(Lucy POV)

  “Lucy, are you sure about this? You can still withdraw if you want to…”

  It’s been a few days since I put in my application for the tournament. And today we decided to hold a mock duel so I could get a taste of what the real thing will be like.

  This time Hina rented a training room at the academy so we wouldn’t accidentally damage anything at the flower field.

  “It’s okay, I should be fine.”

  “Calm down Sera, this won’t even be a real duel. You don’t need to worry so much.”

  We also invited Arthur due to my… circumstances.

  “Hmph. And you better be careful and not hurt Lucy. I’ll also be watching closely and intervene if you go too far.”

  “Why would I want to hurt Lucy? …Ahem. If you’re so concerned, why did you even ask me to come? We’re pretty much on the same level in practical exams.”

  “That… well…” She subtly glances at me as she trails off.

  “It’s fine Hina.” I tell her and then turn to Arthur.

  “It’s because of me. I got hurt in a fire a while ago and I still get scared whenever I see an open flame.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that. I’m sorry, that must have been painful.”

  His slightly playful tone turns serious as he sincerely expresses his sympathy.

  “No no, it’s okay. And Hina has been helping me get over it with some special training, so it’s already much better than it was before.”

  “Hm, oh is that why you two go into the restricted zone so often? You could just rent a training room like this, but if you prefer to do it more quietly I guess that’s fine too.”

  “Hah? How do you know about that?”

  “Well, after your sudden request for the qualification test, I received a few reports of two students walking into the woods at night. Thanks to all the sightings it was even starting to become an urban legend of sorts among the students. But it wasn’t so hard for me to link it to the both of you so I handled it for you. Though I was kind of curious what you were up to.”

  “...That actually happened?”

  “Wow, thank you.”

  “It was nothing, I’m always happy to help. Like right now, should we get to the mock battle?”

  “Hm, I’m ready.”

  “...”

  After I thank Arthur he returns to the matter at hand, though Hina still seems a bit dissatisfied with this whole training method.

  “Okay so, is this your first time participating in a duel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I think we should start with the basics. You know the shield spell right?”

  “Hm.”

  “Okay, in that case I will cast a weak basic attack spell and you block it. We repeat this a few times and I’ll keep increasing the strength. This is a good way to get used to it and learn your limits, then later we’ll switch to you attacking and me blocking. So I’m ready when you are.”

  Arthur explains and then gets into position. I also enter the dueling ring set up in the training room and prepare myself.

  I gather my thoughts and think back to everything Miss Julia taught me a few days ago:

  “Tch, you brat. You should have told me about this earlier, I focused on healing spells because they are the most important light magic spells. But in a duel they are basically worthless. Now you tell me you want to join the competition with barely two weeks left. Seriously, it’s just one thing after another with you isn’t it.”

  Well, first she scolded me for a good while after I told her I joined the student tournament…

  “All magical attributes have their own versions of the shield spell, and that’s one thing that is on your side, since the light magic version is the strongest of them all at a baseline. Of course a specialist of another attribute can easily outperform an amateur light mage. And it can take a while to pick up, so let’s start with this spell. First of all you need to…”

  But afterwards she earnestly taught me how to use it and thanks to the natural affinity for light magic that I inherited from the original Lucy, I learned it pretty quickly.

  So I focus and draw out my mana, then solidify it into a transparent, slightly yellow barrier in front of me.

  While keeping up my concentration on the spell, I nod at Arthur, signaling that I’m ready to start.

  “Then, here I go.”

  With that, he flicks his wrist and a small, visible wind current forms and then heads straight towards my shield spell.

  Ping.

  And after colliding with the barrier, it fizzles away with a pitiful sound. Having made no visible impact on my spell.

  “Hm, then how about this?”

  Ping.

  Ping.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Ping.

  …

  After that Arthur keeps sending spells, each more powerful than the one before. However my shield stops all of them without showing any damage.

  “Okay, let’s stop for a moment.” He says and I dismiss my spell.

  Hm, I do feel a little tired keeping it up for this long, but it actually felt pretty empowering blocking all those spells without even feeling anything.

