Chapter 181 - Wizard Duel

He wore the protective glove on his left hand and held the duelling wand with his right. He channelled mana into the glove for a couple of seconds, causing a thin circular ethereal shield to appear before him, it was roughly the size of his old shield.

The three seconds that he had summoned the shield for had reduced his mana pool to ninety-one, showcasing just how inefficient relying on it in battle would be. Although it was good to check how big the shield was ahead of time, just in case he had to use it.

'Using the shield for only a couple of seconds drained almost a tenth of my mana pool.' Merlin thought to himself.

"Alright, give me a moment to replenish my mana, and then I'll be ready," Merlin announced.

"Alright, come with me." The instructor said as he walked out to the stage and instructed Merlin to take a seat at one of the benches.

Merlin walked over to the bench as instructed and took a seat, where he noticed a notification appear beside his stream chat window.

「"Brian_Simmons_3867" has gifted 2000 tokens with the message: "If you throw the wizard off the stage, I'll gift another 2000."」

Merlin smirked when he saw this. He was planning on doing so anyway, but it was a good incentive.

The instructor had made his way onto the stage and began scanning the wizards in the audience, he did a couple of laps before pointing towards one of the students who seemed excited.

"You'll be the challenger for the next competition, go get prepared." The instructor said as the student jumped up from his seat and ran towards the equipment room that Merlin was just in.

The student came back a few minutes later, and Merlin's mana had finished regenerating, so both of them were called on to enter the stage.

"Now, let me remind you of the rules." The instructor said while pointing at each of the starting locations, instructing the two to stand in the right locations. "This is a friendly wizard duel for the enrollment of this new student, he must stay in the ring for two minutes or knock his opponent off to win."

"The use of equipment outside of the two that were provided to you, alongside the use of abilities or spells is strictly prohibited and will result in disqualification," The instructor said, "Likewise, dealing physical damage to your opponent, such as punching or kicking them, will also result in disqualification."

"Physical damage, not just physical contact?" Merlin asked, wondering why that was specified.

"If you want to run up and push your opponent off the edge, by all means, you can certainly try." The instructor laughed.

"If both of you can agree to these rules, the match will begin in three seconds." The instructor said while jumping off the platform, once he was a safe distance away and received an accepting nod from both participants, he began counting down. "Three... Two... One... Star--"

Before the final word had finished, Merlin's opponent quickly channelled mana into his wand and flung a bolt of energy directly towards him.

Merlin caught onto this at the last second and leapt to the floor, rolling out of the way of the spell.

Knowing he had three seconds to breathe, he quickly stood up in time to see his opponent finish casting the next spell.

This time, Merlin stepped out of the way and responded with a force bolt of his own.

「Mana: 96/100」

The wizard promptly side-stepped the bolt before returning the same spell.

The two went back and forth several times without Merlin having to use his shield once, it seemed that his opponent wasn't that concerned with him either as their distance from each other gave them plenty of room to dodge.

「Mana: 76/100」

'Right, the only way to do this would be to close the distance." Merlin thought to himself while dodging another force bolt.

Merlin ran towards the centre of the stage while channelling mana into his wand, he released a force bolt at roughly half the distance the previous ones were fired at, causing his opponent to summon his shield for the first time.

The opponent slid back a few centimetres, but he effectively parried most of the kinetic energy from the force bolt away from his body.

The audience's reaction was a mix of excited gasps and a handful of laughter.

The wizard's gaze sharpened as he glared at Merlin.

"Alright, that does it," The wizard shouted as he closed the distance even further.

The wizard started channelling mana into his wand and then entered a stance as if he were about to fire, causing Merlin to leap out of the way.

But instead of firing, the wizard twisted his body around and fired at Merlin who was currently off balance from what he previously thought was going to be a close dodge.

"Oh crap," Merlin swore as the bolt of energy flew directly towards him.

Merlin quickly summoned his shield while planting his feet down to regain his balance. The force bolt collided with his shield, causing Merlin's body to be pushed back.

The force continued to push Merlin's body until he mustered enough strength to push his shield away from his centre of gravity and then deactivate it, causing the remaining kinetic force to fly out into the air and disperse.

「Mana: 64/100」

In just four seconds, Merlin was pushed from the centre of the ring to the very edge, and enough time had passed that his opponent had already finished channelling his next attack.

Merlin kept his guard up, refusing to fall for yet another feint attack like the one he had almost just lost to.

While keeping his distance, he avoided the wizard's next two attacks, but the wizard refused to get any closer.

"What's the point in just running? Come over here and fight me." The wizard taunted.

Merlin was trying to discern how much mana his opponent had remaining, but it was a difficult task. The wizard seemed to be fine, albeit slightly out of breath, which meant he could either be faking it or have a larger mana pool than Merlin.

'Right, he'd likely have arcane recovery, which means drawing this out is only going to be disadvantageous for me...' Merlin thought to himself before calming his breath. 'I've got a little over half, with no way of recovering it... We'll need to end this fast.'

Dodging yet another force bolt, Merlin closed the distance once more, he rolled out of the way of what was going to be yet another force bolt, but it was another feint. Merlin didn't even bother pulling his shield up this time as a force bolt was shot towards him only a couple of metres away.

Instead, Merlin responded by firing a force bolt of his own at his opponent's force bolt, causing the two energies to collide.

「Mana: 60/100」

A large grin formed on Merlin's face as the two energies simultaneously exploded, causing a wave of force to push both Merlin and his opponent back, but due to the height of the spell, most of that force was pushing down on Merlin, as he was currently kneeling, rather than pushing him away.

With that, Merlin had slid barely half the distance that his opponent had travelled, and he was ready to close the distance once more.

The wizard immediately panicked and shot a force bolt towards Merlin who was running directly at him. Merlin parried the bolt with his shield, much more efficiently than his first attempt.

By the time that Merlin had reached the student, he was already charging up his next strike, until Merlin reached out and grabbed the other end of his wand.

Merlin channelled his own mana into the opponent's wand, causing the energy in the gem to dissipate and preventing the wand from firing.

This was the basic concept behind magic interference, two sources of mana channelled into one object, especially one that wasn't built to resist said interference or didn't have some level of engineering that allowed the tool to accept two or more sources, would often be unable to operate due to the flow of mana becoming disrupted.

Merlin then channelled mana into his own wand and fired it towards the wizard's stomach at point-blank range, causing the student to fly out of the ring, almost missing the padded floor section as he rolled into the benches.

「Mana: 52/100」

「You have completed the quest, "You're a wizard III.", visit the magic instructor to receive your rewards.」

"I win," Merlin announced while wiping sweat from his brow.

The crowd roared with a mix of surprise and amazement, and Merlin spotted a handful of students laughing in a corner of one of the benches.

Merlin's attention was brought back to his chat as another notification message appeared beside his stream chat window.

「"Brian_Simmons_3867" has gifted 2000 tokens with the message: "I believe I can fly~"」