Trick

Two days since the meal:

“Don't forget, Sorin! I'm about to teach you a little trick before we set out to our destiny today. Master and student will bring down the entire city this night!”

That's right, the last two days I have been training my arms off. Be it learning some small tricks about manipulating flames or about how wind works on a fundamental level. Today, Ino told me that we will learn some general tricks.

“Let's do this already, you have to go soon.” Sorin took out his staff; it was an extension of his body now, a critical part. Even that small change made it still useful to have for him, as it allowed him even faster magic now, even compared to Ino's level since she's always staffless.

Ino looked at the ceiling of the sewage system. She forcefully took her hand out and grabbed a piece of earth from above, enough to cover their body, and she transformed it into a wall. “I'm going to teach you how I scaled the entire top layer during your trial. It's a simple trick, but it can go unnoticed."

“I did that before with a mud wall when we were on the first carriage attack. I know how to transform earth, done it plenty of times,” he sighed out, but he knew perhaps it was something new.

She just smirked before giving him an excited look. “When two mages clash, what happens? How does the winner get decided?”

Is this year 1 of my class? What sort of question is this? Fine, no matter still.

Sorin took a deep breath. “The one whose output is bigger will win, obviously.”

“That's right, my student! The bigger output wins, so in theory you should always win against me because your capacity is bigger than mine, isn't it? But that's why there is a trick for a lesser opponent to win. Your towers have spells beyond my capacity to clash with, so I use this trick to scale the tower.” She instantly pushed the earth wall at Sorin without a warning, which made him retaliate with his own magic, causing the earth wall to get pushed back towards Ino.

This is what she wanted. I hope it’s worth looking at then.

“We're in a clash, and I'm winning. What's the trick you will use?” Sorin paid close attention; he didn't want to miss this learning opportunity.

Ino then spoke a single word: “Watch.” Her magic was still clashing with Sorin, but the wall was getting pushed against her even faster now until, in a moment, a small chunk pounced out of the wall directly for Sorin's head; he instinctively ducked underneath, seeing the chunk hit a far-off building, thankfully not harming anyone. “Did you see it?”

“You took out a chunk, but that wouldn't make sense since I was putting my magic into the entire wall.” Sorin thought for a moment; he replayed what just happened over his head again until he noticed something unusual. “The wall moving towards you faster means you lowered your magic against mine; then a chunk flew past me at incredible speed. Meaning you concentrated your magic on that single chunk?”

Ino just nodded back towards him. “That's right! It's a risky strategy because your wall could have hit me first. If it was a fireball, I most likely would have a smaller window, but if I cut a tiny part of my spell through the middle of yours, it would basically render your attack useless and go around me. Like a tunnel!”

That would be a very useful way to defeat a stronger opponent, meaning with Boyle, we would have to resort to such a trick to not die in a clash. But it's not like I can't counteract… No, earth and water would get swallowed, and wind would make it worse; fire with Fire is the only way.

“So you realised it! We're basically nothing compared to that red-haired freak who can destroy buildings, but we can outsmart him. Though he will figure it out sooner or later, so we only get a couple tries, so make them count.” She then clapped her hands. “That concludes training for today.”

Sorin's eyes widened. “That's it? There are surely more things we can learn!” A slight stress in his voice erupted.

“That's it. I don't have the capacity to train all day like you, and I have to go out and finish my planning, so go back to Chikaru. She's done the seal after all; you will need to help her cast it onto everyone when we begin.” Ino, again without another word, decided to jump off the top level down into the city.

I will be in charge of that; allowing the normal person to come up to every bridge hub would be allowing them to the top layer. With all these people here, I doubt they would start killing otherwise; mages would suffer too, but can a commoner even kill a mage? I hope they subdue them instead.

He jumped down off the top layer, going down into the hatch where Chikaru was scribbling a massive seal. It was almost the size of five humans lying next to each other. “You will bring this to the main street and use this on everyone. Ino is going to make sure they gather.”

So that's why she's gone. I assume because she needs to plan out all the chaos that will allow this to work. I hope Keldric has gathered the mages he could; they most definitely know today is the day.

“Sorin, I don't want to lose you or Ino. I want you all to come back safely. Aren't we classified as friends now.”

Sorin stood frozen; that's how Chikaru saw them. Even if all of them had differences, her outlook was different than both Ino's and his. He took a deep breath. “I think we're friends, sure. I will make sure to come back then,” but the word friend kept him confused.

I don't think we are really friends, but maybe after all this is done, then sure. That does sound nice, but sadly we will be without. For now, I have to sit for a couple of moments until Ino communicates to me that it's time; then I will grab that seal and finally begin by becoming the symbol I hoped for. The crowd will await me.