Chronicles of the True Wizard

Felix spent his break trying to create his own versions of the Caster’s Dueling spells that required as little focus as possible while still being useful. Most people didn’t care at all how complex a spell was because they ended up in their spell list and only affected their cast time negligibly. In Felix’s case, it drastically affected his cast time as well as how many spells he could cast at once, so it mattered much more to him.

Unfortunately, that meant there wasn’t much literature in the library or content in his Spell Formation class that had to do with simplifying spells. Mana Structures had some content because it helped with enchantment and ritual efficiency but it was the bare minimum and relied on talent and creativity more than anything.

Going through all the textbooks he had found in the library, Felix’s spell formation ability and intuition were significantly better to the point where he was far ahead of the current lectures in his Mana Structures class. Almost entirely because of fascinating it all was, he read through papers and textbooks on 2d dimensional spells that culminated with fractals, living spells and spell machines.

He even ended up briefly skimming through the sections on 3d and 4d spells but didn’t spend too much time on it because he didn’t really have any hope of using any of it any time soon. There was no way he was going to waste any time designing a spell using any of what he learned but his intuition started to veer towards them. As he worked on his own spells, he kept having ideas pop up in his head on how to more efficiently create the spells if they were 3d or he could use fractals and pattern channels.

The problem was that what he needed from spells seemed to differ greatly from what everyone else wanted out of spells.

There were many ways of making spells more efficient but almost never did the literature he found detail making spell forms themselves simpler. He was stuck trying to adapt everything he found but in large part, he was starting to wonder if there wasn’t a better way using his own unique talents.

Until he found one though, Felix continued to pour over all the textbooks and research he could find in the hopes that he found anything. At some point he would go find a Professor, Adept or other expert on the subject of spell formation but he preferred reading so he left that as his last resort.

He worked through two whole days at which point he had to attend Solo Combat where they finally started dueling each-other. Now that Felix was drastically faster than he had been, as well as being more durable and generally having higher stats, he quickly realized he wasn’t in the right class anymore.

Felix’s dueling ability wasn’t great overall though, he just had higher stats than most people. He was still severely lacking in spells across the board. His damage spells were too simple and his defensive spells were too general. On top of that, he had no utility spells whatsoever and his mobility was good but not good enough to make up for everything else.

He was often outpaced or had to deal with other students that were more agile than he was which was particularly annoying because his spells required him to be able to hit them.

Felix had been overall happy with his aim up to this point. He hadn’t really had much of an issue hitting his targets at all. Now that he was fighting both smarter enemies that could use mobility skills to dodge and faster opponents overall, he was beginning to miss, a lot.

Even in his fight with the Undead Lich, Felix had wished he could prematurely detonate many of his spells as they didn’t directly hit the hands so, they simply didn’t detonate at all. The issue was he would have to know when to detonate them. That either meant an overly complex proximity detection mechanism built into the spell that would make it both less efficient and a much higher level spell or adjusting each spell individually, on the spot.

Those calculations though, while he could do them almost instantly, along with the necessary adjustments to the spell, took too long to cast. By the time he had the spell form ready, his target had already moved too far away. His focus and cast speed relied on him knowing the spell form well enough. Adjusting them on the spot slowed that down by just enough that it became impossible for him to hit anything.

Luckily, his stats were easily high enough that he could win simply by avoiding all of their damage and using very wide area of effect spells. That would only work for the lower classes and only for a few more dekads so he planned on fixing that issue as soon as possible.

After class, he spent a bit of time trying to come up with a solution himself but quickly realized he was better off asking for help with this specific problem. What he wanted to know was if anyone else had to deal with something similar for turrets, enchantments or rituals and whether or not they already had a good solution.

Felix quickly checked on Nova through their soul bond, finding her happy but completely spent which was a relief for Felix then, he decided to do some training.

While he knew he had to change something, he also figured some practice wouldn’t hurt and so he spent the rest of the day along with the entirety of the next day training his aim. The training ended up proving incredibly valuable and he improved drastically almost entirely because he was still getting used to his improved stats and mental capabilities.

In terms of actual improvements to his aiming ability, he felt like he had simply hit a wall with his spells where they weren’t fast enough or he didn’t have enough control over them. The people he fought now were fast enough to see his spells fire and react to them. There was always Lightning Bolts to fall back on which were hard but not impossible to dodge.

Eventually though he would encounter people who were fast enough to avoid or perceptive enough to detect the ionized trail he created to direct the bolt. They were at least marginally more useful than his other spells for the time being though

The day after his training, heading into Mana Control class with the Adepts, Felix described the issue to them. Given his unique abilities and the fact that he was the only Initiate in the class, not only was all the attention on him but he was treated somewhat like a younger sibling, all of them willing to provide advice.

One of the Adepts nodded their heads appreciatively, “Huh… Interesting… You know The System not only causes our spells to explode near the target in the case of Fire Balls and such, but it also does a little bit of aim correction for us.”

Alkor nodded along, “You can also get skills to have your spells hone in and seek your target, even if the original spell form doesn’t include anything like that.”

Withrel stood and walked over to the board at the front of the class, “What if you add a component to all your spell forms?” Picking up a piece of chalk, they started drawing.

They started with a simple Fire Ball, as that was the spell Felix had used in his examples, but their version of the spell form was far more refined than Felix’s. The majority of the difference was in the layout and structure of the channels where he used fractal channels. They used different nodes as well and after analyzing them with his skill, he realized they had smoother efficiency curves and were combination nodes.

The node he used combined both Force and Fire but had no shaping components embedded within it. It took Felix a bit to figure out how the output was being shaped at all as he didn’t see any shaping nodes whatsoever. In fact, the node producing Force and Fire was the only node in the spell form at all.

Everything else about the spell and how it functioned was actually controlled by the channels and how they interacted with the node itself.

Mana would initially fill an outer ring, as usual but then, it would filter into a series of channels that formed an intricate fractal of intersecting spirals all converging on the node at the center. There were also channels throughout that diverged from the spirals but Felix had no idea as to why.

“All you would have to do is lengthen or shorten these lines,” Withrel pointed at the diverging lines Felix couldn’t identify himself, “and the spell will detonate based on their length. You just have to be able to estimate the distance, which you can do, right?”

Felix nodded, still entranced by the spell form itself.

“While I do think this solution is rather elegant-” Professor Fin walked over to the board, “-you’re overthinking this a bit.”

Professor Fin turned to Felix, “You’ve mentioned before that you are limited on the number of spells you can cast at once by your own focus. More complicated spells lower that number, correct?”

Felix nodded.

Fin turned to Withrel but was still obviously talking to Felix, “How many of these do you think you could cast at once, while estimating how long the lines need to be?”

“Estimating the line length is trivial, I have ways of dealing with that. The spell itself… while the channels are complicated, they’re a repetitive pattern so I don’t expect them to be that taxing, I’d have to run some tests though. The node on the other hand, I’ve never seen a node like this and it’s… more complicated than I’m used to. Considering how detailed it is… I can test it but I think 3, maybe 4 instead of about 7 I can do with my current version of Fire Ball.” Felix shrugged as he threw out a guess.

Professor Fin smirked, “I don’t think you’re thinking enough about how unique Felix is. What about maintaining a thread of mana connecting you to each and every one of your spells? Then you can detonate them at will?”

“That… might be possible actually.” Felix started constructing a spell form in the air to test the idea.

One of the Adepts in the class contorted their face in confusion, “I thought your mana control range was almost 18 meters right now? Wouldn’t any spell you cast end up far outside of that range?”

“That’s the range for having perfect control over mana. Outside of that, he’s more normal.” Professor Fin smirked.

Felix tilted his head indicating sort of, “If I construct something within my range then push it outside, it doesn’t fall apart but any of you would be able to destroy it pretty easily if you got close enough.”

