Master Barlow tapped her cane onto the floor, sending out a pulse of light mana. It was an unspoken signal, and both Sophia and I reacted in a heartbeat.

  I pushed off the floor, drawing mana through my body and sending it racing through my channels into my typical array of spells. The room blurred, and I landed within arm's reach of Sophia, Aether flowing towards my left palm as I struck.

  It was the same strategy she'd seen me use, but I didn't see why it wouldn't work again. There was a point where it didn't matter that the attack was predictable, in my estimation.

  My palm struck low, and a multi-colored light flashed. Emerald green was the brightest of them, but lines of purple and gold danced across the walls as my Aether crashed not into flesh but a magical shield. Clearly, Sophia had prepared some kind of defense.

  I blinked, caught off guard for an instant, but recovered even as Sophia swiped her hand across her chest. Lightning trailed along her fingers, slicing out in a stormclad arc that would've left me with a nasty burn, even with the protective spells worked into the room.

  Sophia was quick for an ordinary person, but to my eyes, she looked half-frozen. Everything, from the movement of her mana to the swipe of her arm, felt slow.

  I ducked the strike, rose, and lashed out with another palm strike. This time, I put my metaphorical back into it and was rewarded for my efforts with a brighter flash of purple, followed by a hard gasp as my hand slammed into firm muscle.

  Sophia staggered back, rubbing her abdomen with a scowl. Off to the side, Master Barlow announced, "Point to Vayne. Return to your starting positions."

  We reset, and the light mage signaled the start of the second round. Once more, I closed the gap with a Flicker Step, but Sophia must have seen it coming. Not much of an accomplishment, but still.

  There were a few strategies to neutralize mobility spells, and Sophia had chosen the most direct. Bolts crackled across the floor as she sent scorching lines of gilded violet in every direction. I had no idea what she'd done to give her magic its two-toned color, but it felt more potent than it should be for a Fog. She might even be able to dent my Armor if I let her hit me.

  Which was why I didn't plan to let her hit me. And more importantly, she'd made a mistake. She had assumed my Flicker Step kept me earthbound.

  I gathered up my legs and pushed off, using another Flicker Step to throw me up and over Sophia. I had to duck so that I didn't slam my head into the ceiling, pivoted, and landed just behind her, even as she pulled her scepter free from her belt.

  Lightning burned across the metal-shorn rod as Sophia spun. The spell was faster, quick enough that it might've landed even six months earlier. But she was slower than Flynn, and it was a simple matter to turn, allowing the strike to sail past me and hit—

  The bolt forked in my peripheral vision, seeming to turn almost ninety degrees to slam into my ride side. My Arcane Armor flared, dispersing the attack enough to protect me from most of it. Unfortunately, enough force remained that I stumbled to one side, my half-prepared attack breaking apart in the confusion.

  I straightened up, shaking my head before nodding to Sophia.

  "Nice hit," I remarked with a smile. "I was sure I dodged it, too."

  Sophia said nothing, but I caught the faintest flicker of...something in her eyes. I might call it amusement.

  I returned to my side of the room, running through the end of the round as I moved. I had dodged her attack, but somehow it had still landed. Could she guide her spells mid-flight? I knew it was possible, but had no idea the mechanics involved. It could be pure mana control, but I wasn't sure even an Archmagus could pull off such a feat at eighteen.

  The third round began before I could come to any conclusions, and I forced myself to focus on the fight instead of my unanswered questions.

  I decided to play it more safely this time, both to avoid a repeat of the last round and to give myself time to analyze Sophia's magic, even if it risked another loss. There was some kind of trick at play, and I found myself more interested in deciphering that than protecting my ego.

  Sophia had already begun molding mana, and I felt it shift as she noticed I hadn't closed the distance yet. I wasn't entirely sure what she was planning, not until the first sparks flowed out from her body.

  At first, it was just a few fingers of lightning, but within seconds, a great storm had surrounded her body, creating a raiment of indigo and gold that covered her from her shoulders down to her feet.

  Just what in the hell was that? Some kind of defense, maybe? It didn't have the feeling of an armor spell, but I had no idea what else it might do.

