Chapter 33

There was actually more to the fight than just 'don't kill your opponent', no doubt Luvia was trying to be dramatic. Really, it was just basic etiquette things, like don't purposely blow up the building, don't hurt spectators blah blah, common sense things.

"This will be an open match, any spells are acceptable as long as the rules are followed." Luvia stated, facing the crowd, hyping it up.

She was really trying to embarrass Rin here, honestly this just went past amusing and fell flatly on annoying. I'm sure in her mind, this Alistair would defeat me then she would gloat and blow it up saying how 'Rin's Friend' was so easily defeated. Basically, just twisting in the knife after she won their earlier spar. Honestly, this is pretty tame for 'plots' go in this place.

"Can we just get on with this? I need to get back to my workshop." Rin replied with detachment, much to Luvia's annoyance. I smiled slightly, realizing that Rin also knew exactly what buttons to push on Luvia.

"Hmph, Lets see how long you can stay so relaxed." Luvia frowned, turning back to the arena. "Let me introduce our fighters! On the left we have Alistair Edelfelt, third son of the second branch family. Even with being the third child of the second branch family with no Crest of his own, he was able to pioneer a new path for his own Thaumaturgy only using the basics of our families' specialty."

Hoh? His own path, maybe that's why he was 'elevated' to the position of Luvia's bodyguard? She's the most talented of her family or did she have a sister? I vaguely recall that she was someone extremely important to their family line, basically one of or the next in line to lead. That's probably why she had several bodyguards following her around.

A branch family member, and not even the first child, no doubt he received very few resources and had to rely purely on his own skills and talent.

My interest was piqued now, a 'new path' I'm curious what he's used their Jewelcraft as a foundation to achieve? The barest of basics was known about Jewelcraft across the magical community, the non-scions would probably have a little bit more than that to work with.

"And how about a welcome to a new member of our prestigious institute, coming from the East, a first-generation magus and a Runecraft Practitioner, Wilhelm!" She exclaimed, intentionally iterating my background.

Well, wasn't that the unholy fucking trifecta of nonsense that the people here look down on. I could hear the laughs and jeers directed toward me and feigned ignorance, but I definitely remembered faces.

I looked around and caught Artoria's eyes. I raised an eyebrow as she looked back at me. Only receiving a small nod, but I could pretty much understand her message. It seems like I have her 'blessing' and I do want to leave a good impression.

Bounded Fields sprang up around us, a defense mechanism that allowed the fighting to not carry over to any bystander. Not something absolute but it was the bare necessary for a type of facility like this. Well, the facilities here were something admire, while not all that impressive on the surface, the ease of use and application was noteworthy.

"Begin!" Luvia shouted as all the mechanisms fell into place.

Well, bonus points to my opponent, he didn't act cocky and immediately acted, Reinforcement covered his body and I mimicked the action, but instead of charging right at me, he dashed to the side and threw a handful of gems into the center of the area.

No that wasn't quite right, they weren't quite 'gemstones' they were pieces, like a few were shattered into dozens of smaller ones, Topaz's if my eyes didn't fail me.

They sunk into the ground as their mysteries actualized, ignoring the tiles and other barriers to their target. It only took a moment for something to rise up.

"Golems, now that's a surprise." I said honestly. "And they even looked above average, curious, I know it takes a bit of effort to makes golems of this quality, and you did so instantly."

Alistair came from my side, every step he took practically dug into the ground as he charged with an overhead fist. I ducked, knocking his fist away and used his own momentum to throw him towards the wall.

Surprisingly, he was able to fold into my own 'attack' and reorganized his fall to catch himself from suffering any damage.

I suppose it has been a while since I've fought someone in hand-to-hand that could move at these kinds of speeds, perhaps I'm rusty? I felt a small smile form on my face as he moved back in ducking close to the ground and trying to sweep my legs by swinging both arms.

With a stomp on the ground I cast an Earth Wall right infront of me as his arms smashed it to pieces. With a wave of my hand, several runes appeared, floating in air infront of me. As the wall crumbled, they actualized, forming into flames and firing off like bullets towards my opponent who nimbly dodged each one.

Once again, I'm impressed. He shouldn't be any more than one or two years ahead of me yet he has a good amount of experience and spellcraft under his belt.

