Arena || Variable twenty-three

The boys realized that they were standing within the fortified walls of the arena, far away from the center and high enough to be near the top. It was the best spot to secretly get a clear view of any event from a safe distance.

At the center of the arena two guys, either nineteen or twenty yrold, were having a magical duel, while more than hundreds of students were sitting in the spectator seats and watching. The teacher stood at the edge of the platform, ready to interfere, if necessary.

From the distance of more than fifty meters it was difficult for the secret observers to see the duelists' appearance in detail, but the battle itself was incredible.

Out of nowhere, a water wave like a tsunami appeared out of the ground and headed for the student, who crouched down. He swiftly moved his right hand to draw half a circle on the floor. A tornado appeared around him and sucked in all the water, turning it into rain, which soaked them both. After extinguishing the tornado, he stretched forth his hands, and the water from the rain gathered right in front of him and compressed into one big ball.

The other student used his right hand to tap two rings on his left hand. The first ring garnished a red carnelian, and the other one had a blue topaz, but the secret spectators, who were too far away to see the details, could only see the glowing red and blue lights, which emerged from each ring after the touch.

The compressed waterball, which was created by his opponent, shot straight at him like a bullet. Due to its extreme speed, nobody could see the waterball travel, but everyone saw when it abruptly exploded after hitting a square iron shield twice the size of a human. The magical barrier materialized right in front of the waterball's target just milliseconds before the impact.

The student behind the iron shield, raised up the staff, which he held in his left hand, and hit the floor with it. With the sound of a loud crash, the iron shield in front of him broke into hundreds of sharp iron blades, all of them directed at his opponent. He twisted the staff by ninety degrees with its tip facing forward. As if commanded, the blades flew at his opponent.

The other student slammed his palms on the floor. A tall stonewall grew up next to his fingertips and blocked all the blades, except for two, which arrived too fast. One flew by without touching the student, but the other blade ended up cutting through the clothes on his left arm, fortunately avoiding the flesh.

Without paying attention to the damage on his clothes, he stretched his right hand to the back, then in one swift motion he brought it forward. The iron blades went flying back at the other student, who simply clasped his necklace and suddenly all the blades turned into flower petals.

While the petals were falling, he put his staff in a diagonal position with the crown directed at his opponent, who stepped back, just seconds before the floor froze - right at the area, where he was crouching.

"Time!" the teacher shouted.

Both students erased their spells immediately, leaving no trace of any magic on the platform. They came closer and showed respect to each other with a bow. The teacher came over and began to talk with the two of them.

"The guy with the staff is amazing. He avoided all the attacks so easily," Spruce commented.

"He’s magicless," Wasabi noted.

"How do you know?" Yew asked.

"Magic-talented people don’t need staves. To them that's an extra baggage, which slows them down. Also all his spells come from his accessories, like that staff or his rings, or that necklace he’s wearing… it seems to have some kind of protection magic…"

"You can be that badass without magic?" Spruce was awed.

"Of course, you can," Wasabi strongly affirmed. "That’s why I entered Hecate even though I'm magicless. And this is what I wanted to show to you. Aren’t magical items awesome?"

Spruce internally agreed with her, but gave no response.

After the teacher finished his speech, both students stepped away from the platform, and sat down among the spectators. Meanwhile, two other students stood up from their seats and came up to the center.

Yew recognized one of these two duelists. It was Cypress Sea.

"Wasabi?" he quietly called out the girl's name. "You said that this class is a ninth year, right?" he asked.

Cypress and his opponent approached the teacher, who talked with them.

"Yes," she assured him with certainty. "Ninth year students are allowed to fight without restrictions. All the guys in the arena are already on their ninth year."

"Doesn’t he look young?" Aspen voiced out his thoughts.

"I think that’s Galangal’s older brother," Wasabi responded. "In which case, he started Hecate early."

"Whose brother?" Spruce looked away from the hole in the wall, and at the girl, who in response directed her eyes at him.

"Oh right, I should explain. Galangal Sea is my roommate. You know about the Sea household, yeah?"

Yew and Aspen were still observing. The teacher finished talking with the two students, and stepped away from the battleground. Cypress and his opponent bowed then moved apart from each other.

"You mean that Sea household? The best magi among nobles?" Spruce continued speaking with Wasabi.

