Reader Mage 160-Thank You For Participating

Nora knew Blood magic would be trouble, and yet nothing could have prepared her for what she was currently experiencing. There was an annoying deep, throbbing ache present from the base of her neck all the way down to her toes, and with each second her body heat rose. It was warm now, accompanied by slight swelling and redness in all the affected parts—her joints, phalanges, tacarpals, and carpals. A second ago, she could at least try to move sowhat; now, though, it was excruciatingly painful.

She didn’t know very much about biology, but she was certain that blood clotting couldn’t bring about anything desirable at the end of the day. And a spell on such a scale should definitely be a hassle for the caster.

“Isn’t this taking a toll on you?” Nora asked.

Ivan turned to her and cleared his throat. “Just stay still,” he repeated for the hundredth ti.

Nora scoffed. “I am staying still. Thanks to a certain soone. But you could at least release the scope of the spell, you know? At least let move so more places besides my head. It’s painful.”

Ivan was silent for a few seconds, visibly considering it. Then he shook his head.

“That won’t work on ,” he said. “Stop it.”

Nora raised her brows. “I was not being cute. I was asking you genuinely. It hurts.”

After a mont of reasoning, Ivan’s Grimoire flipped to a new page, and Nora felt the blood around her knee joints releasing gently. It was not the part of her body she was hoping he would take pity on, but the boy wasn’t foolish—apparently. Her ankles were still locked, so she wouldn’t be able to walk, and so was her arm and hand. Those were needed for her spell casting, to ensure its precision. And Ivan knew that.

“Better now?” Ivan asked.

Nora flexed her knees. Despite being released from bondage, they still felt stiff, and they would probably remain like that for so while. But in comparison to a few seconds ago, yeah, they were better.

“Thanks, darling,” she said, and the courtroom fell silent.

Ivan blinked incredulously, then shook his head. “Nasty trick,” he said. “I try my best to be jovial but I won’t let that be the end of or my team. We have a lot to gain from winning here, and a lot to lose from losing. Please, stop with those attempts of yours. They will not work.”

Nora stared back owlishly. For a second she was confused as to what he ant, when she realized he was taken aback because of her appreciation which had, apparently, bashed him.

She snorted. “Don’t worry. I have no reason to use such dirty tricks to defeat you. You’ll also find that I am probably the least naughty person in the whole of Prestige Academy. In fact, I might just be the least naughty person you’ve ever t. Rest assured.”

And she didn’t care about what he or anyone else had to lose, only what her brother had to lose.

Ivan took a mont to digest her words. Then his brows furrowed.

“You’re not planning on staying still, are you?” he asked.

“Obviously.”

“What tricks do you have up your sleeve?”

“None that I think I should be telling you.”

“You’re frozen. You know I can just walk over and knock you out?”

Nora smiled. “Then why don’t you just do that?” She paused. “Oh. Are you scared of ? Scared that if you take even a step away from that throne, you’ll end up losing?” Ivan did not reply. “I must admit, though. You’re right to think that. Because you will lose if you try it.”

She was bluffing, but that had always been a tactic she liked. Fake it until you make it.

However, Nora did have a plan. The problem was how it would work.

As soon as she had learned about Ivan’s Hex being blood, she had done a little research of hers on the ability. After all, compared to the other abilities of the rest of the students of both Nikita Academy and Crown Academy, it was the one that seed the most complex and troubleso to her and her Hex. What she had found out was that blood was made up of a combination of a lot of elents similar to those found in air, primarily because blood functions to exchange these elents with the atmosphere through the lungs. Oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitric oxide. Blood was basically made up of air. In other words, she should be able to control her blood.

Nora gulped at the thought. Ti was ticking. She stretched her head forward to find out that ten minutes had passed since she’d been kept stiff. There were less than ten minutes left to ensure Prestige Academy moved on to the second round. She didn’t have the ti to be defiant against her ideas.

Nora stared straight at Ivan, whose eyes were suddenly dancing about, glancing between her floating Grimoire and her. She could read his intentions. He was thinking about destroying her magic stabilizer; and without that, she wouldn’t be able to cast spells—at least safely. If he would be able to cast another spell that required launching while using such a great spell on her, Nora didn’t know. Which was why she had to hurry up before the goodness in the boy’s heart ran out and he made his decision to finish her off.

Nora’s Grimoire flipped to a completely new page. Nothing was written there. No spells. But her mana moved—not outward, but inward. Imdiately, words began to appear on the empty page.

Ivan couldn’t see what exactly was happening with Nora’s Grimoire from so far away, which was an advantage to Nora considering her earlier disadvantage of being frozen as soon as she’d stepped into the courtroom. And this developnt made it so that the boy wasn’t pressured to hasten his decision-making. After all, there was no sign that Nora was attempting to cast a spell directed at him. There were no signs of her mana seeping out of her body to connect with the elents of air in the atmosphere. What harm could a bound person do?

And for a Blood Mage, the boy ssed up not realizing that Nora would be able to control the elents of air present in her own body.

Nora’s mana reached for every single elent connected to the air present in the atmosphere in her clotted blood, and that was enough for a spell to be created. Air Oscillation. Nora’s newest spell, and a very painful one.

