How do you get an Archmagus' attention?

  It was a straightforward question, but hardly one with a straightforward answer. I had considered several possibilities before settling on the most direct choice.

  Make a scene.

  I waited for one of the nobles to step forward and accept my challenge. Finally, a short, reedy man who felt like a roaring inferno marched forward, a glower on his face. Strange. I hadn't even insulted him yet.

  "My name is—"

  "I don't care," I cut him off, backing up several steps and waving towards him. "Fire when ready."

  I couldn't say if the joke set him off or my curtness, but either way, he was already weaving a spell together when I finished speaking.

  Fire magic was quicker to cast than lightning magic, and the man had a ball the size of my head formed in two seconds flat. Not bad, truth be told, and he'd managed it with little apparent wasted energy.

  His hand shot towards me, a ball of crimson launching towards me in a blur. I was already moving as he threw the attack, a Flicker Step carrying me fifteen feet forward and to the side. Heat burned against my back as his attack turned the spot where I had just been standing to ash, but the spell missed me entirely.

  Flynn's magic had illuminated the field well, but I was moving quickly enough that it should take the mage a heartbeat, maybe two, to find me. By the time he did, I had already moved again. My second Flicker Step brought me within range and, just like with the first, I slammed an open palm into his chest before releasing a burst of Aether.

  The fire mage tumbled over, insult in his eyes as he gawped at me. I stared down, then turned and walked back to my starting position.

  "Next challenger!" I shouted, earning a new wave of grumbles from the crowd.

  Perfect.

  The floodgates opened, and the nobles soon began falling all over themselves to face me. One by one, I bested mages of various stages and elements with varying levels of trouble. The first few had been the bravest, the most arrogant, or the downright stupid, but soon those easy fights passed.

  More nobles continued to join our group, mostly apprentices, but a handful of younger adepts dotted the crowd. Flynn had restricted this challenge to just apprentices, insisting this was a competition between mages of comparable age and experience, which helped obfuscate the truth.

  As I continued to win, the first rumblings of cheating began. I'm not sure why they would've assumed that, when the truth was both obvious and banal.

  I was a more skilled mage in many ways than my opponents, but not by much. Flynn had set my standards high, but these were among the best mages in Ferris. Each came with their own familial secrets, specialized training, and natural gifts. Instead, I leveraged three things to maintain an edge over my opponents.

  First, my style took advantage of natural flaws in most mages' own skillsets. I was fast, strong, and unpredictable in ways that few trained to counter. Not many spellcasters fought in close quarters, which tended to throw them off.

  Second, I had experience they lacked. I had battled monsters in life-and-death struggles and fought countless duels against other mages, from my time in Colkirk to my sparring against Flynn. Many of these students had at least some familiarity, but when they were caught off guard, it took them a second or two to adapt. They hesitated, and in that hesitation lay vulnerability.

  But neither of these mattered as much as the third and final factor in my victory. None of them was thinking clearly.

  Part of it was intoxication. Only a few of the nobles were drunk, but nearly all had partaken in enough to dull their minds and reflexes. But what truly led them astray was my insults and provocations. Angry people didn't think straight, and you needed a clear, focused mind to cast spells.

  Flynn had started that process, but anger was a fire and needed stoking. I had taken steps to ensure that, needling, insulting, and provoking them with the air of an upstart young noble, a plan which worked swimmingly. More than one challenger had taken such offense that they sacrificed any finesse in favor of raw, overwhelming, and insultingly predictable expulsions of uncontrolled power.

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  Still, despite all of those advantages, I wasn't invincible. Each battle chipped away at my reserves, my stamina diminishing over time. I had won my first few duels with just Flicker Step and simple force magic, but those strategies didn't work for long.

  By the third duel, I needed Arcane Body to react fast enough, and by the sixth, I had covered myself in my Arcane Armor as well. The eighth opponent had forced me to conjure simple magical projectiles, and the tenth nearly landed a strike on me. I did my best to keep my full abilities hidden, just in case one of the challengers proved more skilled than expected.

  I defeated my eleventh opponent after nearly a minute of dodging her attacks. The wind mage stomped back to the others and, in her place, stepped out an earth mage.

  He was unremarkable in appearance, but his Cloud-Stage mana felt vast and well-controlled. More alarmingly, his face held no signs of anger, and his eyes were flat, focused, and utterly unafraid.

  We didn't say anything, those niceties having fallen to the wayside after the fourth duel, but I could sense when his mana began moving. Power extended through the ground, and I was already pushing off the dirt towards him.

  Mana flowed through my legs, and I shoved off in a Flciker Step, but my jump carried me only a few feet towards the mage. I blinked and looked down to find that the dirt had changed, becoming soft. No, not soft. Muddy.

  I looked up to see the earth mage already drawing mana into another spell. A wave of mud rose before him, taller than his body, and he threw it towards me with a shout.

