Derek looked at the young man across from him. He ran through the ways he could fight Tristan in his head, discarding the way he had beaten him before and finally settling on the one that would be the simplest and have the least chance of failure. The pressure was intense as he knew the young mage was every bit as talented and skilled as he was.

“Begin,” The official shouted, starting the fight.

Derek Immediately cast a wind based enhancement on himself, raising his speed without consuming too much mana and time. He then sprung to the left, barely dodging the first of Tristan’s attack spells, a series of Wind Bolts that tore the ground where he had just been. Meanwhile, he began slashing out with weapon channeling spells, several arcs of white light lancing out at his friend.

Tristan saw the incoming Dispels and also dodged to the left, floating three meters above ground with his customary wind based enhancement. Derek’s spells continued past Tristan, splashing harmlessly into the shields protecting the spectators while Tristan began casting a barrage of Flame Bullets. Seeing them coming towards him Derek continued dodging left but this time angled further inwards, towards the middle of the tournament platform. He ducked low to avoid the last of Tristan’s spells and shot out three more of his Dispels upwards to keep the pressure on the young mage.

At this point, Derek had closed a third of the initial distance between the two of them, but Tristan also drifted backwards while continuing his clockwise rotation. This opened the distance with Derek back up, but Tristan was running out of room to retreat. Also, the height difference between the two of them gave Derek more dimensions to dodge Tristan’s attacks than if they were both standing on the ground, requiring Tristan to cast more spells to cover more angles of escape.

Derek smiled as he saw his friend calculating the trends of the fight. He knew Tristan wasn’t a fool, so he raised his senses to the utmost to attempt to sense what changes the young mage would make to try to counter him. Sure enough, Derek sensed a distortion in the Earth mana below him. Casting quickly, he formed a series of solidified Wind ‘steps’ and sprinted upwards and forwards while the ground below him erupted in jagged Earth Spikes. One managed to strike his Shield spell before he could get high enough to escape the range of the attack, draining his mana slightly.

Derek could hear the excitement of the Arena crowd as the two continued to clash. Now that the two were both in the air, the fight took on far more dimensions as Derek attempted to approach while Tristan attempted to keep the distance. A series of Flame Bullets and Wind Blades were met by brilliant flashes of weapon channeled Dispels as Tristan attempted to kite Derek around the space over the platform. Most of these didn’t connect, instead splashing harmlessly on the shield around their platform.

But occasionally one or two strikes would connect, but Derek’s shield remained strong. Tristan, on the other hand, had come up with an excellent counter to the Dispels. He had layered a series of low mana cost Shields around himself that would consume the Dispels before they could interfere with his Wind enhancement. It was clever, but Derek smiled when he saw this. No matter how low cost they were, they were still a mana expenditure, and Derek was certain that his friend had consumed far more mana than himself. With their Mana Pools being almost equal in size, Derek was certain he could win the match trading like this.

Derek’s only concern was that he knew Tristan was smart enough to understand this. He knew that his friend’s mind was far more sinister than his. It was true that Tristan was an excellent mage, but if that was it, then Derek would be fine. Derek could be considered an excellent mage himself. Derek had other talents to support him, but so did Tristan. Tristan’s mind never stopped gathering information, cataloguing it, and considering how to use it.

Derek knew that the situation could change at any moment so he continued to pressure his friend while staying as alert as possible. Finally, it looked like Tristan had nowhere to go, Derek had pushed him into a corner and managed to get slightly above him as well to cut off escape. It was then that Derek sensed the changes as Wind mana started gathering around Tristan.

Tristan cancelled his Wind enhancement that had kept him flying and settled gently in the corner as further wind mana gathered into the spell he was casting. Sensing the danger from that spell, Derek dismissed his Wind Steps and slashed out with another short series of Dispels at his friend to attempt to disrupt him. He did not even need to wait for their effect as his sense of danger had not decreased in the least after casting them. Sensing that Tristan’s spell was still casting, he cast a quick Flare then a Stone Body spell as he dropped towards the ground.