A yelp almost escaped Nora’s lips as the elents of air in her body were induced into a high-frequency vibrational turbulence, destabilizing the presence of Ivan’s mana in her body to get her blood under his control. It was a high risk, high reward spell, considering the problems that could co from it. There were risks of not only rupturing her blood vessels if she oscillated her blood too much, but causing aneurysm in herself. From what she knew of that word, it could result in her death.

But she didn’t need to go that far.

Ivan’s spell was complicated, but it relied on coherence—control. If his mana was like holding wet clay still, her spell was violently shaking the table to ensure that the structure cannot maintain integrity.

And by the ti Ivan noticed what was happening, Nora succeeded. Ivan’s mana was forced out of her body. But not without a battle scar to call hers.

There was a pop in Nora’s right arm, and it suddenly beca heavy, going limp as a searing pain shot through it. She knew what had happened, but she didn’t have the ti to focus on it. The rest of her body was free, and she wasted not even a quarter of a second lounging about.

As Ivan jumped up from the throne, pressured, Nora conjured an air ball and blasted it at him. He jumped off the dais to avoid the attack. As he turned around, Nora dashed out of his line of sight. If his mana needed to sneak into her body to get hold of her blood and control it, then that ant he needed to be seeing her. One couldn’t control what they couldn’t see.

“Fuck!” Ivan swore, shifting his gaze around to find Nora, but it was all to no avail. Either he was being sent into a disarray from a barrage of air ball spells lunged at him, or he couldn’t see her at all.

Nora didn’t like that she wasn’t taking the guy head on like a Mage should, but she would take any form of victory at this mont if it would an ensuring Prestige Academy moved to the next round, even if it involved her scurrying as a rat.

However, she needed to ensure Ivan would be unable to disturb her once she’d sat down on the throne. A good plan was getting rid of his Grimoire, but there was no way the boy was stupid enough to leave it unguarded.

She tried, blasting a spell at the book, but it swerved out of the way, avoiding the spell.

That confird it, and left her with only one option. And for that, she needed to be seeing him and be stable.

That would be risky, but it was worth a shot.

Nora bit her lower lip, fighting back the pain in her arm and rapidly compressed air beneath her feet. It served as a mini-trampoline, occasionally appearing wherever she shifted to and enabling her to move much faster than she was supposed to. The spell took a lot out of her, and considering that she was already short of breath, it required even more resilience from her. But she had to use it, to win.

You’ll owe one large one, geek…

She muttered as she bounced about, making herself a blur to Ivan.

The boy was unsure what to do here. But he didn’t remain stagnant for long.

As Nora flashed into his view, an air ball dancing on her palm on the ready to strike him, the boy flashed out of her view, almost as fast as she had arrived before his.

Nora’s breath hitched for half a second. She felt an alien presence sneak into her body, but imdiately vibrated her blood, pushing it out and escaping Ivan’s line of sight in the next second, hiding behind one of the large pillars connecting the ceiling of the castle to its floor.

No words were uttered. The two Mages were trying to catch their breath.

Nora glanced at her smartwatch. There were three minutes left. It was now or never.

She gulped and hurried out of the pillar. To her surprise, Ivan had been thinking the sa.

In hindsight, the boy had no reason to engage Nora so violently. All he had to do was be on the defense. After all, even though he was no longer seated on the throne, it still recognized him as its sovereign. But if he didn’t try to take Nora out, she would end up sitting on the throne. Even half a second of her being seated on it would change its owner. That was the problem.

The two Mages ran around the courtroom side by side, ensuring they didn’t remain in each other’s line of sight for too long for the other to co out victorious. At this point, it was about who had the more gas in their tanks. But Nora couldn’t have that. She pivoted, stopping her dash and headed for the throne. Ivan’s expression turned grim and he hurried after her. She was up to the second step of the dais, when she suddenly broke her stride, bounced on a compressed air, and tumbled over the boy.

Ivan stifled a gasp as he flashed past Nora. He looked up at her, but she had seen him first.

Her Grimoire flipped to a new page. This ti, Nora’s mana slipped out of her body and snuck into the boy’s body along with the air the boy breathed. Like she was in his bloodstream, she felt her mana move through his body, connect with the elents of air present in his blood, and froze them in place, completely seizing their oscillation.

Ivan stiffened right on the dais. Nora dropped behind him, hurried to the throne, and sat on it.

Imdiately, both hers and Ivan’s smartwatch beeped. The throne recognized her as its new sovereign.

She breathed a deep sigh of relief, crossed her legs, and leaned backwards on the throne.

Then she snapped a finger.

A vacuum appeared around Ivan and the boy drew in a gasp as he fell to his knees. Nora had left that part of his body from being frozen out of the rcy he had shown her.

“There’s just ten seconds left,” she said as the boy gasped for air, his eyes wide and teary. “I’m not trying to kill you. But if you can’t breathe, then you won’t be any problem. Five seconds more. Bear with just for a little longer. Three. Two. And…One.”

Her smartwatch beeped, she snapped her fingers, and Ivan buckled over drawing in breath.

Nora smiled. “Thank you for participating.”