He breathed in, he breathed out. He breathed in, he breathed out. He breathed in, he breathed out, and opened his eyes. In front of him were a pile of notes, profiles on each of his opponents for the coming match. A close combat body enhancer, a dual elemental mage wielding air and lightning, and an elementalist.

The first two were agile and fast, strikers which could leap in and out from combat with ease and dodge any attacks sent their way. The elementalist would hang back, summoning elementals which would be difficult to defeat and with attacks that could not be ignored. No doubt the elementalist would use summons to draw his attention, while the other two waited to strike him when he was vulnerable.

If he had gone into this match as he did in the last two, he was certain he would’ve lost. He had been somewhat lucky last round, as much as he hated to admit it, he really needed to focus and prepare, there would be no second chances.

He looked once again at the notes he had taken, sighing as Zofiar asked, “What’s wrong?”

Massaging the back of his neck, Ieros said, “I’m just not sure how I deal with this.”

Atarum, peering at the pages, nodded.

“Indeed, if they can work together well, it is a very difficult combination to beat.”

Ieros sighed.

“I’m not sure if I can pull it off, I know I made a lot of mistakes in my last match but still, I’m still only one mage.”

Zofiar snorted.

“One mage? You have the two of us!”

Atarum agreed, “You have our knowledge, I doubt they have anything as good!”

Ieros said, “They each have their specializations that they spent way more years mastering than I on the basics of all magic. They know what they can and cannot do, and when and when not to do them. Me, I still know so little.”

Zofiar explained, “That’s not true, you do know much just in different ways. And so what if they mastered their particular branch, you can simply use the counter to their particular type of magic.”

Ieros sat limply in his chair, sighing. “Sure I can do much more, but I don’t know what that more should be. I spend too much time thinking on what to do instead of doing, I could barely keep up with everything that was going on. That’s only going to get worse with this new team composition, one moment thinking too long and I’m done.”

Atarum said bluntly, “Then do something to give yourself time, make a fortress to sit behind to think of how you will crush them, one by one.”

Ieros frowned, “But a fortress will cost too much mana, even for me.”

Atarum shook his head, “That’s not what I mean, do something like a fortress, make yourself an impregnable defense which will deny them their advantage in speed. After all, no matter how fast they are, it won’t matter if they can’t break through to you.”

Ieros countered, “And no matter how well defended I am, it won’t matter if I can’t hit them.”

As Atarum prepared to respond, Zofiar interjected.

“Not necessarily, not if you force them to come to you. A defense that looks penetrable but in reality, it isn’t. After all, if you know where they’re going to go, you can attack them. Or perhaps lure them into a trap that immobilizes them.”

Ieros blinked.

“What do you have in mind?”

Zofiar then answered triumphantly, “A mountain!”

Ieros rolled his eyes and laid limply in his chair again as Zofiar hurried to explain.

“Well you see, a mountain can be climbed if you take a certain path, otherwise you would be trekking through dangerous territory. I’m saying that you replicate that in the match, summon a mound of stone that you can then terraform to serve your will. They will have to climb towards you no matter what, and by making the surface intentionally treacherous, you can buy yourself enough time to deal with each of them one by one.”

Ieros sat up, nodding more and more quickly as he stood up.

“Yes, that might actually work!”

Ieros began to talk to himself, “If I extend my mana sense to match the perimeter of the mountain, I can then sense everything that goes on and immediately change the terrain to block them or defend! Yes, and since I will be defending, I won’t be throwing away my mana at the enemy. And why stop there, I could even make the mountain a trap, capture them in stone and-”

Atarum interjected, “But they’re still quite agile, I’m sure they can scale rough terrain with ease.”

Ieros faltered, Atarum using this to suggest, “But, if the surface of the mountain is hidden, and it still moves underneath, it would be much harder to scale, no? If you maintain a thin layer of sand, just above the mountain’s surface to make it seem like a smooth hill, the entire mountain itself would become a trap.”

“How devious Atarum.” Zofiar said, Atarum laughing in response.

