~ An Invoker's Dilemma ~

'Shit!' Richard gritted his teeth as he took a stance, ready to evade any attack thrown from Lucas. He delved into his thoughts again, 'This gradual memory drops are annoying. Why can't I just know everything about the former Richard in one go? Now I just made a fool of myself before everyone.'

Lucas couldn't help but scoff as he noticed the blankness on Richard's face. He clawed backwards through his thick black hair and said with a smirk, "You corny bastard. You almost had me there."

'I know. I'm a fool. You don't have to say it,' Richard replied in his mind, while racking his brain for any spell in his fragmented memories.

Igniting a small ball of flame in his right palm, Lucas lifted his legs and strolled towards his opponent, "You know, at first, I wanted to take this nice and slow, and relish in the sight of your suffering and torment. But now I see that you're nothing but a complete fodder. It'd be like trying to poke more holes in a basket; a complete waste of time."

Richard didn't pay any attention to his words. He was too fixated on thinking of an attack spell, while taking a few steps back.

"Just stand there and let me finish this already. And don't worry, I'll make sure you're left unconscious, so you can forget the pain," Lucas said with a snarky grin, the fireball in his hand intensifying in heat and size.

Amidst the audience, an agitated Hazel leaned forward and turned her head sideways, looking past James and Elora, fixing her gaze on Master Kincaid.

"Don't you think it's time to stop this, Master Kincaid?" she asked, anxiously tapping her feet on the ground.

She was ready to switch places with Richard. She was after all the second strongest Mage in the school, after Princess Elora. In fact, when it came to physical combat, she excelled above the Princess. It was pretty rare for elves to focus on their physical stats, since they had the highest affinity for mana, but Hazel felt it was stupid to be an all powerful mage with no defence against physical attacks, or experience in close combat.

Imagine a Mage who could curse an entire capital with a wave of their hand, but would get knocked out by a single hit to the face.

Hazel wanted balance.

Master Kincaid placed his interlocked hands under his chin as he replied, "Just hold on a bit. I feel like this is the breaking point that Richard needs. He has never been pushed to the wall this much. If he doesn't understand the kind of threats he'd face after graduating, well, if he even graduates. Either way, he'd be no different than a regular powerless human."

"But Lucas could kill him," James protested. What Master Kincaid said made some sense, but that was only based on a general perspective.

Even if Richard did somehow find a way to unleash his magic, it wouldn't affect Lucas that much. In fact, it'd only spite him further and he'd attack Richard brutally.

"You don't know that," Master Kincaid said, his eyes unmoved from the two lads on the court.

"Exactly. No one knows what Lucas is thinking," Hazel said and sighed, returning her gaze back to the court.

Richard dodged the blazing fireball by hair's breadth. Then he jumped back a few times to lengthen the distance between him and the approaching Lucas.

'He's gotten serious! I need to think of a spell, fast! No matter what its effect might be, I just need to remember one spell. One!' Richard kept speaking to himself inwardly as he kept dodging the other fireballs being tossed at him.

Though he found something odd. Since Lucas was now dead serious about finishing the match quickly, why hadn't he used another gravitational attack?

Richard felt Lucas hadn't perfected the ability and it probably wore him down. There was probably a time gap between each use of the ability. A few minutes, maybe.

Richard kept running in circles around the court, with Lucas at the epicentre, shooting more fireballs and tendrils of fire.

Richard managed to evade each attack thanks to his agility. Then as he jumped over what seemed to be a spear of flames, he finally remembered a classic spell that was docile in his fragmented memories.

"Yes!" he muttered happily whilst running.

He started reciting the spell with a casual voice. His volume and pitch increased as he was near the end of the spell.

The air around the court went static for a moment there, which was immediately followed by a subtle echo of vibrations across the static air.

Lucas had to stop attacking and look upwards, perplexed by what was happening.

Richard smiled, sliding to a stop and standing a few metres before Lucas, clasping his hands forward once again and calling the last sentence of the spell with a loud voice, "Óthisi enérgeias!"

