That night, they found a small family restaurant to eat at, and filled themselves with their respective vices. Gust ordered himself a steak, whereas Wesley only ordered desserts.

Either way, the two found themselves unable to move after their respective meals.

With incredible effort, the two of them dragged themselves to a hostel, where the two crawled into their beds and instantly fell asleep.

As soon as he fell asleep, Wesley drifted into the dream world.

“Thomas, what happens if I can’t see my opponent? For example, when I’m in a forest, or am being pursued by an assassin? What do I do?”

“If you do not know how to act versus your opponent, then ask yourself. If you were your opponent, what would you be most afraid of?”

“So what you’re saying is, what would an assassin be afraid of?”

“Yes…”

“If I were an assassin, I would be afraid of someone who was strong, or had strong backing.”

“I mean, you’re correct, but you’re not thinking usefully. If you were strong, would you need a specific method for dealing with assassins? You’re a mage. In the future, the properties and efficiency of your spells will be constrained only by your knowledge regarding the structure of seals, as well as your imagination.

“I’ll be more specific. Think. What types of spells would you hate to have to deal with as an assassin?”

Wesley scratched his head, then replied. “I’d probably be most afraid of a detection spell, or a spell that spanned a large area. Or an attack that can negate certain types of cover, like a sound wave attack or something like that.”

Thomas smiled. “Now you’re getting somewhere. Well, if you’re worried, I’ll teach you some area-of-effect spells once you’re mana pool is large enough to cast them. If you casted any now, you probably wouldn’t have the mana to fully utilize them.

“However, like I said, the magic seals under one’s belt are only part of a mage’s arsenal. With enough creativity, even the simplest spells may be all you need in any given scenario. Now let’s get back to the topic of the structure of magic seals.”

“This section of magic seals dictates the fundamental property of the spell, whether it be something like fire or ice, or even time and space. Each property has its own structure, which you’ll have to memorize. We’ll be starting with ice. Now…”

The lecture continued long into the night, ending with Wesley repeatedly drawing sections of magic seals on pieces of paper supplied by Thomas.

As time passed, the scene faded from Wesley’s eyes, and he woke up. Despite having slept for a full night, he didn’t feel rested at all. However, he noticed that instead of being stuck in a pitch-black world of blindness, there was a reddish hue present as well. What this meant, he didn’t have a clue.

Despite his tiredness, his eyes were bright; he had gained quite a large amount of knowledge last night.

Now, he still had several hours until his fight in the stadium, and he had to come up with a strategy to guarantee his victory. Although Gust had easily won yesterday, Wesley had secretly been shaking in fear the entire while, worried for the future of his only guardian, his only friend.

Strangely, although now it was his turn to fight, he didn’t feel as nervous as he had been yesterday.

Still though, he needed a plan to deal with his opponent. An Elementary Mage, no matter the rank, was someone who was capable of drawing seals - the only reason Wesley was still an initiate was that nobody yet knew that he could.

‘If I can’t beat him in casting speed, then…’

Gust was still sleeping, and Wesley wasn’t sure what time it was, so he laid in bed, waiting for Gust to wake up.

The hours passed, and Gust still didn’t wake up, so Wesley finally lost patience and punched Gust to wake him up.

“OW! What the hell, little man? I’m sleeping over here.”

“Tch, my parents always told me the early bird gets the worm.”

“...”

“Come on, I need help. I need to come up with a way to win my duel today, and I don’t know anything about my opponent. I don’t want to end up like that Eric guy from yesterday, so we need to do some spy work.”

“You mean reconnaissance?”

“Spy work.”

“Alright, kid... Let’s go have breakfast, I’m starving.”

“Wait, I thought we were going to go do spy work.”

“Watch and learn, kid.”

The two went left the hostel, then began walking down the village streets.

“Hey Gust, where are we going?”

“Just looking for anywhere with a lot of talkative people. A tavern, a marketplace, something like that.”

As if on cue, they rounded the corner of an intersection, and were faced with several old men and ladies sitting around a table on the porch of a general goods store. They were eating breakfast and gossiping about the hot news in town, which turned out to be…

“Hey, did you hear, Chad’s son was killed yesterday in the stadium?”

“Oh, that Eric lad? Good riddance I say, my granddaughter was nearly led astray by that asshat. All bite and no bark.”

“Speaking of, I saw Chad head to Fevi’s. Do you think he’s going to try and avenge his son?”

“You old hag, that’s old news! He and the kid who killed Eric are already set to fight sometime later today. Sounds like fun, don’t it?”

Seeing this, a huge smile, almost akin to that of a clown, blossomed on Gust’s face. Gossiping grandpas and grannies - this was the best he could possibly had hoped for!

Gust knew that short of going to an “agency” that sold information, there were three prime targets for gathering information.

The first, were the kids of any important officials - people tended to lose their guard near children, would speak of important matters even while children were in earshot. Of course, children are not great at keeping secrets.

The second, were those who work at taverns or pubs - those inebriated tend to blab about just about anything, and those working around them are unfortunately too sober to forget. They’ll tend to want to complain about their work environment.

The third, are grandpas and grannies. Over the years, these illustrious creatures will have built up their own information networks, so that they can best their friends in the level of gossip they have to bring to the table. Of course, grandpas and grannies are naturally talkative, so as long as you can direct them toward the information you want, they’ll gladly tell you.

Gust instantly made his way toward the grandpas and grannies, and addressed them. “Hello everyone, I was wondering if any of you esteemed ladies and gentlemen know what’s going on at the stadium later today between two mages?”

Hearing this, the eyes of the grandpas and grannies lit up. The only thing they enjoyed more than gossiping among themselves, was when they could do the same with the young!

They instantly motioned for Gust and Wesley to join them. “Of course! I don’t mean to brag, but between the few of us here, we hear about everything that happens in the village! There was this one time the village treasurer paid a-”

“Ahem.” Gust quickly cut her off as he and Wesley seated themselves at the table. “Sorry, my lady, I don’t mean to be rude, but we’re really short on time. You see, my friend here,” He motioned toward Wesley. “Is going to be fighting against a Rank 1 Elementary Mage, who should be a regular in the stadium here.

“I think I can speak for all of us here that I wouldn’t want any harm to come by this cute little kid, right?” He reached over and pinched Wesley’s cheeks, prompting some of the grandpas and grannies to laugh.

“Of course! If his opponent is a Rank 1 Elementary Mage, then it’s probably Frank. Most people don’t know this, but he used to be the son of a rich merchant. For some reason, though, he was exiled and he’s been lounging around the village ever since.”

“As for how he competes in the stadium, I heard…”

Gust and Wesley both plastered smiles on their faces and repeatedly nodded. At the same time, Gust grabbed some food off of the table and handed some of it to Wesley.

Mission success.