Nico felt calm.

Inside the veil, Pullman stood in a minefield of glowing, imbued spell arrays, ready to empower a spell at a moment’s notice. Auto-Scan copied the patterns of each of the arrays. Nico was fairly sure he’d seen four of the spells before. Those formations were variations of Gallahad’s water array.

Nico invested five percent of his MP into his new prana piercing formation, drawn on his forearms,hidden beneath his long shirt. At Fu’s, he removed the magic from the array on his hands, and wiped off the permanent black marker with a lemon provided by Fu.

His new array relied more on the prana-piercing activity of his Auto-Scan. It was the magical equivalent of turning up the sound to a radio station. He had streamlined his magic, combining his arrays with the natural abilities provided by Measure.

Windows appeared. The first was Perry Pullman’s profile with the basic information Nico had seen before. His eye color, height, probably grip strength, and even estimations of what he could bench press at a one rep max. Most weren’t relevant, but he absorbed the information just in case

One status did catch his attention.

[Mood: hostile.]

The other windows each had estimations of each of the spells, cross referencing them with Nico’s previous experience with Pullman’s magic. They would help Nico anticipate which spells Gallahad would cast and when.

The rest of the arrays, he’d never seen before, and had no foundation in Gallahad.

Five windows appeared in his vision, each detailing plans he created to deal with Pullman.

“Dismiss Plan A,” Nico muttered, taking cautious but confident steps toward the murderer.

Plan A relied on the stupid hope Pullman had not prepared arrays before their meeting. Nico would have burst-jumped and used his hidden ace right away. It needed the element of surprise, and the mechanical precision provided by Measure.

The last time he’d been in this same veil, the inside of it was an exact replica of Larkin Square, down to the movement of the wind and light coming from the outside. If a hedge mage had wandered into the park, they wouldn’t have noticed they were in a veil unless they were looking for one.

Now, the grass was a sickly violet, and the dirt shimmered with an unearthly pale light. The veil was on the verge of collapse.

Pullman stood arms crossed, stance wide, each boot planted firmly on top of a spell array that glowed with so much power that Nico did not need his mind formation to see them. The man clearly wanted to make a show of his power.

If Nico even attempted to cast a spell or draw an array, Pullman would have the advantage of a few seconds per spell, which was the crucial difference between life and death. What Pullman did not know was that Pullman had already begun the fight by divining any information that could be useful once the spells were cast.

Nico stood exactly thirty one yards.away from the array beneath Pullman’s left foot.

Pullman’s eyes squeezed at Nico, suspicious..

Nico dismissed one of the windows after reading it.

[Pullman’s water jet spell.

Estimated range: 30 feet]

Nico’s hands were at his side, but he lifted them up slowly, the universal sign among magicians that they meant no harm. Despite that, he invested magic into his ash summoning array he’d drawn on the heels of his shoes. He’d felt like an idiot not drawing them there sooner.

Pullman’s hands were at his side, but his elbows were bent and his shoulders hunched, reminding Nico of an experienced boxer. When he spoke, his tone was all business. “I see no grimoire in your hands.”

Nico looked at the window containing Plan B.

It involved conversation, to convince Pullman that there was no grimoire. Even if Nico revealed everything he knew, including what he was sure was the true secret of the tower, Pullman was sure to dismiss him. Regardless, Nico Scanned Pullman’s body language, tone, and overall demeanor to assess the chance he was open to listening.

[Chance of Pullman willing to listen for more than five seconds to your explanation: 8%]

Nico grinned, dismissing Plan B.

That was expected. He actually preferred this. Even though it was the route with no violence, the last thing he wanted was to share his discovery with the man who had killed five people.

Pullman’s eyes widened, bloodshot with fury and exhaustion. His fingers flexed into a claw like motion. The air beneath him nearly crackled with will and power. “I’ve had enough of your games. If you left it with your friend or with Fu, I will simply beat you to the edge of your life, and bring your near-corpse to their doorstep for the grimoire.”

