Turns out that the man I am supposed to be dueling today is the very soldier that has been standing guard outside of our room until now.

He is name Eric starfall (I only learnt his name due to the duel. I am sure the scholars must have already known that though.) And he is supposed to be the strongest first circle mage of the nobles.

Now to those that do not know of the power system of the draconions (which is the arts practiced by the snowwinders.), it exists in the form of circles.

Every being in the continent has a magic core. This magic core holds the ability to store mana and give your mana a specific attribute. To most people this attribute is called as life mana, like mine.

With magical techniques you can change the nature of your mana core, making it stronger and able to hold more mana. Certain techniques can even change the mana attribute of your mana.

I will go into detail about this some other day but the snowwinders follow the draconian magic system. The draconian divide their mana cultivation techniques into circles and to practice a certain circle's technique you need to achieve a mana core of that circle.

A first circle mage can cultivate a first circle technique and so on and so forth.

At the moment, all of that doesn't matter to me much. The only thing that is to note is that Eric holds about fifty units mana more than I have and that puts us at equal positions.

I can't be completely accurate about it but I have about one hundred thirty units of mana while the man opposite me holds about hundred eighty units of mana.

Those fifty units of mana are going to push this battle mostly on the side of Eric. The snowwinders consider duels to be something sacred. In a duel, I will not be allowed to use all of my usual tricks. That includes my vine Armor too.

Well, even if I could I would not be taking that formation with me into a battlefield. It is not a properly tested formation. You never know when it might give me a problem. I certainly don't want to be discovering it in the middle of a fight. Most of these are to the death after all.

That means that I am borrowing a sword from the snowwinders. Well, I don't expect that they will be playing any tricks with the way that they give importance to this duel.

The sword is pretty nice if I have to say so. It is made from steel, but it is good solid steel. It will be enough to wound the enemy but not kill him. It will snap like a twig if it is faced with a sword of mithril. Especially if somebody is channeling into it.

Well, I have to say that after formations, close range combat is the thing that I am next best at. It is a weird thing, I have to admit. You can say it is a remanent of the time before my master took me in. Of that, I do not want to be speaking further.

Well, I guess that I have spoken enough on that matter. I am good with a sword is all you need to know. Still, this fight is not going to be easy without a bag of tricks. A difference of fifty units of mana is going to make itself known.

A duel (or any close combat between mages) at its core is a battle of where you are putting mana. You could use it to boost the strength of your body. You could use it to strengthen your weapons.

It might sound simple, but if you have lesser mana than your enemies sword it will break your defense. If the mana strengthening your weapon is not enough you will not be able to pierce the enemies defenses.

It then becomes a fight of the minds. A fight of bluffs and guesses. You either win by bluffing your intentions or guessing the enemies intentions. A game of two moves, as the legion likes to call it.

That is what I am preparing for. I can never say that I was the best at this game, but I certainly was not the worst. I know of some monsters who are geniuses at this.

With a difference of fifty mana units the other side will have more moves to play in this game, for the lack of a better explanation. I will have to play this game very carefully.

Well, I have thought on this topic for long enough. Too much thinking won't be of much help to me now. The only thing that I am doing is to scare myself into an early defeat.

(After about a couple of hours.)

Finally, I am at the location of our duel. It is a circle that has been built in the middle of a pretty massive room in the frozen peak.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I am suprised at just how much they must spend to maintain such a place. Such a massive room could fit in a hundred more mages and I would think that this fort would have quite a limited amount of place. After all, a ridiculous amount of mana is being spent each second to keep the ice mana away from every inch of this fort.

Well, it is not my place to worry about these things. I am right now standing in the inside of this circle at the same time as Eric, who is wielding the same sword that I am wielding at this moment.

Well, this is going to be an interesting duel at the very least.

"Shall we begin the duel, captain. We cannot keep the soldiers waiting now, can we?", Eric speaks looking at me. This is the most words I have heard him speak.

"Certainly.", I reply in one word entering into a defensive stance.

The instant that I do so, the enemy is by my side striking me right on the throat. I block the strike barely.

Well, the other side seems to be focusing his mana into his body for the moment to be able to achieve such a speed. Gambling a bit, I focus my mana into my sword and enter in for a strike.

