“That being said, it does not matter what rank you are by the time the inter-school competition begins.
“So. These next few weeks, try your best to improve, and become intermediate ranked mages!”
…
The next morning, the sun hadn’t even risen yet when Headmaster cast a voice amplifying spell and yelled. “Time to get up! Get yourselves in your training gear and let’s go!”
Wesley groaned, rubbed his eyes, then started feeling his way around the room. Thankfully, thanks to last night’s bath, his body wasn’t sore as he’d expected, but that didn’t cure his hatred of mornings.
And it was just far too early.
“HURRY UP!” The loud voice burrowed into Wesley’s eardrums as he clumsily fit himself into his training clothes, which were just pitch black mage robes.
After a bit of struggling, he was finally ready to head out. Still sleepy, he stumbled his way out of his room and out of the mansion, where the rest were already waiting with Headmaster Farhir.
“Too slow! Punishment is in order.”
“Ah?” Luke was infuriated. “I was out here within seconds. Why should I be punished?”
“You’re a team now. If a single one of you fails, all of you will receive punishment.”
Hearing this, everyone turned toward Wesley.
“...Sorry, everyone.”
“Tch.” Luke was still infuriated. “So, what’s our punishment?”
“Well…” Headmaster Farhir smiled. “It so happens that our first bit of practice today was going to be a competition. You, against me. I’ll just be little more heavy-handed than I would have been, I guess.”
“Oh?”
Everyone on the team stared at Headmaster, fire brimming in their eyes.
Chapter 12
Hearing the headmaster’s words, everyone’s blood burned - for those with more daring personalities, it was exhilarating to fight a stronger opponent.
“Haha, don’t look down on me just because I’m not a King class mage. Well? Shall I start it off?”
Most began preparing their first seals, while Jacob donned his most offensive set of armor and began to charge at Headmaster Farhir.
However, Headmaster Farhir simply flew into the air, leaving Jacob hopeless on the ground.
“Come on Jacob, you should know better than to throw away your only advantage.”
Before the students could finish their seals, he’d already finished his, and a boulder fell from the sky onto Jacob, knocking him unconscious.
“Well then, how are you going to deal with me?”
In his other hand, Headmaster Farhir had prepared a barrier spell, protecting himself from several of the students’ spells.
Only Ryu, the defensive support mage, still had his seal active - in front of him hovered a golden shield.
“How in the world are you going to protect your teammates like that, Ryu? Look at where your teammates are - are you going to choose a single teammate to protect?”
Proving his point, Headmaster Farhir blasted multiple fireballs, one toward each the students below - a few, such as Kate, Wesley, and Luke, had previously drawn and cast more protective spells, and were safe from the bombardment, while Ryu protected Cassandra, the closest to him at the time, with the golden shield.
Unfortunately, Tony, Alex, and May, had all opted for offensive spells, and were struck by the fireballs, unable to finish their defensive spells in time.
“Now that half the team has been defeated, what can the rest of you do against me?”
Headmaster didn’t go easy on the remaining members, and quickly dispatched them with a few spells.
A Rank 10 Advanced Mage was truly powerful.
Disheveled, the students picked themselves up off the ground.
“If you hadn’t just charged in, you could have protected someone else from Headmaster Farhir’s first attacks!” Ryu pointed a finger Jacob and yelled.
“Tch, what would that have mattered? Obviously our only chance was to take him out at the beginning, how come only half of you guys drew offensive spells.”
In a matter of seconds, just about everyone was arguing with each other, each pinning the blame of what had just happened on someone else.
“SILENCE.” Headmaster couldn’t help but rub his temples in frustration. Why was everyone so headstrong this year? He suddenly envied Headmaster Lumient - by the time people made it to the upper echelons of the Lumient Intermediate Academy of Magic, they had usually matured past their angsty, angry teenage years.
But him… he was stuck with students ranking from children to early teens.
After straightening his feeling out, he addressed his students.
“One by one, calmly. Tell me, what went wrong? Ryu, let’s start with you.”
“Well, this idi-”
“I said calmly, Ryu.”
“Sorry, Headmaster.”
Ryu took a deep breath, then continued. “Against a stronger opponent, I believe it is better to fight conservatively and wait for opportunities to attack. So, I believe that Jacob flying forward to attack you was the reason we lost.”
“Alright. Jacob, what are your thoughts on this? Again, please explain your thoughts calmly.”
“I disagree with Ryu. Against a stronger opponent, the best chance is to attack with everyone you have at once to overwhelm them before they get to control the pace of the battle.”
