.”
She rolled her eyes, but decided the banter had eased his worry enough to calm him down. “Anyway, you should relax. I’m sure she will do just fine. Besides I don’t care how bad her luck is, being cursed has to be worth like at least a decade of your luck, so she should have at least neutral luck for a while longer than that.”
“Let’s up, she could really use the break. At least she is a really positive person. If I had been the one to get the curse we would all collectively be doomed.” His light tone made it sound like a joke, but she knew him better than that. He hadn’t told them everything about the curse, and even more terrifying she got the feeling that the ‘joke’ was 100% not a joke. He genuinely thought they would all die if he had been the one cursed.
She knew better than to call him out on it though, especially because if Luna caught wind of how dangerous it actually was it would bring forth exactly the kind of negative feelings she needed to avoid. “So do you really think this opponent is going to give her trouble?”
The fight started before he had a chance to respond. It started pretty much exactly as she had expected. Luna shot forward like a bullet, and her opponent barely put a rock wall between them before she got to him.
“Hard to say, but I imagine it isn’t going to be as easy as it seems to be.”
***
Luna was pretty confident in her odds. Her opponent seemed like he could barely keep up with her. His moves seemed almost sloppy, and it was then that she realized something was very wrong. She wasn’t ridiculously strong like some of her friends, and even as strong as she was it was all in melee abilities. Yet her opponent seemed barely capable of keeping his distance. There was no way someone this weak and sloppy made it past the other trials.
“Oops looks like you’ve caught on, guess it’s time for me to get a bit more serious huh?” Her foreboding feeling was spot on as she saw a condensed red bead coming at her. Thanks to the forewarning of her clairvoyance spell she was able to dodge to the side, however as she saw it expand she realized she didn’t get enough distance and focused her mana into a shield spell temporarily dropping her clairvoyance.
This proved to be wise when the bead exploded sending her flying and shattering the shield she had managed to get up with contemptuous ease. She rolled and bounced across the arena as her new burns scraped against the rough ground. She was a little thankful for the pain Azura’s temporary healing enchantment had caused her, because compared to that this pain was nothing.
She barely managed to regain her footing in time to dodge the flaming arrow that flew right past her face. She re-activated her clairvoyance spell and cursed herself for dropping her guard. That explosion left her with several burns. They weren’t enough to incapacitate her, but they would definitely be slowing her down.
She threw her spear as hard as she could at her opponent hoping to buy some time to recover from her tumble, and regain her bearings. She heard him yelp as he barely dodged her spear by jumping sideways. She didn’t waste the opportunity and rushed quickly at her opponent forgoing retrieving her spear to get there a few seconds faster. All things considered he really was fairly solid at everything. Even as she got into melee range he wasn’t terrible, but this was her specialty.
Even without her spear he was struggling just to stay in the fight, he didn’t seem to be able to cast and fight at the same time or at least she thought that up until she overextended and her opponent smiled as a brown bead slammed into her stomach with the strength of a cannonball. The air was knocked out of her as blood and spittle shot from her mouth. Even so she was able to roll out of the way of a fiery follow up attack.
She retreated to pick up her spear again. She had been lucky, Azura had increased the toughness and durability of her armor otherwise that probably would have taken her out.
“Woah, either you’re made of metal or that is some seriously impressive armor. I was worried that the attack might have been fatal, but it seems like it will barely leave a bruise.” She really wanted to wipe that smug look off his face, but she didn’t know what those beads were. Yet she couldn’t play it cautiously because she needed to close the distance. With that in mind she charged straight for him again. This time she was watching his hands carefully in case any more of those beads made an appearance.
“Seriously, can you introduce me to whoever makes your armor, because anything that can take a condensed spell and not break is something I want.” She had to abandon her charge when another brown bead was thrown at her. She dodged it, but once it hit the ground a massive wave of mud surged towards her. She smartly chose to run sideways to get out from under the wave.
***
Azura was shocked. “Who the heck has enough money to throw condensers around like that?” They weren’t as expensive as most magic items one to one, but they made up for it by being one use items.
“Seriously, what a waste. Imagine all the things you could do with that many condensers. I could probably reduce a mountain to dust.” Roran’s disturbing fixation on destruction aside he wasn’t wrong.
“What’s a condenser?” Surprisingly it was Lily who asked and not Katy, although he could see the curiosity on her face as well. Maybe not all that surprising when he considered Lily was from Linden actually.
“It’s a bead that you can store a vast amount of magic in. You can shape the magic into a specific spell that the bead will cast under specific conditions. They are extremely difficult to make, because they require a very specific material to make them, and as if that wasn’t enough since they absorb magic your control has to be absolutely perfect or the materials can’t be properly shaped and merged.”
“How much mana can they store?” Katy’s gaze shifted to where Lily had just tanked another explosion much bigger than her opponent should have been able to make, coming out the other side with more areas singed than not.
“Depends, but usually 5-10 times more than a powerful spell would typically take, for low end ones anyway.” He was really glad he had enchanted her armor now, otherwise she would either be ashes or in pieces by now. Her opponent really wasn’t messing around.
“Seriously! How many more of those do you think Luna can take?” Katy was shifting from mildly concerned to outright worry.
“I don’t know, but if she doesn’t turn things around quickly I’m afraid we might find out.”
***
Luna genuinely might have preferred fighting a field control specialist. She probably wouldn’t have been able to close the distance yet, but she also wouldn’t be bruised, battered, and scorched, not necessarily in that order.
“You sure are a quiet one huh, come on can’t you at least put up a verbal fight to stop me from getting bored.” She couldn’t tell if he was genuinely this much of a prick, or if he was just trying to throw her off her game, but she couldn’t afford to really focus on that right then. She had thrown her spear at his latest bead, a giant pillar of flame arising from where the bead and spear had met.
He was much closer to the bead than he had expected to be when it went off, and had to waste another bead to create a thick rock wall between him and the raging fire.
She took her chance to cover the distance while his vision was blocked by his own spell. She went to the right trying to get around the barrier, he was a cautious one though and she had to quickly backpedal to avoid the flames that rushed out of both sides of the wall.
He quickly rushed out of the same side she had intended to attack, his eyes quickly locking onto her so she couldn’t go for a sneak attack.
The pillar of fire had stopped, but she couldn’t really afford to grab her spear anyway. The spear was still red-hot, touching it would definitely leave her with some nasty burns. She wasn’t sure what to do. Surely he didn’t have an infinite supply of those things, but he didn’t seem too concerned that he was going to run out.
Her body ached, she had plenty of burns and bruises, and she wasn’t even counting the painful thrum of the sealed curse on her chest. She didn’t think she could win this fight in her current condition. So she decided that if she was going down her opponent was coming down with her, and she prepared for one final charge.
***
“Is she crazy?!” Katy panicked. For good reason in her own humble opinion. What the hell was Luna thinking? Her charges so far had been careful, making sure she always had a foot on the ground as a pivot point, but this time she leapt forward with all her strength. There wouldn’t be any way for her to change direction.
“It’s her last shot, she won’t be able to hang on much longer either way.” Azura’s calm response did not make her feel better at all, and even worse she could barely see Luna’s opponent pull out another bead. Somehow he still wasn’t out. They all held their breath as the bead hit Luna… and nothing happened? Luna’s opponent, visibly panicked, started to scream something that Katy couldn’t make out from all the way over here.
She had a pretty good guess what it was when Luna had managed to close the gap between her and her opponent, and a brilliant explosion rocked the arena.