Reader Mage 184-Good Luck With The Deficient Mage

Jordan was ambushed by Marcus just outside the infirmary before he was hurled to his ward. The boy stood there with an angry look on his face, and since Jordan didn’t want to deal with Marcus’s rage at the mont, he decided to shut his eyes and play pretend.

“I know you’re awake!” Marcus voiced as he blocked the path of the dics, despite them trying to keep him away. “Wake up, you little shit!”

Jordan breathed out deeply, shifting on the stretcher he was on.

“What do you want?” he asked, opening his eyes as he gazed up at Marcus.

Marcus frowned. “What was the aning of that display? That was not the plan.”

“What was the plan?”

“You brat.”

“Oh, shut it already, Marcus. I’m pretty sure I told you guys that I ain’t head over heels for the damn tournant like y’all are. Why does the ranking matter anyway? Being second isn’t so bad. Well, being first isn’t either, but you get what I an.”

Marcus leaned forward and grabbed Jordan by his arm, causing him to wince. The dics shifted uncomfortably, but their hands were occupied with lifting the stretcher up, so they weren’t able to push Marcus away. All they could do was voice their opinions on the matter to him.

Marcus didn’t care.

“If we end up losing this tournant because of your stupid southern carefreeness, I promise you—”

“You ain’t good at keeping promises, so don’t bother making them,” Jordan cut in, slapping Marcus’s hand away. “And fuck off so the dics can get on with their work. Stop disrupting everything you co across. It makes you unlikable.”

Marcus frowned, his nose twitching as he visibly tried to fight back whatever outburst was growing within him. Jordan decided to add salt to injury.

“And besides,” he continued. “We’ve still got two more matches to go. Or are you saying you and Naomi aren’t sure you can win? Well, that’ll be sad, won’t it. You lot not being able to win without the fucking carefree southerner’s help.”

Marcus took a deep breath and exhaled, loosening his tightened fists.

“Fuck you, Jordan.”

“I’m gonna wear that like a badge,” Jordan said with a laugh as the dics carried him into the infirmary. “Good luck with the Deficient Mage.”

###

Naomi Chen was Park Yuri’s opponent, a B-Class Mage with straight black hair in a low ponytail and dark eyes that seed to suck in any light that gets caught in its path. She stared straight at Yuri without the sa jovial look as Jordan gave Jaehyun, and it was fairly obvious that their fight wouldn’t proceed in the sa manner as Jaehyun’s had.

Yuri didn’t look bothered. She simply flexed her wrists, her Grimoire already hovering by her side even though Instructor Park hadn’t announced for the duel to begin. Her intentions were to end the match as quickly as possible, which had been the crux of her discussion with rlin on how to best ensure that she ca out on top.

Their talk had been a rather quiet one, being the last two people in the waiting room. They had also had to make the discussion a two-in-one affair, after all, there would be no one for rlin to discuss with once Park Yuri was out of the equation. All in all, though, they had decided that the best way to ensure that they both won their respective duels was to make certain that the fight didn’t drag on. Naomi was a Tree Mage, and the whole reason Yuri had created a whole different spell specifically for the girl was because so trees were resilient to fire, and they had no doubt that Naomi would have those sorts of trees in her arsenal.

rlin, however, was curious how Yuri intended to draw the curtains over the battle very quickly. He hadn’t asked and she hadn’t told him, and so he wondered if she had managed to create so sort of variation to the Solar Flare spell. After all, the original version seed more like a hail mary than anything else, and they had all agreed not to go through with such anymore.

Instructor Park’s voice bood through the arena, signalling for the second to the last duel of the tournant to begin, and the two contestants jumped back as though in fright of each other.

Naomi was the quicker of the two. She raised her hands over the arena as her Grimoire flipped open, and mana spilled out of her and onto the arena. In a split second, the floor of the arena broke apart, and countless trees jutted out of it. They curled upwards like beanstalks, growing and growing, drawing awe from everyone who watched as they rose to the sky above. It only took two seconds for the arena to be turned into a tropical forest, and Yuri was trapped.

rlin shifted on his seat, worried. But Yuri, once again, didn’t look bothered.

As Naomi vanished into the forest, Yuri’s mana began to spill out of her. She constructed a simple barrier of fire around herself first, locking herself to the particular spot she was standing in, and as sweat trickled out of her, she brought both her hands together and rlin’s brows pulled in.

Fire sparked in the center of her hands and quickly compressed to form a miniature ball of fire that grew rapidly in heat and intensity that it began to look more and more like a ball of plasma. A sun.

The trees surrounding Yuri began to react.

They snaked towards her, attacking her defenses from every angle. The first couple of trees caught on fire and turned to ashes very quickly, but with every attack, they were being destroyed less and less, like they were adapting to the intensity of Yuri’s heat.

