Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Chapter 240 - Recon

Endra didn't know what he expected to see on the boy's notes, but he was a bit disappointed to learn that it was just commentary on the teams fighting below. It was still empty for the time being, containing only the names of the two western cities, Hespani and Lazil; and a small empty comment: 'Both teams acting too safe'.

The two teams in question were still in a staring competition down below although the fight had already started a few seconds ago. They had created some cover to defend themselves, but as far as Endra could tell, aside from the a few students working on a spell, the fight was quite stale.

From the silence, Endra could also tell that both teams' students were mostly from nobility.

Endra agreed with the boy's judgement. The two sides were acting too cowardly, despite the arena being an open space with nothing between them. If it was Arza's team, they would've surely went for an all-in offensive right off the bat, damn the consequences. 

And the tactic wouldn't even be that bad against unsuspecting enemies, as few among the 2nd year students would know how to deal with getting jumped on by a pack of mages. 

But finally, there was action beneath, with a Hespani student throwing a rather big spell: a huge fiery wave covering almost half the arena grounds. The student promptly fell to the ground while holding his chest, his hands dropping ripped-up pieces of a talisman. 

Two Hespani students who were casting something beforehand released their spells, which were wide-area Seyethe magic. The flame covering half the arena quickly became big enough to engulf the entire enemy opposition. 

One Lazil student ripped a Talisman, which conjured a wall of water in the air. Unfortunately, it was definitely not enough to cover the flame's reach. Another three Lazil students ripped apart talismans, which finally created a wall big enough to block the flame entirely. 

Steam appeared all over the area, but Endra could see looks of relief appearing on the Lazil students' faces. They soon turned to frowns as the Hespani melee offensive appeared from beyond the steam. 

From beyond the steam wall, Hespani artillery picked at stray Lazils with considerably powerful spells, but nothing lethal. 

The Lazil students tried to mount a stronger defense, but their efforts weren't strong enough to stop the calmer and more confident Hespani. Slowly but surely, the fight swayed towards the Hespani students. 

At the end of it all, the melee brawl ended with nine Lazil students carried away on hangers. 

It was great fun violence to observe, but Endra wasn't really impressed by the whole ordeal. It all felt too… competition-like. He glanced at the boy's comments on the fight. 

[Indecisiveness at the start, no clear plan on Lazil's side, a weak offensive from Hespani and an even weaker response from Lazil, overreliance on Talismans.]

That was the short summary. The boy went on to list a few possible countermeasures to the offensive, and how it could be improved upon. 

Endra agreed with most of the things he read. The boy was knowledgeable, and he seemed to possess practical knowledge. 

But after writing down the info on the fight, the boy looked at Arza and the rest of the class. He checked through the matches that were supposed to occur the day and tomorrow, and after thinking briefly, wrote [Ankelite – skipping prelims] on a piece of paper.

He wrote down Decatur's name first, and gave him a brief description. [Arrogant, easily agitated, possibly a weak link. Uses a wide variety of magic, but mostly focuses on Lumiaris and Ivelisi.] 

One by one, he wrote down the descriptions of everyone else and added his guesses on their personalities and how could they exploit them. He knew of some of the nobles's names, and especially on Bella, he had a lot of information. As for the students he wasn't familiar with, he just gave them nicknames. Red-head, slim-girl, glasses, etc.

His estimations on their abilities were a bit low, but Endra couldn't blame the boy after seeing the fight below.

Soon, the boy finished the 19th student, his eyes started darting around, searching for the missing one.

Endra took that as a cue and undid his invisibility, "Eviendra, I go by Evin."

The boy got up his seat startled, dropping his notes all over the floor. "Motherfucker," came the reaction a half second later

'Didn't try to hit me immediately,' Endra noted, but then he noticed the air stir next to the boy.

Endra immediately deployed his own Seyethe energies as a tentacle and swatted at the stirring air, intending to disable whatever spell was being cast. Usually it did the trick, with how tight Endra's control over the World energies were. At this point, he could almost use them as his limbs.

But as his mass of Seyethe energies met with the boy's, they were blown away by the impact. The boy's spell took effect afterwards, creating two sharp pieces of Hard Air.

Endra's surprise at being blown away lasted only a split second, before his brain immediately started working on a solution. His first instinct was to use the Soul Shield, but through sheer willpower, he stopped his hand from ripping the talisman in his sleeve and he ordered his mass of Seyethe energy to slam more violently against the two Hard Airs.

This time, the boy's defenses had more trouble against the assault, his grasp on the two Hard Airs weakening significantly. Using the chance, Endra struck again, completely destroying the spell.

Both sides didn't try any other spells and only looked at each other for a second.

"Sorry for startling you," Endra spoke first.

"Where the hell did you come from?" the boy asked, shoving Endra away.

Arza and the others glanced over and some got off their seats, but Endra only waved at them dismissively. They sat back down, but they were still looking over with curiosity.

"Saw you glancing at us and decided to say hi."

"I said where, the hell, did you appear from?"

The boy asked, a hint of a threat in his voice this time.

"Like I said, I just came to say hi. Though, I didn't expect you to start shooting a spell at me the moment you saw me."

A brief confusion came over the boy, but it was soon wiped away. Then, as if thinking everything was ridiculous, he shook his head, and started picking up his notes. 

"Pretty wrong notes you got there," Endra commented. "Especially on the ones you don't know the names of."

The boy glared at Endra at that, and got up.

"Were you invisible beside me?"

"Eh," Endra shrugged. "But that's not important. Tell you what. You give us info about the rest of the Arcvallen class, and I'll give you info on the rest of my class. How about that?"

"Won't need it."

"You sure on that after what I did to your spell?" The boy paused at that, a contemplating look in his eyes. "Also, was your chant, 'Motherfucker'?" Endra asked, trying to sell his abilities. "Hmm, it's impressive how fast you could create Hard Air, but even with you chanting, you're way too slow." Endra created a piece of visible Hard Air, that looked exactly like the two the boy conjured. 

The latter's curiosity was almost taking over.