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Chapter XI: Duel

Evan was looking at his opponent across the small arena. Just looking at the man infront of him made his blood boil. He wasn't intimidated by the size of the barbarian at all, if anything, he had beaten much higher class opponents than such a brute. But this man has clearly stolen a win out of him. He has made him a fool in front of his friends, inside his own home. And although somewhere deep inside him he realised that he had only lost because he left himself being dragged by the barbarian's hybris, he still wanted to believe that he had only lost because his opponent had played dirty.

He looked at Martyn's thin and feeble weave that was surrounding him and smirked. There was no way he could lose again, he only had to keep his mind clear and the victory was his. Wooden sword in hand, he waited until the captain lowered his arm.

In an instant he casted acceleration, choosing this time to rush straight on towards Martyn. It took him only a split second to cross the distance, but already he was almost finished with his second spell, increasing the momentum of the blade as it was cleaving the barbarian's legs. He almost burst out laughing at his opponent's pained expression as he was, once more, falling on his feet. This time, he didn't let any obsrtuction get in his way, as he once more used strengthening on his own sword and sent it crushing on his opponent's wrists. For a second, doubt filled his mind, as he felt losing control of his magic, but before the thought even registered in his mind, he felt his blade making contact with the soft flesh of his enemy.

Martyn's cry and his sword flying away from his grip was all that the captain needed to instantly rush between the two contestants and declare the clear victor.

With a satisfied grin, Evan looked down at the fallen barbarian. "And stay down" he muttered as he turned his back preparing to leave.

"Again" He heard the low voice of the barbarian commanding his from behind.

He slowly turned, only to see the large man slowly standing up and walking towards his fallen blade. It didn't make sense. He was sure that the force of the last blow was strong enough that the man would have to visit a healer, but the only thing he was seeing was that he was just rubbing his wrists with his hands. He realized something went wrong with the last spell, and this only furthered his confusion. He was sure it had something to do with his momentary lapse of control that he experienced in the end of the laughable match, but couldn't pinpoint what. Regardless that, 'again', was the man insane? He had his revenge; he could now see how pathetic even the notion of it was against such a weakling. He had no desire to further this farce.

"Fight me again... unless you're scared that is."

Evan paused as he heard the last words. He felt his rage rekindling. As he forced himself to regain his cool, he answered with a voice filled with cold, calculated anger.

"I don't know if you are a masochist or just plain stupid, but ok. I have no problem to see you groveling on the ground."

*

Martyn watched the kid walking back to position. His first attempt was a devastating failure. He knew Evan was fast, he had experienced it once already, but the reality of the kid's speed overtook him once more. At least he managed to salvage his hands the last second.

All his calculations went wrong the moment the duel started. He had counted on Evan's speed and strength, but he had the delusion that it would have come in expense of control. Finally being able to comprehend auras and weaves properly, he had never seen someone so gifted to be blessed with all three simultaneously.

A minor setback, or a worthy practice target he mused to himself as he prepared once more. This time, forcing his own weave to split even more compared to the last time, becoming even thinner and much more unyielding. This way, I won't be casting any spells it seems this fight. He wished he had his blade ready and available for the fight.

As the captain lowered his hand once more, Martyn watched the runes of the acceleration spell flare into existence. This time he was ready. Regardless how fast one can cast, he couldn't measure with someone simply willing one of his threads to move. And this was the only thing that Martyn did.

His extremely thin mana effortlessly passed through Evan's circle and disrupted his spell. Simultaneously, he lunged his body forward, putting all his weight behind his blade as he lowered it vertically towards his opponent.

Despite Evan's puzzled expression, the kid's training and muscle memory forced his body to move, barely having time to move his sword into a guarding position and grabbing it with both hands in a vain attempt to block the hit.

The strength and weight difference was too much. As the blades collided, Martyn easily forced his opponent's sword down, pinning it to the ground and leaving the kid defenseless. Without interrupting the momentum of his charge, he lowered his own body and slightly twisted his body to the side, connecting his shoulder with Evan's open chest, and sending the body tumbling down breathless. He raised his blade once more, ready to strike at the stunned boy, only to find his hand immobilized by the captain's.