Fin nodded, “Think about when we cast spells, the spell form falls out of our effective range very quickly. They do not however, simply disintegrate.”

“So that’s the downside to this, firing the spell at someone, if they were paying enough attention they could cut the thread?” Kilenor nodded along, “That shouldn’t be too much of an issue right now but… in the future.”

Felix shrugged, “We can deal with that when it arises. In the meantime, unless we have any better ideas, I’m on a bit of a deadline right now.”

Alkor snorted, “I heard. You’ve got a Caster’s Duel with Tanryel in a couple dekads.”

A few of the other Adepts in the room chuckled or guffawed, the rest of their reactions being more tame but everyone seemed to know more or less what that meant.

One of the Adepts in the class shrugged in their seat, “I mean, considering Felix’s unique… abilities. This should be… easy, right?”

Felix winced, “Ideally I’d like to win without… cheating.”

Withrel frowned, “It’s not che-”

Felix shook his head, “I know. I want to win entirely within the normal rules of a Caster’s Duel though, no stretching them with my mana control or anything like that.”

Alkor chuckled, “That’s not possible.”

Should I avoid revealing… my plan?

Grim mentally shrugged, Your plan is designed such that you win whether or not he knows about it. He’ll probably figure it out within the first few seconds anyways.

Yeah, you’re right.

Felix shrugged, “I know he’s faster than me and far more experienced but I don’t think it’s impossible. I almost definitely have more mana than he does.”

Alkor laughed audibly, “Yeah, right. Tanryel has nearly 20 million mana. You know you can’t use batteries, right?”

Felix stared intently at him, “How do you know exactly how much mana he has?”

Alkor shrugged, “It’s not hard to estimate based on some fights where he’s run all the way out. Some people are obsessive about figuring that stuff out.”

“Well, if you’re right, this is going to be a lot easier than I thought.”

Multiple of the Adepts stared at Felix, asking the obvious question.

Felix sighed, “80 million right now without the batteries and I think I can increase that a bit once more before the duel.”

Most of the Adpets in the room just stared at him incredulously, Withrel shook his head and broke the silence, “In what… how?”

Felix shrugged, “Uniqueness. I use the visualization skill to do some tricks inside my mana pool.”

Professor Fin laughed, “That’s like, Demigod Artillery Caster levels of mana. If you want to play a battle of attrition then… it might be possible.”

Kilenor nodded, “It’ll still be hard. You basically have to force him to maintain an omni-shield for the whole fight because he will definitely be able to force you to maintain one.”

Alkor shook his head, “If he starts to sense that that’s your plan, he will focus on avoiding your spells which will make it even harder.”

Withrel smiled, “I guess you’re going to need to come up with some undodgeable spells then.”

Felix nodded, “That’s been my plan so far. I’ve gotten as far as dissecting and analyzing the Caster’s Dueling spells then trying to assemble my own from those components.”

“What have you got so far?” Withrel looked rather excited, spell formation clearly being his passion.

Professor Fin pointed at the board and Felix walked over, drawing out all his designs so far, with mana.

Withrel noticeably winced as he looked over Felix’s spell forms along with a couple others that hid it better.

Professor Fin stepped in to defend him, “Keep in mind-once again-that Felix is restricted by the complexity of the spell. These might seem overly simple but were he to use more complicated spells, his concurrent casts and cast time in general would suffer greatly.”

Withrel sighed, “Still. We can do better than this, if you’re… sorry I know you don’t have a lot of experience with Spell Formation yet and-”

Felix shook his head, “I’d very much appreciate your help formulating better spells for me to use. I’ve poured over everything I could find in the library but haven’t applied much of it to these spells yet.”

Withrel smiled, “Everything you could find? You said channel patterns, so long as they’re repetitive shouldn’t increase the complexity much, right? Fractals are allowed?”

Felix shrugged, “I can test them on the spot but I don’t suspect they’ll increase the complexity much.”

Professor Fin stretched his back in a very cat like manner, “What’s your casting limit right now?”

“Almost 21 spell levels.” Turning to the board, Felix quickly drew out some examples for a level 1 spell all the way up to a level 4 spell and labeled them accordingly.

Withrel nodded, “How about you draw out all your core spells and we can come up with something better together?”

Felix nodded, “Sounds good to me.” Looking at Professor Fin and the rest of the class, it seemed something like this wasn’t uncommon in this class. All the other students were Adepts and the class seemed more like a club to Felix than an actual class. They had lectures sometimes but most of what they did was train their mana control against each-other in duels and share any related insights they discovered.

As Felix started to draw out the various spells he used on the board, he noticed a couple spells being cast throughout the class. He didn’t pay them too much attention until, he realized they were targeting him.

At that point, Felix analyzed them and realized what was happening so he responded accordingly. Felix cast a small, circular red Caster’s shield behind him to block the red bolt, no wider than an inch in diameter.

Professor Fin immediately contorted his face in thought, “Huh.”

Felix looked at him but Fin waved him off, indicating they would talk about it later.

The first he blocked with ease but as a couple of others in the class joined in, it became more difficult for him to process the slight variances in the colors they were using with his mana senses alone. Inevitably, he was hit more than once as he wrote out his spells.

He could have realistically stopped all spells from being cast by tearing them apart but that would have defeated the purpose of the practice.

Withrel joined him at the board and began working through designing more efficient versions of the same spells along with a couple other Adepts in the class that chimed in every once in a while.

They worked on the designs and spent most of their time finding a foundation for simple spells and testing Felix’s limits. Afterwards, they abstracted out those concepts into Caster’s Dueling spells.

Over the course of the class time, Felix got a lot better at blocking the bolts.

It got to the point where they realized-as Professor Fin had earlier-that his best bet in the duel was to use point defense shields that were as small as possible. This allowed him to conserve as much mana as possible up until the point where Tanryel was forced to use massive area spells.

Those spells cost a lot of mana so the more Tanryel had to rely on them, the better. The reason caster’s didn’t use point defence shields much was that they couldn’t cast spells wherever they wanted, typically relying on the tip of a wand. They were also easily overcome by curving two separate attacks so they hit from either side which was impossible to block with a single point defence shield. Using a wand, one would have to swing their arm in front of both bolts before they hit which was, nearly impossible considering the required cast time alone.

On top of everything, most people didn’t have a cast time as fast as Felix’s. A lot of people could start and complete a cast faster than he could, especially with good skills or a wand. Felix could however, prepare a spell by constructing it entirely then holding off on casting it until he needed to. Effectively, so long as he could predict the spells coming at him with his mana senses, he had a virtually instant cast time.

In a Caster’s Duel, the time it took a bolt to reach him was enough time for him to detect the color and cast the appropriate point defence shields wherever he needed to within his mana control range. When the enemy started casting a spell, he could easily detect which color he needed and prepare the appropriate shield in time in large part because the Caster’s Dueling spells used mana to dictate their color.

The issue was trying to identify what kind of shield he needed and how wide the spell would be. If he prepared a point defense shield against an area attack, it would be useless. Felix had to learn to recognize the spell’s function fast enough to be able to prepare the appropriate spell in time. The memory crystals of Tanryel’s previous duels would help and Withrel promised to help him practice identifying them in the next class but, it was still going to be difficult.

They also quickly found that any improvements Withrel could come up with, didn’t help Felix much. While his spells were incredibly advanced and elegant, they relied on incredibly advanced and complex nodes. Those nodes specifically made it nearly impossible for the spells to be anything less than 5th level spells and that was ignoring the fractal channel patterns that ate up another few levels on their own.

What Felix really needed, was a way to cast spells without nodes at all, which he was starting to consider more and more. In theory, it was a great idea, in practice he had no idea if it would be harder or easier for him.