The next moment, Cypress’s opponent raised his hand forward, but a strong blow of wind threw him off the ground, beyond the seats and straight at the wall.

"Wow!" Aspen was mildly surprised.

"No way!" Yew was shocked.

"Wait, what?" Spruce looked back through the hole, but the duel was already over. "What happened?" he asked his friends.

The student, who was thrown away from the platform, was sitting on the floor behind the spectator seats. The teacher was already next to him, with his back bent and inquiring about his wellbeing.

"He got blown off," Aspen calmly explained. "And it was so fast and powerful. He had no chance to protect himself."

The defeated student made his way back to the arena's center, with the teacher right behind him. Cypress also came closer to the center. The two of them bowed down to each other, before the weaker student was dismissed immediately. He walked away, while Cypress remained and had a talk with the teacher.

They both spoke in a natural voice, which without any echo couldn't be heard by the first year students hiding in the walls.

After a while, Cypress nodded in agreement. Then the teacher walked to the edge of the platform. On his way, he ended the class with a loud "goodbye, students" directed more toward the exit door than to anyone else. Everyone responded in unison with a choir of "goodbye, professor" but no one moved until the teacher left the fighting arena.

Cypress walked off the platform, and toward his opponent, who was sitting on the benches, with his head between his legs. While the students began leaving the classroom, Cypress talked to the other guy. After several exchanges, he sat next to him, saying no more words, but he was listening to what the others around them were saying.

"Looks like that was the last battle for today," Wasabi commented.

Cypress’s opponent stood up and said something to the classmates, who were around them. Afterward, Cypress, his opponent, and the rest of their friends, all left the arena together. However, the place never got totally empty, because some unrelated students still remained on the benches, either talking among themselves or doing some notetaking.

"So what about the Sea household?" Yew brought back the topic, which deeply concerned him. He had been listening from the beginning, while trying to act nonchalant about it.

"Oh right," Wasabi moved away from the hole now that there was nothing else to watch. "So, Galangal Sea is my roommate, and she’s only seven yrold. I asked her about that, and she said that it's the tradition of the Sea household to send the kids off to school early, because they’re always exceptionally talented in magic."

"So they're generational geniuses?" Aspen asked with a tone of someone, who hadn't known about the Sea household until now.

"Yeah, but even the best geniuses cannot compete against the most powerful magical items," Wasabi exclaimed, clearly looking down on magic.

Spruce joined her in a conversation about the magical items. Upon discovering this one common interest between them, his shyness disappeared like an exploding balloon. He immediately became the most talkative one.

Aspen listened in to their conversation, while Yew disappeared in his own thoughts.

After finding out that Cypress was a student of the ninth year, he recalled what he was told by the librarian. The only ones, who had access to the detailed list of all Hecate graduates, were teachers and the students of the ninth year.

So maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to befriend Cypress, if his status could be used. Yew didn't see this as a difficult task, instead his main concern was: was it worth the trouble?

The four of them returned the same way, whence they came, and after they exited the Fountain Park, they headed toward their hamlet. On the way to the boys’ cottages, they dropped off Wasabi at her cottage forty-four hundred twelve.

Standing in front of her cottage, she told them, "wait here, maybe Galangal’s home. I’ll introduce you." She went inside and came back with a small girl, who looked way too young to be a student.

The boys took a good look at the girl’s face. It wasn’t anything spectacular. She certainly was pretty, but she had the countenance of a terrified kitten taken to a veterinarian, which wouldn’t be odd for anyone, who had to leave home and attend school at such a young age. Yew looked at her long hair, tied in two ponytails, which fell upon her shoulders, and noted that she had the same hair color as her older brother.

"What?" she barked rudely at the boys.

"They’re first year students, just like us," Wasabi explained. "This is my roommate, Galangal," she pointed at the younger girl.

"Waste of time," Galangal said and added, "I won’t be spending any time with you anyway, so there’s no reason for us to know each other." She turned around and walked back inside the cottage.

"Oh, wow," Spruce said, "and I thought Linden was a jerk."

"There are all kinds of people in this world," Aspen calmly shared his knowledge.

Wasabi apologized for her roommate, said her goodbyes, and headed back inside her cottage. After she closed the door to her cottage, the boys moved on toward their homes.