Flare was a simple Light based spell, intended to deprive the opponent of sight. Most mages could sense mana anyways so it wasn’t terribly effective in most situations, but timed well it could obfuscate exactly what was happening. In this case, Derek used it to obfuscate the Earth series spell he had just cast.

Stone Body had two significant effects. The first was to create a stone like body for the one the spell was cast upon, vastly increasing the body’s defense while reducing agility and speed, but the second had the effect of connecting the body with the ground. As Derek cast the spell, he felt his body become hard as stone. He continued to drop to the ground while the ground similarly rushed up to him. Encasing himself in the oncoming stone Derek controlled it to flow around him and outwards while he continued downwards into the ground of the tournament stage.

Blinded by the Flare, Tristan sensed the Earth mana forming a wall to block him into the corner and blasted out his finished spell into the center of the wall, where he had sensed Derek’s casting. A Windstorm blew out from where he was towards the freshly formed stone wall. The Wind mana and the Earth mana competed with each other and while normally a stone wall would be much more resistant to a windstorm, Tristan had put far more into this spell than Derek had into his and the wall was blasted apart by the storm, fragments of stone flying into the shield on the far side of the arena and creating a colorful light display there.

The tournament ground within the shield had been partially destroyed, with incredible damage done to the fighting platform. The crowd grew frenzied after seeing this incredible display, but Tristan could pay no attention to it. His finely tuned sense of danger and the fact that he still couldn’t see his opponent caused him to be totally on alert as he cast a further series of shield spells around himself and prepared a retaliation of his own.

It was then that Derek sprung upwards and cancelled his Stone Body spell. The ground behind Tristan exploded outwards as Derek appeared behind him. He had used the distraction of the highly destructive Windstorm to burrow below his opponent to plan this ambush. Now, in melee with the mage, he slashed downward with his warsword, striking his opponent’s shield with another channeled Dispel. Allowing his fighting techniques to take over, he comboed into several other attacks, breaking through most of Tristan’s defensive layers before the other young man could even react.

Still, once Tristan knew the cause of the threat, he reacted quickly. He sprung forward while spinning to face his opponent and lashed out with a pair of Flame Bullets and an Earth spike, which Derek’s shields had to soak, burning some of his mana. Derek powered through these, keeping the distance with Tristan and slashing away at his opponent. Pressured, Tristan began casting faster, but Derek merely relied on his Light series Aegis spell and his Dispels to continue pressuring his friend.

The fight at this point was brutal. A Mage trapped in melee with a Magic Warrior could only hope that someone can save him or that his mana reserves hold up longer than the Magic Warrior’s. Otherwise, he can only hope for his opponent to make a mistake. Derek and Tristan both did the calculations on the fight. There would be no outside interference due to the nature of the tournament and there was no question as to which one of them had consumed more mana. The only question was whether Derek would make a mistake, and Tristan knew he couldn’t count on that.

As he attempted to kite his opponent backwards, he layered more and more shields over himself and attempted to tie up Derek with more attack spells, even attempting to use crowd control on him by binding him into the ground, but Derek had prepared for that, using his own Earth spells to power through them. Finally, as Tristan was backing away at full speed it turned out to be him that would have the accident. His foot caught on one of the torn pieces of earth from his spell before and his attempt to prevent himself from falling gave Derek the time to catch up with him.

After another brutal flurry of blows, a flash of bright light signalled that Tristan’s robes had acted to protect him and the fight was over. The crowd was ecstatic and the cheering could be heard even in the outer city. Derek looked up and saw over thirty thousand people cheering him on in a frenzy. Once again he really did understand what Garrett was saying about how great this felt.

The official stood and used magical amplification to be heard over the crowd, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the Champion of the First Years, Derek Thorne!”

Derek glanced down at his friend who was still staring blankly at the sky. Tristan blinked a few times before focusing on Derek. He smiled wryly, “Damn, that was brutal. I really don’t want to experience that again. Even if a part of me knew that the training robes would keep me safe, there was another part that was screaming ‘danger’ the whole time you were in my face.”

Derek laughed and dragged his friend up from the ground, “Well, yeah, that’s kind of what I was going for.”

Under the frenzied cheering of the crowd, the two exhausted youths hobbled out of the Arena.