I narrowed my eyes, “Attack me with all you have.”

The girl seemed to hesitate a bit before standing up and prepared her wand by holding it like a fencer would do his sword. I watched closely as she twirled her wand tip, gathering magic strands into a bizarre-looking pattern before sending it my way with a flick of her wrist. With a bit of a slow speed, the pattern approached silently until midway it erupted into a contained ball of fire. Out of instinct I snatched the ball of flames midair and sent it right back to her causing her to fluster and try to divert its course. She held her wand out and when it was finally in range flicked the tip to the side, sending the fireball with it. I got to give it to her, a relatively decent attack and decent defense. At least better than what I have seen from others so far. She began to wave the wand's tip in a circular pattern causing several what can be described as magic bullets my way at a very quick speed. Feeling kind of mischievous I altered the bullet's trajectory to loop back and merge into a proper magic missile, which threatened to pierce the girl’s head. Thinking on her feet she did not, in fact, do the sensible thing (dodge), but created a sloping shield of magic which caused my half hazard magic missile to unravel and explode. The sloping shield, which deflected most of the force behind the missile, was a good idea but it would have been more energy conserving to just move her head by a couple of inches.

Instead of getting dazed she gathered leftover magic from the explosion and sent several more strange amalgamations of magic into the ground. A spear of earth erupted from my feet and tried to impale me, but I repeated my trick and just sent It right back to her. That shield won’t help you now girly. Caught off guard once again she only barely managed to successfully duck as the earthen spear flew overhead. Seeing her unguarded back I made a snowball and nailed her right where the heart was situated. With a huff, she got up and resumed her attacks. I had to say, I was kind of warming up to this strange method of magic. It seemed relatively cheap to cast while still being versatile. It was lacking power but overall, not that bad. The only thing I found stupid about it was the need for a wand.

I watched the girl's every move like a hawk, studying her control and movements. Soon gained sufficient knowledge to replicate almost all her spells. I gave a malicious smirk as I prepared my offensive. I deflected another magic bullet and sent it back making her raise a shield. While she focused on the weak bullet, I replicated her earth spear attack, knocking her off balance. Her shield weekend slightly and I sent a missile towards her head, resulting in a panicked duck. Closing the distance between us, I grabbed her unguarded back, and with a heave, I tossed her through the air and into a nearby snowdrift. Overall, I’d say she could probably only take on a few of the local pescatarian deer. I brushed off my hands and formulated a plan. She obviously has no or limited experience in magic duels. I can’t have that, now can I?

Her spell work on the other hand was halfway decent, if not great. With a lack of experience in combat, she makes up with speed and precision. Two things that her school of magic seems to not excel at. But there is a problem with that, like most of these self-contained schools of magic, it was structured to combat others of the same school. A common problem when all you must practice against is others from the same school. It is hard to fix such a problem and what many people use is another school of magic. By taking the strongest parts of said school and combining it with something that covers its weak spots, and you have something usable. What would pair well with the girl’s school though? Speed is the most important problem, judging by how long she took to cast even the most simplistic attacks, any warrior worth his salt can close the distance and eliminate the threat.

Something immediate would be ideal, it also needs to be relatively simple as well. A thought struck me; those designs her magic used appears to be similar to web runes. It may be possible to Ingrain them into the wand to allow instantaneous casting. I’m getting ahead of myself, let's focus back on the problem at hand. The best method may be the old blood hunter style, instantaneous and powerful but a bit pricy. A good match with the slow but cost-effective spider method. Spider method is what I’m going to call it for now as it matches the slow weaving required to cast the spell. Plus, I’m 90 percent sure that it’s plagiarized from the orb weavers.

POV shift---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My head thrummed with pain from the overexertion, but my heart filled with joy. I had never seen such mastery of magic, even from the royal magus. That bastard oath breaker won’t know what hit him. I was barely able to escape my snowy incasing as the headache rocked me. I launched every attack I could for minutes on end while defending myself from the frequent return attacks. Instead of being disheartened that none of my attacks made it through, I was ecstatic over the fact that I was about to be taught by such an individual. With anticipation dulling the pain I watched as the man looked off to the side in thought. My mind went over possibilities, will he teach me an ancient supreme spell or give me some primordial artifact? Will he give me some magic concoction that will push my body to the limit? He already gave me such a powerful wand, what else can he give?