A Dragon's Curiosity

From a regular magician’s point of view, Nisha should have lost when her opponent brought out the mana gem storing the power of a fourth ranker.

On all accounts, her current power fell short compared to the amount needed to win.

But Weston was not the only one to have a trump card.

Naturally, the dragon already tried her trick with the mana membrane, covering the stone to prevent the young noble’s mana from going inside. Sadly, the difference between levels was too much, even without focusing the wind energy into a blade or concentrated attack it only tore through the defences she put in place.

Not that it surprised the dragon. In front of overwhelming power, even the most clever schemes would fall apart.

However, this wasn’t the only trick she learned in class earlier. Her confident grin never wavered and the sheer presence she radiated made Weston all the more nervous when the rock reached the middle again.

The elf should be dismayed, yelling at him or bargaining for a draw. Contrary to that, the only thing that happened was the elf leaning back in the old dusty chair again, seemingly not concerned at all. As if the whole affair had nothing to do with her.

“Put up as much airs as you want. In front of a noble, you are nothing.”

Weston did not like her one bit. Her calm attitude, her innate lofty bearing and the heavenly complexion she showed above her sky blue scarf. Everything he worked hard to obtain was taken away by the elf, and her strength even seemed to eclipse his own. Unless he crushed her here and showed his might like a young master of a great Duke household, Weston would not be able to rest easy.

Of course, he still managed to produce a hateful sneer, as a child he already had been deeply involved with politics and power plays in regards to the branch houses who always eyed Weston’s position or wanted to make use of him. This much wouldn’t even count as acting.

“Is that the reason why you are so confident? Because of your descent, you stand above everyone else?”

Out of all the possible reasons he could have picked, the question of ancestry baffled the dragon the most. Without knowing her background, her name or the simple fact that she was born as one of the strongest beasts under the heavens, Weston believed himself to be superior.

Disregarding these hidden bits of information anyone should still be able to find out how the elf had been adopted by the Dharnas house, putting her on the same step as a primary descendant. Maybe not the same as a blood-related heir, but nonetheless an important figure of the upcoming generation.

Finding someone to have witnessed her attending court or perusing the mansion of the Dharnas household as she pleased should be plenty to connect her with the elf that got adopted into a Duke family.

“Why not? Isn’t winning proof enough that I’m better than you? Look, the red stone is already in your half, it won’t take long until you have completely lost!”

Angered half to death from her attitude and way of doing things, Weston did not immediately overpower her completely and borrowed her method of slowly torturing the enemy to death. Even then, Weston still felt it wasn’t enough. He had bullied many others before and the moment of realisation had always been very enjoyable. The despair and fury he would never have to experience as a chosen son of the heavens. Right now his uneasiness soared, the elf in front of him didn’t even bother to conceal her open contempt for him.

“Are you confident in yourself? Because I am convinced by my power. How about we add some more liveliness to the fight for the [King’s Seat]. I think the stakes are still too small to represent such an important event properly.

How about we both add another two hundred points to the prize pool. The winner takes it all.

Or are you afraid?”

No matter whether he spoke from a position of strength or after being suppressed by the elf, Weston always suffered whenever she opened her mouth.

Being afraid of her while he completely dominated the board? Who would believe that?

And betting another two hundred points on the first day? Was he that rich?

Naturally, he could not outright decline the bet either. Otherwise, he would confirm he was afraid of her. Weston indeed wondered whether he should abstain now - following the uneasy feeling he had ever since she appeared so confident - or whether he should agree to the bet.

But there was no base for her to become so bold, no matter how hard he racked his brain.

After coming so far and offending each other, there were three outcomes left.

Either he declined the bet now, and the result wouldn’t matter anymore as everyone would only remember him being afraid. Weston could also accept and win by relying on his mana gem. In that case, the young noble would not lose face, but it was not a great matter already. He had allowed the elf to push him to the brink, and the other students would keep that in mind, not his win after struggling.

It was the last choice that caused him a headache. If he added another two hundred merit points and Weston’s uneasy feeling was a prediction of a future, there would not be a first turn student that would fail to hear about him being beaten by a rogue cultivator. At that point, all of his face would be gone.

At this stage, the teenager wished his followers would jump in and destroy the current predicament, yet when he looked at them for help, none of them dared to meet his eyes and quietly hid in the crowd.

“Why wouldn’t I dare? If you want to throw your points away, I will gladly help you. And since everyone here can act as a witness, don’t go back on your word later on and fail to repay your debt.”

While his words sounded extremely confident on the surface, and practically all advantages laid with Weston, he felt extremely regretful to have consented. In two out of three cases he lost much more than he could gain if he won. Even the two hundred merit points extra he could win didn’t lift the noble’s mood by much. While they were precious for first turn students, he had plenty of contacts in the upper turns via children born among the branch houses, servants or knights serving their House. And he could earn plenty later on by selling enchanted items to the school, with the resources a Duke household had he was anything but guaranteed to become an enchanter. An average quality product would net him about fifty merit points as a beginner, later on, this number would soar as he learned the strange formations which his family kept their hands on secretly.