“...And did either of you discuss your thoughts and plans with the others? After all, you can’t expect people to always be on the same page as you - from the looks of it, half the team agreed with you, Jacob, and half the team agreed with you, Ryu.”
“All of you are here because you have excellent individual skill. Both of the ideas you brought forth could have been correct, but because the team was not on one page, your attempts fell apart.
“Do you see what I’m saying.”
None of those present were stupid - they knew what he meant, but these were proud sons and daughters of the Reiniad Kingdom nobility. From birth, they’d been hypocritically told to rely on themselves - while benefiting from the riches of their family.
That only personal strength mattered, and that relying on others was for the weak.
Still though, all of them understood that they would indeed have to work together in order to defeat Headmaster Farhir.
Seeing the gears working in his students’ heads, Headmaster Farhir crossed his fingers, hoping for the best.
“Take some time and discuss it among yourselves. Let’s reconvene in twenty minutes, and I will give you a chance to try again.”
Wesley and the other sat in a circle, looking at each other.
“So, how are we going to do this?”
Luke spoke up. “The simplest way to ensure that we work together, as a unit, is to have a leader. So, I propose that we choose a leader.”
Those around assented - it made sense. But the question was, who.
Everyone looked toward the three Rank 10 Elementary Mages. By seniority alone, one of them should be the leaders.
After grimacing a bit, Jacob shook his head.
“As much as I hate to admit it, I’m too hot-headed to be a leader. One of them can.”
With that, everyone’s gazes focused on Cassandra and Kate.
Cassandra shrugged. “I don’t mind, either way. What about you, Kate?”
“I’d rather not have the responsibility.”
“Well then, I guess Cassandra is our leader then.” Said Luke.
“Mm.”
A series of nods could be seen around the table. Nobody had strong feelings regarding Cassandra, either positively or negatively, so everyone was okay with her being the leader - for now.
“Well then, what’s our plan of attack?”
Cassandra cleared her throat. “Ahem. Well, in order to develop a proper plan, we would need to know the full extent of each others’ powers.”
With Cassandra at the lead, everyone began to discuss a proper pl
an.
Even Wesley, who was usually shy around people he wasn’t familiar with, chipped in a few times with his ideas.
After a dozen minutes of deliberation, they felt that they had a rough plan that they could all work around.
Just in time, as the twenty minutes Headmaster Farhir had given him had just passed.
“Well, kids. Time’s up. Dazzle me.”
Chapter 13
“Go!”
A single shout from Cassandra initiated the second round between the students and Headmaster Farhir.
Led by Jacob, four of the students rushed toward Headmaster Farhir while the rest, Wesley included, stayed back, over twenty feet from their opponent.
“Oh? Splitting forces? Interesting.”
Headmaster Farhir had been expecting his students to take either one extreme or the other - complete focus on offense or complete focus on defense.
“Too bad I can’t go all out… but this should be interesting.”
Jacob had again donned his most aggressive set of armor, while those around him cast spells to create their own magical weapons so that they would be able to fight in close-range combat.
“Trying this again, hm? Let’s see what you’ve learned.”
Headmaster Farhir began to fly high into the air, to avoid his students’ attacks, as he had done last time.
This time, however, Tony, the group’s earth mage, was prepared.
Even as Headmaster Farhir ascended into the sky, a mass of earth appeared over his head, forcing him to quickly change the angle at which he was flying.
In order to not give Headmaster Farhir any room to maneuver, Cassandra and Wesley repeated Tony’s actions, creating blocks of ice that appeared just over Headmaster Farhir’s head so that he could not ascend.
Within moments, those who had rushed forward to attack Headmaster Farhir had reached him.
While he’d been dodging the falling blocks of earth and ice, Headmaster had been busy drawing seals.
With his first, beams of light shot toward his nine opponents.
This time, though, those who had been rushing forward formed into a line behind Kate, who had summoned a golden shield.
Protected, only a few beams of light hit the golden shield, before the students rushed back out from behind Kate.
Meanwhile, those who had stayed in the back had formed a similar line behind Ryu, who held an golden shield as well.
“Not bad, not bad. Although, just about everything I’ve done so far is a copy from what I did the last time I fought you. What happens now, if I introduce a new move into the equation?”
He had casted the bolts of light with his left hand, but his right hand had still been drawing a separate seal.
“Ice Purgatory!”
The entire area around Headmaster Farhir, with a radius of roughly forty feet, suddenly froze over.