The enemy might be a bit faster than me, but in such a close range it does not matter. I almost succeed too as the other side ducks at the last second.

Redirecting my sword downwards, I barely manage to catch the other sides strike at the last second. The force of the strike is enough to force our both swords away from each other.

I take this moment to retreat backwards. I risk a glance at my surrounding to get my bearings. Focussing exclusively on the man opposite is the quickest way for me to be tricked out of the ring.

For now I am still decently far away from the ring. Well, looks like I will be playing this match a bit more defensively. Thinking this, I begin to push my mana in my body.

I feel the mana strengthen my body as I begin to feel lighter. I take care not to push too much mana into myself as it would have drained my reserves completely.

As I think this, I have to block two more strikes from the enemy. One to the head, the other to the knee. I block both of them, though that was close.

I cannot enhance myself too much, so the other side is significantly faster than me.

He tries another attack, which is a bit succesful. The end of the sword ends up with a nick on my arms. Thankfully the match was not to first blood or I would have lost. Still, this duel will end with two more such strikes.

Not that things are going particularly well though. I must have consumed atleast forty units of mana in this exchange. I am better at controlling mana compared to the other side but I still can't be sure that he must have consumed more than sixty units of mana.

Well, these few moments of thought nearly end in my defeat as the other side suddenly raises his sword. If I had not jumped back at the last moment that would have ended with a slash on my face. I begin to retreat a bit more, getting closer to the line.

"You certainly fight well, my friend.", I speak.

"Meanwhile, you stand there waiting for me to strike.", he replies. "One would think that you were scared."

"Well, what can one do. You seem to be a mighty soldier that might claim my head.", I reply, with my most taunting voice. "Maybe if you got a bit closer, you could finally end the match."

He doesn't reply to this, other stepping away from me. I am sure that the man does not want to risk get too close to the line. After all, a sudden attack might result in him being out of the duel circle.

Waiting would be beneficial to him. After all, I have to keep channeling my mana unless I want to give this duel to him and the other side has more mana than me. He can afford to wait.

I have done nothing but bought myself a few moments. In these few moments I will have to make a plan on how to win this fight.

If the others were here, I am sure that they would have something unique to win this fight. Me, I will stick to the old tricks.

Well, this is going to be quick at the very least. I can feel my body heat up as I begin to push all of my mana into my body. For the next few moments, my body will be about as light as a feather.

The trick is now to make use of these few moments to win this duel. I begin by charging towards my enemy. He reacts about how I expect him to. He begins by pushing more mana into his body.

I do not give him the time to react though as I strike him. He barely manages to block it but the force of the block is enough to push him backwards and it is enough to leave him out of balance.

I strike again and get my first blood. I press in for a second attack but the other side ends up blocking me. The strike is enough to push the man backwards.

In this little while, though I have burnt through roughly a third of my remaining reserves. I won't be maintaining it for much.

The other side is taking the more careful option of burning only enough mana to ensure that he would be able to survive my assault. That is sad, it would have made things easy for me.

I continue my assault while having this thought. He barely manages to block each strike. Damn, this man is more skilled at this than I had assumed him to be. Still, he is still not as careful as he thinks he is.

It is a simple trap, what I have done. I retreated, exposing a pretty obvious weakness in my defenses. A careful man would never have been fooled by such an obvious trap.

When I am burning so much mana, people seem to think that I am incapable of making use of basic traps like this. I am not a berserker, you know.

Anyway, long story short, he attacks me in the weakness, which I exploit to get a cut on his right arm. That would be second blood.

By now I have burnt through half of my mana, while the other side had a decent amount of his mana saved up.

I keep pushing my attack, feeling the man slowly retreat under my attack. He maintains a solid defense in which I would not able to get the final strike for victory.

I can see in my enemies eyes his overconfidence. Well, with my mana so dangerously near exhaustion, I make my final move.

A stupid plan, that would have never have worked if the enemy had even a bit of caution. throwing my sword to the ground I duck down.

As the enemy stands there paralyzed by inaction, I charge towards his legs. The force of our collision is enough to cause him to trip right out of the boundary of the duel circle.

It happen at the correct time too, as my reserves finally get exhausted.