The moment Professor Sora’s staff left the sand, the arena erupted.

  In the first ring, a hulking student bellowed and slammed his palms onto the ground. A wall of earth began to rise around his dummy—Shield, a classic earth mage’s defense. But his opponent, a short-horned hybrid girl, was already three moves ahead.

  She loosed three arrows in a tight spread. The second and third arrow shuddered to an unnatural halt in mid-air, their momentum vanishing. An instant later, the first arrow blurred, its speed tripling as it shot past the incomplete wall.

  Momentum Exchange, Alira noted. She pooled the kinetic energy from two arrows into the third.

  The accelerated arrow didn’t hit perfectly as it missed the dummy’s straw head by a few inches and punched through its shoulder instead. The fight wasn’t over; the scarecrow was still ‘alive’. The mage reached to yank the arrow out, only for the shaft to combust into a small, hungry flame that rapidly consumed the entirety of the straw figure in seconds.

  The crowd erupted into a chorus of cheers and surprised gasps at the sight of fire. The mage tried in vain to save his burning scarecrow, but Professor Sora’s voice cut through the noise.

  “Miss Vaire has won the first fight!”

  Across the arena, Vaire calmly snapped shut a lighter, one she had held to a scrap of paper that refused to burn the entire time.

  It was more likely to be a lower-level On-surface Substance Exchange, the first cast taught in practical alchemy, rather than a higher Physical State Exchange. With the paper as the anchor and the arrow as the recipient, the cast transferred the fire from the anchor’s surface to the recipient’s, and the arrow’s body quickly caught on fire.

  The match had ended in under a minute before the other two ongoing fights had barely begun. The hybrid hadn’t taken a single step. A ready alchemist, with a few casts preloaded, could effortlessly dismantle a mage still gathering mana.

  “Momentum Exchange is initially ranked twelfth,” Alira mumbled to herself.

  Just like she’d done with her prepared set of coins and cards, the hybrid had precast her arrows. The difference was that Position Exchange was only ranked eighth. The horned girl had at least two rank-twelve precast, and maybe even more on the remaining arrows in her quiver. That meant she was at the very least rank ten herself, with higher Will Favorability, or had already completed her first Trial.

  “Not all of us start at the same point, huh...” Alira nodded. “Vaire... How come she is not in First Class?”

  Thinking about it, the mage student had also been ahead in his own way. Not all students had formed their first mage circle, Alira included. He just hadn’t been ahead enough to win against an alchemist with half a dozen precast up their sleeve.

  “Because she refused the sponsorship and came in through passing the entrance exam.” Cinnamon’s voice made Alira jolt a bit, having entirely forgotten he was next to her.

  “Pride makes your life harder than it has to be,” he said with an indistinct scoff. “Won’t you agree?”

  Alira did agree to some extent, but she didn’t give him what he wanted to hear, instead turning to the second ring where four figures, two students and two scarecrows, run around in circles.

  “What the...”

  It looked like both of them, in determination to prove themselves as alchemist, had made the exact same choice to cast Movement Bind on themselves and their dummies. Now they both circled around in a chase with swords in hand, a ballet of futility.

  “What a match,” Alira laughed, shaking her head. The binds wouldn’t last forever unless you were a Grand Alchemist like a certain someone. It was just a matter of time, and whoever had a higher Will Favorability before one of them would switch to carrying out their scarecrow in their own hand.

  But her smile vanished as she turned to the third ring.

  In there, the air was awkwardly and unnaturally still. Both students had ignored each other completely, hunched over in their respective corners as they painstakingly drew complex casts. Their backs were wide open to attack, their dummies forgotten—all focus consumed by intricate circles that still weren’t complete. Or rather, they likely had failed a few times and were still stubbornly repeating the lines.

  Clearly, they were placing too much focus on alchemy that they had forgotten about the combat for the time being. They’re treating this like an exam, not a fight.

  Alira’s gaze turned sharp despite the unexciting scene.

  She recognized the familiar stroke of one of the casts being drawn. The innermost and second circles of the cast were almost identical to the first ever alchemic cast Alira had seen. Complete Bind. They weren’t drawing Complete Bind, of course—it was a high rank cast even a Grand Alchemist needed to draw out—but one that was part of it. Injury Exchange.

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  The task was to protect the dummy. If all damages to the dummy were transferred away, it was impossible to lose.

  “That could work,” Alira noted. Especially for her. She could cast a strong one on herself since she certainly wouldn’t refuse her own cast, even if subconsciously. The pain would last a second at most. Alira was the perfect target to be on the receiving end of such an exchange. Though she would have to try not to think about where the Complete Bind was moving the damage to.

  She couldn’t see what the other student was drawing, but clearly it was yet another complicated cast since they still had their head in the sand. Just like that, a pair of ambitious duos and the second group whose dummies were still clean of a single scratch ran their time out when Professor Sora’s voice came.

  “Halt! Time’s up. It’s a draw for both remaining groups. All four of you are disqualified!” Her voice came out a bit more stern than usual. “None of you has chosen your tools well. Take the remaining class period to think over literally anything else you could’ve done instead.”

