“These are..?” Alec asked with a confused expression. Edward smiled knowingly.

“We have some homebrew rules in the student council for Magikards. The duelists start the first round by placing their cards at the same time,” he said instead of answering Alec’s question.

“You just made that rule up,” Alec retorted. However, his words were like flies hitting the windshield of a car. None of them seemed to affect Edward.

“When it says go,” Edward said before raising his hand and releasing a bit of mana into the air. The mana formed into the number 3 and started counting down from there.

Alec nervously grabbed two cards from his hand and poured mana into them. When he completed the mana exercises inside, the countdown was over, displaying two big letters.

[GO]

At the exact same time, Alec and Edward activated their cards.

The card that floated up from Edward’s hand was the Mana Ray. The card with the image of a long blue ray on it started glowing. The next moment, it released a miniature version of the actual mana ray spell.

Alec’s cards, on the other hand, were different.

One was a simple Dash Magic. The same magic Alec used in his fight with Iris. It could be used on any card, giving it the ability to dodge enemy spells or help it dodge if it already has the ability to do so.

The other card was called The Avatar. It was a unit card that got stronger the more mana it was inserted with. When played, it would take over as the nexus of the player. If it was destroyed, the game would be over, which made it a highly strategic card. On the other hand, it could use spell cards on itself, which gave it the ability to utilize things like the dash magic.

As The Avatar flew up and started floating, a small miniature made up of blue energy manifested from inside it. It had copied Alec’s appearance, which was funny to see.

As soon as The Avatar showed up, it was infused with the energy from the Dash Magic and started running around mid-air. The Mana Ray card activated by Edward beamed at Alec’s avatar. Fortunately, Alec had given the avatar enough mana to be capable of dodging something like this.

Combined with the speed from the Dash Magic, Alec’s avatar sidestepped the mana ray and started running toward Edward. As there were no unit cards on the ground, it could directly attack Edward at any time.

However, Edward wasn’t going to sit and watch. He took out a magic missile from his deck and started rapidly charging and activating it again and again, launching bursts of magic missiles from the card. In the meantime, he also activated an Avatar card, manifesting his own copy on the card field.

‘What is he trying to prove..?’ Alec thought. So far, Edward was replicating Alec’s fight with Iris for some reason. What Alec couldn’t understand was his motive. For now, though, the only thing he could do was to bear with it.

Fortunately, this time, Alec could use the cards in his hands more than he could use his spells in the actual duel with Iris. Edward had given him three cards in total. One was the Magic Missile, the other was the Dash Magic and the last one was The Avatar card. He could activate the first two as much as he wanted.

‘If I can only use the spells I used back in the duel, he should be doing the same,’ Alec thought. ‘Which means… Shit!’

Unfortunately, Alec was too slow to notice the anti-memetic shroud spell. He had lost sight of the enemy cards. It took him a good second to notice where the cards had gone, not to mention his Avatar card.

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The cards themselves had a certain amount of consciousness in Magikards. Although it was rudimentary, they performed their attacks and moves according to a certain preset logic.

Because of this, the fact that Alec had noticed the card didn’t mean anything to his Avatar. It was looking around in confusion, not capable of noticing the approaching magic missiles.

In such a situation, Alec had no choice but to utilize a different approach. He couldn’t brute force the anti-memetic spell away.

Activating his magic missile card, Alec battered his own Avatar. He had purposefully launched the missile from another direction to get his Avatar away from the enemy missiles.

‘This is becoming repetitive,’ Alec thought as he started biting his nails. ‘The reason my strategy almost worked in the duel was because of my high physical stats. My mana stat is almost equal to the other stats. I would have to spend almost all my mana pool to make The Avatar as strong as my real body.’

The way The Avatar scaled in power was simple. If it was played with 20 mana, it would simulate having 20 in all of its stats. In this situation, the amount of mana left in it would also represent how much health it had.

‘The problem is, I wasn’t even sitting on full mana when I came here. I could only spend about 15 points worth of mana on the card,’ he thought. As his avatar managed to break out of the anti-memetic shroud, it started running around once again. The relentless chase went on and on. Unfortunately for Alec, the mana of The Avatar card eventually ran out, directly eliminating Alec in the process.

With a deep sigh, Alec took the three cards and threw them back to Edward. In the end, he couldn’t beat Edward in a card duel.

‘Still, it should be good to be in the student council,’ Alec thought as he reached his hand out toward Edward for a handshake.

However, his hand was left hanging in mid-air. Edward was thoughtful, caressing his chin.

“That’s interesting,” he muttered as his gaze passed over Alec. “You managed to win against Iris in a real duel, but not against me in a Magikards duel. I was even holding back to make myself about as strong as Iris.”

“Uhh…” Alec didn’t know where Edward was going with his words.

“Do you know why The Avatar is a viable card, Alec?” Edward asked as he joined his hands under his chin and looked up at Alec. Seeing his questioning glare, Alec sat back down.

“I don’t.”

“You see, Alec, a dangerous card like The Avatar is only viable if it brings great power to its user,” Edward continued. “If you insert 20 points worth of mana into the card, it will become a strong warrior card. It will keep changing in strength constantly.”

“And?”

“So, I wonder, why were your movements on the stage better than your avatar?” he asked. “Why is your real body stronger than your warrior avatar, Alec?”

“Oh,” Alec blanked out at the question. He was actually surprised at himself. How did he manage to keep a calm surface in such a situation? Even though his heart was beating furiously under his chest, he managed to act nonchalantly.

“I was… I didn’t have all my mana. So, I could only use this much,” Alec made up an excuse. However, Edward was not convinced.

“That wasn’t all your mana? How much do you have?” He pressured Alec further.

“It’s because of my disability,” Alec explained. “I’ve been training really hard since my childhood. At least that’s what I was told. Because I can’t level up, my mana and mind stats are not that different from my physical stats. This might be as far as I go as a conventional mage, but I have at least achieved a certain level of com-”

“Enough,” Edward cut Alec off. “I see your point. Even then, I don’t believe you. Which is fine.”

“O- Okay?”

“As per our agreement, you will join the student council,” Edward continued without giving Alec the time to answer. “And those papers, give them to me. Let’s talk about them.”

“What?” Alec asked in confusion. As soon as he had lost the Magikards duel, he resigned to his fate. He was thinking about who to ask about the magic circle, but that didn’t seem necessary.

“You are now a part of our student council,” Edward said with a smile on his face. “Know that the full power of our committee is backing you. Of course, I am going to help you out.”

“Wait,” Alec stopped Edward as he facepalmed. “So, what you are saying is: you had decided on helping me from the start?”

“Of course,” Edward answered gently. “I’ve said this before, Alec. We are not enemies. We are the students of the Lation Magic Academy. I would be glad to help you when you are in need.”

Tired from the interaction, Alec didn’t speak further and handed over the papers to Edward. At first, Edward was nonchalant about the papers, however, after a short amount of time, Edward frowned and leaned forward.

He read through the papers a few times and scratched his head before throwing them on the table.

“So? What is it?” Alec asked.

“This is…” Edward muttered as he tried to think of an answer.

“This is an attempt to recreate gravity magic.”