by Weiqi Wang
‘You are right; the boots do look like Trampling of Feriathan,’ Sandoray said to Thomas, ‘but imitations of low quality.’
‘Which is still surprising, don’t you think?’ Thomas sighed. ‘These kids are just Grade 4 or 5, yet already they have magigears like that.’
‘They are spoiled and don’t even understand the rareness of magigears,’ Sandoray was not impressed. ‘Magigears are to save lives at the last minute, yet they are used in a duel.’
‘It’s the age of peace nowadays, my lady,’ Thomas did not quite agree with Sandoray. ‘What you say was right once, but it it’s a heritage from the Great Libral’s age.’
While the crowd was whispering, like Sandoray and Thomas, Casavin was trying desperately to chant the incantation; drops of sweat began to emerge on his forehead. Saja was also struggling; his face turned paler and paler, as he was exhausting all that he had.
‘What is Casavin chanting this time?’ In the crowd, many began to wonder, but no one seemed to know. On the contrary, everyone could tell that Saja was chanting the same incantation once again — it was another flamerush.
‘Does Saja only know flamerush?’ Jemario whispered to Soarame. ‘He’s been doing that all along. Casavin will win then.’
‘No, it’s hard to tell yet,’ Soarame whispered back. With his eyes widely open, Soarame saw plenty of Fire elements aggregating rapidly around both Casavin’s and Saja’s wands. The power was pretty much equalised, so it was really hard to predict the result of this ferocious battle.
Saja finally finished his last try, with his body shaking; he was beyond exhausted. Knowing that Casavin would spare no efforts, Saja dared not waste time and swung his wand right away.
‘Hoo chi!’ a huge flame roared out, searing and rushing at Casavin. This time it was far more than an ordinary flamerush; it was almost twice the normal size, a super flamerush! This final strike exhausted all of Saja’s remaining power. Seeing the huge flame make its way over to Casavin, the crowd gave a collective cry — if it caught Casavin, it could burn him to ash!
‘Eat it, firefairy!’ Casavin roared. At the last second, the Fire elements that Casavin had summoned rapidly aggregated in front of him and formed into a human figure — Casavin had finished his final spell.
‘A baby firefairy?’ Sandoray was about to go to Casavin’s rescue, but stopped upon seeing this. ‘It’s not just any Grade 5 who can summon a fairy, even a baby one… Casavin is actually not bad!’
‘Wooo’ — the baby fairy stood up, casting a weird roaring sound from its mouth. As the roar went on, the super flamerush was weakened rapidly and finally sucked into the mouth of the fairy.
‘What?!’ Saja’s eyes widened; he couldn’t believe what had just happened. The upgraded flamerush was his masterstroke. How could the baby-sized fairy swallow it just like that?
By absorbing Saja’s flamerush, the baby fairy actually grew bigger. The entire scene had frightened the crowd, as they fear that the fairy could swallow people just like it had swallowed the flamerush. However, the fairy didn’t make a move; it stood still, with the fire quavering on its body. The crowd soon realized that it was not alive and was just a spell like the others, only in human shape.
Witnessing the sudden change in the situation, and Casavin’s obvious victory after all, the crowd gave their warmest applause. Saja’s only option for the challenge was to yield, but Casavin was not pleased at all. He looked first at Saja, then at his fairy, and didn’t know whether he should feel proud of his masterwork or upset that the match was much harder than he expected.
Soarame and the girls were also surprised and excited to see the entire battle. Soarame was actually thinking about another question, the power of the magic elements summoned by Casavin and Saja were pretty much equal, so why did Casavin beat Saja?
‘Congratulations, Casavin,’ Sandoray stepped into the arena and raised the magic pact parchment. The parchment suddenly started burning and completely vanished from sight, meaning the pact was fulfilled and both parties were released from it. After thunderous cheering for the winner, the crowd stepped forward and circled the firefairy for a closer look.
‘Casavin, the competition is over, so how do you deal with your fairy?’ Sandoray asked. ‘You are not allowed to take it out of the arena.’
‘I actually had a plan.’ Hearing Sandoray’ question, Casavin raised his head. ‘I’d like to challenge you with the help of the fairy, mam!’
