Jaux Ballad has always wanted to enter the realm of magic, but could not do so by regular means. In his desperation to become a magician he finds himself with more power, and more trouble, than he could ever have imagined.

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Today was the fourth class day, which meant Suhara would be attending the final two lessons that were a part of her current schedule.

The first class was combat practice, which Suhara had been waiting all week to attend. It was also a fitting class to have on this day, since Desyi and Tricks would be dueling later. The class took place on the arena found on the third floor.

The third floor's arena room was roughly twice the size of an average classroom. The arena was located in the very center of the room, stretching out into a circle that was eight meters in diameter. The entire room was almost completely chalk white. The major features were some black lines that split the arena into four pie pieces, a couple windows that had audience stands behind them, and some white light crystals evenly attached on the walls.

There was a small door to the audience stands, but the entire class just crowded around the arena. Since this was the basic combat practice class, dangerous spells weren't expected to be used by any of the students. Suhara was able to identify at least two other novice class mages, due to how both had silver collars similar to the collar Frey attached.

The class was completely practical. The teacher organized four spars, one for each piece of the divided arena. Eight students would fight at a time, while the teacher observed and instructed from outside the arena.

A lot of basic spells were used in the spars, mostly fireballs. It seemed none of the students here had any especially powerful spells, which suddenly made Suhara very excited. She might actually be one of the most magically adept students in the room. Being able to show off some magic was always a fun thought for Suhara, but her roommates always overshadowed her in terms of power.

In the third set of matches, there ended up being one male mage who was also quite experienced at magic. Suhara heard the whispers in the room about how the boy was a prodigy.

Roy Intone was a couple inches taller than Suhara. He had very dark blue hair that resembled the evening sky. His hair had been brushed back, spiking out at around the back of his neck. His build was decent, as far as anyone could tell under his thick purple robe. Unlike most of the other students in the class, Roy used a staff. The staff was made of a metallic substance, and a rose of metal formed at the top.

Suhara vaguely recognized the name, and a few of the students called Roy a prince. She wasn't sure if the students meant Roy literally was a prince or if he just looked good enough to be one.

His fighting style was certainly interesting, although Suhara thought it was a bit cowardly. Roy's first move was to form a great six sided fortification of ice that completely surrounded him. Then his staff stuck out from one of the openings and fired a shower of tiny fireballs.

Roy's opponent couldn't hit him through the ice fortification and soon succumbed to the barrage of fire. Then as the match was called over, Roy dismantled his fortification and asked to stay in the arena for another bout.

Suhara was sure she could handle him.

A few of the students laughed when Suhara went on stage holding a wand in her left hand and a staff by the bottom tip in her right. Her combat stance looked incredibly awkward for people seeing it the first time. She wasn't exactly used to it either.

"Why's she holding a staff like that?"

"Does she even know how to use a staff?"

"Probably thinks she could take on the prince because she has her own staff."

"Show her who's boss, Roy!"

The jeering students were silenced by the teacher, who then indicated for the duel to start. The three separate duels were still in progress, but even the other duelists seemed to keep an eye on what Roy was doing.

Roy smirked, before he once again formed the ice fortification around himself. While he did that, Suhara focused on an advanced spell that she was going to fire with her demon root wand.

As soon as Roy's staff stuck out from the ice walls, Suhara fired off a small magenta sphere. The magenta sphere landed right in front of Roy's tiny ice fortress, causing an implosion that absorbed every bit of the fire shower that Roy send out with his staff.

When Roy's fireballs abruptly disappeared into the transparent magenta orb, all the students began to whisper in confusion. Then an explosion burst out from the orb, which heavily cracked the ice fortification. The explosion managed to reach some other duelist and a few students in the audience, causing a few people to wince and take a step away.

The explosion had also been powerful enough to knock Roy's staff upwards all of a sudden. This ripped Roy's weapon out of his grip for a moment, which gave Suhara a nice opening.

She had still never tried using her staff on something so hard, but Suhara figured she had to test the limits of her weapons. She had placed the motion eating enchantment over her staff, making it strike much faster. Then with a few steps forward, Suhara swung her staff into Roy's defense of ice.