“When facing terrible odds, one must be devious to win.”

Meanwhile, Ieros was deep in thought, simulating it in his head to get a rough idea of how large he needed to make the mountain. Since he wouldn’t be using his mana in attacking as much, he could afford to use more mana in the mountain, but even so, he couldn’t make it too big. He had to anticipate for damages, which would cost mana to fix as well as some emergency offensive spells.

But, in the end, imagination is no substitution for the real thing. He needed actual practice. But he couldn’t do it in the Tower, nor did he want to use the Academy’s training grounds. While he was able to use them now, he didn’t want his opponents to know his new strategy.

But where, it would have to be outside but that meant they could see, unless... He remembered, on his first proper flight the sight of the world below him. The sleeping city and the sea of silver-topped trees, the forest. There would be no one there, just him and all the earth he could ever want to practice with. He quickly checked the time but much of the night had already past, he cursed but calmed himself, he’d just have to be patient.

Now that the matter of defense had been settled, he needed to select which would be the most optimal form of offense. He had two options, either use an attack was as fast or faster than them or to attack with an area of effect. Of the two, Ieros preferred the faster attack as it would be a more efficient use of his mana but he wasn’t confident about making the necessary spell.

But it was something he would have to do so he forced himself to work. He began with lightning, as its base qualities were power and speed. Of course, it did cost a fair bit of mana to manifest lightning, another factor to consider when constructing the mountain. But what was more important was how to direct the lightning. Lightning was powerful, fast, and very unpredictable. Against such agile opponents, he could not allow for any misses, for that would just be a massive waste of mana.

He had to develop a method to direct lightning towards his target 100% of the time, the only question was how? There was the traditional method, draw a path with your mana to you target and let the lightning follow. However, constantly moving targets would sap valuable focus, he needed something more easier and quicker to cast.

He bounced ideas off of Zofiar and Atarum, before he finally settled on one idea, the only idea that could work. Somehow, he needed to make his targets attractive to lightning. Like how a magnet strives to reach its other half, he needed to make his lightning seek out his targets of its own volition. But not with a path, but a beacon. But to do that, he needed to find just what lightning was attracted to. So he pulled up books on the study of lightning, from its natural occurrence in nature and the theories behind its production as well as human imitation.

And what he gathered was that lightning tended to strike the tallest/closest object to its source, had a preference for metal, and could be attracted or repelled by mana. The first two were simply not feasible nor consistent enough to consider, so that left mana. He studied in particular, all the theories that pertained to lightning’s attraction to mana, and when he ran out of literature, he turned to experimentation and anecdotes from his two teachers.

And, with the days spent mastering this new method of directing lightning and the nights mastering his mountain defense, the remainder of the week passed and the upcoming match was upcoming no more. Ieros stood in the middle of the arena, his heart once again thumping with anticipation and excitement. He closed his eyes, reminding himself of what he was to do as the announcer introduced him and his opponents, hardly listening at all as he reminded himself to make sure to keep the sand layer steady.

He opened his eyes and took a breath, the announcer was reaching the end of his little speech. When he heard the signal to prepare his barrier, Ieros began, rising into the air atop a seemingly innocent hill of sand. As the announcer narrated this to the audience, Ieros smiled in satisfaction, he had done it perfectly, now he need only maintain it as well as cast his mana sense over the perimeter. He then turned his attention to his opponents, who had already surrounded him.

He sought out the elementalist, but she had used the time to prep a barrier to prep a summon instead, a stone elemental rising from the sand, slamming its fist into the ground and drawing out a boulder, winding back its arm and throwing it at Ieros. A wall, whose surface was at a 45 degree angle to the stone’s trajectory rose from the sandy hill, deflecting it with ease as Ieros suddenly felt two people enter his field of mana sense.

Earthen spikes rose to delay the body enhancer as a powerful gust of wind knocked back the lightning mage. Another thrown stone crashed into his stone wall as Ieros kept track of the body enhancer’s movements, getting a sense for her pattern before he struck. He smiled, as her foot unexpectedly sank beneath the sand, causing her to stumble and fall, being enveloped by the sand completely. As the earthen spikes sank below, the surface of the sandy hill became smooth, as if nothing had happened.