‘What?’
‘Really?’
Hearing Casavin, the students were dumbfounded. Challenging a teacher? What a whimsical idea. It might not be the first time that a Libral student had ever challenged a teacher, but it was definitely a rare thing to see. The crowd stepped back from the stage and looked at Casavin and Sandoray. Soon enough, whispers sounded everywhere —
‘I got it, Sandoray is a Water wizard!’
‘Right, no wonder Casavin dares, plus he already has the firefairy ready!’
‘And thanks to Saja, the fairy actually became stronger than what he can manage to summon!’
Casavin heard the comments from the crowd and sneered. The crowd was right; this was exactly why he wanted to gamble. Now, the question was whether or not Sandoray was willing to take this unfair match, because once she did, Casavin could just let the fairy immediately charge at her with the glowing flame. In that case, the match sort of became Sandoray vs. Casavin plus Saja — besides that, Sandoray wouldn’t even have a chance to prepare her spell.
Everyone figured out Casavin’s plan and they were waiting for Sandoray’ call. Sandoray seemed to be pondering because of this, and she looked worried. Seeing her hesitation, the students were convinced that she felt threatened by the fairy and was not confident about this challenge. The atmosphere therefore became a bit embarrassing for Sandoray; the arena grew quiet, no one talked; only some faint breathing could be heard, and the ‘hoo hoo’ sound of the burning flame on the firefairy.
‘Casavin, you were exhausted in the last challenge, so it’s an unfair challenge for you. Besides, the fairy is too weak; I wouldn’t rely on it if I were you.’ after a few seconds, Sandoray asked, ‘Are you sure you want to challenge me, anyway?’
‘What?’ the crowd began whispering again, ‘Sandoray actually said that? Unfair to Casavin?’
‘Mam, feel free to destroy it if you think it’s too weak.’ Casavin raised his eyebrow upon hearing this; he was not convinced at all and believed the woman was just bluffing. ‘Now that it’s summoned, it’s a shame not to make full use of it.’
Hearing Casavin’s answer, Sandoray nodded. ‘Fair enough. Go ahead once you are ready, then.’
‘Okay… then can I attack now?’ Seeing Sandoray standing there totally unprepared, Casavin was feeling insulted and ready to show the lady some colours.
‘Yes, go ahead or you won’t have a chance later,’ Sandoray did not sound as if she cared at all.
‘Okay, watch out then!’ Casavin waved his wand and cast the firefairy at Sandoray. Sandoray simply raised her index finger and made a swinging motion, without chanting an incantation or even holding a magic wand.
In the next second, a bunch of long and thick ice arrows came out of nowhere, piercing the air and dashing towards the fairy, whishing.
‘Ahh!’ Casavin was knocked over before he had a chance to react; he did not even know what had happened. Part of the crowd, however, was lucky enough to catch the sparking view — the ice arrows pierced through the body of the firefairy in a blink and smashed into Casavin. In the next blink, Casavin was lying on the floor and Sandoray was just standing there watching; she didn’t even bother to follow up.
The whole crowd was in complete silence; all opened their mouths wide, in utter shock. After lying on the floor moaning for a few seconds, Casavin tried hard to beat the killing pain all over his body; he felt that he could have some broken bones. After pulling his upper body off the ground, Casavin found himself shocked again — his firefairy had shrunk to a quarter o
f its original size; the ice arrows had extinguished most of it during the momentary contact.
‘What the heck was that!’ Soarame would never have believed it had he not witnessed the whole thing with his own eyes. But then he recalled what his master had said before —
‘Among different lineages of magic, there’s no such thing as “stronger lineage” or “weaker lineage”; it’s all up to wizards’ power.’
‘Different lineages have pros and cons in different ways so they may counter one another in some cases, but no one is more powerful than another.’
‘For those that naturally counter each other, such as Water vs. Fire or Light vs. Darkness, the one with greater power wins every time; so it all depends on the individual’s power!’
‘Casavin, you are blindly confident in Fire,’ Sandoray was inscrutable, as always. ‘I’ve seen lots of students like yourself; you don’t get the big picture. There has never been such a thing as stronger or weaker lineage; Water magic is less powerful for attacking purposes only for Novices and Adepts, but not for an Expert.’
