Lord of Charm

The two days were Friday and Saturday, so he had the days off. He only went out to have lunch with his friends and spent the rest of the days in his training room. The problem with casting spells as a mage was that spells made by others weren't as effective anymore.

Mages could potentially cast far more delicate spells, and those needed a lot of detailed images in the mage's mind when requesting the mana to do the mage's bidding. So, while premade spells were good as a layout, the mage had to add the details in his mind.

Gale was working on his wisps magic during those past days; he found it very difficult to make them change their route when he instilled more mana into them, so he always had to choose between power and control; a limitation he wanted to overcome.

The days passed and his duel with Joanna arrived. When it was time to leave his apartment, he found Valentina waiting for him outside.

"Hey Gale, I wanted to wish you good luck. Do you mind if I go with you to the arena?"

"Of course not, thank you for coming!"

He said with a smile. Valentina was quite sweet, and they even planned on going to lunch without the extra wheels.

"I'm sure you can beat her. She wouldn't be able to overpower Dean like you did, although she would win too. But be careful, don't let your guard down."

Valentina said with an encouraging smile.

"Thank you for your concern. Don't worry, I won't take her lightly. She must be strong considering she was in the top 10."

Gale smiled back upon seeing hers.

"Try not to harm her too much. There's an unspoken rule that if you defeat Joanna, you must do it as gently as possible."

She warned with an awkward voice. Winning a duel gently was quite a weird thing to say.

"Is it because of Ronda?"

"Yes. She is extremely close to the advanced mage stage, and despite being still in the true mage stage, she is almost tied with the man ranked second. She only lost to him because she ran out of mana first, but the other guy wasn't much better."

Gale sighed at the bothersome situation. He wasn't that good at controlling his spells yet and holding back was quite difficult.

"Most importantly, the now fifth-ranked student is an advanced mage, and he lost when he tried challenging her for her spot in the top 3. He probably didn't bother challenging you because your benefits aren't really much better than his, and he is turning 36 soon."

They arrived at the arena, and Valentina parted with him to go to the auditorium while Gale went to the arena.

This time, the seats were nearly all taken. His overwhelming victory over Dean was known to everyone who didn't go out hunting, so most of the available students chose to arrive.

Gale looked at the crowd and saw Ronda sitting at the front with a frown on her face. He didn't know it, but she argued with Joanna just before the duel.

He found Joanna already waiting for him, and as soon as he got to his spot, Joanna instructed the dueling system to start the duel. There was no human judge this time as well, which was understandable given the fact Joanna said she was an orphan.

"3…2…1… fight."

Alessa's genderless voice said with a natural voice and the fight commenced. Gale used his fire wisps spell, planning to finish the battle the same way he did with Dean. It was the spell he controlled the best, and the only fire spell he got that could be separated into small parts to deal minimal damage.

However, Joanna was there when he fought Dean. Since she planned to fight him, she wouldn't miss an opportunity to gauge his strength.

After watching Gale use his fire wisps before, she thought of a countermeasure; she just had to be on the move from the very beginning and prevent them from ganging up on her.

She started to run as soon as the battle started, and the wisps were having a hard time changing their path and home on her. Gale didn't want to hold back too much against a top student of the empire and used much mana in his spell.

Since the wisps weren't lumping together, their main numerical advantage was gone. She could deal with the spell when they came at her in smaller groups.

Joanna used earth shields to block the wisps, and despite the decaying attribute of Gale's fire, each shield could hold on for a few clashes before being consumed by the wisps.

"Fighting isn't only about spamming powerful spells, there's much more to it!"

Gale didn't want to cast a second spell. He was concentrating on making the wisps home on Joanna, and controlling a second spell would make his control even rougher.

Now that Joanna broke free from the wisps' encirclement, she could maintain her defense just through constant running and the shields. She'd definitely run out of steam before Gale, but she didn't plan to get to that point; she had no problem casting a second spell.

She ran closer to Gale, as close as she could without being trapped by the wisps, and started barraging him with stone bullets. The wisps would stand in their way and consume them, but it also lessened her burden and she could run as close as 5-10 meters away from Gale.

A few minutes passed and Joanna couldn't break the stalemate. Gale was improving his control over the wisps through the battle constantly, and she even felt that she had slowly to retreat and take her distance again.

She clenched her teeth and decided to go through a small sacrifice for the win. She ran closer than she should've and gave up on defense. Instead, she created a huge sword made of stone and launched it at Gale.

Gale had no choice but to cast a second spell to defend himself. Everything happened too fast, and he instinctively raised a huge firestorm with a burst of mana that burned down the sword.

The wisps lost their inhibition and stormed at Joanna, who got too close and was unable to dodge, burning her to dust.

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