Just before she was frozen, May quickly used all of her mana to cast a single spell to counteract Headmaster Farhir’s - a giant ball of fire hovered over the Headmaster’s forcing him to relocate.
At the same time, the heat from the ball of fire melted the ice in the area, saving the students from being frozen themselves.
At this point, the students who had rushed forward had finally reached their target.
Having no spells to defend himself with, Headmaster Farhir was quickly overwhelmed by their attacks.
“Alright, alright.”
After brushing himself off, Headmaster Farhir addressed his students.
“Not bad, not bad. Enough to get yourselves out of a punishment. Truly not bad for only twenty minutes of planning. However, you should all know that the capabilities of a Rank 10 Advanced Mage are far beyond what you just saw, yes?
“I will not go so easy on you tomorrow, so, I will expect you to be prepared. In the meantime, let’s learn about some common strategies used in team-based mage battles…”
For the rest of the morning, Headmaster Farhir taught the students, including Wesley, typical strategies involved in mage combat, with the following warning.
“These are just the typical strategies. Ideally, you will modify these to the needs of the team. There are weaknesses and strengths to any formation, any distribution of resources. Only by realizing your own strengths and weaknesses can you be sure of victory.”
…
At lunch.
“Cheers to Wesley!” Kate poked her little cousin.
“Cheers to Wesley!”
“Eh?” Headmaster Farhir was confused. “Why Wesley?”
“Ahh…” Cassandra was rather embarrassed. “During the twenty minutes you gave us, we quickly voted that I would be in the in-combat leader, but we kept arguing about how we should proceed… half the team wanted to fight defensively, and half the team wanted to fight offensively, and we were getting nowhere.
“It was Wesley who pointed out that there was no reason why we couldn’t do both, and that it would be fine to compromise. Those who wanted to fight aggressively could do so, while those who wanted to fight defensively and work around opportunities could support those who are fighting aggressively to create opportunities for themselves.”
“Mmm… not bad! I guess sometimes the youngest see things the simplest!”
Wesley accepted the praise easily, but on the inside, he was far from satisfied.
Their strategies today, had been… extremely rudimentary.
He looked at the plethora of food in front of him, then at his teammates, and smiled.
It’d be alright - they would take it one step at a time. Progress would not arrive overnight.
Headmaster Farhir wasn’t quite finished though. “By the way, I’ve invited some students from the Lumient Intermediate Academy of Magic to train you guys. They’ll be arriving a few days...I’ve asked them to take extra care of you~.”
“...”
Suddenly, everyone felt that the food wasn’t so appetizing anymore.
Meanwhile, at another training camp just a day’s walk away.
“Alright everyone. Last year, we took the top prize from the Reiniad Elementary Institute of Magic. I have it on good word that they’ve secured a great team this year, and they want their trophy back. Are we going to let them??”
Nine youths shouted back at him.
“Never!”
“Our training starts today!”
Similar scenes could be seen all over the country, as various schools prepared their geniuses for the year’s inter-school competition.
For honor!
As the new generation of mages prepared for their unveiling to the world, bigger waves were coursing through the Magmont Continent.
The Pooles and Kenta Kingdoms had both declared war against the Conarite Kingdom, and tens of thousands of soldiers had been spotted moving across the three involved kingdoms, headed for the fields of battle.
All that needed for the killing to start, now, was a spark.
The King of the Kenta Kingdom paced by a hundred crates, each of which had had the tops removed. Reaching into one of the crates, he carefully pulled out a chaos gem.
Smiling to himself, he chuckled, then swept his gaze across the numerous crates.
He waved one of his attendants over. “Send these to General Sol.”
Then, he placed the chaos gems back into the crate, and walked back into his castle.
“Tell him, it’s time to begin.”
Chapter 14
Just a day later, the Kenta Kingdom’s warriors surged into the Conarite Kingdom en masse. Using chaos gems to break down the fort’s walls, thousands upon thousands of their mad warriors overran Fort Rosenthal in a single night.
The next morning, news of this conquest spread throughout the Magmont Continent, shocking most. After all, Fort Rosenthal had protected the Conarite Kingdom from the neighboring Kenta Kingdom for decades, if not centuries.
Tied to a tree branch, a young man held a cut gem to his ear - the gem had been cut into a short cylinder, with a seal engraved
in the center.
“Ah?! Fort Rosenthal has fallen?”
Gust instinctively tried to sit up, but because he’d tied himself to the tree branch, when forcibly tried to sit up, he instead accidentally lowered the piece of rope that had been tying his chest to the tree branch, so that it tied his feet instead.
Memory Seal- Volume 2 Page 6
