A noble's duel

With the spar in session, the two headed to the arena. Since Eliseline saw Savine cast spells with her own eyes, she didn't doubt her ability to spar. On the way, Savine explained what kind of fight it would be. A duel between mages with close quarter combat included.

"So a commoner's duel."

She sounded oddly excited.

"Hm?"

"That's what mages call that type of fight. The one where it's a melee with magic."

"Then what's a noble's duel? Magic only?" Savine laughed.

"Yes."

"Of course, and I'm guessing everyone prefers a noble's duel, since they're so much better than those magicless buffoons who can only fight with their fists and legs."

"Yes."

"Don't tell me they act the same even in real life fights, trying their best to not move their body a single inch?"

"Sometimes," Eliseline said and paused. "Most of the times."

"Right."

Eliseline looked down, seemingly troubled by Savine's words, but she eventually nodded. "…It's a problem. In my eyes."

"Since that's the case, we'll do a noble's duel," Savine said. "My goal is to learn how most mages fight, so we'll just do it the way they do. Tell me how- a noble's duel is conducted normally."

Eliseline nodded, albeit slightly disappointed. "For mages who have the same amount of mana, there are no restrictions, but if the difference between mana levels is high, both sides are limited to only a few spells at one time. If the weaker side wants to, there can also be a time limit."

Since it was an official duel, there were many rules and gimmicks. Of course, in a real fight, there would be none of this.

"Alright. Let's have a five-minute spar with two spells at a time only. We can't move our feet and whoever forces the other's Vasa off their hands wins."

"Okay."

The two arrived at the empty training hall and stood ten steps away from each other.

Savine was at ease. She nodded at Eliseline, offering the first strike. Since she still wasn't sure of the exact levels of this world, she couldn't strike first, lest she did something too out of the ordinary.

Thankfully, Eliseline wasn't polite, and she immediately started working on a spell. It was a fire-type spell.

'1, 2-'

Two and a half seconds later, the spell materialized, creating a giant curtain of fire in the air.

Eliseline then started working on the second spell. This one was a wind-type.

'1, 2, 3.'

A gust of wind passed through the curtain of fire, turning it much, much larger than the original.

As it traveled through the air, Savine held her Vasa up, and ordered the air in front of her to clear away. A wall of vacuum appeared before the fire and the moment the two made contact, the fire disappeared into nothingness.

Eliseline stared at the situation with interest, but Savine shook her out of her daze.

Two pellets materialized at the tip of her Vasa and Savine flung them towards Eliseline's hand. Eliseline canceled her two previous spells, before creating a draft before the pellets' path, steering them away from her.

With the first round over, a frown settled on Savine's face.

'Is that it?'

Eliseline's casting speed was fast, but not really worth mention, and she mistook creativity for skillfulness. Savine could understand her not knowing about vacuum, but why does she have to stare in a daze?

She thought of ending the fight then and there, but decided to give Eliseline a chance. Using a sizable chunk of her mana, Savine created an iron sword and sent it forward. Eliseline responded by pulling out the sword by her hip, but instead of wielding it with her hands, she took control over it with her mana. 

The two metals clashed in the air, but since Savine's was a hastily made lump of iron, it was quickly breaking. A second later, the sword did break into two, but Savine took control of both of them and attacked Eliseline's Vasa from both sides.

Just before one of Savine's blades made contact, a random burst of energy flew out of Eliseline's Vasa, followed by a loud bang. The process didn't even take a second. The broken sword flew away, whirling past Savine at deadly speeds.

A stream of mana rushed out of Eliseline's Vasa again. A mass of particles gathered at one spot in the air and a small spark of fire was ignited inside it. Five steps away from Savine, another explosion occurred.

A warning shot.

Another stream of mana appeared, and it stopped only two steps away from Savine. Once again, the air gathered, heralding another explosion.

Pleasantly surprised, Savine wondered how she should deal with this. She could forcefully displace it and end the fight or she could enter a battle of control with Eliseline.

Of course, Savine chose the latter.

Her own stream of mana appeared out of her Vasa and dispersed the gathered air. A spark of fire appeared briefly, but of course; no explosion occurred.

Savine then immediately tried to gather air around Eliseline's Vasa. She held back on her casting speed a bit, but Eliseline still managed to disperse the gathered air in time. But by the time she was finished with that, she needed to deal with another one of Savine's spells.

In only ten seconds, ten explosions that should've happened were prevented by Eliseline. But she knew it was a losing battle because Savine's casting speed was becoming faster and faster with each attempted explosion.

Eliseline looked bitter, like she knew that Savine could've set off the explosion if she really wanted to, but she was just testing her, seeing what she could do.

'She looks genuinely pissed,' Savine hummed.

Eliseline started to work on another spell. She decided to use her overwhelming advantage of mana. Her mana took control of every bit of air on her side, and she sent them all towards Savine.

Even if Savine wanted to wrest Eliseline's control over the approaching mass of air, her capacity wasn't enough for that. She was already halfway finished.

'Can't believe I'm resorting to this,' she scoffed at herself. 'But Eliseline needs to learn about this as soon as possible.'

Feeling awfully like she was giving excuses to herself, Savine gathered all of her remaining mana and gave them one order.

'Yank the Vasa off her hands.'

Vitalized by Savine's order, the mana transformed into a hand with physical form and it rushed towards Eliseline's Vasa. The speed of casting was no slower than Eliseline's explosions and

Eliseline noticed this weird phenomenon and tried to hide her Vasa, but the hand of mana simple phased through her body. It grabbed her Vasa and violently jerked it off her hands. Don't with its job, it dissipated into nothingness.

Eliseline stared at her Vasa that fell on the ground.

"What was that?"

"A bit of… the side of magic that you don't know of yet," Savine said, groaning.

She had used up too much of her usable mana, so she had none to contain the remainder of her untamed mana. Now, parts of the already tamed areas were now slipping her control.

"What do you mean?"

"I'll teach you later."