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.

*=+=*=+=*=+=*

The arena’s forcefield disintegrated into a familiar shower of pink and yellow lights. When the sparkling shower reached Desyi and Tricks, their wounds faded away.

“Ha! I win!” Norman laughed. “I knew Dezzie had it in the bag!”

“Ah damn, I was sure Rola won with that last light spell.” Pouted Deledy while she handed Norman a handful of silver coins.

“The tornado spell was cool though, right? I’ve never seen that one used in a duel before.” Said Norman.

“Yeah, it requires a lot of setting up.” Frey noted. “She had to heat and cool enough of the air in order to cast it.”

While talking, the magicians got up from their balcony seats and went down the staircase.

“Isn’t wind magic normally just a motion thing?” Helanna asked the ace mages while they walked.

“Normally, yeah.” Answered Deledy. “However, motion magic is a bit more expensive than temperature magic, and you can duplicate a natural tornado effect by smashing hot and cold air together. It still uses a bit of motion magic, but it’s a lot cheaper.”

“Oh, Frey, I forgot to tell you,” Suhara abruptly brought up, “I somehow got challenged to a duel for tomorrow.”

“What? Really?” Blurted Frey in surprise. “You didn’t accept, did you?”

“Uh… I didn’t know it was a challenge, so I kinda did.” Suhara replied.

“Hey guys! Enjoy the show?” Tricks said as she joined up with the group.

“No,” Deledy complained, “you cost me a lot of silver, Rola! I expected you to win!”

“It was pretty close, that last burst almost knocked me out.” Desyi added in.

“I had complete faith in you, Dezzie!” Norman claimed.

“Well thank you very much, Norman.” Desyi acknowledged with a small smile.

“Hey guys, I’m taking Suhara over to the practice room.” Frey announced when the group reached the hallway. “I need to give her some pointers, she somehow got into a duel.”

“What?! Really?” Tricks exclaimed. “Why? When is it? Who’re you fighting?”

“Uh, I didn’t know it was a challenge.” Explained Suhara. “It’s going to be tomorrow on the roof, and it’s from a guy named Roy from my combat practice class.”

“Oh no, that’s way too soon for your first duel.” Desyi said with a worried tone. “I really don’t think you’re ready.”

“Yeah,” agreed Frey, “That’s why I gotta give her some tips while I got the chance.”

“You guys should have some faith in her.” Said Deledy. “I’m sure she’ll be okay.”

“We can all go talk about it in the dorm.” Tricks told the group. “For now, I’m hungry from the match. Let’s go grab a bite, Desyi.”

“Oh, don’t you think we should help Suhara out first?” Desyi responded.

“It’s probably best if only Frey-ray helped Suhara.” Norman pointed out. “It might get too confusing to get advice from so many people at once.”

“Mmhm,” Helanna muttered in agreement, “I always learn best when I have one instructor at a time.”

“Alright, we’re going.” Frey declared as she pulled Suhara away. “See you guys later!”

=+=+=

“When did you get that bracelet?” asked Frey as she walked down the stairs with Suhara.

“Huh? What do you mean?” Suhara questioned back.

“That black bracelet, the one on your left wrist.” Frey said while gesturing towards the object.

Suhara looked down at her left wrist, and was bewildered by the sight of the bracelet Rales had given her. She had somehow complete forgotten about it until now.

“Uh, I forgot I had this… Rales gave it to me a while back.” Suhara stated as she stared at the bracelet.

“Huh, you forgot about a bracelet on your arm?” Questioned Frey with disbelief. “That’s odd. I actually only noticed the bracelet myself because I felt it while I was pulling you by your wrist.”

“C-could you help me take it off?” Suhara requested. “It needs two hands to pull at it from the sides.”

“Oh, resizing enchantment? Sure, no problem.” Frey replied as she pulled at the bracelet.