Nico kept his hands up, but let his knees sink, ready to move. The languid calm before the heat of battle washed over him like the shadow of a passing cloud. He invested two more percent of his MP into Scanning Pullman’s hostile mood for an exact percentage. A minute had passed since he entered the veil. He automatically regenerated one percent of his magic.

He didn’t have much to say at this point. Any words would not prove fruitful. And yet, he couldn’t resist a jab. “You’re a disappointment of a magician and a failure to the line of Gallahad.”

Time for Plan C.

Gray ash streaked in perpendicular lines from Nico’s heel. Thirty arrays of ash appeared in a radius of ten yards around Nico. Two percent of his MP bar drained. One array was summoned conveniently only a half an inch away from his foot.

Before he had the time to step on it and solidify the formation with magic, a beam of oscillating water smeared the array with the power of an industrial power washer.

Nico burst-slid to the array on his left. As soon as his shoe touched the array, it solidified with the barest hint of power.

Pullman’s left point finger straightened and curled. The water jet banked ninety eight degrees toward Nico.

It sprawled into a million drops as it crashed into Nico’s unwavering will hovering above the modified control formation. This array was specifically modified to convert both the water magic and the kinetic energy of its oscillation as separate forms of power, funneling back into air magic.

In less than a quarter of a second, the oscillating water splintered into the array, and slit the air between Nico and Pullman with invisible air t three times the power of the original spell.

Nico didn’t wait for it to hit, burst-jumping in a perfect parallel to the ground, only a few inches above the dirt. While in the air, his shoe tapped four arrays, solidifying them against future attacks.

He landed on Gallahad’s fire formation, and drained twenty percent of his magic. His hands clapped together, squeezing a new flame in the flat of his palms. The heat tingled his skin. He quickly released the flame before it burned him.

Pullman dropped to a horse stance and threw his elbows in an uppercut. A river with a face gushed from the ground. Its mouth opened large enough to eat two people at once.

Before the river-face could swallow the cloud entirely, Nico’s flame connected with the cloud and expanded at the concentrated oxygen. It was the closest Nico could come to making a fireball that wouldn’t drain all of his magic. The river’s mouth bit down over the dense ball of flame.

It squirmed, and the red hot heat beneath it expanded into bulbous masses until the river-face exploded into steam.

Nico burst-slid to another formation, tapping two more on the way, solidifying them against abrasion and foreign magic. His MP bar drain to half as he sowed it into the formation. Pure force stormed from the array through Nico. It surged to the tips of his fingers and snapped the air like a crack of thunder.

The pure invisible force haunted Pullman’s flank, colliding into his side. Pullman grunted as another crack hung in the air.

[Pullman’s arm is sprained]

The older magician threw his other hand up to his face, bit his thumb, and lashed blood at the fog. Power invaded Nico’s will, and before he realized what was happening, the connection between the spell and his will severed.

A window warned Nico, but he burst-jumped ten yards before he could even read it.

[Atmospheric temperature dropping at a rate of ten celsius per second]

By the time Nico landed, the fog had frozen into three hundred twenty one shards of ice. They hung in the air for a brief half second, enough time for Nico to realize he landed on a control formation.

He quickly solidified it with magic, draining most of the remainder of his magic into it.

The shards swiveled to face Nico all at once. Pullman spread his fingers, and the shards swooped toward him like a flock of knives.

Shit. They moved at varying speeds.

Nico’s mind practically burned to calculate as many of their trajectories as possible, only managing to dodge a few as he converted twenty eight percent of them into pure force.

Pullman rode a wave of water and made a crushing motion with his hand. The ground beneath Nico rocked, shifting and crumbling from solid ground into dirt.

Nico’s array broke apart.

All the force magic he meant to throw at Pullman dispersed into the atmosphere. The shards of ice melted, each growing into small pools. They slunk into the wave, and the wave toppled over Nico.

He tumbled under the wave, struggling for the surface. But the surface was constantly shifting.

Two well-worked hands gripped themselves around Nico’s scrawny neck. Pullman’s shadow waded above him as Nico panicked for air.