He didn’t really have time to explore the idea at the moment though because it wouldn’t help him in the duel at all so instead, he committed himself fully to training for the next two dekads.

A number of the Adepts in his mana control class were happy to spar with him, they being far more experienced with the sport than Ayred was. They also helped him train his Mana Control range, focus and casting speed but those were secondary to his learning to identify and react as quickly as possible to Caster’s Dueling spells.

He spent time with Withrel, who was incredibly happy-excited even-to analyze Tanryel’s spells in his previous duels. He dueled and sparred during the days when he could get out of classes and analyzed spells at night, when everyone else was asleep or busy.

When he was alone, he began training himself against the small piece of Endless Hunger he kept in his Soul Space. While everything helped somewhat, training against The Endless Hunger was by far the most beneficial for Felix. It was the most straining thing he could do in the shortest period of time and he noticed comparatively massive improvements because of it.

Lastly, Felix spent some of his time working on something he was considering to be his last resort. He wasn’t sure if it would even be ready in time for the duel but it was something he thought, could make the difference.

His corpses from Tekragoraxius hadn’t arrived yet either, not that he could have done anything with them just yet. He was simply slightly worried she had forgotten or changed her mind. The worry was quickly suppressed each and every time he felt at his bond with Nova though.

The 5th of the dekad, Felix’s last break day before the duel, he finished up his training against The Endless Hunger, replaced it in his dedicated Soul Space, then headed out for the day.

Flying out of his room and out of the dorm, Felix was stopped just outside the building by a very joyful, redhead in a short skirt and a loose blouse covered in a geometric print of bright colors.

Felix nodded in her direction, acknowledging her presence, “Melody.”

She smiled wide and waved rapidly, “Felix! I heard you’ve been hard at work training to win your duel with my brother.”

Felix shrugged, “I guess.”

“Well, we can’t have you getting all burnt out so today, you’re coming with me.”

Felix grimaced a little as he didn’t think getting burnt out was possible for him and also at the idea of not training, “Where are we going?”

She smirked and waggled her brow playfully, “You’ll see.”

Felix sighed but followed nonetheless as Melody flew off towards the portal room.

Flying inside, Melody just nodded to Ellie who smiled and nodded in response then opened the portal for them. Melody didn’t even slow down as she zipped through the portal into what appeared to be a snow covered, mountainous taiga biome. Whether or not they remained on the same planet, Felix had no idea.

In her very summery outfit, she soared over the massive snow caked evergreen trees and up towards one of the mountains with Felix in tow. The entire area reminded Felix of the tutorial, around Icewatch but with trees unlike anything Felix had ever seen before. It was also lightly snowing but not nearly enough to obstruct the view in any way.

Together they soared over the forest, landing on a snow covered outcropping on the side of a mountain. Given how wide and flat the area was and how directly she had flown to it, Felix got the sense that she had been here before.

Landing on the outcropping, Felix saw a number of carvings and ice sculptures against the cliff face behind them either left by her or someone else but confirming in Felix’s mind, that this location wasn’t random at all.

“Did you make these?” Felix asked as he walked towards the sculptures.

Melody nodded lightly, “When I was a kid, yeah.”

Based on her melancholic tone of voice, Felix decided not to interrogate her.

Melody walked over to the edge of the outcropping and sat down, sinking almost a foot into the powdery snow then leaning back, allowing the snow to create a natural cushion for her back.

Felix sat down next to her, his robes much more suited to the frigid weather than her skirt and blouse. The cold didn’t actually affect either of them though, it just looked odd to Felix who was still used to mostly normal humans.

“What a beautiful day.” Melody took a long drawn out breath.

“What are we doing here?” Felix asked after a few moments of silence.

Melody scoffed, “Enjoying it, what does it look like?”

Felix turned to her, “Why today? You said you don’t want me to get burnt out but you are incredibly good at reading people so you know I wouldn’t have. What’s so special about today? Assuming neither of us die prematurely, there will be literally millions of days that are just as beautiful for us to enjoy.”

Melody looked at him and raised a brow, “It’s today. Now, the present. That’s what’s special. Just enjoy it, okay?”

Felix sighed and looked out over the view while constructing and maintaining spells behind his back, rotating them out as soon as one fell apart because he’d reached his focus limit. While he would have preferred to have been sparring or even practicing against the Endless Hunger, being here with Melody didn’t actually hinder him much.

Cast Time and Focus limit were important and he felt like he was right on the verge of increasing his focus limit to 24 spell levels anyways.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, staring out over the forest after which Melody sighed and laid her head back into the snow, “Do you ever stop? Do you ever just… rest?”

Felix shrugged, “Don’t feel the need to.”

“You don’t even sleep, do you?”

Felix shook his head.

Melody sighed, “You know that isn’t good for you, right? Even if your bod-”

“I handled the soul side of sleeping as well.”

She sighed, “Still, you should at least try to be present sometimes. Relax and enjoy yourself.”

“I am enjoying myself. I find training to be very enjoyable.”

“I know you do.”

They returned to silence for a while, Felix constructing spells behind his back and tentatively training against The Endless Hunger in the Soul Space he constructed specially for it. It was a bit risky because it completely consumed his focus but he was starting to get antsy just sitting there.

Meanwhile, Melody began to create snow angels and stared up a the sky.

Seeing Melody so nonchalant, thinking about her dragging him out and trying to get him to enjoy the day, Felix couldn’t help but chuckle.

Melody swung her head in his direction, “What?”

“Oh, nothing. You just kind of remind me of an old friend.”

Melody scoffed playfully, “Excuse me? I’m not old. I’m only 73 epochs. I haven’t even reached the prime of my youth yet.”

Felix shrugged, “Could have fooled me.”

“What’s her name? Is she cute?”

Felix looked off into the distance, enjoying the view, “David.”

Melody shrugged, “Didn’t realize you swung that way. If I remind you of them, you must have been hopelessly attracted to them too.”

Felix didn’t bother dignifying her comment with a response.

Another while passed before Felix broke the silence once again, “Why me?”

Melody took a deep breath before answering, pausing for almost a minute before responding, “Your smart, driven and ambitious, as many are but… you aren’t so caught up in it… kind of. You aren’t completely absorbed in the training the same way most people are. I know this might not be your scene but you do enjoy the moment, you enjoy the practice, the training and making progress itself. Almost everyone else I’ve met enjoys the results and suffers through the training but then doesn’t even stop to enjoy the destination once they arrive.”

She sighed, “I don’t know how most people live like that.”

Felix frowned, “You don’t think I’m completely absorbed in training?”

She smiled, “Not in the same way. You know the first time I saw you in the library, the real reason I approached you? Other than the fact that you were the only one around?”

Felix shook his head.

“I watched you walk into the library. Even as you were looking for a book, you were fascinated by everything. Your eyes were like a child’s, darting around to take in everything. I know you’re an integrated but on top of that, every time you learn something or are training, you light up the same way. Do you know how rare it is that I see others enjoy themselves so much in everything they do? Your soul lights up every time. Most people, that happens once a term at most.”

Felix shrugged, “I’m still young though, early 20s in Epochs. I’m sure it’ll change. I’ll grow jaded.”

Melody shrugged, “Maybe. I don’t think so though. You aren’t completely focused on the destination, the goal. Even as you’re training to duel Tan, you’re enjoying the entire journey. It’s something I wish more people could do. Most people make themselves suffer to achieve something, to get to a certain level and then they get there and immediately set a new goal for themselves. Immediately setting themselves up to suffer through the next chunk of training, always chasing. They’re never happy, never stopping to enjoy the accomplishment but you, you’re just content, always.”

She smiled and continued, “As someone who naturally feels everyone’s souls around her, it’s nice to be around someone who is genuinely content and constantly feels joy in almost everything they do.”

