The dance begins. His staff emits a sphere of fire that grows larger with every passing second. Its nature is explosive; I assume he wants to destroy my master and me as quickly as possible, without a single thought for the collateral damage or the hall itself. In that moment, my master tells me I am not allowed to attack. Has he gone mad? We Redcloaks live for the offensive. I could have killed the man the moment he began his incantation.
Such a long preparation time is foolish for high-level mages—the exhaustion that follows, the limited damage... and I say limited because while the affected area is large, the temperature barely exceeds one hundred and fifty degrees. Still, I cannot attack. The sphere is already large enough for me to feel its radiant heat. Should I use Frost Armor? I could withstand as many of these as he cares to throw... but no, the hall would be blown to pieces. Truly, he must be incompetent if he has given me all this time to think. That enchantment isn't even human; it's elven, judging by the hundreds of runes manifesting around him. Perhaps they lent it an air of elegance in his mind, but it's just plain stupid. I can read them too, you idiot! Is this the "mighty" Blackcloak leader?
The sphere took nearly two minutes to form. On a battlefield, with people to guard and defend you, that might be a fair window. But here, in a hall of mages, facing the most powerful of the Redcloaks and his apprentice? It's ridiculous. I merely freeze the tips of my fingers. This isn't about power; it's about balance. He hurls the ball at me with exasperating slowness, but I won't be careless.
At my fingertips, I weave threads of vacuum—tiny channels of wind moving so fast they contain nothing. If I used them on him, he'd lose his robes and likely an arm before he even knew what hit him. But alas, anything to keep my master entertained.
The moment I touch the sphere, my fingers direct all the concentrated wind to encircle and then entangle that piece of hack-work. Once I feel it's secured, I channel ice—or rather, a freezing gale—through those tunnels imprisoning the fireball. All its hot air is sucked away. The dissipation lasts five seconds, and then a light mist of steam hits us as if we were in a jungle. That was a mistake my master will make me pay for; the cold should be dry enough to generate nothing. He is so skilled he can freeze actual flames; some of his sculptures are famous in the mountains.
But I can't get distracted. Now he's preparing something with ice. The wind begins to blow. He's definitely a novice. You don't need the wind to blow to generate cold; it's a principle that works, but it's slow and messy. I see my master sitting there, watching with a furrowed brow as his papers begin to scatter. That's going to cost me dearly!
Desert Wind is an environmental magic, usually used to alleviate pains caused by humidity, but its application needn't be strictly medical. I invoke and direct it to encircle his frozen blizzard. Quickly, it spins at the same speed as his elemental magic. The spiral begins to rise, and before it touches the ceiling, I collapse the air over the dome so that he is trapped within his own magic. Meanwhile, mine condenses his wind and pours a good amount of water over him. I don't stop the enchantment, not while the floor is wet, so I continue for a couple more seconds. When I stop, his clothes and the floor are dry, but his face is wind-burned and his lips are chapped. I hope that doesn't count as an attack!
At that moment, I hear my master laugh. It's not a healthy laugh; it's provocative, like a child's. The furious Blackcloak pulls out his best card. His next magic looks horrific. It's sickening. I don't know where he learned it, but it isn't elemental, nor spiritual—it's unlike anything I've ever known. This is bad. Even my master looks less confident than before. It's not about power; from what I can see, it's a sort of magic that decomposes whatever it touches—the cellular structure of stone, flesh, everything. It's a vacuum attack. Nothing this powerful has been used by humans since the dawn of recorded history. This must be the work of the elves, the ones the Whitecloaks warned were instructing "useless pawns." How can I stop this magic without attacking him? The spell is reaching its release point. Should I disobey my master and shatter his skull? No, there is another way. Simpler, and he will only hurt himself.
Confusion. It isn't hypnosis, per se; it simply attacks the auditory center with a varying hum. It's too fast for most to interpret, but with the right duration, it should suffice. Curiously, this presumptuous human is hit by my magic before I see any sign of a protection spell. Come on! Even as offensive mages, we Redcloaks know we must protect ourselves. Regardless, the chaos magic is about to be launched at my master and me. It should work any second now... and there it is! His face contorts, and he begins to vomit. The force he invoked vanishes as he fails to sustain it. The man retches a few more times before collapsing. The fight is over.
My master tells me I've gone up a level. Finally, Level 8! He says I would have reached Level 9 if I hadn't left him with a dirty floor, but given what I faced, it wasn't bad. Then he picks the man up and tells him to leave. He tells him that he doesn't understand—whether Blackcloak or Whitecloak, he lacked the required level for the magic he sought. As expected, the man throws a tantrum, claiming to have as much power as his master, the Whitecloak.
In that instant, my master snaps his fingers. His magic was so fast I nearly missed it—a variation of teleportation, but only on a fraction of an area. Two centimeters at the height of the ex-secretary's wrist. The scream and the sound of the hand hitting the floor echoed through the hall. My master picked it up, wiped off imaginary dust, and handed it to him.
"Look, boy," he said. "Despite being Level 9 in your order, you never understood. Your master gave you that rank so you would keep growing. We, after Level 8, can kill more difficult pieces of shit than you. We understand magic; we don't just cast enchantments. Now go back. Your children are defenseless against an attack from mere pups, or worse, from the Overlord. The least you can do is die with them."
He fled running. The hand is bandaged, so some healer might be able to reattach it. However, it will never work again. The radius and ulna bones now rest in a jar inside my master's laboratory. I ask him why he did that; he could have exploded the hand or withered it. Is there any use in keeping those bones? He threatens to demote me, so I say no more and take a closer look. The structure is normal, but something is throbbing inside.
In that moment, I distinguish countless soul crystals emerging from the broken bone in place of marrow. My gaze says it all, but he confirms it anyway. "It's the elves. I don't know how long they've had him, but they've been modifying him. It's possible he fell prey to their hypnosis long ago. They definitely need to change their evaluation methods, that society of Whitecloaks." I agree with my master; they are reckless and clumsy. I tell him that seeing that level, I'd rather face their leader and take his tower for myself.
For a moment, the eyes of the greatest Redcloak master filled with something I would call panic, were it not for the fact that he is incapable of feeling such emotions. He is a leader par excellence. He stands up, a bit unsteady, takes a glass from the table, and pours a generous portion of liquor.
"You know," he remarks once he's emptied the glass and refilled it to the brim, "the Whitecloaks are trash until they reach Level 9. But upon reaching Level 10, unlike us, they have thirty more levels ahead of them. The mage of the tower in Stormhammer is the pinnacle of magic. He understands enchantments in a way you couldn't dream of. I thought of attacking him when he had just received his title. I was older, more experienced, armed, and he came only in Nile silk robes. Before I could do anything to him, that absurd fabric had become a fortress of physical and magical resistance. Its threads were hardened inches from my face. They were so reinforced that no shield could have stopped them. His mind doesn't see magic in named spells. He is the magic!"
I leave him drinking. I am happy with my new level, but I share his fear. It's good that someone like that remains occupied. If he ever turns bellicose, we would be swept away before we could draw breath. I want to focus on what I know of him, yet an even more disturbing thought assails me. If I could humiliate that Blackcloak, and the Redcloak and Whitecloak masters agreed they were no match for Lilith, let alone the Overlord... what stops Lilith from wiping them all out?