Neither one of us had imbued ourselves with mana yet, as we were just feeling eachother out.
My spear’s brilliant white tip clashed with his sky-blue sword. They were both constructed from high quality materials, creating a satisfying metallic clang as they met.
My spear exploded forth, as far as I could reach. My opponent swiftly dodged and counter attacked with an inward slash travelling along the path of the spear’s wooden handle.
I quickly pulled the spear back before it even began to fall, and swung it leftwards as if I was using a lever. My opponent quickly reacted, ducking and simultaneously raising his sword. The wood slid smoothly on the edge of his blade, clipping some of his hair in the process.
Not bad. Honestly, this was quite good. Only the second duel would confirm whether this kid was an outlier or whether this really was the standard - which if it was, would be very impressive.
Mana burst from within my opponent. Great quality and augmentation technique, leaving no gaps while not overloading himself with mana. Naturally, I did the same.
My senses expanded and I could feel the instructors watching us from the stands. The spear’s weight became insignificant and my mind sharpened. I inserted threads of mana into their slots inside my cloak, mentally linking with it and activating it.
While I was amidst my own thoughts, the tip of a sword suddenly appeared in front of my face.
Good technique. It was a sublimely executed stab movement which utilized the whole body, making its strength and speed unparalleled, but also difficult to control once unleashed.
I leaned to the left, barely avoiding the tip of the blade. I raised my leg, kicking my opponent on his right side near his ribs to gain some distance. Two items started shining with mana - my spear, and a black ring situated on my middle finger.
I launched the spear towards the boy at immense speeds, but he wasn’t sloppy in reacting to it like the bandit leader was. He realized he didn’t need to block it, but simply to redirect the force to another direction. My opponent angled his blade just right and the spear slid along, redirected into the floor where it created multiple huge cracks.
This did not mean he was unscathed. The force the spear generated upon its collision with the boy’s sword traveled through his body, causing pain and slight bits of damage here and there. If he had faltered for even a second and let his sword get pushed back even a tiny bit, he would already have lost.
Here was where the ring’s purpose was revealed. A string of mana tugged at the spear, sending it flying towards my palm. Like a fishing like, the ring attached itself to any object with a mana string. This required physical contact, but I was fairly certain I could, one day, achieve this without it.
With a pulse of mana, the spear’s inner runes lit up as well. This was the very basics of layering - I created two handles and fit them into each other, connecting them through a simple intermediary runic layer on the larger piece.
Even then, the runes weren’t far from overloading and cracking the wood. This was the peak my own knowledge could reach - I needed detailed research and knowledge from the academy.
The spear was designed to have two modes - one for throwing, which indiscriminately amplified all its velocity to a monstrous degree, and one for close combat. This allowed me to manipulate the velocity with much higher levels of control, but on a lesser scale.
My spear split into five, or at least looked like it did due to the speed of my thrusts. Five separate thrusts barrelled at my opponent, who overloaded his amplification and managed to block three.
A powerful thrust impacted his shoulder. The academy-issued protective barrier rippled slightly, but survived. The second thrust to his abdomen was stronger, and popped it like a soap bubble.
After the match finished, I could faintly hear the instructors muttering amongst themselves. Seems like a difficult job.
The boy approached me, offering a handshake, which I took. “I’m Albert. You fought really well, did you make those items yourself?”
“Johanne, and yeah, of course. Otherwise they wouldn’t have even let me use them. Your performance was also very good, so I’m guessing I’ll be seeing you once classes begin.”
“Hah, you seem sure you’ll pass. Well, if you do, I’ll be seeing you.”
‘Nice kid.’
We went our separate ways, each preparing for our second battle. Afterwards, the instructors would evaluate the battles of every participant and weed out a large portion of the students based on them.
After two hours of recuperating, I was finally called in for my second battle. I stepped into the arena, my opponent being a girl this time. She looked like an ordinary girl, but her blazing red hair stood out like a sore thumb.
“Hey, I’m Johanne. Are you perhaps related to a woman with red hair and an unbelievably smug-looking face?”
“Um.. My mother does have red hair, but I wouldn’t describe her face as ‘unbelievably smug’.. Why are you asking?”
“It’s nothing, I just saw someone who looked scarily like you in the reception. Nothing you need to concern yourself with. The fight is about to start, so good luck…”
“Lily,” she added.
The sound of a whistle once again rang throughout the arena, signifying the beginning of the fight. Suddenly, large spikes of ice exploded out from the ground, quickly moving towards me. Lily was seemingly a magic user who did not indulge in melee combat.