"Aaaaand that's enough. Martyn is the winner."

*

Evan couldn't breathe. He wanted to believe that it was the force of the last blow that sent him sprawling on the ground, but feeling his frustration and anger ready to burst from inside him, he knew that this wasn't the only reason why.

He was the undefeated prodigy. The shining star of his family. Everyone around him would shower him with compliments or retreat in fear. They would whisper that he was gifted, but no one outside his immediate family knew. They didn't know the sacrifices he had to make to reach this point. Yes, he was from a prestigious family. Yes, he was lucky that in his veins flowed blessed, potent blood. But what they didn't know was that despite all that magic that run in his family, his own mother was the black sheep, the untalented one. And when her children showed great promise for the art she had them both training from the moment they could speak.

He'd never gone out just for fun with his friends. Hell... he didn't have any real friends. From the time he was able to understand the world around him it was tutor after tutor, trainer after trainer, duels with his sister on their 'free' time. All for the family name. Even his late entrance to the academy was a ruse so that they would impress everyone around them with their brilliant performance. The siblings who would shine in the academy as the best apprentices ever to pass through. He knew that he should have entered years ago, he knew that he was at adept level, but according to his mother, if they had entered when they should, at the age of eight to nine years old, then they wouldn't be as breathtaking as if they entered late. A few lost years out of the long lifespan of such gifted mages is nothing to sacrifice for the family name, he used to say to them.

But the illusion broke. The first time he lost, when he was dethroned, he comforted himself that it was because his opponent had cheated, that it didn't count against his winning streak. But now... now there wasn't any cheating, no insults, he didn't lose his composure. He was plainly defeated. All those sacrifices were for naught.

Reality crushed on him. Not once, but twice he had lost. And both times to the same man. A man barely capable of being called a mage. The lowest of the low of the supports. An ant.

He was aware that the captain was overhead him, talking to him, but he was stuck in the moment of his defeat. Replaying it over and over in his mind.

His spell failed. There was no reason to but it did. He had casted the same thing a million times, practiced it till he was certain he would die of exhaustion, and never had this happened to him. No. Not never. In the first duel, the reason the barbarian had his wrists intact, the moment when he felt he lost control. It all made sense now.

Now, that he knew what to expect, he had to witness it again, to see where and how he failed, and to correct his mistake.

This time it was Evan who stood up from his daze, brushing the captain away and looking straight at Martyn's eyes.

"Again."

*

Martyn nodded in agreement with a polite smile on his face. In reality he wanted to shout in ecstasy, but his warrior spirit didn't allow him to see the boy in front of him as a true warrior, regardless if he realized that the sheer amount of magical talent that the boy had would put even a few of their ragers in shame.

His experiement had worked though. That was all that mattered to him. His theory was simply really, if he couldn't compete in a magic duel, then he would try to make it into a martial one. And while he wasn't at a warrior level, his opponents from what he've seen so far would be way worse than him.

The moment Kat showed them how to counterspell, he instantly realized that his weak but thin mana stream was a perfect tool for that. He kept practicing, wherever he could, penetrating the protective barriers of the building during class, spending hours splitting his stream to become as thin as he could on his free time, repeating the process to become faster, ever increasing his range on how far he could reach. But his main source of training was Donnie. He pierced his outer mana sheath, and when Donnie said that he didn't even notice it, then he asked him if he could train counterspelling against him. They spend an hour each day where Donnie would just rapid cast varied spells, even two at once, and Martyn would try to intercept them all. Unfortunatly, Donnie's help wasn't cheap. Martyn had to pay in dignity, since the only thing that Donnie kept asking was childish pranks, like sabotaging his fellow classmates' chairs without them noticing the weaving or the spell, destroying a part of Eren's bra without her realizing it, turning Margie's robe purple... this had backfired towards both of them, and other stuff that made Martyn lose faith on the mental age of his friend. This week, he even tentatively started to approach Kat's outer weave to see if he could pass unoticed.

*

Evan was looking at his opponent, his mind ready to leap to the spells the moment that the signal would be given. Recalling the previous matches, the first time, he could see the weak weave of the barbarian reaching all the way towards him, but the second time the weave seemed to reach it's peak about half way through, this time as well it stopped midway.

