A Tough Duel

The two students looked at each other for a long, intense second.

Cecil lifted up his arm, pointing his curved sword at Alen.

"You'll disappoint everyone, Mr. Alen. Especially me"

Cecil started to slowly approach Alen with his weapon in front of him.

"I have... my own ways of fighting"

Alen quickly retreated once again.

"He's running away again?"

"I'm starting to doubt that he beat that lich"

"Alen!" Lyon Alva shouted.

"You coward!"

"[Flamethrower]"

The lion prince managed to cast a tier two spell while Alen wasn't paying attention.

Flames erupted from the demi-human's hand.

Being followed by that spell, Alen quickly hid behind some rocks. But the intense and continuous heat building up from the fire spell began to melt the rock he was hiding in.

"You can't hide from only one attack. There're two opponents"

Cecil appeared in front of Alen and slashed away with his sword.

Alen managed to parry Cecil's attack with his dagger, causing sparks to fly away.

"Why are you fighting like this? Just running away?"

Alen didn't answer him.

"Alen!"

Both students looked up and saw the demi-human prince quickly descending on top of them.

The two of them stopped clashing blades and separated with a jump in opposite directions.

Once Lyon fell on the ground, causing smoke to rise, Alen quickly retreated further away.

"What's wrong with Alen? He never fought like this when I got the chance to see him in a spar or a duel" Theo squinted his eyes in confusion.

Fran clicked her tongue "Tch... just wait, there's got to be a reason as to why Alen is running away so much"

Both Lyon and Cecil decided to ignore each other and focus on Alen.

Lyon began to follow behind Alen, catching up to him.

"Why are you running away, coward!"

Lyon swung his axe horizontally.

Bam.

The attack was easily dodged with a quick duck, causing it to hit and shatter some rocks.

"Dark clouds, the ones who bring with them a storm that causes every single loving being to be terrified of your pressence. Grant me your power to smite all the enemies who wronged me in my life"

[Lightning Bolt]"

"[Wind Ram]"

Alen saved Lyon from Cecil' spell.

The Lightning Bolt hit the wall of a rocky formation, causing a big hole on it.

"He... saved Lyon...?" Cole scratched his head, unable to understand what Alen's plan was.

"You..."

Lyon's pride was hurt by what Alen just did.

Not only is Alen not taking this duel seriously, but he also uses a quick and harmless spell to push him away from Cecil's attack.

With a sudden burst of anger fueled power, Lyon jumped to where Alen was.

Lyon swung his axe horizontally.

"Stop... dodging and fight!"

But Alen kept the same approach to this fight, avoiding every attack and running away.

In a single moment, Cecil also jumped in on the flurry of attacks that the demi-human prince was throwing.

"I'm di-"

Before Cecil could finish his sentence, Alen interrupted him.

"[Sandstorm]"

A sudden sandstorm came out of Alen's hand.

Now, both students were inside Alen's territory. A place where they can't properly see and have to defend themselves.

They could try to escape the sandstorm, but Alen could easily take advantage of an attack from behind.

Clang.

Smash.

Two sounds were heard inside the sandstorm, a clash of weapons, and an attack that connected on the ground.

Both student raised their guards, thinking that Alen was attacking the other one.

"[Whisper Current]"

Alen cast a spell in the lowest tone he could muster.

The wind spell was cast at Lyon's right side, making him hear the swing of a weapon.

The demi-human responded with a counterattack, striking the ground.

To his surprise, there was a response. He got cut on his right side.

Lyon tried to guide himself using his other senses, trying not to rely on his eyes. And he found where the cut came from.

Lyon swung his axe around once again, and this time, it was met with a parry.

And so, a back and forth of attacks between Lyon and the one on the receiving end began.

He managed to slip some attacks past the other one's defense, but he was also struck by some attacks that got past his defense.

The exchange continued until his own weapon slipped out of his hand, and he felt a cold steel pressing on his throat.

For most, this is the point where they'd give up. But Lyon had to prove himself, so he grabbed the edge with his bare hand and felt how blood started to flow.

He kicked the other person away, succesfully disarming them.

And that's when both him and the other person realized that...

"The sandstorm ended!"

"Lyon and Cecil..."

Lyon's uniform and body were covered in fresh cuts.

He looked at the weapon he was holding. It wasn't a dagger. It was a saber.

Cecil, although he had more bruises, also had cuts all over his uniform.

They've been tricked into fighting against each other instead of fighting against Alen.

They looked up, above a rocky formation, and they saw an intact Alen standing on top.

"Winds that flow the fastest. Rain on my enemies a storm of quick and unending darts"

"[Feather Darts]"

Due to their now damaged state, both participants ran away and hid behind rocks.