All were silent, witnessing the scary power of this beautiful yet cold lady. If not having seen it with their own eyes, no one would believe such a slim and delicate woman was actually so powerful.
‘As a student, being able to summon a fairy is impressive,’ Sandoray continued. ‘But in front of any teacher in the Institute of Libral, it’s just too weak.’ With that, the gorgeous icy lady swung her hand; a blast of freezing air poured out from her palm and covered the little fairy. After a fierce sizzling, the fairy simply vanished.
After that, for the first time Sandoray chanted some incantations, and a warm spray of mist covered Casavin. Casavin felt a gentle and refreshing wave flush down his body, after which all the burns and bruises started to heal.
Coming back to his senses, Casavin slowly got up and made sure he’d recovered. He had to admit that he was totally defeated. ‘Mam, how could you summon that many ice arrows within a blink of time? Is it your magigear?’
‘As a Grade 5, haven’t you heard about insta-cast?’ Sandoray asked in reply.
Hearing Sandoray, many students were enlightened. Performing magic instantaneously, aka insta-cast, was one of the criteria for becoming an Expert wizard. Any Expert is able to insta-cast spells that are relatively simple to them without incantations, wands, or drawing magic hexagrams. Therefore, there are huge differences between an Expert and an Adept, and this insta-cast ability is just one of them.
‘As a teacher in Water, I especially want to tell Water students about this. I know many students doubt the power of Water magic, but that’s because they haven’t got to see the real world beyond the campus,’ Sandoray looked around and continued. ‘A Master of Water can summon thousands of ice arrows with a single hand swing! That spell is well accepted to be one of the scariest spells, called purgatory storm!’
Upon Sandoray’ words, the Water students burst into cheering. Although Soarame had known all this from his master, he still could not help feeling proud; the doubts in his heart, raised by Casavin against Water magic, were totally gone. Now, Soarame truly wanted to learn Water magic!
As the challenges finished, the students spread out, leaving the arena and talking about what had happened along the way. The Water students, however, did not leave, but instead chose to have a party, because they had never been as excited as they were on this day.
Soarame joined them as one of the proud Waters, but he wanted to use the restroom first. Just when he turned around, he found his arm grabbed by someone from behind.
‘Hey you, where are you going?’ The voice was clear and sweet, with a hint of mischief. Upon hearing it, Soarame knew exactly who it was. Turning back, Soarame found Jemario tugging his arm and smiling. Jemario’s jade-like, glossy and slender fingers slid along Soarame’s arm, making him feel good for no reason he could understand. The consequence was that Soarame meant to say something, but found his mind sliding away; so he just stood there and stared at Jemario with his mouth half-open.
Subconsciously, Soarame watched Jemario in detail: graceful lavender hair fell in waves around her exquisite cheeks, limpid watery eyes shone through her elegant lashes. Under the golden afterglow of the evening, Jemario’s lavender dress clung to her slender, fairy body delicately; everything about her seemed so perfect, making Soarame lose his mind, unable to do anything but keep staring in silence.
Under Soarame’s stare, Jemario felt a little bit shy and made a soft ‘emm’. Soarame suddenly came to his senses, his cheeks flushed. ‘Sorry Jemario, that… err… that wasn’t on purpose.’
‘It’s okay, don't worry,’ Jemario was amused to see Soarame’s reaction.
‘I need to use the restroom; I’ll be back in a minute,’ Soarame noticed someone in the crowd was actually snickering, so he hurried off towards the exit of the arena.
‘Hey, the restroom is the other way!’ Jemario tried to remind Soarame, but he was already gone.
‘Oh god!’ Soarame ran for a while and finally stopped, still unsure of what the best thing to do in that scenario was.
Should I just leave like this? Should I go back? If I go back to Jemario, what should I say? Soarame was pondering for quite a while, but still did not get it. While Soarame was immersed in his inner disturbance, he felt his sleeve grasped by a hand again.
‘Hey you, where are you going?’
What? Really? Soarame couldn’t help breathing heavily. Jemario actually followed me here?
However, the second that Soarame turned around, his heart instantly sank; he was so disturbed that he had not even realised the voice was a boy’s.