This time he chose to duck behind the pillars holding the ceiling up. Hats off to my opponent, his Golems didn't allow me breathing room as they also moved to surround and attack.

He also didn't reengage, opting to allow his disposable minions to wear me down and gauge my reaction. Say what you will about the Edelfelt, but they sure train theirs well.

Harass, immobilize, swarm. I could tell his strategy and it was both well made and a solid plan.

"Curious thing you are." I said idly as a massive stone 'fist' swept down at me. These things lumbered one or two heads over me, but they were a bit impressive on their feet. Their coordination wasn't bad either, were they perhaps mental commands from their caster or 'preprogrammed' already? They weren't stumbling over one another as they all closed in on me. Well, this would be uncomfortable if I allowed this to happen. I allowed runes to swirl around my hand, forming into a dozen Runic circles covering every side. "Lightning" I lazily called out as the large bolts discharged towards the closest ones, demolishing them with a frightening ease.

There were shouts of astonishment from the peanut gallery, I held back a smirk as I noticed Luvia's surprise.

"Now aren't you a gift that keeps on giving." I couldn't help but grin as I saw the bodies reform without any inherent damage to the golems. I loved to see new spells, especially ones like this that were very ingenious in their applications, but I think all good things must come to an end. "I believe I understand now." I stated, weaving throw the mass of stone limbs swung at me. "Distort" A simple illusion spell I learned from Skyrim, the numbers of me in the arena now number in the twenties as I confused the animated earth constructs.

This spell was quickly turning into one of my favorites.

"Topazes." I said decently loud, making sure to gather attention on me. "Jewelcraft and the Kabbalah. You use the connection Topazes have to Yesod of the Sefirot, a common enough application but quite intelligent. Specifically, you pull on the 'Tree of Life' to grant the golems 'life' at the obvious cost of the magical energy supplied via the Topazes. This also has the added benefit of not allowing them to 'die' while the Topazs still supply them with magical energy, but at the same time they are 'time-limited' but in a trade off their abilities are almost 'super charged' for the duration. This concept is mostly used in healing, but you are using it to sustain 'life' via magical battery and thus they are essentially 'immortal' until either the gem is removed or the magical energy runs out."

My praise wasn't unwarranted, this guy was truly talented. Well, since he showed me something so nice, I won't be too harsh, I think a week or so bedridden is enough of a punishment. I materialized the runes around me, moving my hands fast enough to string the sentences together, I intentionally chose something rather showy. I made a few calculations and first summoned a large Runic Circle under my feet to help facilitate casting and control the output to a more precise degree.

"Freezing winds of Jotunheim." I let my voice carry all across the arena.

The cold air exploded out from me, instantly freezing everything in the vicinity. It even crashed against the Bounded Fields in the area, cascading and threatening to break free from the confines. I made sure to reel back all the excess, but this was a spell that didn't want to be caged.

The Golems froze solid, unable to move and I assume I burned through their magical energy supply as they didn't even fight it after a bit.

The cold continued and the Bounded Field began to crack as the winds swept across the entire building. I reined it in as they rushed out, but I only allowed everyone here to get a little cold, forcing the spell to dissipate a few moments later.

The place was freezing and there was a deathly quiet in the air now. Every step I took on the new-found frost practically echoed throughout the arena as I approached the lump of Ice that was my opponent.

A small tap and it shattered, Alistair falling to the ground on his back, his breathing a little haggard, but he still tried to jump up. I merely slammed my foot on his stomach, causing him to slightly cough blood.

"You lost." I narrowed my eyes down at him, daring him to say otherwise.

He just responded with a meek nod.

I let off him, taking a step back and sweeping my gaze across the crowd, I met the eyes of anyone who dared to look back.

By all means, insult me based on my craft or heritage, I welcome it.

But it seemed like no one was keen on speaking.

"Well, Alistair should be fine if you want to go retrieve him." I walked over to Luvia with a smirk on my face. I didn't want the guy to die, he hasn't even said a word to me, merely following the directions of his 'family head' or whatever. And he was quite talented, it would be a shame if he died like this.

"You…..how?" Luvia looked utterly dumfounded.

"How unthoughtful I seemed to have forgotten to full introduce myself again." I gave an exaggerated bow. "Wilhelm Henry Schweinorg." Gods I loved saying that.