  “You’ve done really well so far so I think we should move on to the next level. That was pretty much the strongest offensive spell I know, but well, wind spells aren’t exactly known for their attacking capabilities anyway. So this time I will combine it with my swordsmanship and really put you to the test. So prepare yourself, this will be much harder to block. Let me know when we can start.”

  He says as he picks up a wooden sparing sword and gets into a stance.

  “Okay, I’m ready.”

  I once again steady my breathing and summon my transparent shield in front of me.

  Shing!

  The next moment I hear something cut through the air and feel a strong impact hit my barrier, trying to push me back. I quickly fix my footing and stand my ground, managing to block the hit.

  It takes me a moment to come to my senses, as I barely even saw Arthur start moving and the next second his strike has already landed. He moved even faster than the time it took for his last wind spell to hit my shield. I knew about his methods from the game, but seeing it with my own eyes is completely different.

  So this is how a speed and precision focused style of swordsmanship looks like. But I don’t have much time to admire it as I see him get ready for another hit, and based on how we did it before, his strikes will only get harder from now.

  The next moment the training room is filled with the loud sound of something whistling through the air and the thumping of dull collisions. I can barely keep up with all the hits that keep getting faster and faster.

  “Hng.”

  This is completely different from before. Just against his wind spells I didn’t need to pay too much attention, I mostly just got tired from keeping up my shield for a long time.

  But now, I feel like if I lose focus for just a little bit, Arthur’s sword strikes would crack and then break my barrier in no time.

  While just the hits by themselves aren’t that difficult to block, but his technique of somehow pinpointing the exact points where my shield is the weakest and then focusing on that location makes it really strenuous.

  So I have to constantly shift my attention to reinforce my shield at the places I feel the hits come but then he instantly changes his target and attacks another weak point created by my distracted state.

  And his accuracy combined with his almost inhumane speed that still keeps getting faster, barely allows me any moment to breathe and I already feel drained after maybe a dozen seconds.

  “Wow, you’re pretty impressive. I thought I would have needed to stop long ago, but you’re still keeping up.”

  He says while slightly slowing his movements, but he’s still probing my weak points so I don’t even have time to respond to his compliment.

  “Haha, then let’s see how you handle this!”

  Suddenly a mischievous smile appears on his face and before I can process it, he completely vanishes from my vision.

  Ah, ah, this is bad. I can’t see him at all!

  I frantically glance around, but I really can’t see him. At this point he really could attack from anywhere. Ah, I really don’t have time so then let’s just try this!

  After that split second of quick thinking, I gather all the mana I can and without holding anything back I just infuse it all into my shield.

  Shing!

  The sound of the loudest hit so far catches my ears as I feel a very powerful impact hit my shield from behind me and get forcefully stopped.

  “You even blocked that…!”

  Then it’s followed by Arthur’s excited voice and glancing back I see he’s no longer in his battle stance, so I finally dismiss my spell and just fall to my knees, trying to catch my breath.

  “Haah. Haah.”

  “I can’t believe this, on your first time dueling you already blocked my strongest move. Hey hey, do you want to do this aga- Ow!”

  “What were you thinking! Wasn’t this supposed to be practice?! Why are you acting so unhinged? You almost hurt Lucy!”

  Hina angrily says after hitting the back of Arthur’s head.

  “Calm down Sera, even if her shield broke I would have controlled my sword and stopped myself before hitting her. But didn’t you see how amazing she was? I honestly can’t really think of anyone who could easily get through her defenses.”

  “Of course, Lucy is really strong. But don’t change the subject! I’m still really mad at you!”

  “Hina… it’s okay. I just feel a little tired, I’m not hurt at all. But was that really your strongest attack?” I reassure Hina and then ask Arthur.

  In the game Lucy never dueled any of the capture targets so I can’t really compare my performance to hers, but all of them are really strong characters so blocking a move like that is still a big deal.

  “That’s right, I’m not just saying it to make you feel better, I actually went all out with that one. Otherwise Sera wouldn’t be so mad at me right now…”

  “Hey.”

  “So if you can combine your defense even with just an average attack style, you could probably make your way through most of the tournament.”

  “Really? Ah speaking of attack, your moves were really impressive too. How did you move so fast? I couldn’t even see you by the end.”