  The arrangement wasn’t actually fair at all, especially for the first groups who didn’t have time to prepare their alchemist cast in advance. The last group to go was lucky enough to have all the time they needed to plan. The fact that the students were seated in their order could be an attempt to balance that out, since your opponent would be right next to you to see all about your preparation.

  Alira took out a patch of leather and placed the tip of her finger on it.

  She closed her eyes and felt the mana around her. The mana pool was much thinner here compared to Vesper Reign, but with Lower Silver mana affinity thanks to the Loch’s Blessing, she could still manage. She gathered heat at her fingertip and lined neat strokes of gold on the leather.

  “Injury Exchange?” Cinnamon’s breath brushed on her neck as he leaned in far too close than he needed. As if he couldn’t see her work just fine with a pair of perfectly working eyes.

  Alira clicked her tongue in scorn. “You should at least be quiet when you’re peeking.”

  “Don’t see why I should,” he said with a chuckle.

  “I will show you exactly why if you don’t back off soon enough,” Alira said, biting on words.

  “Fine. Save it for when we’re in the ring. I rather get beaten up on stage,” he said, and before Alira could give him a weird look, he was fast enough to move on, “How’s this? We both have ourselves as the target and transfer our injury to the dummies. Whoever cuts the other down first wins.”

  Alira’s finger stilled. She stopped drawing her cast to turn to Cinnamon with a blank face. This guy just offered a plan that would directly allow her to win. Her win was already guaranteed, but still.

  When multiple casts overlapped with the same function, the anchor target could choose its recipients. The Duke, with his countless Binds and Exchanges, had designated Cion as his primary shield. Alira realized she could do the same: with both the Complete Bind and if she placed the Injury Exchange on herself, the injury could be routed through the Duke instead of her dummy.

  Her scarecrow would remain untouched, no matter what Cinnamon tried. This was a fight where she wouldn’t lose.

  Still, victory wasn’t guaranteed as she could end up in a draw. She still had to earn her win and ‘kill’ Cinnamon. She honestly wasn’t so confident whether she could do that with how casually he was asking for it.

  “No, thanks,” Alira decided. “That sounds boring. I’m not into dogfight. Dunno about you, but I’m not quite a dog.” She shrugged and continued working on the cast. It didn’t matter whether Cinnamon knew she was using Injury Exchange. At least for now.

  “You do know we’ll end up in a tie if we both have our dummies as the target. Or do you think you can hurt mine enough to force me to give in?” Cinnamon asked before breaking into a crackle. “Oh, dear. Not all bunnies are soft, you know. Some have clung to life for long enough.”

  The causal cruelty in his tone made Alira’s stomach clench. This wasn’t a jest, but a confession wrapped in a joke. She wished he would stop dropping hints about his not-so-bright or wholesome backstory. That way, she wouldn’t have to feel so bad.

  “We can bet,” Alira said. It certainly didn’t feel good to take advantage of the situation and trigger his unpleasant experiences, but she wouldn’t let her morality get in the way at this point. “If by the end of our match, you still see me the same way you do right now, I win.”

  Cinnamon smiled. “I like bets. You need to elaborate on the condition, though. How exactly do I see you right now?”

  Alira looked at his pair of blue eyes and couldn’t help comparing them to the other Staywes man she knew with blue eyes, the duke. His were so full and heavy, while Cinnamon’s held an empty, vacant sky without a stripe of soft cloud or a glow of warm sunlight. When the duke looked at her, he seemed to be able to see everything she was and maybe even more, but the young boy seemed to see someone else in her. Someone not quite her at all.

  “You decide.” She shrugged. “If you say you see me in a different light, then it’s my win.”

  Let him wrestle with that.

  Either he admitted she’d changed his perception, which would win her a free favor, or he lied, and she got under his skin anyway.

  She placed the last drop of gold on the leather, completing the cast, but she didn’t feel the certain tingle in her chest from a successful cast. Clearly, perfect drawing wasn’t the only requirement to place a cast. Now she had to do it all over again.

  “Now, if you could stop trying to take my attention away,” Alira said, wiping the cast off the leather to redo it.

  “...Alright.” Cinnamon’s voice came low. “Bet.”

  Without his distraction, Alira quickly finished drawing the Injury Exchange and knew it was a success, but didn’t take the last step of the cast just yet. The intent to perform the cast. She managed to squeeze in a few minutes of shuteye before it was already their turn.

  She groggily stretched her limbs with a groan and got up, feeling sore down her spine from sitting. The two hybrids stepped down into the arena along with others in this round.

  Alira spotted the weapon stand at the side and took a quick detour. She picked up a sword that looked pretty lightweight. A simple standard design with a single-edged blade that had a slight curve toward the end. She ghosted her finger along its sharp edge. The metal was cool and deadly, a simple tool that required no more than the movements of her muscles.

  This should do.

  “Students, get in position!” Professor Sora announced.

  Alira snapped back toward Cinnamon, pointing her sword right at him.

  “I will give you a hint. The anchor of the cast I’m placing won’t be me.”