"Now Cecil and Lyon are the ones running and hiding"

"What kinda spell did he use to make them fight inside the sandstorm?"

"And he didn't use incantationless..."

"He did... when he saved Lyon from Cecil's attack"

"Is he just sending a message... like... I'm so strong that I don't even need to use my full power?"

The students began to talk and speculate about the match they were watching.

...

...

"Whait... isn't that feather dart lasting a lot?"

"What do you mean?"

"There are... two kinds of spells. The ones whose damage change between different incantations, and the ones that change something else"

"Feather darts forms don't change in damage. A quick Feather dart does the same damage as a neutral or a strong one. The difference is the amount of darts the spell throws"

"And this... isn't normal"

The students and teachers watched in awe at the display Alen was giving.

A truly never-ending storm of feather-looking darts was raining on the arena.

"I-it's even... beginning to shatter the rock"

The spell regarded as weak for doing almost no damage was shattering a rock, a feat thought to be impossible for that spell.

The sheer quantity of darts that kept falling on the arena were slowly chipping away the rocks being used as cover.

Alen had been taking advantage of the refund of a failed spell to make a seemingly infinite spell.

When he was learning to cast this spell, he found out that the spell wasn't completed until every single dart was fired.

Meaning that he could fire almost every single dart, fail the spell at the last second, and cast it again immediately thanks to the refund.

The hardest part about this technique is that the timing is quite precise.

"Th-that's... insane..."

At this point, even the second and third years that thought less of Alen began to look at him in a different way.

!!!

The spell stopped. Alen had just misstimed the manual fail and had consumed mana.

"Almost four minutes of that spell... that has to be a new record"

Alen clicked his tongue as he saw the two other participants come out of their hiding spot and grab their weapons.

But now they were more cautious.

Alen's feat invaded their minds, thinking that he could very well do the same thing again to prevent them from climbing to where he is.

So they began to cast their spell.

"[Explosion]"

The two of them arrived at the same conclusion.

If they can't climb to where he is, they'll destroy the place he's standing on.

The tier two fire spell was directed towards the base of the rocky formation Alen was on.

The formation shattered and crumbled.

"He just stayed there!?"

Alen did not move from his position. He fell with the formation.

The two other participants were astonished that Alen decided to stay there.

"Fighting Alen seems kinda... infuriating..."

"I get it... he doesn't react how you'd expect someone normal to do"

Once the smoke and dust were cleared, you could see Alen in the middle of the now destroyed formation.

"Now you have nowhere to run, Mr. Alen"

"I can still run away" Alen's pupils scanned the entire place in search of a new strategy.

"You won't!"

"Gr-"

Lyon's incantation was cut off by one of Alen's throwing knives.

Right now, Alen was cursing his lack of talent to learn new spells. Even with his incantationless casting that sped up the process, it still took him two days to learn only three simple tier one spells.

That's when he finally noticed that... learning is fun.

Learning new spells, figuring out different ways to abuse the mechanics that no one else knows about.

He wanted to just ditch the plot of the game and simply learn magic on all forms.

But he couldn't do that.

He has to make sure that Kaida grows into her strongest self to stop an apocalypse from happening.

He wants to save his family from being killed off.

He wants to save the villainess that became his friend.

"This is a great moment to experiment with new strategies" Alen sighed.

"You're not even taking us seriously" yelled the demi-human prince.

"I am" was the only thing Alen said.

"[Feather Fall]"

"..."

"Did you... cast a wrong spell on accident Mr. Alen?" Cecil asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, this is exactly the spell I need"

Whether that was true or not was something Alen was about to find out in just a moment.

"You... take us seriously!"

Lyon ran to Alen and swung his axe at him.

Alen dodged his attack by bending his back and throwing his legs up.

Thanks to the slowed fall caused by the spell, he had enough time to cross his legs on Lyon's chest.

Alen grabbed Lyon's dominant hand and immobilized it with his whole body.

He then placed his dagger on Lyon's throat.

"[Wind Hammer]"

A horizontal wind attack hit Lyon's face.

Alen knew that Lyon wouldn't just give up, so he had to knock him out.

And a strong wind hammer in the face did just the right job.

Lyon was sent flying backwards, and Alen let go of him before that.

Alen stuck the landing thanks to his unique passive and the slowed fall.

Lyon Alva fell to the ground and did not wake up.

"Student Lyon Alva has been knocked out. He can't keep fighting. " Announced the teacher in charge of overseeing this duel.

"I've never seen that spell used like that..."

"I... I always thought that its only use was to... you know... slow down a fall while exploring..."

"The most I've seen it being used on a fight is on long ranged duels which elevated terrain... never in a close ranged fight"