Silence warped in for a split second, then immediately accosted by a subtle boom, and a vibrant golden ripple, that spread outwards unidirectionally toward a startled Lucas.

The booming ripple moved at the speed of sound, crossing the distance in a whim. It was unavoidable.

It struck Lucas at once and he just stood there, completely consumed by the energy from the wave. The ripples wrapped him like a blanket, before distilling into his body and soul. A sparse beam of golden light erupted upwards from his body and vanished almost as soon as it came.

Lucas exhaled softly, raising his hands to check them out. He could see tiny flakes of golden light twinkling around his hands. His entire body was doused in the twinkling lights.

"This feels weird, but, I'm not hurt," Lucas muttered in awe. He soon smiled, "In fact, I can feel my body exploding with power."

His class mates were puzzled at what was happening. They had expected him to be thrown aback by the rippling wave, or even if he managed to stand his ground, his ears would bleed from an inundation of sound waves.

But instead, he was standing casually, whilst being surrounded by a twinkle of golden lights.

"Hold on," one of them said aloud, his eyes narrowed as he hardened his gaze on Lucas. "I've seen this before. It's an aftereffect of the Invokers!"

"Aftereffect? What does it do?" another asked.

"Goodness Gracious," Hazel palmed her face with an exasperated sigh. As someone in the Resonant Mage Path, she immediately knew what had happened from a single glance. "Richard did the exact opposite of what he intended."

"Huh?" they all turned their attention towards her.

Back on the court, Richard finally found his footing after expending so much mana. He could feel a hollow in his abdomen.

Rubbing his head, he opened his eyes and looked towards the vibrant Lucas. His brows creased, "Huh? What just happened? Why is he still standing?"

As though his question was a trigger, the translation of the spell he just casted, played in his head like a mixtape.

It was a spell to give external parties added strength, fatigue erasure and an increased stamina. Though, the effect of the spell varied based on the Invoker's mana reserve and proficiency.

Richard's effect was quite low for obvious reasons.

His eyes went wide and he shuddered, "Did I just give him a buff?"

Invokers sung spells for their magic to work. They could either sing aloud, murmur it or sing in their mind, dependent on their magical tier.

Their songs acted as buffs for themselves and surrounding allies. The buffs varied from gradual regeneration to timeless stamina. So far the spell was still being sung, the buffed Mage would never tire out.

They could also give de buffs to their opponents, though it had a limited use and time frame.

Richard was simply lucky that he hadn't turned the spell into a song, or else he'd have made Lucas way more powerful. And this is still considering the small mana reserve he possessed.

"Oh, you're an invoker. I almost forgot," Lucas scoffed, conjuring two massive balls of flames at his shoulders. Each of the fireballs were as big as an average man. The heat radiating from them touched the audience behind Lucas.

"Out of my appreciation, I feel it's only courtesy that you experience first hand how powerful you've made me," Lucas said, spreading his arms and flanking them toward Richard.

All Richard could hear in that moment was his palpitating heart, as he tried to run away from the fireballs of death hurled at him.

But even with their size, they moved extremely fast. Lucas had distorted their mass and momentum with gravity.

Richard wouldn't make it out of the way in time. In fact, he had barely raised a foot, when he met eye to eye with the massive fireballs.

He could hear the whispers of the Grim Reaper in that very moment.

However, at the last moment of impact, a violent vibrational frequency emanated and exploded between Richard and the fireballs.

Richard was shot backwards from the explosion, while the fireballs were vanquished instantly.

Richard groaned and opened his eyes. He looked down and was surprised to find himself on his feet. He raised his head and looked to his side as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

The lemon haired Hazel was standing beside him, her brows arched down as she glared at Lucas.

"Hazel?" Richard said in a stutter.

Without batting an eye from her target's location, Hazel removed her hand from Richard's shoulder and began to walk forward, while saying, "Please leave the court quickly. I'll take it from here."