Suhara often forgot that her staff felt lighter to her than it actually was. This forgetfulness cause her to widen her eyes in surprised when the entire ice fortification shattered under her staff's strike. Roy Intone flew out from his broken fortress, the force of the staff sending him clear out of the arena. There were several shouts of surprise as a few of the audience members were knocked down by Roy's falling body.

"Whoops." Suhara muttered.

It took a couple minutes for the pile of students to untangle, but by the time Roy got up he looked furious.

"I want a rematch duel!" Roy shouted, while one of the other students handed back his staff.

The teacher looked to Suhara after Roy made his request, and it took a few seconds for her to realize she was supposed to reply.

"Oh! Uh... okay?" Suhara replied hesitantly.

Suhara had thought that Roy meant to have another bout in the area she was standing in, but when he set a time and place, she realized it was actually a personal duel.

"Then I shall sponsor it, a duel upon the rooftops! Tomorrow at noon!" The teacher announced.

"Wait, I thoug-" Suhara began.

"I shall see you tomorrow then, novice girl!" Roy dramatically interrupted, before he stormed off in the middle of class.

"... Huh?"

=+=+=

Somehow, Suhara was scheduled for a duel tomorrow. She had been confused by the process, and wasn't sure how to deal with the news. She'd have to ask Frey for the specifics of how people challenge each other to duels. She'd also have to ask her roommates about how to deal with a first duel.

For now, Suhara arrived in her final class. It was the class she liked the least from her schedule, which strongly killed off all the excitement that she experienced from her previous combat lesson.

History class was held here, the study of things that had already happened.

The teacher was an old woman, and the 'old' part was innately expected out of a history lecture.

The moment class started, the woman began an endless monologue about wars in the lands of Yorde.

Suhara couldn't be more bored. Her chin rested on top of her desk and her arms folded in front of her face. She tried her best to stay awake as she was bombard by knowledge that she didn't care about.

After a bit of daydreaming, Suhara managed to remember where she heard Roy's family name. The Intone family was actually an important group in the Welldrop community. A lot of their members were supposed to be chief knights in Suhara's old hometown. Roy wasn't precisely a prince, but he should be pretty high up on the social ladder.

The ongoing lecture about Yorde wars reminded Suhara of her roommates Tricks and Desyi, who were both from that area. Yorde was a seaside nation that was surrounded by a lush forest. People from the land there usually had blond hair and blue eyes, which was often considered very pretty. Tricks' short hair went very well with her smaller stature, and Desyi's always had some complex braids that made her hair stand out even more.

Suhara actually wanted to try having braids in her hair, just to see what it would look like. She thought a side braid would go nice with her long black hair. Desyi could probably help with that.

=+=+=

Frey looked around impatiently while she stood outside Sellwall's door. When she finally spotted Suhara walking down the hall, Frey ran up and grabbed her novi's hand.

"Come on, Suhara. We gotta get up to the arena before they close the doors!" Frey told the bewildered Suhara. "I already told Sellwall."

Frey took out the Gear of Miju with her free hand, activating the cube with the proper key phrase. The intangibility blessing was cast on both of the girls. Frey then flew her novi straight upwards. People under the intangibility blessing were able to touch one another.

Suhara heard the screams of people they flew by. On one floor the two girls had even flown straight through another student. When the duo finally reached the sixth floor, Frey deactivated the cube's blessing.

"Two more." Frey told one of the door monitors at the arena's entrance.

The sixth floor's arena room was huge. It was the size of maybe nine classrooms put together, three times the size of an average classroom. The arena itself was over sixteen meters in length. Tricks and Desyi were already standing inside. Two of the monitoring scope devices were floating up at the ceiling, one focused on each combatant.

The arena was very nice to look at. It resembled the very edge of a forest. A few small trees were scattered around randomly, and a small stream of water was flowing through the very center, dividing the arena. There were more trees on Tricks' side, which had short grass and a few thick knee-high bushes. Desyi's side had only two trees, and the grass she was standing in went up past her angles. There were also two large rocks embedded inside Desyi's side of the arena.

The water that flowed through the arena's stream seem to sprout out one end of the arena and drain into the other. No other magic was aiding this, so the arena had a very unnoticeable slope.