I augmented my body, albeit not fully to conserve mana, and moved in a zigzag pattern, but the spikes tracked me perfectly. I jumped up and over the spikes, and at that exact moment each individual spike shot off towards me like a hundred perfectly synchronized archers firing at once. I brandished my spear and swiftly deflected, destroyed or split apart each spike. I let the last spike crash into the flat of my spear and used the spear’s runes to affect it just like the spear, slowing it to a halt. This made it float in mid-air as long as the spear was touching it, and I proceeded to launch myself off the spike directly towards Lily.
A turbulent wind started whistling under Lily’s feet, moving her out of the path of my spear. A large wall of fire materialized, quickly approaching me.
I extended my hand and dozens of hair-thin mana strings shot out towards the spell. They accurately targeted the points of instability caused by an imperfection in the magic usage and caused them to implode on themselves by disturbing them, collapsing the whole spell from the inside.
This was my trump card against mages - Spell Deconstruct. It only worked on spells which had their mana freely floating and not in any form of a solid construct, therefore it was useless against ice spells because I would first have to burrow inside of the ice to disturb its mana with my own, which was both slow and wasteful. The mana strings could also simply be overpowered and fizzle out if the targeted spell was strong enough.
My mana strings continued unabated, wrapping around Lily’s leg like a cowboy’s lasso. I then simply sharply tugged, sending her flying towards me.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
An ice wall was formed between us, severing my strings. Lily proceeded to go on the offensive, and as she landed sideways on her ice wall, large parts of it started splitting off and flying towards me. This attack combined her own bodies’ momentum with all the momentum she could generate with magic, making this attack far faster and deadlier than her previous endeavours.
I wrapped my cloak around my body. As the ice bullets hit me, I felt painful, but manageable hits all across my body. If my cloak hadn’t been protecting me, those might have broken a few bones.
As I was protecting my front, a large, sharp construct of ice burrowed out from underground and targeted an unprotected area.
‘Hah, multicasting. This girl’s good.’
Multicasting was a skill often developed at the Magus level of magehood. While there were many at this level, they were usually skilled and professional mages or at least almost finished with their studies. Any moron could multicast, but to do it effectively was completely different.
I had around 70% of my mana left. I had seen all I needed to see, and now it was time to move on to the next stage.
My mana surged as I emerged from within my cloak, gripping my spear in its center. I swung behind me, obliterating the attack coming towards me, and then I quickly spun my spear to get rid of the ice shards flying towards me. The wall had already been reduced to a quarter of its original width, and more ice was chunking off it every second, but I wasn’t willing to sit here for another 30 seconds spinning my spear.
I switched my spear to its throwing mode and executed a powerful throw. The spear lodged into the wall, crumbling it to pieces. I quickly jumped through the crumbling wall before Lily had a chance to take control of them, grabbing my spear and executing a second throw, now towards her.
A thick wall of ice emerged between us, and the spear burrowed about 80% through. I ran towards the wall, stepping on the back of the spear to give it the momentum it needed to fully pierce through, and pierce through it did. While it wasn’t very accurate, it was enough to graze her arm which caused her to start spinning incredibly quickly and ram into the ground like a drill, breaking her shield.
I marveled at the artifact which generated this shield. Not only did it perfectly weather such a powerful blow, it also broke only as soon as Lily was safe and not repeatedly banging her head against rocks. There was no doubt in my mind that it could last much longer, as the most my attacks did was cause it to ripple lightly.
I extended my hand to Lily, who was sat on the ground. “Good fight, I can’t believe you can already multicast. Is ice your main element?”
“Mh.” She nodded and took my hand, rising to her feet. She seemed a bit down, but I was sure she would recover. Kids are quite resilient.
As I was walking out of the arena, I heard a voice call out to me. “Unbelievably smug? You’re honestly not wrong,” the woman laughed. “But it was a little rude, you have to admit.”
I turned around to see the same red-haired woman from before leaning on the wall just next to the arena exit, her hands folded.
“You were listening? Who even are you? You seem to have some interest in me, so out with it.”
The woman chuckled. “First off, darling, how much do you know about spellcasting?”
This question caught me off guard. “I don’t know, I guess about as much as anyone else?”
“Mages usually expel pure mana out of their bodies which then gets formed into a spell, but some can completely skip this step and expel already formed spells. The protections in the academy building only protect against the former, because protections against the latter are extremely difficult to research, ineffective, and expensive to upkeep even by this academy’s standards. All that we do know is that every mage who uses this method is powerful - scarily so. It is also the reason these sorts of protections cannot disable any bloodline magic one might have, because it is embedded into the body and soul.”
“So, you’re basically fucked if someone who can do this becomes your enemy?”
“You’re partly right, I suppose. But also wrong. The protections are also capable of reacting offensively - firing spells, gas, poison. We simply can’t prevent said person from spellcasting, which makes most said defenses moot anyway, yes.”
This made no sense. I was clearly familiar with anti-magic fields, I was hit with them a few times in my past lives. Either I acquired this ability in my past life and simply didn’t notice, or somehow acquired it in this life.