  “Oh, that? Well, wind magic users have two distinct specializations. Since like you saw, wind magic by itself is pretty weak at attack spells and excels at support, those who have this attribute can either focus solely on supporting others and staying out of the fight. Or like me, they can just use the support spells on themselves and combine it with a weapon to make up for the lack of offense. So I was using really strong wind magic to enhance my agility and that’s how I was able to move so fast.”

  “That still sounds pretty impressive…”

  “Hehe.”

  “I’m still stronger…”

  “Hina?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  Ah, did she feel left out? I thought I heard her mumble something.

  “Anyway, if you feel like you’ve rested enough, let’s see how good you are at offensive magic.”

  “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “Then feel free to attack at any time, no need to hold back.”

  “...”

  I concentrate on the attack spell Miss Julia taught me and after a moment a faint golden glow appears at the tip of my finger. Then I extend my hand and point toward Arthur, the flow of mana following my movement and a golden light suddenly soars through the air!

  …And fizzles out before even reaching Arthur.

  “Huh?”

  “Uh, let me try again!”

  I become a little flustered and quickly try to recreate my previous actions while thinking back to Miss Julia’s words.

  “Light magic by far excels at support spells, the only drawback to this is that it barely has any offensive capabilities. This simple attack spell is the only one, and deciding to enter a tournament before even knowing this, is something only an ignorant fool would do.”

  She started off by scolding me again…

  “You will have no problem learning it, but if you want to have an attack spell that actually does something, you could try to use its enhanced version. I’m sure you heard about how you can power up spells by infusing your emotions into it. While the exact reason behind this phenomena is not yet known, according to the leading theory since mana is produced by your soul, drawing upon your mana while infusing it with certain strong emotions that also come from your soul, makes the spell exponentially stronger.”

  Or so Miss Julia said, but I’m not sure if the soul here refers to an actual soul. It’s more like an invisible organ that produces and stores mana and every living being has it in this world.

  So it’s not hard to see where the idea behind this explanation came from, but my existence kind of invalidates this theory. Since my soul came from my old world, I shouldn’t have any mana at all, yet I’m at the same level as the original Lucy.

  But well, I can’t really disprove their theory without explaining my circumstances, so let’s just call that organ the soul for now.

  Miss Julia then told me about the other crucial part of this method.

  “This method isn’t recommended for beginners as it makes spells exponentially harder to cast as well, but since this is a very easy spell from the start, this might work for you. As for the emotion that strengthens it, it’s…”

  Resentment and anger. Resentment and anger.

  Is there anything I feel those towards?

  Maybe the fire that took my life? But it’s just a natural phenomena, even though I’m still scared of it, I know it’s not malicious.

  My parents? Maybe a little bit, but I think it’s mostly just indifference, I barely even knew them.

  My fate? It’s just how things turned out. Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re not.

  Then… Oh, I’ve got it!

  With a newfound resolve I cast the spell again while focusing on my resentment.

  For all the games and books I can no longer play and enjoy!

  Another, brighter golden light shoots out from my finger and heads straight for Arthur. This time it even makes it all the way to him.

  “...?”

  But he just slowly takes a step to the side and my attack misses and fizzles out after a bit more distance. He didn’t even use any spells, just took a step back…

  “Um… was that it?”

  “Ugh, I feel like that was my best shot too.”

  “Oh. I guess there are drawbacks to everything haha…”

  “Are you okay Lucy?”

  I must have looked really bad since Hina came up to me too.

  “That was probably not enough to take anyone out, was it?”

  “...”

  “Right… Miss Julia was right after all. I really am a fool…”

  “W-well, you could always try what Arthur did and if your attack spell isn’t enough, you could find a weapon as well.”

  “A weapon…”

  I look at Lucy’s… well my delicate hands and thin arms…

  “Right, I could teach you some swordsmanship too.” Arthur jumps in as well.

  “In less than two weeks? I feel like even if I had years I’d have trouble catching up.”

  “...”

  Arthur and Hina awkwardly look at each other. Well, I knew my chances were low to begin with so it's not like this is a surprise. It was pretty common knowledge in the game too that light magic is mainly a support attribute.

  Hm but if it’s good at all support spells, then…

  “Um, could I try something? I have an idea.”

  With that my training for the student tournament truly began.