Olivia realized she had made a mistake.
After the battle with Garon, she had taken a look at Davi's list of spells. The grimoire not only allowed a mage to refresh themselves with all the spells they owned, but it would also inform them how close a spell was to evolving and becoming something stronger.
In order to cast a Vil-level spell, a mage would need to have one unlocked as well as possess enough raw mana to cast the spell in the first place. Some spells could only be found on a level beyond Row, but Row-level spells could still be upcast if the spell had managed to evolve. In order for a spell to evolve, the meter next to it, which was in the grimoire app, would have to reach one hundred percent. Only then could that spell be used at a higher level.
Some spells could evolve quicker than others, while some could take weeks or even months of nonstop practice just to get to the halfway point. When she had first seen Davi's spells, his two had been relatively low on the evolution meter, and so she had assumed that it meant he was far away from evolving his spells, when in actuality, it was the opposite.
Davi's Shadow Vault had already evolved, meaning it could be used at the level of Vil. The meter she had seen was the percentage it would take for it to evolve again and reach the level of Ril.
That, however, made Olivia more confused. After all, if Davi really did have such a spell in his back pocket this entire time, why did he never use it? Surely in his fight with Gray, he would have deemed that a worthy cause, or his battle with Ken? Yet he hadn't, which told her something. Either he had decided to hold back for some reason, or his spell wasn't that good, and this was a gambit that he was about to take.
Davi was forced to play his hand because he had no other choice.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion, and Davi watched as gravity carried him down toward the massive dragon forged out of water. Its maw was wide open, ready to devour him, but it would never have the chance. He felt his mana erupt and drain out of him. A moment ago, he had been like a cup that was brimming with water, but just one use of his Vil-level spell, and he felt himself practically empty, the entire cup spilling over, leaving only a few pathetic drops left.
He really did hate how costly this spell was, especially since it was seldom worth the cost.
Davi braced himself as he got closer to the dragon, and his Vil Shadow Vault surged out, the shadowy floor beneath him seeming to turn even darker, and any light that was in the arena was sucked in.
A Vil-level spell was ten times stronger than a Row-level spell and would cost ten times the amount of mana. When upcasting a weaker spell, that spell would rapidly increase in power and become ten times stronger. The tricky part with Shadow Vault, however, was how it became stronger.
Shadow Vault fell into three schools of magic. It was Alteration, Conjuration, and Enchantment. Increasing a spell that was in the school of Destruction or Restoration was easy since those spells would just become ten times better, but Vault was neither an offensive, support, nor defensive spell. It was also hard to imagine what increasing it by ten would actually do.
Alteration allowed the shadows to change their behavior, becoming weightless and open like the sea. Increasing that by ten would have no effect. Conjuration allowed the Shadow Vault to manifest itself as an infinitely sized realm of nothingness where anything could be stored. Increasing infinity by ten would do nothing. The only school of magic that truly mattered in this case was the school of Enchantment.
An Enchantment was almost like a program or a code in a computer. It was a series of lines that formed rules on how the spell would operate and function. By multiplying this by ten, the Enchantment would grow and gain ten new lines of rules, or 'codes', that it could now do, allowing it to rapidly improve.
In other words, upcasting a spell of the school of Enchantment would drastically alter the way that it worked.
The Vault opened, the shadows growing deeper. The Row Shadow Vault allowed objects to be placed or sucked into it. Vil Shadow Vault would put things in it of its own accord. In an instant, something blasted out of the ground. The shadows twisted and flowed together, taking shape, and they became a long, gangly hand. Fingers wrapped around the water dragon, which rapidly froze solid, and the arm dragged itself back down into the vault, pulling the dragon in. That wasn't all that got dragged, though.
The Vault almost seemed to roar and screech, the air being pulled in from all sides, and space twisting for a moment. More hands began to fly out wildly, grabbing at anything.