  The ground was too soft. I wouldn't be able to get enough footing to launch myself over or around the wave, and I couldn't levitate myself using force magic yet. That left only one option.

  I drew on the full strength of my core, weaving it into my Arcane Body and Arcane Armor spells. Power roared through me, but I had already pushed those intoxicating feelings aside as I kept pulling. A heavy weight settled onto my back, crude force magic granting me additional leverage, while a fourth strand of mana flowed into the bracer in my right sleeve.

  A rectangular shield of green mana materialized, tall enough to cover me from knee to shoulder. It was dense enough to appear almost opaque, with enough strength to block even attacks from Flynn, and represented the peak of my current efforts at a shielding bracer.

  I crouched, holding my shield up against the crashing wave and bracing myself. A second later, the wave of dirt slammed into me with enough force to rattle my teeth. I slid, my feet sinking deeper into the mud, but somehow, I found firm enough footing to stay upright.

  The torrent beat down on me, and I weathered it with a grimace even as I began drawing a fifth stream of mana towards my left hand. It was enough of an exertion to send twinges of sharp pain through my head, but I'd dealt with worse.

  I pulled the Aether together, forming the familiar shape of a dagger with practiced ease. It was too unstable to be permanent, but more than functional for my purposes.

  For all of his evident power and skill, the earth mage couldn't maintain his attack forever. I felt the mana driving his magic subside, weakening just enough that I wasn't in danger of being knocked aside. The moment the weight slackened, I forced additional Aether through my shield, purposefully destabilizing the construct.

  Thanks to years of practice, I knew that Aether constructs tended to fail with particularly dramatic results. My shield was no different, and when it broke apart, it did so with a roaring explosion. The entire front of the earthen wave before me vanished, bits of mud and dirt blown aside to reveal my opponent, hands raised and eyes wide.

  I threw my dagger before he could recover, controlling the semi-solid Aether with pure will. It flashed across the gap between us, aimed straight at the mage's throat like a ballista bolt. His eyes widened, then slammed shut, and I clenched my fist closed an instant before the blade hit his flesh.

  Slowly, the noble opened his eyes, tilting his head down just enough to see the dagger hanging a fingerswidth from the hollow of his throat. His mouth dropped open, then curled into a faint smile.

  "I yield!" he shouted, which was unneeded but appreciated.

  I nodded and straightened up, dismissing my magic and doing my best to appear casual about it. My core was running dangerously low, my channels twinging with discomfort, and sweat beaded on my forehead, but I'd won.

  The earth mage marched up to me, the first to do so, and extended a hand towards me, saying, "Good duel."

  I blinked, then took his hand. It didn't really feed into the image I was trying to portray, but truth be told, I didn't think I could fight another duel like that. Clearly, my plan had failed, and acting graciously might let me make a clean escape.

  The noble leaned a little closer, muttering, "Nice trick with the shield, by the way."

  I chuckled, replying, "Thanks. Almost got me with that mud spell."

  His smile widened, and he nodded once before releasing my hand and walking away to rejoin the crowd. I followed him for a second, shaking my head before turning my focus on the rest of the mages.

  The crowd had grown restless during our duel. I vaguely recalled hearing cheers at my near-defeat, and my victory despite that had seemed to anger them more than ever. Yet none of them leaped at the chance to face me.

  I turned this way and that, taking the chance to draw Aether back into my core with slow, steady breaths. It wasn't much, but recovering even a little of my power might be the difference between victory and defeat.

  Then, at the edge of the group, there was movement. A woman stepped out from the crowd, moving with easy, flowing steps. I focused on her, only to feel my heart skip a beat.

  Amelia looked different from how I remembered. Her hair was shorter, her skin tanner, and her build stronger. She wore a sleeveless green dress, revealing one leg through a low slit on the side while leaving her arms and shoulders exposed. I wasn't sure how well she could fight in something like that, but she certainly cut an impressive figure.

  I met her eyes, swallowing hard before saying, "Unfortunately, this challenge is only intended for fifth-year apprentices."

  Amelia met my eyes. "Are you worried you'll lose?"

  It was a direct challenge, and one that sent the crowd into a fit of murmurs. I wasn't sure if Amelia had meant to force my hand or had just hoped it would irritate me enough to accept, but the result was the same. I could have refused, and I doubted anyone would have questioned my honor after beating twelve separate apprentices, but...

  "I accept," I said, taking a few steps back.

  Amelia flicked her arm to one side, a staff appearing in her hand. I wasn't sure if she had summoned it from some form of spatial storage or if she'd simply created it with her magic. Either way, I recognized the challenge there.

  I held out my own hand, focusing on the right on my finger, and pulled out a swordstaff. It wasn't magical, and I had brought it out of an abundance of caution, but it'd serve my needs.

  We stepped into a standard guard stance almost in unison, and I met her eyes across the short gap between us. There was no warmth in her gaze, and even a little bit of hurt with a hint of simmering anger.

  And so we stood, waiting for the other to make the first move.

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