Felix frowned, “Really? I’m content?”

She laughed, “I guess it’s hard to judge considering you’ve probably been like this for a while. How many things do you do that you don’t want to do? How often do you make a decision for someone other than yourself? How often do you feel anxious without also feeling exhilarated? How often do you force yourself to suffer through something? How often are you consumed by negative emotions?”

“So I’m selfish?”

“Yeah, in a way. It’s not even that you make decisions in your favor, it seems more like you don’t care about anyone else at all. You value yourself and your own happiness above everything. I’m sure you’ve hurt people because of it at some point but… I can handle myself. I don’t want people considering my feelings and situation in every decision they make only to make a decision that ultimately hurts them. I’ve… had more than enough of that in my life already.”

Felix shrugged, “Alright… Speaking of enjoying the moment and all that, can we go back now? I want to spar against the Adepts in my Mana Control class.”

Melody smiled calmly, “Not yet.”

Felix shook his head and pulled out the portal mold from his inventory.

Melody hopped out of the snow as soon as he pulled the mold out and slapped it out of his hand, “No seriously, not yet.”

He furrowed his brow, “Why?”

Melody shrugged guiltily, “Okay, I may have fibbed a little. We aren’t just here to enjoy the moment.”

Finally.

Felix sighed, “Why are we here then?”

“I used to come here to hide from my parents. This was the only place I could go where they couldn’t find and force me into training or some political meeting.”

Felix stopped himself from responding when he saw her wistful expression. She continued a moment later, “The planet I grew up on is entirely developed. There’s nature but it’s curated and contained. Before I found this place, I hadn’t even seen snow before. Now, watching snowflakes lazily fall from the sky and create an unmarred, perfect blanket of white… I don’t know I just… find it kind of relaxing.”

Felix nodded in acknowledgement then waited what he felt was an appropriate amount of time before switching topics, “So… just to be clear, we’re hiding from your parents? Isn’t your dad a god?”

She shrugged, “Yeah, sort of. He’s not looking for us directly. One of his advisors is visiting the academy right now.”

“How long do we have to stay here?”

Melody shrugged, “She should be gone in a couple hours.”

Felix nodded, sat back down and stowed the mold in his main Soul Space, “Why am I hiding?”

“I’ve been hanging around you long enough now… You also have an imminent duel with Tan so… Plus, maybe I just wanted some company.”

Felix nodded in understanding, “Last minute scouting?”

“Something like that. Well, among other things.”

Felix turned to her, “Do you always try to dodge your father’s advisors?”

A female voice Felix didn’t recognize suddenly responded from behind them, “Yes.”

They both swung their heads around, towards the source of the voice and Melody sighed.

[S] Fephiane: Advisor to Kjarne (Lvl ?)

Melody looked and sounded like she knew this day would come eventually as she sighed, “You finally found me.”

Fephiane shook her head, “You assuming your father didn’t know about this place is… naïve. He said it was good for you to have a place you felt safe and so he banned us from coming here.”

Melody gritted her teeth, “So why are you here now? Just to prove you can find me if you need to? To prove that there’s nowhere I can go to be alone?”

“Your father decided it was time.”

“Of course he did. What do you want? Or are you just here to spy for Tanryel because he’s too lazy to do anything himself?”

Fephiane-the advisor-shook her head, “Tanryel has refused to accept any information about his opponent prior to the duel. He has decided it will make the fight more fair and that it is ‘more fun to go in blind’ despite our… objections. It is not an official match however and it is unlikely he will lose so your father has agreed to allow him some freedom in this matter.”

That’s… unexpectedly honorable.

Melody humphed her approval, “So what was so important now that you had to ruin any hope I had that I could ever escape his grasp and be my own person?”

Fephiane shook her head at Melody’s over-dramatization, “Your father has requested your presence.”

Melody scoffed, “No thanks.”

“This time, you don’t have the option of saying no.”

Melody hopped to her feet and brushed off her summery outfit, “So he didn’t request my presence, he demanded it.”

Fephiane sighed, “His business with you was deemed urgent enough.”

“If it’s so urgent then why are we wasting time here, you’re going to kidnap me anyways, aren’t you?”

Fephiane shook her head, “Only if you resist.”

They stared at each-other for over a minute until Fephiane opened a portal and followed Melody through it.

As soon as the portal was closed behind them and Felix was left alone, he opened a portal back to Eramith to continue his training.

The day before the duel, Felix took one more pass over his mana pool, compressing it down as much as he could. Given how much time he had spent practicing against The Endless Hunger he had stashed away inside of his soul, he had been expecting a moderate increase.

He found he was able to push his capacity by 25% which was about what he expected so he was satisfied. He wouldn’t have access to his charm for the duel so he was stuck to his own 100 million mana alone which seemed like a lot but, given the spells he was forced to use, he wasn’t sure it would be enough.

Flying over towards the A-SAM building, Felix was fully expecting to see Melody and Ayred either already there or arrive shortly after he did. Both of them had stakes in the fight, Melody because of the consequences of the fight and Ayred because he helped train Felix. He even suspected he might see a few of the Adepts from his Mana Control class.

What Felix didn’t expect was for there to be a crowd that numbered in the hundreds filled with students, adepts and even professors, only some of which he recognized. He briefly looked for someone he knew well enough to land next to but unfortunately, he didn’t find anyone that fit that description.

Felix landed on the outside of the crowd, which seemed to mostly surround a large circular court in the field outside of the main building. Unsure of the proper procedure, when the actual duel would start or where he was supposed to be, he looked around for someone he knew.

A tap on his shoulder caused him to spin around, finding Melody standing just behind him somehow, “You ready?”

Felix shrugged and nodded, “Sure. Ready as I can be.”

She nodded then gestured with her head for him to follow, seemingly aware of his state of disorientation.

Walking over to the edge of the circle, Felix looked across and saw Tanryel jovially talking with a small group of people he couldn’t really see. Given his position right at the edge of the circle, Felix suspected Tanryel was simply waiting for his arrival.

Felix had had no idea when the duel would start so, he just showed up in the morning meaning they couldn’t have been waiting too long. He still wondered though, how long had Tanryel and some of the crowd been waiting for the duel and were they simply content to wait the entire day until he arrived.

He couldn’t imagine sitting around and waiting that long but he also couldn’t have imagined being completely content with trudging through snow for hours like Shade’s Wrath had been. He shook his head to clear it because the way long lives seemed to be affecting the way everyone else perceived time was a little disgusting to him. There was just too much time wasted that could have been used for anything else.

Before stepping into the large circle laid out in the grassy field before him, Felix stowed his coat, robes and any other superfluous fabric he had on him. The Caster’s Dueling spells weren’t actually attacks and having his robes on were just a hindrance. If the spells hit his robes-even if they would have missed his actual body-the point counted.

He had thought about getting Rainoth to make him a tighter shirt but decided against it. No one else seemed to mind being shirtless and in many of Tanryel’s duels that Felix had watched, he didn’t bother with a shirt.

Luckily his pants were relatively trim so loose fabric wouldn’t likely accidentally lose him a point but he kept the boots just because they were too comfortable to give up.

As he stepped into the ring, Felix quickly ran through all the spells he was going to have to use, making sure the formations were at the top of his mind. One of the people standing around Tanryel pointed and he turned, his smile instantly disappearing in favor of a dour and serious expression as he noticed Felix.

Tanryel nodded to the those he was talking to, dismissing himself then stepped into the ring, matching Felix in attire as he did so.

As soon as they were both at least a meter into the ring, Tanryel tapped away at something Felix couldn’t see but stopped himself and looked over, “Can you fly?”

Felix nodded.

Tanryel nodded once in acknowledgement then went back to manipulating the screens Felix couldn’t see. A few moments passed before a wall of light and mostly translucent blue was erected around the two of them.

