Sora had a deep frown on his face as he found his current predicament beyond irritating. While he had no information on Yunji's casting speed, the worst person to need to fight while saving energy was a mage like Yunji, whose elemental core had the unique feature of filtering spells to retain their power at half of the mana cost. This fact was even more apparent because he was a mage with the cursed element available to him, an element that even Sora would prefer to avoid if he could.
Yunji formed a [Basic] Flame Spear with his dark red flames of hell trait in his left hand and a double cast [Basic] Flame Spear which had a [Basic] Destructive Cursed Arrow fused with it, turning the flames black. Sora was surprised that the guy was confident enough in his skills to fuse two intermediate elements as part of a double cast, but even more, so that the guy wasn't launching them like every other idiot he had seen used the flame spear so far. "When Marc told me to watch you for any useful information I could get I thought it was a joke... I mean who would believe some random first-year could help the 2nd year's number 5 student improve", Yunji said half to himself.
"But after seeing some of what you did to my peer back in the park there I have to admit that you have some exciting applications of magic... but this has to be the most impressive of all of them", Yunji complimented as he admired the black and red flame in his hands as they burned consistently, "I already benefit from lower spell costs, and now you've shown me a way to save my mana even more when I fight... I can't wait to pick your brain further on magic when this whole ordeal is over", Yunji said as his face turned serious, "If you survive that is".
Sora used a Thunder Stride: Dash to launch himself at the wall to Yunji's left, before launching himself off of the wall and sending a lightning-powered sidekick to the guy's temple with his left foot. Yunji barely managed to block with both spears and got launched through the other wall into the next dorm room while Sora winced on landing as the soles of his feet took some damage from the block. "looks like that martial arts you do regularly isn't a complete waste of your time, my arms felt the impact of those kicks of yours... Shame that you let me hit you with my curse magic", Yunji lamented as he readied himself for another attack from Sora.
Sora frowned when he realised that the special trait Yunji had on his curse magic allowed his curses to bypass the elemental reinforcement that his Sage Series magic was meant to provide. Sora fired a 'precision' fireball with his golden flame of destruction applied to it at Yunji's feet, blowing a hole through 3 floors of the boy's dorms dropping the room Yunji was in and making that portion of the building collapse.
5 floors of the boy's dorms, in that specific area, were destroyed as Sora tightly bandaged his foot with the mana-blocking medical tools that were held on each floor, with the bandages in it he bound his left foot with bandages to temporarily pause the spread of the destructive curse, though the damage that was already done would be his problem for now. Sora had a few means to fix himself up permanently, but those required time and he didn't have that luxury at the moment as he wasn't sure just how deep this beef he had with the First and second year ran.
Most of them had older siblings or friends in higher years, like Longwie whose older cousin was the official second, now third, strongest student in the Interstellar academy. Would this be written off as school drama in the lower years, or would families and older students allow themselves to get involved in the business of some first-year students? Sora had most of his mana still left in the tank but his body was starting to feel the lack of sleep he was getting and couldn't afford the distraction of acknowledging that, the way things were going some random could get lucky and pick him off while he was exhausted.
Sora limped to the end of the hall and sat to gather himself and plan himself better. Sora thought for a moment before placing his hand on his left leg, freezing it as thoroughly as he could without making a mess of it- Once he was done, he reckoned he had about half an hour of free movement before the pain from his damaged muscles came back to bite him. Sora rose to his feet and dashed across the corridor in an instant using Thunder Stride: Dash, he leapt down the hole he made in the dorms and reinforced his legs with lightning for his landing, saving his legs from damage but cutting the time he had left with the Ice in half.
Sora found Yunji barely conscious under a sizeable pile of rubble and walked over to sit down in front of his assailant. Yunji glared daggers at Sora but had everything up to his shoulders pinned down beneath the rubble. "I almost find it ironic that a recent teammate of mine is the one spearheading the childish hunt you all are trying to stage on me... If you had even a room temperature level IQ you would remember that the victims of my alleged crime are both highly supported members of the Xiao Family", Sora admitted with irritation in his tone.
"I mean seriously, if the rumours were true then why would the Xiao Family insist on letting randoms from outside the family try to enact jungle justice like this instead of crippling me as a mage outright and attempting to have me thrown in jail at best or killed in the worst case... No matter what jurisdiction the academy has, everyone knows that the school wouldn't be able to 'protect me' when this becomes an investigation with the magic court even if they wanted to do such a thing". The more Sora spoke the more he thought about the sheer nonsense the Xiao cousins were stirring up with their rumour the more it annoyed him because no matter what there were too many ways to prove his innocence or guilt, as well as too many consequences to the crime for it to make sense that students of the academy were staging a public execution.
