The Insider System

Chapter 309: Trying To Win

"Well I was thinking we could do a classic mage's duel where we both stand in place on either side of the ring and try to hit each other with spells. It's been a while since I was able to duel someone with the Wind element so it should be fun." Hearing they wouldn't be able to move, Lake lost confidence in actually winning but he still agreed.

"That sounds good, other than not moving are there any other rules like taking turns?" If they couldn't move he wouldn't be surprised if there was something like that in the rules of this type of duel. "You've never seen anyone duel before?"

Lake shook his head no. "Oh in that case I'll tell you everything about them. To answer your question there aren't any turns but you do have to let the weaker opponent make the first move so you'll be able to start the battle, other than that the duel is a normal fight where you can't leave where you're standing."

"So we can't fly? That seems kind of weird in a battle using the Wind element." The guy didn't disagree with this statement and said. "We can fly if you want a rematch after I beat you." Hearing the way they said this, Lake could tell they were ready to start the fight and asked. "Is your mana back."

Instead of getting a normal answer to his question the guy jumped to the stage and said. "Why don't you come and see." Seeing how much fun they were having, Lake didn't ask anything else and jumped onto the stage in a dramatic way adding a few dozed flips to what the other person had done. "If it has to be this way then take this."

Lake fired his pitiful first spell to which the other person quickly blocked it and fired what could only be described as a tornado at him. Lake didn't know any real wind spells other than Fly so he decided in the half a second he had until it hit him to try and just use the Wind mana around him to condense a shield.

This wasn't a spell and just a shape made out of Mana he had changed slightly to be solid but his goal was to just let the tornado pass him by like he was in a tornado shelter. After being blown around a bit even with his shield in place Lake dropped it and saw the tornado was gone.

He hadn't forgotten this was a real fight though and didn't look around too much before converting his shield into a giant vortex of his own. At first he thought he had failed in some way when he didn't hear the name of the spell he was trying to use right away but as he sped the vortex up he heard someone say. "Whirlwind."

Repeating this name Lake sent his vortex at the guy he was facing shouting its name as loud as he could. "Whirlwind." Unlike the guy he was facing there was no advantage to hiding the name for him since the other guy already knew the spell. The guy he launched the attack at actually started to smile when he saw this and while they didn't have time to talk Lake was sure he would have congratulated him if they did.

Watching the man not only block the attack but absorb the mana from his spell Lake realized since they were using the same element it was completely possible to use any spells launched as an easy way to increase how much mana you had at your disposal. It seemed all you needed to do was wait till it got close enough to you.

This made him understand why it wasn't necessary to move in this type of duel. It was going to be almost impossible to beat the other person even if they weren't allowed to dodge. You had to completely overpower someone who could disarm you completely. He saw only one way to do this and it was to make it so the other guy had no access to any mana.

Under the surface of this duel there was a mana tug of war going on that you couldn't really see and Lake would need to at least get close to winning this before he could land an attack. The problem was they seemed to be pretty close to each other in how well they were able to gather mana so he wasn't sure how he was supposed to win.

He had noticed in the past there did seem to be the possibility to go past the stated capabilities of a skill if you used it a lot but he wasn't sure if that was because of the description being lacking and not explaining the skill fully or if you were actually making progress in how strong the skill was.

He also didn't think he would be able to make enough progress in any of the skills that mattered to win the mana tug of war so he needed to find a different way and he was sure he could figure something out if he found the time to read all the skills he had received from Wind Mage. It had been a while since he had looked at his skills or even his stats so he didn't even know what he could do.

A fight like this wasn't a good time to study though so he needed to focus for now. The guy across from him was clearly about to cast another spell Lake had never seen before so he needed to get ready to react to the new spell that could take almost any form. After a while Lake saw them stop speeding the mana up and do a hand motion that caused a constant stream of wind to start pushing on him.

Lake guessed they had planned to send him flying from where he was standing since that was one of the ways you could win but Lake was able to hold his position by splitting the stream of wind by taking control of the mana just enough to divert it. After a while of it not working the guy stopped and started to gather mana again so Lake got down to imitating the spell he was just subjected to.

It was just a constand gust of wind so Lake didn't think it would be that hard to figure out he just needed to get his mana spinning first like the guy had done before launching the attack. He knew this was just to get the speed principle within the mana high enough that the wind would be going fast enough to push the other person but he was slow in this aspect so he was afraid by the time he got it going he would have to abort the attack because the other guy was already launching another spell towards him.

This didn't happen in the end, though he wasn't sure if it was because he had beat them to it or if they had wanted to give him a chance to unlock a new spell. Sending the mana at the other person, Lake heard the name of the spell in his ear and repeated it. "Wind Blast."

Like he expected the other guy was able to stop the stream of Wind with no problem but it didn't end there and before he knew it his own attack had been redirected at him. Not knowing how to react to this while continuing his attack Lake stopped the stream of Wind prematurely before recapturing the attack that had been redirected at him and adding it back to the spinning mana that it had come from.

Lake wished this wasn't a fight so he could stop and talk to the other person for a second because he wanted to understand how this was supposed to end. He didn't think either of them could actually beat the other in a timely manner unless the other guy was holding back to help him out and could end it whenever they wanted.

He didn't have actual time for this though because he had to watch how they were getting ready for their next spell so he could do the same thing to unlock the spell. It seemed this spell was going to be a lot more dangerous just by the look of it so he wanted to be able to unlock it.

Once they finally launched the attack it was in the shape of a giant sharp ring that was rotating at a high speed and like always Lake had almost no time to think of a way to deal with it. Not being able to think of a way to redirect or destroy the spell without being hit, Lake decided his best option was to try and slow it down by taking control of the mana it was made of.

If he was able to do this he would just use the mana to cast the same spell so he could unlock it for himself. As the rotating disk got closer to him than it was to the other guy he felt himself start to wrestle control of it out of the other person's hands and by the time it was a few feet away he had it completely stopped in place other than its spinning.

Lake briefly thought about just throwing it back at the other guy but he didn't think that would unlock the spell for him so he decided to play it safe and destroy this disk before making one of his own and using that as the attack. Getting his mana into the right shape and doing just that Lake heard the name right as he was about to throw it. "Air Slicer."

Like everything up until that point this new spell was stopped in a slightly fancier way than he was able to do by the other person and Lake expected them to send it back towards him but instead they started to talk. "That's all the high level spells I know so from now on I'm just going to be trying to win."