Looking up, the roof of the enclosure was about 500 meters above the two of them and around 300 meters wide. It was a ton of space but at the same time, rather small in Felix’s mind. Given their stats and skills, the fact that both of them could fly, Felix knew that they would actually both feel cramped and constrained by the space.

That was likely the point though, to make running away impossible as it was boring in a duel.

Tanryel closed the screens then looked straight at Felix, “Standard rules, to 5 points win by 2. We will use The System to judge assuming you don’t have any objections?”

Felix shook his head, unsure of why he would ever object to having The System judge.

“No batteries, no magical items other than your weapon.”

Felix nodded along, stowing his rings and bracelet now that he remembered, just to make it abundantly clear he wasn’t using them.

“Anything you need to add?”

Felix shrugged and shook his head.

Tanryel nodded and a countdown appeared in the middle of the arena, counting down from 10 which seemed ridiculously gratuitous to Felix.

Either way, it gave him far more than enough time to form and preserve multiple spell forms around himself. As he did so, Tanryel summoned two small crystals into his palms. They were rough cut and no bigger than two inches in any dimension, both of them a light red, almost pink color.

Felix had seen them before when he had watched Tanryel’s duels but seeing them in person was something he had been looking forward to because he couldn’t properly examine them in a memory.

He already knew he couldn’t identify them as they were technically equipped by Tanryel but he was hoping his Identify Arcane Component skill would work the same way it had on Ayred’s wand. Unfortunately, not matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get anything out of the skill either because it suffered from the same restrictions as identify or because they were simply too far.

Either way, he would have to see if he could after the fight because there was no chance he was going to be able to split his focus in the middle of the fight.

As the countdown reached 0, the crowd around the ring drew closer, some of them rising into the air to get a better view. The crystals in each of Tanryels hands rose just a few inches from his palms and remained fixed there as they began to lightly glow.

At 0, Tanryel was the first to react, instantly releasing a barrage of spells from the crystals in either of his hands. To anyone other than Felix, firing two spells at once was extraordinary. For Felix though, it was something he could do just days into first learning about magic.

As mundane as the trick was, Tanryel’s speed far surpassed Felix’s making them incredibly hard to avoid.

Felix thought about jumping to the side but realized he wasn’t nearly fast enough so he quickly blocked the two of them with point shields. He summoned a red shield 20 meters in front of him, at the edge of his range which blocked the red projectile then a blue shield just 5 meters in front of him, to block the other and prevent them from combining.

Even before the blue bolt hit the second shield though, Felix felt the residual mana of a green bolt coming from behind him and a pink one to his left.

Tanryel had already started weaving in both curved spells and combined colors, something Felix had been fully expecting.

Felix blocked the green bolt behind him without looking then dove backwards through the shield to dodge the pink bolt.

Looking up right as he landed, Tanryel was already in the air, zipping over Felix’s head so he could hit him from every angle. The entire time he flew, Tanryel kept up the barrage of bolts, this time isolating them to a small area of impact but staggering them a little in angle and direction.

Felix already knew what he was trying to do, he wanted Felix to be forced into stacking shields to run through his mana faster. Though he had figured out enough about the spells to know he could avoid doing so at all using his mana control, he had decided ahead of time he wouldn’t and so instead, he simply did as Tanryel had wanted, summoning various point shields on top of each-other.

They inevitably combined into one and yanked on his mana pool-its source-to sustain itself as the various bolts smacked into it one by one.

Once Tanryel had acknowledged that Felix could summon an omni-shield and simple tricks of direction didn’t seem to work, he resorted to firing only omni-bolts from every direction.

Combining every color into one bolt forced Felix to summon omni-shields to block them, draining both of their mana equally. Usually the onus was on the defender to find a way out of the situation as a full spherical shield cost vastly more mana than the bolts did.

In Felix’s case though, his mana senses, cast radius and concurrent casting allowed him to cast only point shields all around him and the mana draw was nearly equal for the both of them.

Normally, Felix would be able to retaliate and force Tanryel to summon a shield of his own which would block his own spells and alleviate some of the pressure. Unfortunately, Tanryel was somewhat unique in the world of Caster’s Dueling in that he had a very rare skill that allowed him to use two casting focuses at once.

He used those, in the memories Felix had watched, to often summon a half shield using one of them and curving bolts around it with the other.

None of that mattered though because even though Tanryel could only fire two spells at once, Felix was completely consumed with blocking them as Tanryel staggered his spells. He fired two that traveled slowly on a wide arc then another two that traveled slowly but straight then two more that traveled fast but on a wide arc and finally two that were fast and straight. All of the bolts would then collide with Felix’s body at about the same time forcing him to block 8 projectiles at once.

By the time Felix had dealt with those, Tanryel had already started unleashing the next barrage and Felix was stuck preparing the correct shield formations before they struck.

This left them at somewhat of a stalemate which Tanryel seemed happy with, for a while. Felix slowly grew more accustomed to Tanryel’s speed and instead of completely scrambling to avoid and block everything, he was able to find somewhat of a groove.

As he finished blocking one barrage, he would start preparing the shields for the next barrage, leaving out the color component until he knew exactly what he needed.

If the duel had continued like this, Felix would surely of won, he knew that. His mana pool was vastly superior to Tanryel’s. After Felix had consumed about 5 million mana though, meaning Tanryel had likely consumed a similar amount, Tanryel realized something was wrong and switched tactics.

Instantly, he went from slowly circling overhead to flying faster than Felix could properly follow as the bolts sped up drastically. Instead of many bolts at once, Tanryel fired simple base color bolts as fast as he could. He didn’t need the colors of the bolts to be complicated as he had given up on running Felix out of mana. Instead, he was trying to win through speed.

Felix had managed to find a groove against the constant barrages Tanryel had started with, managing to keep up with their speed and avoiding getting hit, albeit barely. Now that Tanryel was trying to abuse the massive gap in their Agility though, Felix immediately realized he didn’t stand a chance.

He summoned shields as fast as he could and managed to block most of the bolts but the issue was, he couldn’t dodge any of them. He was stuck blocking each and every one of them because he wasn’t nearly fast enough to dodge or avoid them.

Tanryel had also massively increased the amount of Force behind the bolts so they shot incredibly fast forcing Felix to use all of his concentration just to keep up. While he could cast multiple spells at once, using all his focus on just one or two spells, drastically sped up his casting speed and in this case, it was just barely enough.

Unfortunately, that meant that he was forced into basically standing still.

On top of all that, Tanryel started ricocheting bolts around the arena, some of them bouncing dozens of times before threatening to collide with Felix. Struggling just to block the bolts fired directly at him, Felix knew that the number of bolts bouncing around the arena would soon reach critical mass and overwhelm him.

He blocked a green bolt from the left then a blue bolt from in front of him then a red one behind him then-

1 point for Tanryel. A voice, the one he associated with The System, echoed out inside Felix’s mind.

Damnit. They’re too fast. I can’t move-

2 points for Tanryel.

Fuck! I just-

Felix switched over to casting omni-point-shields in every direction to save himself time as he wouldn’t have to sense and change the colors.

If I could just-

Felix started to expand the shields as they were getting too fast for him to accurately block with just a coin sized shield.

-move a little faster-

3 points for Tanryel.

Damnit. -If I could just dodge-

Felix crouched down to make himself as small a target as much as possible so it was easier to block everything around him.

-some of them.

4 points for Tanryel.

FUCK! ANY OF THEM.

Frustrated with his inability to deal with Tanryel’s speed, even though he had expected to be outclassed in Agility, Felix cast a fully spherical omni-shield, completely surrounding himself. As soon as he did so, Tanryel slowed down just enough for Felix to catch the growing smile on his face.