"S-Schweinorg?" She stuttered as her face paled.

And there it is. The peanut gallery also was having a conniption I think I saw a few that were throwing around insults previously bolt out of the area. Good luck with that, I can be a right petty bastard sometimes, pray you don't meet me again.

"How was that, pretty good, right?" I looked towards Rin and Artoria. The latter of whom just nodded like she expected it. Yeah, she probably saw through me already, but Rin seemed a bit surprised at my power.

But I think she just pushed all that away as an evil smile grew on her face and she turned towards Luvia.

***

"Her face! It was priceless!!" Rin laughed heartily as we walked down the halls. "And then you were like 'Excuse me I wouldn't want my Asian Barbarianism to contaminate you any longer' when she tried to apologize after hearing your name!"

"Yeah she was getting on my nerves." I just nodded, I wasn't going to hold Rin's hand all the time and try to meddle with her issues, but some lines needed to be drawn.

"She should keep her head down for a while now, alteast I won't have to hear that bitch's laugh until her family is done punishing her." Rin happily jiggled the bag full of jewels. "And she has to pay me even more gems! I wish I could see the look on her face when she has to go to her family and beg."

"Well, I'm glad you like my present." I just smiled, recalling a few memories of this girl from my last life. It was amusing how she never even considered 'declining' the gift I gave her.

"…..are you really Zelretch's grandson? You said you were a first-generation." She looked at me as we turned a corner.

"We have no blood connection, if that's what you're wondering." I said honestly. "But yes, we are related and the best way I chose to address it was being his Grandson, it makes it simpler for all involved."

She just signed. "You have that same 'I know more than you' look that the old man does."

Really? I need to check that out in the mirror and learn how to do it intentionally.

"I wonder if he's home…." I said quietly as we approached his 'room'. It was more like an underground mansion. The place was hard to describe, a lot of the infrastructure was actually underground as it got closer to the tomb with the better atmosphere for experiments. "Lets see if I remember how to do this." I began tapping the door in various places. There was no 'handle' it was magically locked in a very intricate way, but it seemed like it was the same as I recalled. " There we are." I said as the doors disengaged and all the traps and defense turned off.

"I guess you really do know him then." Rin finally acknowledged "I don't think anyone would be brave enough or stupid enough to actually try to break into here."

"You'd be surprised." I said with a small chuckle. 'He' didn't get that mask of a Prankster without good reason. In fact, it all started with some idiot breaking into his(my) workshop and stealing an old prototype for his jeweled sword. You throw one guy into a dimension filled with some very affectionate tentacle monsters and suddenly you're a 'prankster'. "Wonderful, he isn't here yet!"

"Why is that wonderful?" Rin looked at me in confusion and Artoria followed us inside. She seemed relaxed enough, I guess they've both been here long enough to not tip toe around everything. But she also seemed rather relaxed in my presence, not nearly as on guard as I would have imagined.

This was technically Zelretch's 'Workshop' but really only one room was dedicated to that, another was for Rin's own workshop and various other living spaces. Hell, there was a room that was specifically Zelretch's office, the target of my attention. "Because I can now raid his liquor cabinets."

"Will you now?" A voice grabbed all our attention, and I felt a chill run up my spine as my eyes widened. The family face that I saw a thousand times when I peered into the mirror of my memories, the same eyes, the same 'look'.

I didn't even fucking sense him, I didn't feel any speck of his presence as he used the Kaleidoscope to appear here.

"Master." Rin said respectfully.

"Rin, I hear you got into a fight today." He smiled ever so gently, but dear god did it give me anxiety for some reason.

It was like an invisible pressure weighing down on me.

[He's strong] Ddraig spoke up. [Your memories don't really do it justice.]

Yeah, I was really a monster in my previous life.

"It was nothing, just a stupid spar." Rin huffed in annoyance and Zelretch just chuckled, turning towards Artoria.

"What a beautiful flower." He flipped his hand revealing an elegant vase with some water already inside it. "It would make a lovely decoration."

"Thank you, Wizard-Marshall." Artoria said respectfully.

"And my 'Grandson.'" His eyes bore down on me, I felt so insignificant for the briefest of moments before he pulled back, I was moments away from doing something to diminish the pressure myself. "I see." He stroked his chin. "I assume we have quite a bit to discuss."