“Riza,” Mrs. Venice chided, “Your grades are important”. Maybe for her, they were, for Riza, they were not. Riza had 2 things: his skills and a dream. A dream to become the best Magician in the nation.
He smiled, but said nothing. He didn’t need to respond to issues like these. Instead, he looked over at his best friend Gidim, grinned, and said “You ready for our match next period?”. Gidim held up his test scores. A perfect score cast itself on the exam sheet, a testament to Riza’s failure.
“I’m already smarter than you. It’d be a shame if I beat you for the 67th time, too,” Gidim said, a snicker evident on his face.
“Actually, it’d be the 64th, the three times the teachers stopped us don’t count, and even then I would still have 2 more wins over you.”Riza countered without missing a beat.
“No, I think they made a good decision stopping me, I could’ve killed you. Good thing idiots can take a lot more hits.”
“I guess we’ll find out once this bell rings. Make sure to try and make me use at least 50% of my strength this time.”
Riza and Gidim were friends since birth. The town of Garneria was small, maybe 500 people, and classes only had about 10 to 20 people. Most people in this town ended up doing the same thing their parents ended up doing, which was either farming for countless hours a day, or if they had some level of Magical Talent, working in magic factories or forges to craft better stock, or maybe even a teacher. But Riza wasn’t like them. He lived with his grandpa, a retired mercenary. Riza was born into a family of war. It was his job to get as strong as he could.
“It’s important to have competition in your life, but you should hope that you’re able to finish test corrections before that bell rings, because I’m not letting you off the hook after the last time you said you’d do work later”. Mrs. Venice interrupted. “Last time” was when Gidim and Riza had a fight and ended up blowing out half the forest where the Magic students would train. Riza ended up breaking his arms, and Gidim passed out from exhaustion. The day of that fight was a test day and Riza told her he’d do the work after class. Riza had thought she’d forgotten by now.
“Crap, there’s 20 minutes left!” Riza cried, and he picked up his pencil and began writing. He recited the question in his head, hoping an answer would come to him. Question 1: Where does most mana flow concentrate? Hmmm, maybe the Heart? Nah, that’s way too cliche, Riza thought. Although this method usually never gave him a correct answer, today he was reminded of a flashback. It was from his mother, when he had first discovered his affinity for all elemental magic.If there’s something you don’t know how to do, use your magic. It was given to you to help you, Riza remembered. Without a second thought he concentrated, and he felt a churning in his stomach, and in an instant, a sphere of flame lit up in his hand.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL SOMEONE? MAGIC IS ONLY ALLOWED TO BE USED IN APPLIED MAGIC!” Mrs. Venice cried
“Shit, sorry! I was thinking of how to channel my mana, and it just shot out”
“You don’t need to do test corrections, the bell’s about to ring anyways” Mrs. Venice was the youngest teacher in town, and started teaching Riza when she was 17. She had always felt affection and concern for him. First of all, he was the only orphan in the town and had no connections, so if he didn’t succeed, he would have . But she watched him grow into someone reliable, even a hero. The only one even close to standing on even ground with him was Gidim, the natural genius. She knew what would eventually happen, but she was still worried for this boy, who had nothing but his tremendous magic power and a dream. She noticed she was more on edge lately, barely able to support her family due to her low wages and still unmarried at age 27, even though most couples got married before 25. I guess this is what the city folks would call a “Midlife Crisis” she thought as she sat down at her desk and picked up her lesson plans.
The bell rang. With a devilish grin on his face, Riza put down his pencil and said “Looks like it’s time to put you down once and for all, huh. I’ll admit, you have made me try in a couple of fights.”
“You say this every week, and recently you’ve only gotten worse. I haven’t even had to use a quarter of my strength against you.” Gidim replied, also sporting a grin.
“We’ll see if you’re still saying that after our fight.” This type of banter was common for them, and had become a running joke over time to see who could come up with the best comeback. However, anyone who watched their fights would know that both of them gave it their all, even for a smidge of power over the other. They were evenly matched, in every sense of the word.
They made their way to the courtyard and greeted the teacher, Mr. Freet. The courtyard was once a crop farming facility back when the village had hit harder times, but now it was a converted magic facility where students could train. Outside the Courtyard, a vast forest lay, where combat would often take place. Before students would usually stay in the courtyard and the outskirts of the forest for battle. However, this changed after Riza and Gidim’s 3rd fight when they nearly destroyed the courtyard. Now, battles only took place in the inner half of the forest, while Riza and Gidim’s fight would take place in the deeper half.
They made their way to the half. Riza’s mana was already bubbling more than usual, and Gidim looked like he wasn’t going to pull any punches either. Gidim’s strength was not in his abilities, but how he used them together. Riza was able to analyze Gidim’s Lightning patterns with ease, but when he used his dual magic, his combination of water and electricity were deadly. Of course, Riza’s affinity for all physical elements allowed him to come up with a counter, but often times his earth and metal manipulation magic took more mana than his other elements, and was way too slow for his style of fighting. If Gidim got stronger once again in today’s fight, raw power wouldn’t carry him through.
“You seem deep in thought, my friend. ” Gidim called from a couple of feet away. Riza looked back and smiled.
“I don’t need to go out of my way to put you down, that’s why I leave my katanas at home these days.” He replied with a laugh. Riza’s parents died during missions for the capital a year before he started school. They left behind each of their blades for Riza to eventually take up. When Riza was a child and first given the katanas, he used them endlessly to train with his grandpa. As his magic grew stronger and stronger, he realized that he didn’t feel any magic from the blade, and his grandpa grew sickly, causing him to leave his swords behind.
