Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 8

The arena building itself is rather large, but despite that, it’s completely different on the inside than it appears on the outside. While the outside of it looks like an enormous black and red arena with a colosseum theme to it, the inside is a lot more modern, with a glassed off BFS – which I found out literally stands for battlefield simulator – acting as the arena itself. The BFS’s control panel is in the VIP viewing room, where VIPs – meaning instructors, and high ranking military officers – can watch and control which type of battlefield the duelists will be fighting in.

Around the BFS is a simple observation area, with lines of chairs in the latter half of the area, allowing the front half to be for standing observers and movement through the area.

There’re also several food stands scattered throughout the observation area, one of which I quickly find Aidan at, ordering ice cream by the looks of it.

“That’s probably going to ruin his dinner,” I mutter while pointing Aidan out to Amelia and catching a smile on her face.

We walk over to him as the magician behind the counter – one surprisingly not wearing a uniform, which probably confirms my suspicion that they’re hiring retired magicians for these sorts of jobs – hands him an ice cream cone. Aidan then hands the man a couple dozen credits and turns around with the ice cream cone in hand, only to pause as he sees us.

“Nathan! Amelia!” He exclaims with a grin and a short wave. “So your class is out? That’s great!”

I nod my head before turning to look at the VIP box on the other side of the BFS as the speakers throughout the observation area click on and a deep, male voice begins to echo through the area without much emotion – as if they were reading from a script.

“Our next duelists consist of Silver – with a win ratio of 5 wins to 0 losses for the current semester – and Reverend – with a win ratio of 3 wins and 2 losses .”

Win ratios?

Aidan seems to notice my confusion and explains, “Apparently some internships in the academy judge cadets by how well they do in the arena duels. Although I’m not sure how that worked before this year, considering that the headmistress mentioned that this was the first year with this arena.”

“From what I’ve been told-” Amelia interjects with her arms crossed, still standing next to me, “-the duels before this year were just fought wherever a professor was present, through the use of some sort of portable BFS.”

“You forgot to mention the titles,” I suddenly hear Sophia’s voice from behind us. When I turn to look, I find Sophia, Cyria, and Rebecca all walking up to us from the direction of the seats on the other side of the entrance from the direction we came. “A cadet’s titles are generally earned. To earn one, a cadet has to participate in missions and earn a title that they become known by through parts of the military. But the title itself must come from a Class C magician or higher first.”

I turn back to the BFS as the sound of doors opening comes from it. What I find is the floor on opposite ends of the BFS opening to reveal colored platforms raising up to the ground, each with a cadet standing on them carrying different weapons. The cadet on the red platform has blond hair and green eyes, with some sort of rifle on his back – not a sniper rifle by the looks of it, but just a normal hunting rifle instead. They also have a long and thin sword – similar in appearance to the swords of the eastern nation Entaria – held firmly in his hand.

Meanwhile, the other student – the one on the black platform – has brown eyes, with equally brown hair, and a set of weapons similar to Aidan’s held in both of his hands.

“On the red side is Silver, while on the black side is Reverend. Begin the duel once the countdown strikes zero.”

A countdown appears in between the two cadets starting at ten before I feel Amelia pulling my sleeve and quietly saying to me, “Let’s go find a seat.”

I nod and begin walking over to one of the chairs with her. After just a few seconds, the others notice and join us.

Once I focus on the BFS again, I find the countdown almost at zero, with both of the cadets holding their weapons at the ready.

Interestingly enough, Silver actually has his rifle in one hand with his sword in the other. Meanwhile, the other boy just has both of his blades held out in front of him.

As soon as the countdown reaches zero, Silver points his rifle at the ground in front of him and pulls the trigger, causing a silvery glow to emanate from his palm, followed by a silver spell circle appearing in front of his gun’s muzzle. At the same time, the other boy swipes both of his blades to the sides and creates a large magic circle in front of him.

Both of the magic circles created by the cadets expand outwards and disappear at the same time, with a strange and seemingly metallic, silver mist flooding from the spot where the silver magic circle was, and a large, golden sphere surrounding Reverend. And yet, the mist also seems a little transparent.

But judging by Reverend’s actions, I don’t think it’s transparent for him.