  Sophia threw her right hand forward before I could make any conclusions, pointing her scepter with a shouted incantation. Instantly, a portion of the lightning streaming around her body flowed forward, sinking into her arcane focus before launching towards me.

  I reacted in a blur, raising my arm and throwing it forward as I conjured a shield. The purple bolts slammed into me a moment later, but seemed to stick rather than slide off the surface.

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  My eyes widened, and I pivoted just as the bolts converged, transformed into a spiral as they drilled through my shield. The projectile missed me by a finger's breadth, and I turned, dismissing the construct before reforming it in preparation for a follow-up.

  And in that moment, I nearly lost a second round.

  I felt the faintest twinge on the edge of my senses, a brief yet potent flare that almost escaped my notice. I spun, raising my shield just in time to deflect another barrage of lightning as it crashed into me one more.

  The impact drove me back, but I stayed on my feet despite the force. As I struggled to ward off the unexpected attack, I heard Sophia call out another incantation and sensed her preparing another spell.

  I wouldn't be able to dodge, but that didn't mean I was out of options.

  Mana roared from my core as I pulled, throwing the energy down through my channels and out. An omnidirectional wave of Aether crashed out, slamming into both of Sophia's attacks.

  Sophia was strong, strong enough to punch through my shield with the help of an arcane focus, but there wasn't enough skill in the world to let a Fog-stage lightning mage win against an Aether at the peak of the gaseous stages.

  Both spells broke against my barrier, doing nothing more than wasting some of my mana.

  I straightened up, dismissing the shield on my arm as I considered Sophia. The storm swirling around her had weakened somewhat, but as I watched, it began to grow again, even as her mana signature weakened.

  We stared at one another, and then she attacked again.

  The two of us soon fell into a rhythm. Sophia would launch an attack while I dodged and blocked, doing my level best to minimize wasted energy as I broke down her style. What I soon learned was equal parts fascinating and infuriating.

  I had assumed Sophia would become a war mage. She had learned powerful, destructive spells that taxed her core in favor of overwhelming force, and it only made sense that she'd continue on that path. She'd expressed admiration for the Titan-Bane, after all, and that was the type of magic he favored.

  Instead, Sophia had pivoted. Her magic wasn't weak by any stretch. In fact, I suspected her particular gathering technique lent greater power to her lightning mana than most Fogs, though not nearly to the same extent as my Aether. Still, it wasn't her might that I noticed, but the near-complete lack of typical weaknesses.

  First, her lightning raiment wasn't a defensive measure as I had suspected, but instead a means of speeding her magic. Sophia used it to conjure a storm from which she could pull bolts, allowing her to string together attacks in quick succession.

  Then, she cast those attacks through her scepter, which could somehow change it in several ways. I had no idea which enchantments existed within its depths, but it seemingly allowed her to throw out finger-thin, penetrating bolts, sweeping waves, and branching, forceful blasts.

  Those two in concert might be enough to defeat most foes, but it was her accuracy that truly made her a terrifying foe. It didn't matter if I had dodged the strike. It didn't matter where I stood in relation to her. Somehow, her lightning followed me all the same.

  I had to draw on my core four more times, conjuring up the same impenetrable barrier to block her attacks. If this bothered Sophia, she didn't show it and carried on her onslaught with seeming unshaken confidence.

  Our dance soon grew routine, to the point where I could reach out with my senses to try and figure out the rest of her magic. Just how was Sophia controlling her attacks? Was she really controlling them with nothing more than pure skill? I couldn't see anything else to it, but that seemed impossible.

  As I broke apart yet another series of bolts against my barrier, I caught something. It was just on the edge of what I could detect, the faintest twist of mana that I would've missed in any other situation. Hell, I had already missed it many times over.

  There was the faintest bit of lightning mana in the air, a construct of some kind weak enough that it was invisible. I must have destroyed it with my last Aether wave, and as I watched, it reformed from nothing.

  The construct felt like a rope, but one braided from thin, intertwined mana rather than physical fibers. One end stretched out from Sophia while the other wrapped around my torso, joining the two of us from dozens of feet away. Now that I knew about it, I caught the slightest snag on my movements, a kind of dragging that slowed me down just a hair.