Rowan let out a grunt as one wrapped around his waist. It was large enough to pick him up, and the next thing he knew, he was being dragged across the ground and forcefully yanked into the open Vault. He wasn't the only one, either. Davi winced as several hands snatched him out of the air. They were brutal and not gentle, grabbing him by a leg and an arm and forcing him down into the cold black void before it finally sealed shut, the spell ending.
Everyone in the arena remained in place, stunned and trying to process what they had just seen. "What the hell did he do?" Ash was the first to speak, and it caused the crowd to begin to mutter. Davi and Rowan were gone, and the shadows and rain had returned to normal.
"Alright." The sound of hands clapping caused everyone to jump, and the people turned to find the blonde woman. "Show's over." The weird stuffed bear was no longer keeping Ken pinned down, but the girl wasn't in a better position as she was on all fours, with the blonde woman casually sitting on her, using her as a chair. Ken's face was red with anger, but weird threading had tied itself around her, forcing her to remain in place. "Go on and get." The blonde woman ordered.
"And who are you?" One person in the crowd asked.
The woman made a face and stood up, getting onto Ken's back and using the woman as a stool. "Who am I?" The woman pointed her thumb at herself.
"Will you get off of me!" Ken screeched.
"No." The woman ignored her and continued to point at herself. "Listen up, the name is Laerton! Laerton Eman, or Laer for short, and if you guys have an issue with obeying me, I'll get some of my friends to sit on you!" The blonde woman threatened. She grabbed the sleeve of her torn-up robes, showing the symbol of the fiery bird that was stitched into it. "I'm an Arcane Knight—"
"Oh shit, she's with Phoenix Flight!" Screaming filled the arena, and that was all it took for over half the crowd to run in terror.
The woman watched them leave, her eye twitching. "Seriously? Why does everyone do that? The curse isn't that bad—" As if on cue, a bolt of lightning dropped from the sky, smashing directly onto the woman, electrocuting both her and Ken, who she was still standing on. The Knight was fine, the lightning barely phasing her as it coursed through her body, but it sent Ken's nerves running in overdrive, causing the redhead to shake and twitch and collapse face-first into the ground rapidly. Laer finally stepped off of Ken and dusted herself off, even as steam poured off of her. "Ow."
Bruno sheepishly scratched at his chin. "Well, at least I know the curse isn't a myth. That was crazy unlucky, right, bro? Bro?" He turned to Olivia, who still hadn't taken her eyes off the spot where Davi and Rowan had been pulled into the shadows. "What's with that look?" Bruno asked, tilting his head. "You worried for him, bro?"
Olivia didn't say anything for a moment, and instead, she thought back to what Davi had said and done earlier. Why had he given Rowan his sword back? Why did he agree to let the match keep going? "He's an idiot." Olivia sighed after a moment. "Even after everything that's happened, he's still following his stupid rules."
"What rules?" Ash asked.
"He's trying to help someone help themselves."
***
Rowan felt an insane chill smash into him from all sides. As soon as he dipped fully past the shadows, he felt ice start to cling to his body, and he was forced to cloak himself in mana to stop the frostbite from taking him.
All around him was a never-ending sea of black that stretched out in all directions. Only one thing was actually in this realm. It looked like a large square platform, which was thirty feet wide, where the hands tossed him onto. He flipped through the darkness as if he were falling through the ocean, and he crashed back-first into the stone.
Rowan groaned and gasped and shivered as the cold tore into him. A moment later, Davi landed on the platform as well, standing on the other side. He looked pretty banged up from all the attacks he took, and the hands had bruised his skin, but the cold wasn't affecting him as badly.
"Sorry," Davi said, placing the sword over his shoulder. "I didn't mean to take us here; I just panicked and didn't know what else to do after you used that Vil spell."
A block of ice rammed into the stone platform, exploding into a million pieces. It wasn't the only one, either. The entire water dragon had also been dragged in, frozen into a sculpture that had shattered into a hundred pieces. Rowan glared up at Davi, and he still shivered from the cold as he gave the black-haired swordsman a death stare.