"You sure speak a lot for someone who is meant to be on the run", a familiar voice called out as Sora turned around to see Marcus, his younger twin brother Xavier, Wie Han-Yue, Xiao Feifei, Xiao Yaya, and surprisingly even the third year Elite Student Leonardo Colston approaching from a distance. "What?? Too scared to try to put me down yourself so you get the students to do it for you??", Sora half mocked as he rose to his feet once more, silently running through his options should a fight break out.
Sora reckoned he had a little over 28 minutes before the ice freezing his left foot thawed and the pain of the curse magic he was hit with began to set in. On top of worrying about that, he was now staring down 5 intermediate mages and a Late-stage Advanced mage, all wearing some variation of magic armour. "Not at all... as a matter of fact the only person here actually interested in fighting you currently is our friend over here", Marcus shot back a smile as he gestured towards Leonardo, who stepped forward silently.
Leo was a set of full-body medium armour made of a black metal that radiated a weird energy, he held a dark silver bow in his hand with a quiver of arrows strapped to his back containing a little over 70 arrows. "Alright then, you little freak... Let's see if all that playfighting you do actually amounted to anything", Leo taunted as he knocked two arrows and trained his bow on Sora. Even as he stared down the group of assailants before him, it didn't make sense for any of this to even be happening right now, much less when all he's done since the Trial tournament is train. Now that he thought about it the staff on campus are suspiciously scarce tonight, sure he was secretive during his not so subtle interrogation but the male dorms have been blown through for the crying out loud, where on earth are they?
Sora didn't get a moment more to think as Leo sent a [Perfect] Ice spread through the ground at Sora forcing him to leap back hoping to leave it's range, Leo proceeded to fire both arrows once Sora was mid air. Sora parried one with a fire-fist: flash but the other planted itself squarely in his right shoulder. Sora pulled the arrow out so it wouldn't get in his way, but frowned when he noticed himself exerting more force than necessary to do so, Looking down at the arrowhead, he sighed and realised what had happened.
"That's almost commendable, you had the foresight to coat your arrows in your poison magic to prevent me from rushing you like I usually would", Sora thought out loud as he tossed the arrow to the ground and entered a kick boxing stance. " Don't get off to yourself too much there bud. I fight everyone this way", Leo mocked as he knocked and fired 2 more arrows. Sora weaved the first arrow used Thunder Stride: Dash to slip the second one and launch himself with striking range of Leo.
Once Sora was within range, though, A thick poisonous gas burst forth from Leo's body. Sora held his breath and transitioned in a flying drop kick as he punted Leo out of the mist with both feet sending a shock through the Poison mage's system. By the time Sora had landed though, Leo had coated his next two arrows in Ice and Poison magic, respectively. Leo fired the poison Arrow at Sora while aiming the second one at the ground near him, Sora rolled away from the poison arrow but rolled right onto the path of the Ice arrow getting caught in the shoulder.
Leo's [Perfect] sub-zero spell began to spread through Sora's body but Sora began channelling and igniting fire magic within his body to combat the freezing effect, he had to do this perpetually and dedicate half of both his mana reserves and concentration to it so he doesn't get caught without being fully informed of this whole ordeal. Sora grit his teeth in annoyance and cast a [Perfect] Precision fire-ball on each finger, firing of each 2 at Leo, and 1 at Marcus, Xavier, and Han-Yue respectively.
Leo was confused at why he fired at the by-stander for just long enough to be hit directly by the fireball an blown up where he stood. The force of both attack ripped his armour asunder as he was launched into the nearest school building a good 40 metres behind him through it's reinforced stone walls. The 3 by standers weren't nearly as caught off guard as they weren't expecting Sora to forget about them so they each used their own means to protect themselves.
Han-Yue fired back by triple casting [Perfect] Mental force to boost the power of her 2 [Perfect] Flame Spears attempting to match the force, though she was still slightly overwhelmed and was sent back flying with the rest of the damage being eaten by her magic armour. Xavier used [Perfect] Shadow Hop to hide in his own shadow and avoid the attack before reappearing once it had passed him, though the spell did blow off another chunk of the Male dorms. Finally, Marcus cast [Lesser] Spirit Beast Fusion, manifesting his Pugilist Spirit beast in the form of battle armour that fused with his natural magic armour as tanked the full force of the blow, though he was sent back a few metres.
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