With the omni-shield surrounding him, and consuming 1.6 million mana a second, Felix was finally able to actually move. His focus problems were also alleviated and so he rose into the air, flying for the first time in the duel.

Tanryel didn’t just stand idly by though, he kept up just enough pressure to ensure Felix had to maintain the shield and continue to supply it with a ridiculous amount of mana.

Felix could finally fire back though, with his remaining focus and so, he launched a bead of red in Tanryel’s direction with as much Force as he thought necessary. As expected, Tanryel easily darted to the side but just as the bead reached its closest point to him, Felix unraveled the spell using the mana thread he had maintained.

The spell burst but Tanryel was easily fast enough to avoid it. Felix had hoped that by forcing him to dodge, the constant barrage he had been maintaining would slow but Tanryel was far too accustomed to duels.

After seeing how trivially Tanryel had dodged the first spell, Felix didn’t bother with that spell anymore. Instead, he jumped right to his last resort spell.

Dropping to the ground, to regain some of his focus, Felix stood still-with the omni-shield protecting him-as he constructed a massive spell form in front of him. In terms of spell level, Felix estimated this one to be almost level 20. It was a spell he had worked on with Withrel who had dubbed it one of the messiest spells he had ever worked on.

Felix slowly grew a multicolored rainbow orb in front of him. After pouring over a million mana into the spell, the orb flew forwards towards the center of the arena then burst. Tiny orbs flew in every direction. Each orb a different one of the primary colors used in Caster’s Duels.

Once the orbs were spread out mostly evenly, they each burst, releasing tiny bolts in every direction.

Looking around, it was a rainbow blizzard of icicles and, completely undodgeable. Tanryel, noticing the spell approaching him, pressed himself up against the edge of the arena and erected his own omni-shield. He only had to maintain it for a few seconds until the spell was finished and by pressing himself up against the barrier, he only had to summon half a shield.

Unfortunately, Felix couldn’t make the spell maintain itself or have the bolts ricochet because the spell form became too complicated and it would consume far more mana than was worth it.

Still, that one spell had expended at least 2 million of Tanryel’s mana, by Felix’s estimation. It had also taken almost 9 seconds for him to construct the spell form and another couple seconds for it to release. That meant Felix had expended not just the 1.5 million mana the spell had cost, but also 16 million just maintaining the omni-shield.

Felix’s worst case estimation of Tanryel’s mana was about 25 million which meant Felix would run out of mana far before Tanryel ever would, if they continued like this. Given that fact, Felix either had to find a way to hit Tanryel in less time or he had to find a way to drop the omni-shield.

I have no choice. I have to drop it and find a way to dodge the bolts.

Grim winced in his mind, One more point and he wins. Felix, that isn’t a good idea.

I don’t really have a choice. I’m not nearly fast enough to catch up to him where I can guarantee hits.

We could come up with better spells-

And if we don’t find them fast enough? Every second I maintain this stupid thing, even if I press myself up against the edge, I’m losing vastly more mana than he is. Even if we manage to come up with something, it will probably be too late because I won’t have enough mana left to fight back.

Mind resolved, Felix gritted his teeth as he dropped the omni-shield surrounding him.

Listening wholly to his mana senses, he knew there was a bolt to his left, it was red. He knew it was moving towards him fast but he had no hope of winning if he didn’t find a way to avoid it.

He tried to move backwards, stepping and contorting his body all at once to build as much speed as he could. He thought about trying to cast a Force spell to dodge, maybe even trying to use an instinct cast but if he relied on those, he would very quickly lose control of his body. The speed he had to move with, and the Force he would need, was more than he had practice with.

Just as the bolt was a couple inches from his body, right as Tanryel smiled, thinking the fight was over, Felix cast the shield and blocked it. Wiping the smile off Tanryel’s face helped somewhat to offset the mounting frustration he felt over his lack of agency.

Another bolt came, from behind this time, a blue one. Felix already had a shield ready and simply added in the color component, just in case. This time he kicked off the ground and tried to dive to the right to avoid another bolt from behind him.

He ended up using the shield though. He just wasn’t fast enough.

Two more bolts approached him at different speeds although they were timed to hit at about the same time. Tanryel had centuries of practice and knew exactly how to curve, vary the speed and time bolts to be as difficult to deal with as possible.

Felix only had one more shield ready but because of the way they were angled, he would either have to dodge both or neither. To buy himself time though, he shot forwards and used the shield to block the bolt in front of him. That just left the bolt behind him but also bought him a fraction of a second longer before it would hit.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure it was enough. He managed to move the core of his body out of the way but just couldn’t pull his arm towards himself fast enough.

Craning his neck, he watched in growing horror as the bolt slowly approached. His senses slowed drastically-though he had no idea why-which would have been nice and given him breathing room but in this instant, Felix was pretty sure it was just to taunt him. At least, that’s how it felt.

It was his arm of all things. Realistically, he could have moved it at the same time as his body but he was so focused on just getting out of the way that he had just… forgotten. He had almost succeeded in dodging too, if he had just thought of his arm.

Felix, being who he was with the conviction he had, refused to accept defeat. As impossible as it was for him to escape the situation, he pulled on his arm as hard as his muscles would allow. He pushed them to their limits with everything he had, his mind, his willpower and his soul completely ignoring the risk of tearing his muscles in the process.

Rather than tear his muscles as he had expected though, his arm moved far faster than his body ever had. Leaving behind a trail of shadow, his arm simply moved through the air exactly as he had wanted it to. Having as much control and awareness over his body as he did, Felix knew his muscles weren’t over exerted in the movement at all.

If it wasn’t my muscles and I didn’t feel any mana near my arm…

Ding You have become more proficient with the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper’s Sense (Novice I => Novice II)

Ding You have become more proficient with the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper’s Movement (Novice I => Novice II)

Huh. I am. An idiot.

Looking around, once again, everything was in slow motion, at least relatively. Before he had had trouble even following Tanryel’s flight now, he saw the slight shifts his hands were making as he cast spells. He could tell when he was curving bolts and when he was slowing them down to coordinate their strikes.

He was even able to watch as Tanryel’s expression hardened, realizing Felix had dodged that bolt.

This whole time… I recognized that it felt like the skills weren’t doing anything. I just thought that was an exponential thing. That I wasn’t fast enough for the effect to be noticeable. Turns out, I just had no fucking idea how to use them. They weren’t doing… well, basically anything. Fucking hell.

A red bolt zipped towards Felix from the front while a blue one drilled down from above, a green on either side of him and a yellow one sneakily traveling right along the ground behind him. Felix not only sensed them with his mana senses, traced their approach with his new found skill but he also avoided them, easily.

It wasn’t trivial but, compared to how impossible it had been to avoid the bolts earlier, it felt easy as Felix simply jumped backwards and to the side a little. He didn’t even use a spell to move, he just knew he was fast enough.

Why now? Just had to try and force my soul to move my arm? That was all it took? Willful movement? That’s dumb. Also… Why did The System just show me my proficiency going up in the middle of combat. I could have sworn I had it set to wait till the end of combat always…

At this point, Felix saw Tanryel’s face go from serious to a frustrated frown and honestly, he felt similarly.

This is the same thing Peace was doing. AGH this is so annoying in so many ways. How did I not figure this out sooner, how did I not connect Peace’s skills sooner. Why didn’t I prepare better for this stupid fight. I feel like I just cheated. If I wasn’t so overconf- arrogant, I could have won this without… I could have prepared better.

Briefly looking out into the crowd, now that his senses had sped up dramatically and he had so much time on his hands, Felix caught sight of a few people he knew. He saw Peace smiling and nodding as they locked eyes. He saw Melody frowning, seemingly recognizing what had just happened.

