Melia narrowed her eyes, waving her hand in a smooth, graceful motion.
SPLASH SPLASH SPLASH!
Water emerged before her, flowing smoothly as it converged onto a shield in front.
A shield that protected her from the hot flames that Cæ threw at her.
FWOOSH
The hot flames flared against her water shield as bubbles began emerging from her conjured water, and wafts of steam emerged from the shield before dissipating into nothingness as the magic was undone.
And yet, before she could even begin to commence her next attack, Cæ had already begun his. A magic circle with an embedded square and triangle and several runes emerged before him.
His earthen barrier stirred as its surface began to change, and several protrusions emerged from its walls.
They were projectiles.
Projectiles carved from his earthen barrier with the Fundamental Form of Change and flung at his opponent with the Fundamental Form of Manipulation.
Melia froze as a volley of projectiles emerged from the barrier, blasting her water shield apart.
BOOM
"Aaaah!" she screamed as the projectiles blasted her body, flinging her out of the arena.
THUD
She landed outside of the battle arena, skidding across the floor with a pained expression. And yet, she didn't have so much as a single bruise or scratch on her body.
None of the referees, assistants, or even the professor seemed concerned.
'It's this combat suit.' Cæ glanced at his attire, glowing with his runes. 'They're meant to protect us from damage so that we can duel to our hearts' content.'
Magic was extremely dangerous and powerful.
Even in the hands of beginners.
Especially in the hands of the beginners.
The Elendir Institute of Magic would never allow them to have serious duels without an absolute guarantee of the safety of the students involved.
STEP
Cæ's eyes shifted to the next person who immediately stepped upon the arena.
He swept his messy, brown hair out of his eyes as he glared at Cæ with a fierce determination in his light blue eyes.
"I, Senthil Kerva, challenge you to a duel!" the boy loudly declared for the entire training hall. "I will be the top apprentice student, not you!"
Cæ lightly huffed with a hint of amusement.
It appeared that even nine months into the academic year, there were still people who vividly remembered his honors student addressal. While the boy's demeanor and body language weren't friendly, Cæ was unable to detect even the slightest hint of hostility or malice from him.
Just a pure competitive spirit.
The smallest of smiles, lasting the briefest of moments, cracked at the edge of his mouth.
"I accept your challenge."
Cæ's eyes shifted to the straight-edged, single-hand sword dangling by his waist.
His eyes lit up as he spotted a single symbol on the sword and the hilt.
Pink petals.
"Commencing magicapita reset," the assistant to the side of them remarked. "With this, both of you now have the same amount of magicapita at your disposal. Now then, get ready."
CLASP
The boy gripped the hilt of the blade with his hand tightly as he shifted his left foot back as a thrusting launcher.
"…And begin!"
WHOOSH
In the blink of an eye, Senthil has already arrived before Cæ.
SSS!
The blade hissed with a metallic grind as the boy drew it from its scabbard at blindingly high speeds, swinging the blade at Rui at extraordinarily high speeds.
And yet, it never reached.
BAM!
Senthil's eyes widened as he felt Cæ's foot bury into his chest with heavy force as Cæ leaned back, evading the trajectory of the blades moments before it reached him.
A perfect counter and evasion.
STEP
Senthil leaped back, pointing his blade at Cæ.
His eyes were lit up with a hint of surprise. "…How did you do that?"
Cæ's expression was unimpressed. "You're holding a sword. Your stance was transparent. You might as well have told me what you were going to do in writing. Anticipating your attack is easy enough."
Senthil stared at him with a surprised expression. "You…"
Cæ was the first mage that he had dueled with that had countered his swift approach with a physical attack.
He was actually the first person in the Apprentice Program that Senthil had failed to defeat. The other students were entirely reliant on magic, causing them to be too slow towards a swift physical attack that didn't have any cumbersome eidos or convergence mana and eidos.
Cæ appeared to recognize that, choosing instead a physical counter.
"Why didn't you use magic?" Senthil couldn't help but ask anyway.
Cæ shrugged nonchalantly. "Why didn't you?"
An enthusiastic grin emerged on Senthil's face.
CLASP
His hand flew to his hilt once more as he adopted his stance again.
His eyes grew even more intense as his trained, muscular body coiled with power.
"You're right."
His tone was chilling.
"This is not a physical fight."
Cæ's eyes sharpened as his instincts tingled.
They tingled with a sense of peril.
"This is a magical battle."
The boy's tone was fierce.
SSS…
The metallic hiss of his drawing sword evoked a sense of danger in all those who beheld the blade.
A single whisper escaped the boy before he unleashed his power.
"Plum Blossom Style: Blossoming Blade."
FWOOSH!
One moment, the arena was entirely normal.
The very next, it was filled with plum blossoms that emerged from the boy's blade in an overwhelming spring. A maelstrom of the vibrant pink petals of the plum blossoms flooded the entire battlefield.
They weren't merely an illusion.
No.
They were real.
Physical.
And they flew towards Cæ in a wave led by the blindingly swift blade that surged towards Cæ.
And yet again, they never reached.
WHOOSH
Senthil's eyes widened as Cæ seemingly disappeared in the face of his blade. His instincts screamed as he reflexively turned around with a violently powerful swing aimed behind him.
FWOOSH!
Senthil gritted his teeth as he barely managed to intercept Cæ's powerful flames with his Blossoming Blade attack, gazing at Cæ with stunned eyes.
'He's strong!'
Cæ had deployed a first-circle spell involving manipulation and the heaven element, manipulating the winds to propel him out of the way of the magical sword attack and all the way to the other side in a smooth curve while deploying a second spell of fire at Senthil.
Maintaining two spells at once was not easy. It certainly shouldn't have been easy for someone who cast his first spell just a few months prior and was only nine months into the Apprentice Program.
And yet, for Cæ, it was effortless.
The runes were just there to fool everybody else.
His magic did not require the impure crutches of the Memory Model of Eidos or Magia.
No.
His imagination alone was enough.
His imagination became reality.
Cæ's expression grew euphoric as he felt a rush of excitement and ecstasy, unlike anything he had ever felt before.
Magic evoked a kind of childish joy within him that he had never experienced before.
As though it allowed him to experience the pure, unabashed happiness of a warm childhood that he had never had.
Senthil gritted his teeth as he put the sum totality of the power he had against the flames that Cæ had unleashed against him. His mana-motive force surged with power, driving vast amounts of mana from within the depths of his mana core and driving into his eidos.
The eidos of plum blossoms.
One of the most popular, universal, and ubiquitous tree species across the entirety of the world. He used runes associated with movement sequences to construct the eidos of plum blossoms.
Unlike normal languages, Magia was not merely limited to characters and sounds.
Magia had a third component to it that no other regular language had.
Body language.
Physical actions.
Each rune of Magia was comprised of a character, a sound, and a sequence of actions. The latter of the three, unique to each style, comprised the magi-martial arts centered around weapons or one's body.
"Plum Blossom Style: Six Plum Blossoms Sword Strike!"
His body surged in a standardized sequence of sword movements, weaving runes from the very movements of his smooth sword swings.
FWOOSH!
Six surges of plum blossom petals converged upon Cæ from all directions as Senthil surged forward, cutting through Cæ's flames with his powerful Blossoming Blade. His eyes flared with determination as he drew closer and closer to victory.
And yet, he never even came close.
A smile of euphoric excitement appeared on Cæ's face as a shocking three more magical circles manifested before him.
RUMBLE
The ground beneath Senthil shook as it erupted to swallow his feet up to the ankle, imprisoning them underground and killing his approach in the blink of an eye. The second spell manipulated the air around him to spin at extraordinary speeds, conjuring up a mini tornado of immense intensity.
WHOOSH!
The powerful winds swallowed up the hapless petals in their spiraling gusts, completely redirecting the attack away from Cæ.
The third spell targeted his opponent's senses.
One moment, Senthil could see everything perfectly fine.
The very next?
WHOOSH
His eyes widened as the entire world went dark.
He couldn't see anything.
Including his own magical circle.
Being unable to see it deprived him of the sensory trigger to the associations that would serve as the templates for his eidos.
It was game over.
POW!
A powerful right hook struck his jaw heavily, staggering him where he stood. The impact caught him completely off-guard, rattling his brain within his skull as the critical threshold of blunt force trauma was crossed, causing his brain to lose consciousness.
Senthil's body went limp, falling over.
THUD
And just like that, the battle was over.
The entirety of the training hall was dead silent.
Every single student and assistant stared at him with dropped jaws and a gaping expression, stunned at the incredible performance that Cæ had displayed.
He had wielded five spells at once.
This was something that was far beyond the limits of a normal apprentice student at any stage in their development, let alone a freshman.
Thankfully, Cæ had already verified that five spells at once did not quite go beyond the territory of genius and enter the realm of monster. Even in his euphoric excitement, he didn't lose himself and displayed a godly mastery of magic innate to him, what would take ordinary mages years and decades of Magia training.
Still, admittedly, he had gone a bit farther than was absolutely safe.
It had been barely three months since he 'officially cast his first spell' in training. Thus, being able to cast five spells in combat three months later was jarringly prodigious, even if not historically unprecedented.
He had undoubtedly garnered even more attention with this little stunt.
'Time to dial it back down in the next few months.'
He said that even as he went on to win every single duel that followed for the rest of the session.
He was undefeated.
None of the other students were as strong as Senthil.
It was to be expected.
Martial Magic, magic centered around martial arts, was a pure combat specialist that deviated from normal magic paradigms. Students who trained in this field in one of the popular orthodox styles, like the Plum Blossom Style of Mount Hua, as Senthil had, were known for their hyper-combat specialization.
It was no wonder that he was the strongest among them.
Cæ went on to mop the floor with all the other students until the very end of the session, enjoying every second of it.
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