‘What are you looking at?’ The male student was not happy with Soarame’s response to him — actually, there was no response. Soarame pulled himself together and looked at the boy, who was nearly a head taller than he was. ‘Robert?’
Ever since earlier at Aquamarine Sky, Robert had been paying attention to Soarame. That’s when everything started — until the duel challenge was done and Casavin beat Saja, and Sandoray taught everyone a lesson. But all the while, Robert never forgot to watch Soarame from a distance. After the party started, and with Soarame being so close to Jemario, Robert thought he wouldn’t have the chance, but he was overjoyed to see Soarame leave the arena alone.
‘Yes, Water Boy, it’s me,’ Robert sneered. ‘Where are the girls at? They ditched you?’
Soarame was not too stupid to figure out what was going on here, so he tried to walk past Robert and ignore him. However, Robert leaned over and knocked Soarame’s chest with his shoulder.
‘How dare you!’ Soarame was offended. ‘What do you want?’
‘You don’t turn your back to me, Water,’ Robert grabbed Soarame’s shoulder from behind and kept challenging him.
‘I just did. What can you do?’ Soarame felt his temper flare. Ever since he’d started learning magic back at home, his master had banned him from using magic against the schoolboys in the town and even asked him to avoid confrontation. Soarame used to be bothered about that; now that Robert’s challenge felt like the old days, Soarame would not swallow it again.
‘What can I do?’ Robert sneered. He pulled out his magic wand. ‘I want to make friends just like Casavin did; do you dare to duel, Water?’
‘Soarame! There you are!’ Before Soarame could say anything, a silvery voice rang through the air. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Vivarin?’ Soarame was surprised to see that Vivarin was leading a bunch of girls towards him. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Well, anything other than going to the restroom, apparently.’ Vivarin teased Soarame, taking a glance at Robert. ‘Is there a problem here?’
Robert was embarrassed, but before he figured out what to do, Soarame answered, ‘No, we were just talking. I will be back in a minute.’
‘No, it doesn’t work that way,’ Vivarin blocked Soarame. ‘Someone just said he’d be back in a minute, but now it seems he’s ditched his friend
s and is keeping them waiting.’
‘Err… sorry!’ Soarame scratched his head. ‘Okay, then, let’s go.’ Soarame stared at Robert and walked towards Vivarin.
‘Really, Water Boy?’ Robert was very unhappy to see Soarame walk away like this. ‘After all the big talk, you’re going to let the girls call the shots for you?’
‘Are you serious?’ Before Soarame could react, Vivarin cut it, ‘As a Grade 4, you challenge a freshman for a duel? Why don’t you go after Casavin? Your friend just got his butt kicked thanks to you!’
‘Shut up, this is none of your business!’ Robert was not happy because Vivarin had poked right at his sensitive point — the girl was right, that he was indeed the instigator of everything that had happened today.
‘Don’t you talk to my friend like that,’ Soarame said coldly as he stared at Robert. ‘You saw Casavin lose badly, and you still have problems with Water?’
‘Oh wait, I never said I had a problem with Water,’ Robert was clever enough not to break the rules of the school. ‘Now that Water is so great, why don’t we have a duel?’
‘You got it.’ Soarame glared at Robert. ‘We will have a duel when I reach Grade 4 in Water.’ Although Soarame had promised to keep his Wind magic secret, he so wanted to teach this Robert a lesson at once.
‘Soarame, that’s nonsense!’ Vivarin exclaimed. Although she had witnessed Casavin’s loss, Vivarin did not think Water could beat Fire at a low level; she argued against Robert, but she didn’t want Soarame to be humiliated in a match against him.
‘Ha-ha, nice try. I’m impressed,’ Robert laughed. ‘It will be long since I graduated by the time you reach Grade 4!’
‘No, you won’t,’ Soarame was very confident that he could reach Grade 4 in Water soon, because his mind ocean was already at Grade 4, enabling him to cast Grade 4 Water spells once he learnt them. It was actually the reason why Casavin had achieved Grade 5 in fire quicker than people expected; his mind ocean was Grade 5 thanks to his practice in Earth, so all he needed to do was to familiarise himself with Fire spells.