Seraphine’s outstretched hands manipulated the mana deftly into her spell.

  2 invisible masses of mana rotated against one another, creating the conditions for the derivation magic, “Lightening”.

  Manipulation of electricity didn’t fall neatly into any of the 4 elemental soul shapes. While the fire and earth elemental magics could achieve a control over electricity, through the manipulation of plasma and manipulation of metallic properties, the amount of control required for these applications made it more suited for industrial applications.

  However, with basic magic, by transforming the energy present within mana into masses of opposing charges, mages could direct a burst of electricity in the general vicinity of their opponents.

  Aurelius could vaguely make out the sparks of electricity forming within Seraphine’s outstretched hands as the girl recited her spell.

  One step.

  As a derived form of a basic spell, “Lightening” was efficient with regards to the mana manipulation. Furthermore, the key advantage that the “Lightening” spell had was the fact that it was an “area of effect” spell.

  Electricity tended to do its own thing, bypassing smaller shields by twisting and curving unto itself to reach the target.

  This made it a cheap spell to fight against larger groups, or even to overwhelm singular opponents at close range.

  Two steps.

  The area of damage that the spell could do meant that Aurelius would need to cast a shield covering a larger area, or nullify the spell entirely with a counterspell.

  Such a choice presented a few key problems.

  Firstly, Aurelius didn’t have a shield spell memorise on command like Seraphine did, and was unable to conjure up one without spending time to chant.

  Moreover, “Disruption” would not suffice to block the attack. “Disruption” was useful for shielding against pure mana constructs like the mana bullets, or disrupting and dissipating the flow of mana in elemental attacks.

  Three steps.

  Given that “Lightning” was a derived “physical” construct, “Aegis” was the only spell that would be effective to counter the spell.

  However, it would be incredibly difficult for Aurelius to cover his entire frontal area with the spell in time for the hit, given the surface area that he had to cover, and especially with his rather shoddy skills with respect to mana manipulation.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Therefore, Aurelius was left with the only sensible choice.

  With her fourth step, Seraphine released her magic.

  “...Verum feriat!” Seraphine exclaimed, as she brought her hands together to create a thunderous smack. From the gaps of where they met, tendrils of blue hidden within a blinding flash left.

  Aurelius had reacted on Seraphine’s third step.

  He had one objective now, and that was to get out of her effective range of the spell, amounting to a little under 10 metres.

  He jumped backwards as hard as he could, launching off of his sorry legs and using the spell, “Locomotion”

  “Manus Moveo”, he chanted. Locomotion was one of his better spells, with him barely being able to use it without chanting. It was a very versatile spell, and was useful for everyday use meaning Aurelius had plenty of practice with the spell.

  However, it was rather taxing on the body, especially depending on the weight of objects being moved.

  In this case, Aurelius was using the spell to extend his air time, cleverly leveraging how his initial jump decreased his apparent weight to reduce the fatigue his body would experience.

  Aurelius watched as the delicate filaments of electricity split into branches upon branches, creating beautiful fractals of light.

  The electricity travelled erratically, with several tendrils breaking off and striking harmlessly onto the stone floor of the gym.

  With Seraphine’s lack of extensive practice with basic magic, the spell would not have quite been enough in terms of its trajectory to strike Aurelius if he was able to stay airborne for just a second longer.

  However, Sage Yeltz had a different plan in mind.

  Aurelius felt his back hit something… solid, as he dropped from the air like a stone, the air knocked clean out of his lungs.

  Aurelius barely had the time to register this utter ridiculousness as the electricity hit his chest squarely, adding a flavour of… spice to the sharp pain in his back and a smell of burning… meat into the air, as it flew out of Aurelius’s lungs.

  As consciousness flickered around the edges of his vision, Aurelius came to a rather belated and unfortunate realisation.

  Ms. Yeltz had put a barrier around the vicinity of the dueling area!

  ???

  Aurelius woke up with a rodent on his face.

  “Hello, Mr. Vennor.” The mouse greeted, as its paws patted Aurelius’s nose reassuringly.

  “Hmm… Just… A poor performance. Interesting. I expected something worse.” Sage Yeltz muttered judgementally at Aurelius.

  Aurelius ALMOST thought something very insulting about this blasted mentor of his.

  “If you’re done lying around like a hobo on the street, please return to your starting place. We’ll move on to the second round of our duels.” The sage instructed, waving her hands casually at the dumbstruck Aurelius.

  “I just got hit with a chest full of lightning! I can’t-” Aurelius started, just to be shot down by the sage’s scathing glare.

  Rubbing the itch on his chest, Aurelius coughed into his fist, as he walked back into his starting spot dejectedly.

  “Welcome back, challenger! Hope you’re ready for round 2!” Seraphine yelled cheerfully from her side, as she bowed towards him.

  “Ready!” The sage yelled once more from the sidelines.

  This is going to be a long fucking day. Aurelius thought glumly to himself.