“Cassandra!” the lightning mage shouted, before he glared at Ieros and imbued his fist with electricity, using wind to propel himself at Ieros.

However, a wall of stone rose from the sand to block him, absorbing his powerful strike and killing his momentum. But before his feet touched the sand, the mage used wind to push him out of range, infuriated that Ieros hadn’t even turned to glance at him. This made no sense, just how had Ieros improved so much?

His previous fights had clearly shown Ieros could not deal with close combat and with a sufficiently powerful strike, he would be defeated. But now, he was nigh untouchable, they had to rethink their plan. He reunited with the elementalist, saying, “We need a new strategy, it’s too dangerous to approach him. Any ideas?”

She shrugged.

“I could summon a few more elementals and then have them constantly barrage him-”

Suddenly, there was an explosion of stone as Ieros began his counterattack, completely shattering the elemental’s throwing arm with a well placed missile. The elementalist cursed as she summoned another stone elemental, its form more bulky than the first iteration, a tanker. It shielded them from more stone missiles as the thrower gradually began to regenerate its arm.

The barrage stopped for a moment, the lightning mage peering out for a moment to see that Ieros was still standing there, the blackness of his hood seeming to stare right at him.

He retreated back to cover, saying, “Alright, tell the tanker to charge at Ieros, tell it to destroy his defenses if possible. I’ll follow right behind and use the opportunity to knock him out.”

The elementalist nodded, whispering in a foreign language as the elemental began to move, charging towards Ieros. But the moment it stepped onto the mountain, the ground beneath it shifted, causing it to stumble but that was enough. The lightning mage, with his electrified fist, charged as fast as he could, but once again, his fist was met with a wall of stone. Suddenly, the stone wall slammed into him and he found himself being thrown across the arena, soon pinned against the arena wall.

“Castor! Are you-?”

Lightning thundered, interrupting her as Ieros put a lightning beacon on the chest of her throwing elemental, blasting it to pieces. The tanker meanwhile was struggling to get up but Ieros paid it no heed, placing another lightning beacon on her and discharging. Another peal of thunder and she was on the ground, unconscious.

Unable to see anything, the Castor groaned as he shouted, “Emily! What’s going on? Emily!”

But it wasn’t Emily who answered, but Ieros, who said, “I’ve knocked her out with lightning. You are all alone now, your chances of victory are negligible. I suggest you surrender.”

Castor gritted his teeth, burning his blood without care as his body began to cracke with lightning. The stone blew apart as he emerged, forming a blade of pure lightning. Ieros’s eyes widened with interest as he turned to face him. However, just because he was interested, didn’t mean he wanted to sacrifice victory in order to see what would happen. He placed a lightning beacon on the blade itself, and just as Castor launched himself towards him, Ieros discharged lightning once again, causing an explosion as it met Castor’s blade.

Castor fell, his mana depleted and his consciousness fading, his arm badly burned from the explosion. The only one left standing was Ieros who was somewhat disappointed. It seems he had over prepared for this battle, slightly amazed that it had been this easy. He cursed his previous self for not taking it so seriously, he would not have suffered so much in the last match.

But, perhaps it was a good thing that he did, it had shown perhaps exaggeratedly so that close combat was his weakness. It was true, yes, but it also made excellent bait for his trap. Unfortunately, his future opponents would likely not fall for it again, which was a shame. But oh well, he’d just have to think of a new strategy.

He released Cassandra from her prison of stone and restored the arena floor to its previous state, finally letting go of all the mana he was using to control his mountain defense. He had used a lot of mana in this fight but he wasn’t drained, which was good. He can still handle a much harder fight, although perhaps not exactly with this strategy. Now that they knew, its initial effectiveness will diminish greatly, a new tactic would have to be procured and practiced, otherwise it would be him lying in the sand.