Frey took Suhara to a door that hid a staircase, and at the top there was a balcony that overlooked the arena.

For some reason the balcony wasn't visible down at the level of the arena. Suhara figured there was some kind of invisibility magic going on. It was probably so that the duelists wouldn't be disturbed by the audience. There were eleven other balconies that were visible along the top half of the arena room. Ten of them each had other small groups of students. A few teachers were even occupying one of the balconies, they all had a small table and some parchment. If Suhara had to guess, the teachers were probably here to grade Desyi and Tricks.

Two very familiar green-haired students were already sitting in the seats of the viewing platform Frey and Suhara were in. An unfamiliar girl with russet brown hair was sitting on one of the seats as well.

"Hey Norman, hey Deledy, glad you two could make it." Frey told the green haired siblings.

The green hair turned away as the brother and sister greeted Frey back.

"Oh hey you two! We thought you weren't going to make it for a second there!" Deledy said.

"Yeah, I think the doors are gonna be closed in like, a minute, tops." Norman concurred.

"A new spell helped out." Frey replied with a look of smug satisfaction.

"Oh, Suhara, I'd like you to meet my own adorable little novi!" Deledy excitedly blurted out.

The emerald haired girl pulled the unfamiliar girl up to her feet, and then walked over to Suhara.

"This is Helanna, Helanna, this is Frey's novi Suhara." Deledy introduced.

At first, Helanna looked down at her feet, while her long locks of brown hair covered most of her face. At the mention of novi, she jerked her head up, staring at Suhara's collar. She looked relieved at the sight.

"Oh, hi Suhara." Helanna cheerfully greeted as she hugged her fellow novi.

Suhara returned the hug with about half as much enthusiasm. She wasn't sure if Helanna was shy or outgoing. Her body language was hard to read. "Uh, hi."

"I'm so happy I'm not the only novice here! I feel like I'm surrounded by giants." Whispered Helanna into Suhara's ear.

Suhara smiled at that, understanding the feeling a little, since she once felt that all magicians towered over her. "I'm glad to ease the tension."

Deledy insisted that Suhara and Helanna sit by one another while the three ace magicians caught up with each other. Helanna was delighted by that, and sat down with Suhara two seats away from the ace mages.

"So, what type of magic do you do? I'm a plant mage!" Helanna proudly said.

"I'm a curse magician." Suhara answered.

"What? Cool! We both have rare types!" Helanna bubbled.

"How does plant magic work? I've never learned anything about it."

"Oh, it's so amazing! I come from a small jungle town in the Eritea region, called Flaura, and we are awesome with plant magic." Helanna cheerfully explained as she pulled her wand out from her robe.

The wand looked like a dark green flower stem, and actually had a real flower bud at the tip. It was a bit thicker than regular flower stems, but was the perfect size for a wand. Helanna waved the wand a bit in the air, and the bud bloomed into a yellow flower with twenty-one petals. The flower resembled a chicory with thick and yellow petals.

"See, we have these wands that we can actually grow out of a pot. I have a ton of spares in my room growing just in case. These wands are alive, and we keep them alive with our magic. I don't think plant magic is quite as tough your power magic, but it's really unique because it requires the combination of temperature, motion, and concentration genre magic. I have to keep my wand at the optimal temperature, concentrate water and light onto it for food, and use motion to accelerate the development processes inside the wand."

Helanna tapped the flower against her palm, and a few small seeds popped out.

"Plant wands are loaded with the innate spell pattern to produce seeds. I haven't grown one with any really complex seeds yet, but I can grow a whole field of flowers that release drowsy spores and have controllable vines instead of roots."

"Wow, that's awesome!" Suhara praised. "Are you also able to cast regular magic with the wand?"

"Yep! The flower is living, so I can actually switch around between spell patterns with motion magic. Plant wands are way more versatile than any other wands!"

The two novice mages continued to gush about magic, until a booming voice suddenly rang out.

Suhara recognized Tricks' specialty teacher, who seemed to be watching over this duel like he watched over Tricks' last duel.

"We are about to begin. Prepare yourselves, combatants."