“Oh well, since we agreed I guess it’s time to finish up our little game.”

Lazily stretching her limbs, Nisha recovered from the extremely laid back position on her chair and concentrated on the duel board.

If the young man had chosen to confront her directly with his hidden reserve of fourth rank mana, things might have turned out a little troublesome for the dragon, and she would have needed to invest much more strength to kill him off successfully. Luckily they competed via duel board and not in a direct fight, where Nisha could display other skills than just brute strength.

While her small trick of coating the red rock with a membrane of her mana did not work, the elf could still make use of the game itself.

“You!”

Taunted and incensed again from the casual treatment he received, Weston started pouring out all the remaining mana he had, both his mana pool and from all the stones embroidered on his robe. If he couldn’t overcome this annoying fellow right away, he would die from high blood pressure.

With a mighty shove, he wanted to hit her with the gem, the harder, the better and invested a significant amount of the remaining fourth-grade mana to accomplish this.

Unfortunately, the stone stopped moving at this time, and the mix of burning and flowing mental energy just vanished into thin air as soon as it came into contact with the red stone.

Throughout the whole fight, she had never feared the strength wielded by the young noble. Nisha herself disregarded his background, had a way to deal with his secret trick and placed an enormous amount of confidence in her ability to overpower him in a contest of raw strength. Aside from a few offensive words he could spew, Wenston never felt dangerous to her.

Extending her mana into the red stone, the dragon did not compete with him right now. While tinkering with the blue and red stones back then during her practice with Alexander, she gained a few insights into the formations existing inside them. Especially the red stone, regardless of the strength poured inside - the formation had a way to respond, which went against common sense when dealing with an enchantment.

The blue control stones, on the other hand, were quite easy to analyse. Using the grade of the material as a base, they reformed any external energy into the according rank. Rather than being all made from the same material, this blue stone came from different sources, each the same as the number carved on it.

But the final trick she learned strictly related to the former enchanted stone, the crimson rock. The dragon found it illogical that a single formation could disperse each and every kind of mana, no matter which quantity flew into it. While studying it, she couldn’t even glimpse at the complete diagram of the formation, hinting that this work was far more formidable than the students imagined. During her examination, she had inadvertently gained a different benefit than she hoped for initially.

Seeping into the stone Nisha’s burning mana did not get dispersed immediately. Through extremely dexterous control, the stream separated into seven strands and flew into specific spots on the half materialised formation floating inside the stone, nourishing these spots and strengthening them at the same time.

From one moment to the other, a terrifying suction force started circulating inside the rock, previously dark and faint rune circles lit up one after another and completed the formation step by step. Even the dragon had no idea what they were good for, without figuring out the whole structure and activating each branch point, she had no chance to learn this formation. Only one thing appeared clear to her the moment she started tinkering around with the stone. The more points became active, the scarier the formation became, and the suction force did not just add up, but multiply instead. Even with her rather generous mana pool, the elf had almost run dry when she experimented around. Fortunately, her recovery was similarly monstrous, and the dragon recovered to her peak state before the fight for the King’s seat.

In response to the sudden black hole swallowing his mana reserves greedily, Weston did not even manage to notice it initially. He only had one goal, defeating the elf as disgracefully as possible and retake his honour, no matter what.

Just the mana gems alone allowed him to exhibit the tenfold strength of his natural peak state and the formidable wind mana two ranks above his own made him feel invincible.

And yet the desired result eluded him. After coming back to the midway point, the crimson gem acted like dead weight and stopped moving. No matter how much energy he utilised, it only fell through an open gate and vanished afterwards.

Without a ripple in her face, Nisha calmly waited for the other party to exhaust himself. While it also took a degree of mana to sustain the enhanced formation, the difference between their consumption was as vast as the heavens and the earth. Weston, who failed to catch on early, had spent all his mana and only had about half of his fourth rank mana left before he recognised something amiss.

And to make him more depressed, he couldn’t even stop pouring out the wind mana at this point, a strange suction force kept up his consumption and drew out even the tiniest remnants inside the mana crystals on his robe.

Losing their lustre, he had been sucked completely dry and was powerless. If glares could kill, his fiery gaze at this moment would have killed the dragon ten times over.

Under his angered accusatory eyes, Nisha only released a tiny tendril made of darkness mana, which she hadn’t spent at all so far. At a steady speed, the originally motionless red gem made yet another reversal and raced towards the young noble’s endzone. And this time, the elf wasn’t playing around or stopped before finishing off. Under the many gazes of the surrounding students, the red rock ended all hopes for Weston to obtain the King’s Seat and made him lose the bet.

Seeing so many reversals happen right in front of them the so far subdued crowd started cheering, inspired and excited by the spectacle that took place in the fight for the winner.

Compared to their other classes, this was many times more exciting.