He also saw Ayred and Strig completely enraptured by the fight and also completely unaware of what was happening. They seemed relieved but neither of them seemed to recognize the significance. They likely thought Felix had been holding back until now.

Felix also noticed a couple of his professors, a few students and a couple Adepts he recognized in the crowd. The professors and adepts seemed mostly confused while the students were either enraptured or busy analyzing to try and steal the technique for themselves. None of them had the same reaction Melody or Peace did though.

Scanning the crowd, now able to process each and every face, he was pretty sure only Peace and Melody actually knew-or rather had any idea-what had happened.

Felix was rather frustrated with how things had played out, with him not being nearly prepared enough, nearly falling prey to his own arrogance then getting bailed out by a miracle. However, he had no intention of losing and he could only get answers to the questions now plaguing him after the duel.

Now that he could actually avoid bolts, the fight wasn’t easy by any means, it was now however, within the realm of possibility. He still had a lot of trouble actually hitting Tanryel, he had no hope of actually hitting Tanryel with his impressive flight agility and the constant barrage along with his vast experience constantly kept Felix on his toes.

On top of all that, he was one point from losing the match which meant he wasn’t allowed to make any mistakes yet, not until they were at least tied since they had to win by 2 points.

Spinning his body to the side to slip between a pair of bolts, Felix looked up and started tracking Tanryel with his eyes. His mana senses were focused on, and more than capable of, tracking all the incoming bolts at their current speed.

Tanryel, having noticed something had changed, began to shift his strategy. At first, he tried using even faster bolts since that’s what had overwhelmed Felix the first time. Seeing the shift, both in the way Tanryel was casting the spells and in the bolts themselves, Felix was initially worried.

As the first blue bolt ricocheted off the outer wall Felix was already ready to cast a shield but quickly realized, he didn’t have to. Even though it would have been impossible for him to dodge the bolt at that speed, it seemed as though Tanryel couldn’t properly aim bolts at that speed either.

Having those bolts exist at all though meant Felix had to have some shield spell forms handy just in case one of the faster bolts actually managed to be on target.

Leaping forward with a shadowy afterimage trailing behind, Felix slipped through a series of bolts Tanryel had fired as he prepared some spells of his own.

Tanryel dove low to minimize the travel distance on his spells making them harder to dodge. He got too close though and now Felix could see his hands twitch and feel his crystals fill with mana.

They danced around each-other, Tanryel firing a constant barrage of bolts while Felix ducked and dodged as many as he could, blocking about 50% of them at first. Over time, that number dropped to just 5% as he slowly incorporated spells back into his movements. Mihto’s training once again proving to be one of the best things he had chosen to do in a long time.

With some left over focus, Felix was also able to start testing various forms of attack spells.

The one he had used earlier took far too long to cast but then, he had thought it was his only option. Now that he had miraculously matched Tanryel’s speed though, he had other options. Tanryel moving in so close, no doubt out of frustration, was also to Felix’s advantage.

It made it harder for Felix to sense and dodge the bolts after they were fired, but he had an alternative way of foreseeing bolts, Tanryel didn’t, as far as Felix knew. With Felix’s unique method of casting, Felix could be almost certain he didn’t.

Quickly blocking a bolt with a point shield, Felix stepped to the right mostly just to feint Tanryel as he fired a bolt from his maximum casting range to his left.

Tanryel saw the bolt too late to do anything about it.

1 point for Felix.

Finally.

Immediately realizing the close range was detrimental, Tanryel shot back up into the air to try and regain some distance but Felix followed as best he could. With Felix’s senses being as heightened and sped up as they were, he was able to just barely keep up with Tanryel’s flight especially considering he seemed to be using a cloak to fly. The cloak actually gave away his direction of flight by fluttering in the opposite direction just a fraction of a second before he moved.

That’s probably never been an issue for him, ever. I wonder if he knows it’s giving him away right now.

Maintaining the distance between them took all of Felix’s focus at first but slowly, he grew accustomed to watching the cloak and slowly, his focus was freed up. Going for his next attack, Felix didn’t bother with trying to feint instead pushing the bolt spell form as close to Tanryel’s body as he could, minimizing the time he had to react to it.

2 point for Felix.

Jaw clenched, Tanryel immediately summoned a half omni-shield in between them making it impossible for Felix to do the same thing again. The shield was well within his mana control range but he had already made an agreement with himself that he wouldn’t use it like this so he left it be as he thought of other ways around it.

Tanryel still had the ability to curve bolts around the shield so it didn’t hinder him too much but Felix, didn’t have that luxury. He couldn’t even ricochet the bolts without using all of his focus which would mean he would have to drop to the ground.

All that left was area of effect spells and luckily, Felix had a few of those prepared.

As they danced through the air together, Tanryel desperately trying to regain control of the fight, Felix carefully constructed a spell form off to his side, unbeknownst to his opponent.

Once it was ready, a red bead shot out next to Tanryel’s shield, just barely skirting by without being immediately blocked. Tanryel saw the bead and immediately switched directions but it was too late. Felix pulled on the mana thread and dismantled the spell, creating an explosion of red bolts in every direction.

3 point for Felix.

Felix was safely hidden behind Tanryel’s own shield, not that hitting himself would actually matter.

He tried to repeat the same trick but this time, as the bead flew out, the omni-shield between them suddenly completely surrounded Tanryel making him impossible to hit.

Guess I just have to run him out of mana then if he’s going to try and keep this up. He obviously knows he can’t though so, what’s the plan?

Felix knew something was going to happen as Tanryel stopped firing bolts at all and started filling both of the crystals in his hands with mana.

After a few seconds, which felt like forever to Felix with his new found speed, Tanryel’s crystals glowed for just a moment before Tanryel vanished.

At first Felix had thought he went invisible but his mana senses sensed nothing, so he swung his head around. He immediately caught sight of Tanryel all the way across the arena on the opposite side.

Another Blink… Damn… I. Need. That. Spell.

Felix hadn’t felt any spell forms involved in his casting though so he wasn’t too hopeful he would be able to learn it.

He quickly blocked a couple bolts that Tanryel had immediately fired then tried to chase him down. Unfortunately, it was unlikely Felix would ever be able to close the distance at this point he could however, sandwich Tanryel between himself and his spells forcing him to make a choice. Either Tanryel dodged the spell saving mana but inching him closer to Felix, or he blocked it and wasted mana.

So long as Felix used omni-bolts, he would be forced to waste the maximum amount of mana blocking the spells. Felix didn’t have the best aim with bolts though so he resorted to area spells. He was likely using mana faster than Tanryel was, firing omni-bombs like spells but, he also had vastly more mana so Tanryel would still run out first.

Tanryel knew that and so he tried his best to dodge the spells without letting Felix get close to him, but failed, twice.

Matchpoint for Felix.

At that point Tanryel was only allowed one more mistake before the fight was lost for him and so, he ran through every trick he had learned throughout his epochs of dueling. He combined curved and ricocheting bolts, bolts that ricocheted in the wrong direction, homing bolts, splitting bolts, delayed bolts. He also threw in area spells and everything in between.

As he did so, Felix ran through everything he could think of to hit Tanryel one last time.

They had a brief exchange that was more normal of a Caster’s Duel, each of them casting various colors in turn to try and force the others hand but, that quickly devolved. Tanryel was too frustrated at this point and Felix couldn’t waste time or mana on bolts which were unlikely to hit anyways. He had to make every spell count and so, he generally stuck to omni-bolts, bombs and shields.

Both of them knew they had to find some kind of trick to win, Felix’s options far more limited than Tanryel’s. On the other hand, Tanryel was pressed for time as he had finally realized he had no chance of winning a war of attrition.

Tanryel decided his best hope was to completely overwhelm Felix, hopefully making it impossible for him to retaliate and so, he began to craft and coordinate massive barrages. It took him a few seconds to set up the first one but once he did, the bolts were ceaseless.