Riza turned his eyes forward. They were already at the center spire, a pile of rocks which served as the middle of their half of the forest. This was so they wouldn’t go too far out, and served as their center so that they would start their fights at an equal distance from each other.
“Ready to begin?” Gidim’s gold eyes glimmered prideful hunger, like a Lion stalking it’s prey. The minute their eyes met, the battle had begun. Let’s start simple, Riza thought as he launched 4 glimmering ice spikes, aiming for Gidim’s neck. “Too slow!” Gidim shouted, and a bolt of lightning came from behind. Riza’s face went pale as he realized that Gidim had sped up the rate of his lightning shots. Riza dodged it using his wind magic, but only barely.
“Not bad, I didn’t think you’d use full bolts this early. Guess I’ll step up my game more too!” Out of the 5 elements, earth, water, fire, wind, and electricity, his fire magic was the strongest followed by his water magic due to his high natural trigger speed to generate ice. He was never the type to combine two mana flows, but he decided he’d be risky today.
“Prepare yourself!” Riza barked as he prepared a swirling blizzard, covering the trees around him in ice. Gidim rushed forward, mystic blue lightning in hand, right towards the blizzard. He’s blocking the conductivity so my lightning magic won’t be as powerful, Gidim realized. When he saw Riza frowning before their match he was worried that he wouldn’t fight at his top level today. They engaged in ridiculously fast hand-to-hand elemental combat. From an outsider’s view, one could describe it as a sphere of eternal blue, encompassing the entire half of the forest as they moved from place to place. Riza’s wind magic gave him the advantage in movement, but not by much. When he was using it for movement, it only took relatively small amounts of mana for Gidim to use it as a cushion. As Gidim sped through Riza’s blizzard, focusing on an opening, frozen blades began to cut at him all over. The storm was beginning to take its toll on his body.
Gidim was finally able to land a hand on Riza’s shoulder, and let loose a jolt of electricity that immobilized Riza. He jumped and kicked Riza’s head in an effort to bring him down, and started an electric storm of his own. Riza’s blizzard was getting weaker, and he began to feel waves of electricity shocking and immobilizing him throughout his body. Gidim’s storm was beginning to get out of hand, getting dangerously close to the courtyard as they darted back and forth at incomprehensible speeds. Gidim charged his fist with lightning, and prepared to finish the fight. As his fist charged towards Riza, a hand gripped his forearm.
“Gotcha. You didn’t think it’d be this easy, did you? The fight’s just begun” Riza said with a devilish grin, his dark eyes letting off an aura of vengeance. He roared, and suddenly the blizzard that he had created had become fire. And Gidim was right in the middle of it.
“Shit!” Gidim cried as steam began to overtake the forest. The battlefield was now to Riza’s advantage. He saw through me and waited for my storm to encompass the forest, Gidim thought as he looked around, guarding any possible openings with his lightning. He wasn’t planning on using his other element unless he absolutely had to, but it seems that it was getting close to that point.
Riza had made his move. The battlefield was enveloped in steam, and he memorized Gidim’s exact location, and could use his hearing to discern any movement. Gidim was standing still? It was almost as if… he was waiting for Riza to make a move. I need to find a way to attack without getting immobilized, or I’m finished. Suddenly, An Electric Storm, almost twice the size of his last one threw Riza through the trees. Gidim leaped with cushion electricity, and met Riza in the air. “Looks like you wasted your opportunity, huh?” He said with a laugh. Suddenly, a pillar of water hit Riza and send him down. He landed on the dirt. That one’s gonna bruise, he said as he rubbed his back. He jumped up and smiled.
“So, you finally decided to use your dual ability. I wouldn’t have it any other way!” Riza shouted as he sent Gidim a little electric present of his own. He was by no means good with metal manipulation, but he crafted a shrapnel and launched it towards Gidim’s next pillar of water. The Shrapnel was large enough to deflect the water, charging it with electricity.
“Not bad, but you think I’d let you beat me with my own element? You haven’t seen the best of me yet!” Gidim laughed. They definitely haven’t had a battle as destructive as this in a while. He turned around and realized they were almost at the outskirts. Before he could say anything, Riza rushed him, covered from head to toe in Fire mana, and pushed him back even more. With fire and electricity swirling around them like a storm, They were wrestling at this point. Gidim could vaguely make out the details of the center of the courtyard. He screamed at the top of his lungs, but the storm covering their bodies suppressed everything. It was consuming for both of them to keep their storms running. Riza finally put a hand on Gidim’s stomach, and launched a windblade, pushing him back into the outskirts of the forest. They were both bleeding all over, but Gidim’s shirt was torn to reveal a cut about the size of a tree branch in the center of his stomach, forming an X. Gidim’s gold eyes hardened, and with anger being the only emotion in his mind, he summoned a whirlpool, and sent a blast of lightning into the tornado of water in front of him. I’ve never seen him use this attack before, Riza thought as he launched himself in the air. If he did what Riza thought he was going to do, it would have been the strongest attack that Gidim would have ever launched.
Riza bounced to the skies, his wind magic propelling him from underneath, Riza saw the whirlpool and the bolt he was charging from his hand. Through all this madness, his excellent hearing allowed him to hear a cry- Riza had only a second to look behind him before he heard the familiar crackle of Gidim’s Lightning. He screamed at the top of his lungs for Gidim to stop but he knew it would be useless. With a howl composed of nothing but vexation, Gidim launched a bolt of lightning the size of a missle. Riza knew he couldn’t block it with Fire or Ice, he needed earth magic, which would take too long. He only had one option. He summoned Wind magic to create a whirlwind on himself, throwing him to the ground. He made it just in time, as the bolt flew past him-right into the the school building.
ns 15.158.61.21da2