However, Yuri didn’t lose focus. She was sweating buckets now, but she gritted her teeth and focused her attention on the sphere of fire she was constructing. Most of the crowd couldn’t see her, as she was covered by a large plantation of greenery, so they had to stretch on their seats, and eventually had to opt for watching her through the large TV screen in the arena.

Naomi, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found.

Until…

The floor beneath Yuri cracked open, and a hand shot out of it and grabbed her ankle. Yuri’s concentration was disrupted, and the ball of plasma she had crafted had cracks appear over it.

She gritted her teeth and kicked Naomi’s hand, but Naomi’s grip was strong. No matter how much Yuri kicked, the girl wouldn’t let go. And the longer she held on, the more Yuri’s defenses weakened and the spell she was crafting broke down.

This was bad… rlin realized. Creating the mini-sun took a lot of stamina, and the fact that Yuri was also trying to maintain her defenses while doing that ant she would be expending a whole lot more than should be necessary. If the defenses broke and the mini-sun was destroyed as well, even though she was an A-Class Mage, it would be very hard for her to recreate the spells. Mana, after all, was a virus that could get exhausted just like a person.

Yuri bit her lower lip then peeled her gaze away from Naomi, who was resilient in holding her ankle. She turned around and watched the trees attacking her, studying them. Then she hissed slightly and discarded her defenses, breaking the barrier of fire around her and instead turning them into countless roses of fire that face both the trees and the ground before her.

Naomi’s hand was the only thing that escaped the floor of the arena, but it seed she had eyes everywhere. Because as soon as Yuri’s defense traded places with her roses, Naomi let go of her ankle and tried to retreat back into the ground.

Yuri wasn’t about to let her.

Lasers of fire escaped the roses, blasting towards the attacking trees consistently and shooting straight at her and the ground as well.

The arena turned into a forest caught in a wildfire. Thick back smoke rose to the sky above, and the sharp sll of burning trees along with high heat intensity clouded the arena. Any sight of Yuri and Naomi was lost in the wreckage, causing murmurs from the crowd, and even Instructor Park had to strain her eyes to be certain nothing had gone wrong. There were no screams so that was a good sign, but it could also be considered a bad one.

A few seconds passed with only the crackling sounds of fire burning, and then a very bright light appeared within the smoke, like a star had settled in the arena, pulsing like it was on the verge of exploding. The smoke began to clear, and then Yuri was seen again. Her battle wear was burned in more places than not, but she didn’t mind that her own spell had attacked her. She was soaked in her sweat and bleeding from her nose, but most importantly, in the middle of her hands was a ball of flas moving rapidly like it was about to explode.

Instructor Park frowned at the sight of the spell, then Yuri turned to her and she gasped.

“Barriers, now!!” Instructor Park roared and the rest of the staff rushed to the edge of each compartnt of the arena and activated the barriers present there. Large fields rose over the seats, covering the crowd who had a mix of curiosity and fright on their faces, and in the next second, before Instructor Park could say any other thing, Yuri let her spell loose.

The miniature sun she had conjured left her grasp, shifting several feet above, it stopped rotating at a certain height and pulsed even harder, becoming brighter. Everyone watched it. Then it contracted and exploded. The academy’s ground shook as an ultra-bright, white-hot light blinded everyone, causing them to turn away and spread an arm over their eyes in response. The TV signals were disrupted and the connections were cut. rlin wasn’t sure if he was glad about that or not. One, he wouldn’t be going blind, but that ant he had no way of knowing what was happening in the arena at this very mont.

Then the connections were restored.

rlin took a deep breath at the sight of what the arena had turned to. Despite Yuri going through with her attempt to reduce the damage her spell would cause to the academy by splitting the resulting kinetic energy of her solar flare into smaller explosive pieces and taking them to the sky for them to explode as simply fire crackers, the arena was severely damaged. The forest of trees Naomi had conjured were nothing more than ashes on the ground now, destroyed beyond repair, and the concrete floor of the arena had been reduced to complete rubble. Yuri was no longer standing where she had been before the explosion, but seated with her back against the trunk of a burned tree to the edge of the arena. She was severely injured, pale and bleeding, and looked like she had more than just a few broken bones.

Naomi was even far off worse.

Despite being nowhere to be seen during the explosion, she was not safe from the hit. She was lying down on the broken arena several steps away from Yuri with her eyes wide open as she stared at the sky above and her lips mumbling sothing incoherent.

Shock.

Instructor Park’s eyes widened at the sight of the wreckage as she pulled down the layers of defense she had thrown over herself, which included her hair and the sa barrier that had protected the crowd, to the relief of everyone.

“dics, now!!” she roared, and they rushed onto the scene, scooping both Yuri and Naomi onto stretchers. Then she turned to the crowd and bowed in apology. “I am deeply sorry for how this duel turned out. I fully take the bla for what has happened as I was unable to call the match to a close before things escalated. I assure you all that the students involved will be fine. Prestige Academy has one of the most advanced dical facilities in all of South Korea, and even in the world. I once again apologize, and I render the just concluded match null.”