From every direction, a thousand bolts at once of every color fired down on Felix’s shield. Tanryel used mostly splitting, delayed and curved bolts to create the storm and it forced Felix to use an omni-shield. Tanryel knew he could switch to a point shield so he had to maintain the barrage to force Felix to maintain the shield.

Tanryel hadn’t realized yet though, that a shield didn’t stop Felix from fighting back. Summoning a single, simple red bolt spell form just outside of the shield, Felix aimed at Tanryel’s stationary body.

As he released it, the storm of bolts stopped for just a moment while Tanryel blocked the bolt, his face now a deep scowl.

Overwhelming Felix and forcing him to maintain the omni-shield forced him to sit still so that didn’t work at all. Felix’s cast range meant he could fight back but Tanryel couldn’t so long as Felix used omni-bolts. Felix didn’t need to demonstrate that for Tanryel to realize it so he switched tactics.

Felix flew up, towards Tanryel as he darted off to the side to gain distance. He fired a series of bolts and area spells as he flew, trying to use one to force Felix into the others. None of that worked though as Felix felt all the spells, a byproduct of the Caster’s Dueling spell form using mana in the bolts and shields themselves.

At first he thought he was just lucky that they used mana but once he dissected them, he realized why. They used mana because the way they blocked themselves was entirely based on mana attunements. Replicating the same effect with anything else would have been complicated though not impossible with sound, light or some other wave.

Using light made the spells unreactable so the fight would immediately devolve into both combatants maintaining permanent omni-shields until they ran out of mana. Sound was problematic because it became way too loud and Caster’s Duel seemed to be designed as a spectator sport. Also, using mana was more apt for something called a ‘Caster’s Duel.’

Tanryel dropped a large shield behind him right as Felix was getting close then flew off, gaining a modicum of distance in the time Felix couldn’t see him. They continued firing spells at each-other, Tanryel out of desperation and Felix in the hopes that he could slow him down.

They both knew the inevitable was coming though as Felix got ever closer.

Once again, Tanryel pulled the same trick, dropping a shield and changing direction but this time, something was different. He dropped the shield as close to Felix as he could, even letting him approach a little bit before he cast it. Once he was obscured, his other crystal began rapidly filling with mana allowing Felix to follow him as he reversed direction and shot right towards Felix, through the shield.

Felix recognized the amount of mana he was channeling into his crystal and was confident he knew what Tanryel was casting. Preparing his own bolt, Felix accepted the gamble.

Tanryel timed his movement so that he flew through the shield at the same instant as Felix, allowing him to get within a meter of Felix. At that range, it wasn’t possible to dodge or block a bolt. He also didn’t have time to sense what the bolt was and if he summoned an omnishield, Tanryel’s hand would actually already be through it.

Felix suspected Tanryel was likely firing a split bolt so that he hit Felix 3 or more times simultaneously and won. Otherwise, this kind of gamble didn’t make any sense. He also knew he was shielded on the other side so Felix couldn’t just cast a bolt from the other side of the shield between them.

As Felix has estimated, the instant he got within an inch of the shield, Tanryel popped through from the other side, leading with his hand and the crystal floating from it. They released their spells simultaneously, Felix’s as close to Tanryel’s body as he could.

Unfortunately, he was expecting that and as soon as Tanryel released his spell, he vanished and reappeared, 10 meters behind his previous position.

Without using the computer in his head to perform any trajectory calculations, Felix already knew two things. Neither of them were fast enough, casting a spell or just moving to avoid getting hit and, Tanryel’s 4 bolts would hit him first.

Luckily, he had a secret weapon he had been practicing whenever he found the time. His instinct cast Force spell was a weak Force spell and it didn’t move him very quickly. It wasn’t nearly fast enough for him to move to either side without getting hit. He may have been able to dodge one or two of the bolts but it would be way too close for him to ever be certain.

Instead, he pushed himself backwards, away from the bolts in a straight line, dodging none of them but slightly delaying all four hits.

Felix watched his bolt inching its way towards Tanryel.

He switched focus and watched Tanryel’s four bolts spin and rotate through the air, seemingly moving much faster than his own.

Come on.

With 4 bolts in front of his face, Felix couldn’t actually see anything behind them so he just closed his eyes and prayed, to no-one in particular. All he could do was hope he had pushed himself far enough backwards.

Winner: Felix Kade.

Felix felt relief wash over him followed immediately by horror as the crowd aroun dhim completely erupted. He dreaded dealing with an onslaught of people so he immediately started casting a portal spell to his dorm even before his eyes fully opened.

Once they were open, he felt relief once more as he saw the barrier around the duel remained. He had no idea how much longer it would stick around but luckily, by the time the portal was open, he was able to slip out without anyone stopping him.

In hi dorm, Felix immediately dropped and sat against the floor, not in some meditative lotus position but half curled around a single bent knee.

Entering his Soul Garden, he appeared in the open grassy field and immediately pulled up his memories of the fight. Grim could tell he wasn’t in the mood at the moment to talk to anyone about anything so he waited respectfully. Felix could tell he was waiting in the back of his mind and appreciated his awareness but didn’t acknowledge him.

Felix stood watching the fight through countless times, his initial sense of dissatisfaction only growing as he thought of all the ways he should have prepared but didn’t. That dissatisfaction eventually melded with some amount of acceptance at which point Grim felt he was ready to talk.

He walked over but waited silently, letting Felix start things.

Felix sighed, “That didn’t feel good.”

“Would it have felt better if you had lost?”

Felix shook his head, “Honestly… I don’t know. I don’t feel like I should have won. I don’t feel like I fought particularly well, prepared better, came up with a unique solution. We both just bashed our heads against each-other and because my mana pool is bigger, I win.”

“Were it an actual fight, you would have been trampled.”

“Yeah, that’s a part of what makes it feel… wrong. Almost every aspect of a Caster’s Duel is… it’s like I was tailor made for them, or them for me.”

“Almost every aspect. You also managed to match him in speed, it would not have been possible without that.”

“Yeah, I know. That was… lucky as all hell.”

Grim tilted his head slightly indicating he partially disagreed, “Maybe. I’m don’t actually know but if I had to guess, those skills seemed like they were kind of just… lying in wait.”

“You’re saying I unlocked them, so to speak, because I needed them?”

“Something like that.”

“I’ll have to bring it up with Peace.”

Grim nodded, “Unfortunate you couldn’t talk to him after the fight.”

“I mean… I could have. That crowd was just… Yeah no, fuck that.”

“All you did was delay them, you know.”

“Yeah and spaced out all the interactions. Now they’re more manageable. Maybe I can get Melody to teach me some tricks for avoiding people.”

“You’ll have to find her first and considering her expression after you… upgraded?” Grim shrugged and sighed, “I don’t know, maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you yet.”

Felix sighed, “Yeah, maybe. Guess we’ll see.”

Grim raised a single brow, his cover distorting in a weird, asymmetrical way, “You sound almost disappointed. Are you actually attached to her? I can read your thoughts… mostly, your emotions though…”

“Maybe. Not in the way you’re thinking though, not yet. Maybe at some point in the future. She just… It’s very useful having someone who knows things, can get in almost anywhere and is willing to pay for everything.”

Grim nodded, “You said before that she reminded you of David. You think you ever could grow attached to her?”

“Of course. Just… don’t feel that way right now.”

Grim nodded in acknowledgement before changing the subject, “So what now? No more imminent deadlines.”

“Yeah. Now I can go back and deal with everything I had pushed on down in priority on my todo list. Then, I’ll have evaluations or initial exams or whatever to deal with soon enough.”

“So what first? What now?”

Felix nodded, “Now, I collect my prizes. Starting of course, with the most important one, books.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .