The North Arena is filled with so many spectators that we all look like a bunch of ants on an anthill. The North Arena is a medium-sized arena in the furthest north part of the Keeper Academy's campus.
Besides many of the top Tarondar Keeper Administration officials being present, all the nobles who want to watch are there, too.
Often this is a highly spectated event, allowing the current noble students to see how strong the new noble students are. The noble society happily accepts the new noble student if they prove strong enough, regardless of wealth or rank.
If not up to standard, the student is most likely outcasted or bullied.
Therefore, a display of power is necessary for recognition. I stand in a small room with massive steel gates that open up to the arena. Do you know what this feels and looks like?
It looks like I am getting ready to fight as a gladiator. We still have ten minutes before the duel is officially supposed to start.
In the meantime, I just sit on a nearby bench and contemplate my strategy.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
I glance up at the noise and see Justus running toward me at full speed. My back instantly snaps into place as the scene startles me. "Why are you in such a hurry?" I ask him, concerned for his well-being.
"I had to rush here to tell you the Keeper Principal changed the rules and updated them right now. I didn't know the full rules until now. So I have to—" he says, catching his breath as he holds his hands on his knees.
The only way Justus ends up this tired is if he sprinted from his office.
That is probably the case.
"Before you tell me, Vice-Principal Keeper, please don't tell me this is the whole if you don't use your full power or effort, we will kill you shindig, is it?" I plead with him.
All Justus can do is slowly nod at me as I shake my head in disbelief.
"I assume she has to go all out as well?" I ask, hoping that the answer I have in mind is incorrect. Justus nods his head again.
"I am sorry, but both of your powers extremely fascinate the Keeper Principal. He wants to know the extent of how much you have grown as well as how much Leena Grey has grown. The Keeper Principal probably wants to compare Leena to her older brother, Ignis, who is in the audience today. Just give it your all."
"The Principal Keeper has decided you both are precious pawns to him, which is only a good thing in the fact he won't let you die this time around. If you don't defeat Leena in this fight, you won't have any hope of beating her brother."
"Your unique magic may be strong, but without proper training, you will probably fail against Ignis Grey, who has near-complete mastery of his magic," Justus says while sitting down next to me.
"As I said before in my office, Leena is capable of extremely intense and raw, powerful, magical techniques. Even her level three affinity techniques, though simple, can be equal to a normal person's level seven affinity technique in terms of just raw power."
Just know from what I have seen, she can use up to level four affinity techniques, which, if you get hit by, you would almost die. So you have to be very careful."
"To make sure you don't die before the healing mages can heal you if you get hit, I am going to teach you a valuable technique you can use in battle. It's fine that you use it because the Principal Keeper doesn't want to make any huge decisions until he can fully understand what you are and what your abilities are," Justus says while standing up and checking his watch.
It is now only a few minutes away from the duel.
"I sent another Keeper close to me to tell Leena about the updated situation. Anyway, here is the quick rundown of the technique. It's only a level four dark magic technique, which I know you can do. Despite the banning of all dark magic technique books, I can share this technique with you as you need to use it in your fight. Plus, you have permission to use it, anyway."
"Basically, anytime you take damage and get knocked back or hit by something, you can use this fourth-level affinity technique to spread the damage and knock back across your entire body instead of one specific or multiple impact points."
"It uses the darkness you produce to deflect the impact across your entire body."
"This allows you to spread the pain and have your body support each other body parts. The technique is called Web of Darkness, which you don't need to chant since it's below sixth affinity level magic."
"It's a boring technique but will save you in the end. Try your best to win," Justus says as he gestures for me to stand up.
With that, the steel gates open up automatically before me. Here goes nothing, I tell myself as I step out onto the North Arena's battlegrounds. As Leena and I enter the battlegrounds on opposite sides of each other, the crowd roars even louder.
As Leena and I come to a stop in the middle of the arena, we acknowledge each other. I can see her wand twitching slightly and her eyes wavering. Is she afraid, just like I am?
"BEGIN!" the Keeper Principal bellows through his massive microphone. His voice rings out loudly, like a church chiming its bells. This is the defining moment, I tell myself as I quickly get into a fighting position. We both wait a few seconds after the initial starting signal to see who will make the first attack.
As I am about to launch an attack on Leena, she launches a massive fireball in my direction while shouting "Flaro!"
Sure enough, it is an ordinary second level affinity technique. However, this is no ordinary fireball. The fireball produced from her wand is essentially one-sixth the size of the arena, which, if you don't know, is freaking huge!
I barely dodge the fireball.
It whizzes past me at an incredible speed, crashing into the wall behind me.
The only reason the magic barrier on the wall does not break is because the most powerful Administration Keepers created it. Otherwise, I am pretty sure that one fireball could destroy normal force fields from the shockwave it creates.
I hold my ground as the impact of that one fireball causes a three-second miniature earthquake. It only gets worse from there. Leena just keeps spamming fireballs at me, causing the whole ground to shake continuously. I keep dodging fireball after fireball, but a few times, I lose my footing.
Whoosh!
A fireball nearly hits my body, but it hits the shoulder part of my cloak instead. That part of my cloak immediately goes up in flames. Only by using dark magic to deflect her flames from the fireball do I prevent the fire from spreading to the rest of my body. I have to end this quickly because if I lose stamina before she runs out of mana; I am screwed.
As she launches another fireball at me, I sidestep it and launch myself quickly at her, transforming my wand into my scythe of darkness to slash her. She seems surprised by this tactic, but despite being surprised, she creates a wall of flames just in time to throw me off. My scythe misses, and all it hits is flames.
Clunk!
My eyes widen in surprise as I missed the attack. Leena comes up behind me and side-kicks me in the gut. I fall to one knee, clutching my wand, and use Web of Darkness to spread the pain and impact throughout my entire body. Before Leena can throw another ball of fire at me, I close the distance between us in a flash.
"Blackthorn!"
I summon a quick ray of dark energy at her. She tries to block it with a protective spell creating a shield made of fire, but the unique magic of darkness breaks straight through it. The dark energy ray hits her square in the chest, knocking her back against the wall with a massive cracking thud!
Her body collides with the wall on her side, breaking part of it. I think the duel is as good as over.
That is until she somehow stands up again through sheer determination and will. She raises her hand to the sky, grimacing. Did I ever mention I hate it when people hold their hands up to the sky like that? It usually means what comes next isn't pleasant.
Leena raises her wand to the sky, causing her entire body to swell with flames and an incredibly massive red aura that burns anything to dust within a few feet of her.
"Inferno Quado!"
Four bright orange circles of magic appear in the sky, covering each part of the arena. As I look up, all I can say is, "Uh oh."
I am about to be smashed to smithereens by fireballs the size of meteorites from the air. It may only be a fourth-level affinity magic technique, but with her mana capacity, the technique's strength goes up by at least 100%.
I guess I have to resort to the technique I learned in Magic and Emotions by the great Justus Amin.