The bracelet thinned and stretched out as Frey pulled, and soon slipped right off. Suhara held it carefully, observing the black stone and purple gems with curiosity, then she placed the bracelet in one of her robe pockets.

=+=+=

“Duels are very stressful.” Explained Frey as the two girls reached the training room. “You have to pay attention to a lot of little details, or else you will lose easily.”

Suhara listened carefully, her attention fully focused on Frey’s lecture.

“You can’t expect to win if you just throw spells at the opponent. You have to have proper judgement, and figure out which course of action is the most beneficial. You need maneuverability and defensive spells as well, because you need ways to avoid damage from the opponent.

This is a problem, because you actually have a very small pool of spells. Out of all the spells you have, only two are defensive, but those two spells only work well against melee fighters. Your explosion curse can be situationally defensive, but only against high degree temperature spells. You also have that teleportation spell you used against the armored thief for maneuverability, but I have no idea how easy that is for you to use.

Thankfully, you can use the silver anklet I gave you for the defensive blessing. The blessing should be able to protect you against a wide variety of spells, but you should still avoid attacks when you can.

Unfortunately, you haven’t been very good at aiming so far, so you’re going to have to rely on melee combat against your opponent. Your staff is an incredibly useful melee weapon, especially while paired with the motion eating enchantment. Since we don’t know anything about your opponent though, there is a chance he might have more maneuverability than you. If that’s the case, melee won’t be much of an advantage.

If you can’t use that teleport of yours consistently, you should invest in improving your aim. Just keep moving, keep up the anklet blessing, and try your best to hit your opponent if melee doesn’t work out.”

Suhara nodded her head in understanding, before embarking on a target practice session. Frey provided a few moving targets with object blessing, which Suhara tried her best to take out from a distance.

=+=+=

After Suhara practiced till curfew, she returned back to the dorm with Frey. The girls were in their usual discussion circle, talking mostly about Suhara's duel.

"His name is Roy Intone," Suhara explained to her roommates, "I think he's from a royal knight family in Welldrop."

"A knight? Oh, that might be tough." Noted Frey. "They're combat orientated and everything. He might show up tomorrow wearing enchanted armor."

"Ugh, enchanted knight armor is so cheap!" Complained Tricks. "Rich parents always cover their kids in them and expect it to carry them to success. I once fought some guy who had like two dozen enchantments stuffed into his armor. I won, obviously, but that's cause I'm me."

"I just hope he doesn't use a sword." Worried Desyi. "I'm not sure if Suhara could fight against that."

At the mention of sword, Suhara's eyes went wide and her shoulders went stiff.

"Desyi, you're scaring Suhara!" Whined Frey as she gave Suhara a hug of reassurance.

"Sorry," apologized Desyi, "don't worry too much Suhara, there are protections in place against lethal injuries."

"But wow, a duel during your first week." Tricks said as she sighed. "I'm not sure if that's good or bad for a mage's rep."

"I still can't believe your teacher is sponsoring a duel for you!" Desyi told Suhara. "That should have been the first time he ever met you, too!"

"Well, Suhara said it was after she knocked that other student on his butt. The teach probably thought Suhara could handle herself." Reasoned Tricks.

"Oh yeah, didn't you use one of your advanced spells when you beat him in the spar?" Asked Frey.

Suhara looked off to the side for a moment, before nodding her head in confirmation.

"Mm, then the teacher just jumped the gun." Frey grumbled.

=+=+=

Desyi's gentle snoring resonated in the room, which meant to Suhara that all the girls were asleep by now. Tricks could manage to instantly fall asleep upon hitting the sheets, and Frey just used a sleeping spell. Desyi always took the longest out of the three to reach dreamscape.

That left Suhara alone in the dark room, staring up nervously. During the first few days in the dorm, Suhara fell asleep last because she wasn't used to being in such a new place. Now the bed felt like home for her, but the duel was making her mind uneasy.

What if the arena protection spells failed during the duel?