“Thanks for the info, but you still haven’t told me who you are. How can I trust you?”
“Fufu, I am the mother of Lily, the girl you just fought. My name is Alice Pyralis, and I am an instructor in this academy as well as the person who orchestrated your duel against my daughter. Pleased to meet your acquaintance.”
“I’d sort of already guessed that last part, because what are the chances of someone watching me and right after facing a kid who looks just like them. I’m Johanne Anderson.”
Pyralis? I knew them, they were a noble house focused on fire and were known for their phoenix flame bloodline ability. Why was Lily using ice then?
“Anyways, if you’re a Pyralis, why the hell is your daughter using ice magic? Don’t you have a really good bloodline ability and resources relating to fire? She might have actually stood a chance had she used it.”
“Yes, you are entirely correct, darling. Are you familiar with how bloodline abilities are gained?” I simply nodded. “Yeah, well, she is too. I don’t know how she found out, but ever since she did, she refuses to use it. She hates the fire element in general, but I saw her using some fire magic against you so I suppose it isn’t as bad as I thought. She is, of course, very talented, but her talent with ice pales to the talent she had with flames.”
Honestly, her usage of ice spells felt much better to me.
“She was already multicasting, and I think she’ll do fine with ice. She fought intelligently using it, unlike with her flames which she just kind of threw out there haphazardly.”
“Well, Johanne, I’m afraid another match is beginning and I’m needed in the spectator’s seats. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow after your special exam.”
“Likewise. Have a good day.”
I strutted out of the building with a brisk pace. The screams of children got better as time passed and more and more children finished their battles, but it was still unbearable. The receptionist from before looked like she was about to rip her hair out, flashing me a knowing smile as I walked out.
Those battles were certainly interesting. If I had to take a guess, Alice Pyralis had doctored both instead of only the one she admitted to. Those kids were certainly out of the ordinary, by any standard.
It was already evening, past the time when people would return from their jobs, but I took the long scenic route home, walking through one of the large parks in the city. A bunch of storm clouds gathered in the distant skies, giving the empty park an eerie but calming atmosphere.
I brought out my spear, fiddling with it, when I spotted something in the corner of my peripheral vision. I flicked my head back, managing to spot a hooded figure quickly retreating behind the trees, vanishing from sight.
I paid it no mind and continued walking, eventually making it home just before sundown.
After an annoyingly long questioning by my mother regarding how well I did and other basic questions, I finally sat down and got to tweaking a few of my gadgets. I needed to be prepared for tomorrow.
…
I was finally called to participate in the final stage.
I stepped into a large silver dome. It was completely empty inside, but as soon as I stepped far enough, the magic inside the dome activated. An overwhelming pulse of mana flowed through the dome like a tsunami, leaving behind an image of a ruined city in its wake.
It was a showing of some incredibly advanced illusion and creation magic achieved through masterful artificing and a massive budget.
The evening sun shone through the illusory clouds, casting orange rays upon the ruins of Eidwin. An eerie atmosphere spread through the desolate ghost town and fog limited my visibility.
I walked through the city, taking in the scenery. I still wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to do, but I knew it would reveal itself eventually.
Suddenly, I heard a woman’s scream. I sprinted towards the direction of the sound, but nothing was there. It was now completely silent, except for the soft sound of raindrops hitting the ground.
As I was in the midst of assessing the situation, the shadows suddenly reached out to me. It was only due to my acute sixth sense that I managed to jerk my body backwards, avoiding a shadowy hand reaching out at me from the darkness.
A blur shot past my body at a faster speed than I could react to, creating a small cut on my cheek and melding into the shadows right after, disappearing.
I immediately augmented my body with mana, which was most likely the attacker’s goal in the first place, as that attack was clearly a taunt. The shadows around me, including my own, started wiggling. Solid spikes of shadow pierced out of them, attempting to embed themselves in me. I quickly swung my spear, attempting to slice through the barrage, but it was slowly overwhelming me.
I suddenly felt movement behind me. A person wearing a black cloak was quickly approaching, holding a dagger in their hand.
I spun around, trusting my cloak to block or dull whatever attacks came at me from behind, and our two weapons met in a powerful clash. The attacker didn’t engage, however, and slipped into the shadows once again.
It was a hit and run tactic to make me waste my mana. As long as I was in the attacker’s sights, I could not let go of my augmentation.
I was fairly sure the intent was for me to sneak around, avoiding the attacker and biding my time for a surprise attack, but I had no intention of doing that. If he wasn’t coming for me, I was going to come for him.
I took out explosives from my backpack, bathing the city in brilliant light as they went off, decimating the buildings which lacked any sort of magical protection. Fire quickly spread through the city, attaching itself to whatever flammable material was still present within the decimated buildings.
I was never a very low-key guy.