As the match started, he tried acceleration once more, only this time he put a lot more mana on his circle. He felt his spell fizzle as the barbarian was charging towards him once more. Much more composed, he knew now that blocking that beast of a man wasn't really an option, so he tumbled to the right, barely dodging the hit.

Son of a bitch is fast for his size he thought as he saw the long blade already turning to follow his movement.

This time he simultaneously started to cast acceleration on himself, deceleration on his opponent's blade and absorption on his own blade. He saw Martyn's face twitching in frustration as he felt two of his spells fizzle. Instantly noticing which spell was cast, he brought his blade in front of him, adding his second hand as a brace, and blocked the hit. This time, the absorption taking most of the brunt and keeping his balance.

He was already on his feet, jumping back to gain distance.

It isn't that his weave falls midway... the bastard's threads are so thin that I can't even see them. Realization hit Evan. At least it seems he can't control them all that well. Let's try this.

Counting on the distance he had gained, he tried to cast four spells simultaneously, his limit and not something he could do casually. He saw Martyn lunging his unaturally long sword in a wide arc, and Evan instantly realized his mistake in calculating the distance due to his normal opponents being a few heads shorter than Martyn.

He brought his blade to block the hit, but suddenly Martyn's blade changed trajectory, reading his parry and making it obsolete.

Evan had to let all of his spells fizzle away as his full concentration went into dodging the blow. But he saw the large man pressing forward, not letting him take a breath.

Abandoning every notion of quadracasting anything under that pressure, he went back to hs previous triple casting. Acceleration, strengthening and a wind blast were all countered this time. And he saw Martyn's face brimming with joy as Evan narrowly sidestepped another fatal blow but in doing so left himself open to the finishing strike once more.

Loss at hand, Evan through caution to the wind, and started casting two spells. A destruction spell aimed at his opponent's sword and a fly on his own. This time, instead of power, weaving the tightest weave he could in the circle protecting them; sacrificing most of his speed to do so.

Even though he couldn't see it with his sight, his weave was tight enough that he finally started to feel it as Martyn's threads tried to penetrate it. He felt as the shatter spell was disrupted, but he barely managed to finish the flying one. And watched his blade leave his arm and blocking, aided with the absorption from before, the hit.

He tried to dodge underneath Martyn's hand, but the clear differance in battle experience showed its face once more as Martyn kneed him as he was passing through.

On the ground once more, he saw Martyn's sword rapidly descending towards him and made a desperate last effort using his previous dual casting technique; only to be awarded with the captain yelling "The winner is Evan" as he pointed towards the blade floating right next to Martyn's neck.

This time neither spoke as they took their starting positions once more.

*

Martyn didn't know what time it was. The sun had gone down a long time now, and only an illumination spell, courtesy of their only spectator left, Donnie, allowed them to still compete. He was feeling the day's work taking it's toll on his body already as he wiped his sweat away with his dirtridden robe. At least Evan was seemingly in a worse condition than him, panting audibly for air.

"Really guys... isn't it enough already? We get it, you are both awesome." Donnie interrupted the duo as they were walking once more to their starting positions. "What makes it this round? Eleven wins for Martyn and nine for Evan? You both look like corpses. Hell, even *I* could take you on now."

Martyn looked at Donnie, and noticed that Evan was doing so too. But his opponent wasn't leaving, and so he was staying still too.

He watched as Donnie casually strolled towards him, taking him by the hand and shouting towards Evan. "Sorry Sir, I don't know what you spellswords have planned for tomorrow, but I certainly know that our teacher will kill Martyn if he looks even half as crap as he looks now. So, I'm stealing him away."

Martyn saw Evan lowering his blade. The boys hatred and rage had transformed midway their duels to determination and zeal. And he knew that the same light shone on his own eyes as well.

"Very well barbarian." Evan tried to sounded as menacing as he could with his small body and exhausted as he was. "This time is my loss. If you don't show up for a rematch next sunday... I'll make you regret it."

Martyn smilled as he nodded. "Ha! Just don't run crying to your mother after I beat you two weeks in a row... And the name's Martyn, not 'Barbarian'."