The grip tightened. Nico’s neck burned. His own hands tried to pry Pullman’s away, but he was too weak.

A hundred windows flashed in his vision, warning him of his doom.

Nico ran out of air, and swallowed water. He kicked underneath the ever-moving wave, but found no ground to push himself off of. This was it. He would die here, with no power and hope.

Pullman lifted Nico out of the water, and Nico coughed it out as much as he could.

“Where is my goddamn grimoire!” Pullman screamed. His face was red, lined with exhaustion, and expression fueled by undisguised hate and desperation.

Nico swallowed for air. Pullman gave him a second to say something, but Nico used that time to throw a weak punch at the man’s chin. It connected, but the only thing it earned him was another drink.

Pullman pushed him back in the water.

Nico held his breath for as long as he could to try to think of something, but one of Pullman’s grips loosened.

The water around Nico’s sternum dried. Pullman’s fist socked Nico’s sternum, and all the air escaped from Nico’s lungs.

Nico invested as much of his magic he had left until he was at one percent into the burst formation in his shoes. Without solid ground to push off of, the energy kicked his knees to his chest and thinned out into the water.

Fear and the base human need for oxygen eroded any clear thoughts in Nico’s mind.

Pullman pulled him out of the water and let him catch his breath. The anger on his face was gone. His expression cooled to that same distant look he had when he killed Yuri.

From that look, Nico knew he would soon meet his end.

“Where is the grimoire?” Pullman asked calmly, his tone absent of any emotion.

Measure quickly allowed him two clear thoughts as soon as he caught his breath.

First, Nico would not have another chance after this. Second, he had no magic left to cast a spell or empower a formation. He locked eyes with Pullman and grinned. “Time for Plan D.”

Pullman frowned, his expression like a disappointed father. In that look, Nico saw a part of himself, someone who desperately wanted a connection through magic. But that was all he could see of himself.

“A shame,” Pullman said, and dunked Nico back in the ever-moving wave.

Once again, the water around Nico’s stomach vanished, and he was punched once more, all air escaping him.

Nico dismissed all windows in his vision and summoned his status window, focusing two statuses.

[Oxygen efficiency.]

The grey bar in his HUD drained by a twentieth of its size.

[Oxygen efficiency doubled temporarily]

Nico was out of breath, but he felt like he could still go without air for a full minute.

Pullman’s grip around Nico tightened even more. In less than thirty seconds, Nico was certain his neck would snap, long before he ran out of oxygen.

Nico drained more of his grey energy, converting it into the other stat in his status window.

[Grip strength tripled for five seconds]

His fingers jabbed between Pullman’s grip and his neck. With a strength he never had in his life, Nico pried Pullman’s grip as easily as opening a jar of pickles. His fingers clasped Pullman’s wrist like a steel vice.

His gray energy drained a little again, converting into magic. Nico’s MP bar rose instantly by ten percent capacity. Five minutes had passed since his last attempt at a burst jump, so he was a total of sixteen percent.

Nico didn’t need a ground to jump off of. He only needed something solid.

He gripped Pullman’s wrists as the last of his boosted grip strength faded, tucked his knees to his chest, and planted the balls of his shoes into Pullman’s chest.

Nico invested ten percent of his power into the arrays on his shoes and burst-jumped away from the ever-moving wave.

The water evaporated as Pullman was suddenly knocked back.

Before Nico smashed into the ground, his hand moved with mechanical precision, dug into his pocket, and pulled out several coins. He twisted midair with the grace of an Olympic athlete and landed on solid ground, stance confident and ready.

Pullman smacked into the ground, skidding across the dirt like a skipped stone. He struggled to get back up, but he was back on his feet. The side of his face was marred with stone, dirt, and blood. His left eye was completely filled with blood.

The man bellowed out a horrific scream of scarlet hate. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

Nico allowed himself a few seconds to catch his breath.

He watched as his gray energy bar drained and his MP bar rose steadily. All the former panic he felt inside the wave was gone. Plan D was a go.

Nico plucked a coin from his hand and said plainly, “Time for round two, you piece of shit.”

He threw the coin.