So does that mean the BFS also clears up things that would make it difficult to see inside? Because that’s convenient.

Also, Reverend seems to have a Light Affinity, but… what’s that silver color for?

“It’s a Metal Special affinity,” I hear Amelia whisper from her seat next to me on my right. But when I turn to look at her, I find her still looking at the duel.

“Thanks,” I tell her before turning back to the duel myself to find Reverend carefully looking around at the silver mist around him for a few seconds.

I never really thought about the possibility of metal being in a gaseous state if I’m being completely honest. It’s just not really something people would normally think about.

After all, metal is usually used for things like equipment, structures, or other such stuff. Things that need to be sturdy and durable, or at least solid.

But this magician is using it in an entirely different way.

It’s rather interesting, and even a little inspiring to watch.

“The magicians who go on missions, and particularly those that manage to earn titles,” I hear Amelia begin as we watch the duel progress, with the light magician jerking around towards his flank, where Silver shoots his rifle at, causing a crack to appear in his shield. “They have more experience, gained from real life and death combat, and from what I’ve heard, are already Class D magicians.”

My eyebrows raise in surprise at this before I focus harder on them in an attempt to find something different about them than the other students, only to not find anything really different. Except maybe the more experienced way they hold themselves.

“Don’t you need at least 30 arcs of mana to be able to be classified as a Class D magician?” Aidan asks from the seat directly to my left.

Sophia – as usual – answers his question in a quiet, but enthusiastic tone of voice, which seems to catch Amelia’s attention, “Yes, but you also have to be able to cast a Tier III spell, which is the weakest spell that can directly affect the interior of a creature’s body. Like a healing spell, or a curse.”

“With the exception of Enhancement Affinity spells,” Amelia adds in before turning back to the duel as Sophia looks across Aidan and myself at her with a pleasantly surprised expression on her face.

Wait, does she like being one-upped?

I arc a brow slightly at the thought before shaking my head.

Anyways, the duel continues on in the BFS, with the two cadets constantly firing back and forth spells and barriers, with Silver keeping himself at a bit of a distance from Reverend – likely due to the dual blades he has as his weapons compared to Silver’s single sword and rifle.

Throughout the course of the battle, the two magicians continue to use spells that I hadn’t thought of possible with their elements, such as laser-like heat-rays that are blocked by slabs of metal appearing on Silver’s uniform, sprays of liquidated metal that then turn into solid sheets before being blocked by barriers of light, and even – interestingly enough – Silver replacing his rifle’s bullets with ones made from a spell mixed with a small pouch of gunpowder that he has hanging on his waist.

“That must be a convenient spell,” Aidan mutters with a spark of interest in his eyes.

I glance at him with an eyebrow raised.

Yeah, you’re not going to be able to do anything like that. You may be able to create wind or lightning bullets, but they probably won’t be able to be shot from a gun.

If you even had one.

Actually, why’s he acting jealous about that when he doesn’t even have any guns?

I look at him for a few seconds before shaking my head again and turning back to the battle, only to see Reverend with a strained look on his face as he surprisingly fails to block a bullet from Silver’s gun, leading to a strange-looking golden crack appearing on his forearm.

He simply grunts at this whilst gritting his teeth before suddenly making a break for Silver, startling him with his abruptness, only for him to regain his composure again in a second and fire a second bullet. And once again, this bullet strikes true, causing the golden crack on his magical membrane to completely shatter as the bullet passes through his shoulder and out his back.

Reverend then falls to his knees whilst coughing blood – a side-effect of having your magical membrane shattered – as someone appears from within the VIP box in a military uniform and begins to heal him.

“And the duel has been completed. The winner is Silver, making his win ratio for the semester 6 wins to 0 losses. Please step on the red platform to exit the arena.”

I continue watching for a few seconds while the cadet walks up to the red platform before focusing on Amelia again to find her also looking at me as she asks, “So how was the duel?”

“It was pretty good,” I answer honestly before turning to look at the BFS again, “even with Reverend running out of mana in the end, the duel showed me that it’s better to think outside of the box when trying to create unique spells.”

And it even gave me some ideas as to what I might be able to do with fire mana… even if I won’t be able to put them to use for a while.