Suhara's lack of confidence was causing a panic in her mind, and she wished that there was some way for her to drastically improve her abilities in the time she had left. Then she thought back to what Frey told her about duels.

The teleportation spell she used at one point was provided by Theema, the goddess. Theema given Suhara magic power, now Suhara wondered if the goddess could help a little more.

Everything was tinted purple as Suhara activated the Winter Sight.

"Theema?" She whispered into the darkness.

"Hello child, what is it that you need?" Theema's voice replied in Suhara's mind.

"Uh, I have a duel tomorrow... but I don't think I can win right now."

"A duel? Are you attempting to fight a spirit from Broken Space or the High Priest of Bright Noon?"

"N-no, I'm definitely not ready for that. It's just with another student."

"I see, you desire some power for the duel, then?"

"Y-yeah."

The goddess's voice suddenly went silent. Suhara wasn't sure if she should speak out, so she just waited. After two minutes of quiet, Theema's voice returned to Suhara's mind.

"I have a solution, child. Remain still."

Everything was already dark in the dorm, although Suhara could see the magical lights around her thanks to the Winter Sight. However, after Theema made her declaration, Suhara's purple tinted sight was blacked out completely, and shadows surrounded her.

Suhara's body felt the familiar burning sensation of the dark teleportation. When her augmented sight could see again, she found herself standing on a cold stone ground. She didn't recognize where she was anymore, but it certainly wasn't her room. The burning feeling went away faster than usual, like Suhara was getting used to moving about in this manner.

"Theema, I'm still wearing night clothes, you should warn me if you're going to bring me outside. I don't even have my wand or staff!" Suhara complained.

"You won't need any of those things, child." Theema responded.

Moonlight poured down on Suhara from a round skylight that was on an immensely high ceiling. She was in a big, empty, and windowless tower of some sort. Six massive navy blue pillars surrounded her, which went all the way up to the moonlit opening. A great spiral staircase was connected to the walls of the tower, and surrounded the pillars. The staircase slithered up to the very top of the huge room.

Everything looked ancient. The navy blue stone that made up all the structures was cracked and covered with patches of green moss. Every step that Suhara made left a footprint in the dusty floor.

There was a single black statue that stood in the very center of the room. It looked like Theema, but was posed differently compared to the black statue at the Lyceum. Theema was depicted kneeling down with open arms, as if she was in the middle of embracing a small child. Upon close inspection, one of the statue's eyes was closed, so there was only one purple gemstone eyeball on this statue.

Suhara kept the Winter Sight activated while she observed everything, but Theema didn't say anything else. There wasn't a lot of magical lights that could be seen with the Winter Sight here in this tower. That meant there were very few living things here, from what Suhara knew about her power.

"This was an old temple of mine." Theema finally whispered in Suhara's head. "Long since abandoned now that no one remembers me."

"Even if this place is in the middle of nowhere, wouldn't someone eventually notice a tower that's this big?" Suhara responded.

"You misunderstand, child. You are deep underground right now. That ceiling is leveled with the surface of the world."

"Oh."

"Yes, go ahead and move up with the staircase. My help requires that you be out there."

"Okay."

Suhara followed Theema's orders, and made the long trek up the spiraling stairs. There was a ladder and a trapdoor at the very top, which she climbed out from.

The trapdoor led to a dense forest, filled with massive trees that bunched together so tightly that it was impossible for anyone to fit through.

"Who are you?" Whispered a malicious voice.

Suhara stumbled over in fright as she was surprised by the unfamiliar voice. She turned around to face what had spoken, only to be scared even more by what she saw.

Crimson hair ran down the face of the pale white lady. Her eyes had ruby pupils, which matched the long crimson hair. Her stomach was exposed by a round opening, showing off her perfectly smooth white belly. The rest of her body was completely covered in black stone armor.

The Winter Sight revealed a flowing aura of blood red magic that surrounded the lady.

Suhara recognized the features.

A vampire.