  Sophia's mana rose again as she pulled a section of the storm away. It flowed through the scepter before shooting towards me, but rather than fly in the half-chaotic path common to lightning magic, it instead seemed to follow that strange cord that connected us.

  The blast slammed into my sixth shield, and as that barrier fell, I couldn't help but smile. I'd figured it out, at least well enough that I felt comfortable ending the duel.

  I gathered up my mana, then tensed my legs beneath me and shot forward even as I poured more mana into my shielding bracer and my Arcane Armor. Sophia's eyes widened, and she launched another bolt, but her raiment had suffered for her efforts. It wasn't entirely depleted, but her magic was slower and weaker than before, while I still had plenty of energy to spare.

  Her blasts skidded off my shield, bouncing away to splash against the protective enchantments encasing us within the dueling ring. I let out another surge of power to dispel her secondary attacks, which she sent along the thread and tried to guide around my defenses.

  I reached her in seconds, just as Sophia lashed out with her scepter. She'd used most of its likely functions, but I decided to put an end to our match. I had seen enough to mull over in my spare time.

  As it turned out, whatever defensive magic Sophia had used to stop my first palm strike didn't do much against force magic. My Aether wrapped around her scepter, tearing it free with a single hard pull. It landed in my left palm, even as I stepped forward, shielding bracer raised.

  A half-formed bolt struck the barrier, but without her scepter, it didn't have the focus to do any real damage. I struck Sophia hard enough to knock her over, and she landed hard on the floor with a gasp.

  Master Barlow called an end to the round, and I dismissed my spells even as I considered Sophia. I held out her scepter, and she stared at it for a moment before snatching it from my hand. She swiped one arm across her sweat-drenched forearm, then stalked back to her starting position without a word.

  I followed her, then shook my head and returned to my side of the room.

  We began the fifth round, and Sophia began casting again, drawing deep from her core for whatever was left. I formed my Armor, but rather than charging, crossed my arms and watched as she conjured up her magic.

  Finally, when she'd finished, I said the first thing that came to mind.

  "Why are you still here?"

  Sophia had already begun preparing an attack, but paused, her mana flickering in time with her confused expression.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Why are you still here?" I repeated, waving a hand around myself. "At this school, I mean."

  Sophia stared, then replied, "To get stronger."

  I couldn't help but laugh. "Really? I fought quite a few fifth-year apprentices not too long ago, and I'd wager you could beat most of them. Maybe not all, but most. How much more do you really have to learn here?"

  Master Barlow's mana shifted to my side, but I ignored her as I took a few steps closer.

  "You can't imagine what I did to get this far," I said. "I trained and studied, day after day, without rest. I sought out risky resources and unorthodox methods to push myself further, learning things I doubt most mages twice my age know. Hell, I almost died more than once. Yet here you are, almost as strong as me."

  At that, Sophia narrowed her eyes. "Almost?"

  I nodded. "Yes, almost."

  With that said, I moved.

  I considered Flicker Step a holistic improvement over my Force Step. It was faster, pushed me further, and wasted less energy in the long run. However, what truly elevated the spell was its stability. It didn't disrupt the natural flow of my mana, which allowed me to chain multiple "Steps" together in a single, almost uninterrupted series of movements.

  It wasn't a trick I could use often. Even with the rest of my magic strengthening my body or the enhancements to my form, I found that the spell took a toll. But if there was ever a time to use it, it was now.

  The world became a swirl of colors and lights. My first Flicker Step closed the gap between us. My second launched me into the air, up and over Sophia's low, sweeping strike. The third threw me forward, away from her follow-up blast, and the fourth shot me back to the floor, just behind Sophia.

  I landed, Aether flowing into my left arm as I turned. My swordstaff formed, and I ducked low as I stepped in close, neatly sweeping Sophia's legs out from under her. She hit the floor for the second time in under a minute, hard enough to knock the wind out of her.

  My fifth Flicker Step carried me back to my starting position, and I slid to a stop just in time to hear Master Barlow call an end to our sparring match.

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