"What the hell did you do?" Rowan demanded.
"I used my Shadow Vault spell at a higher level," Davi explained. "Normally, I try to avoid this spell since it's kind of useless. It takes a ridiculous amount of mana to use, and all it does is drag me and everything around me into my vault forcefully and place them onto this arena. At first, I thought it was useful since I could try to force people into this realm, but since it takes so much mana just to cast, I'm basically put at a huge disadvantage the moment I use it. Additionally, being here doesn't grant me any power-ups or benefits, so I can't even consider it a real trump card. It's honestly just easier to open the Vault up the normal way and shove people into it by force if I need to get them in here."
Rowan gritted his teeth and took a step back, about to hop off the arena and get away, but stopped when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.
Something was lurking in the darkness. Something that blended in, and he was only able to make it out due to the blue flame-like mana that danced across their feathered form. It wasn't alone either. Somehow, seeing them caused an even bigger shiver to crawl up Rowan's spine, one that put the cold to shame.
"I wouldn't leave this arena," Davi called out, getting Rowan's attention. "That goes for me as well. This little platform is a safe zone, but if we step out of it, they're going to come get us. They'll rip me to shreds and eat me alive. That's despite the fact that this is my spell, so if they're going to do that to me, what do you think they'll do to you?"
Rowan glared back at Davi and let out a scream of frustration. "What the hell are you? You were able to beat me with a fishing rod, but you have a spell like this? You're better with a sword than I am; I don't get it! I'm a Zyne! I—I'm a Zyne! How the hell are you this strong!" Davi began to approach. He strolled and held his sword down. Rowan couldn't even step back because he had already reached the edge of the arena, and those creatures creeped him out more than Davi. "Stay back! Row Water Slicer!"
There was no rain or water here for Rowan to use, and he had already used a ton of mana before arriving here. His muscles ached from trying to force the spell out, but it worked. The water blade twisted into the air but didn't fire. Instead, it froze, becoming solid ice and floating off into the darkness, no longer under his control.
This was the worst place to fight for him. Rowan realized with horror that any spell he used would be frozen and turned to ice. He could try to force more mana into the spell to boil the water, but most of the small amount of mana he had left was cloaked around him just to keep himself warm. To make matters worse, it also meant he couldn't use his water skin spell; otherwise, he'd freeze himself to death. Davi Hawker had countered him with one single spell.
"S-Stay back!" Rowan screeched as Davi took another step forward. "D-Don't get any closer!" His arms shook, and he raised the broken short sword. The only weapon his father had given him, and he allowed it to break. "Stay the hell away from me!" Davi didn't listen and took another step forward, so Rowan let out a roar and launched himself at the man. He knew it would be pointless; Davi had already proved he was the better swordsman, but he still had to try. To Rowan's shock, his attack landed. The broken sword jammed directly into Davi's stomach, who hadn't raised his guard up at all. "W-Why did you?"
Davi stood there, the sword stabbing into him. Rowan tried to pull back, but Davi grabbed his wrist. "Your dad gave you this sword, right?" He pulled Rowan's hand off the blade and shoved him further onto the platform. "You were babbling about him earlier." Rowan stumbled to the ground and looked up just in time to see Davi pull the sword out of him. He stared down at it in silence and then tossed it into the air and swung the katana that he had.
"No!" Rowan cried out as the handle was sliced in two. Davi didn't stop there, though. He cut it again, and again, and again, each slice tearing through the metal and leather as if it were wet butter until all that remained was scrap metal, which dropped to the ground. "Why did you do that?"
Davi finally turned to look back at Rowan after he had destroyed the sword. "The way you were talking made it sound like your father was disappointed in you." The man said, looking down at the trembling Rowan. "I used to get mad at my dad a lot. I would take my frustration out on things he gave me and destroy them, like the fishing rod he gave me. I'd always feel bad, though, and beg him to fix it when I was done. He got so tired of this, he taught me how to fix it myself. I don't think you care about the sword the same way I cared about my fishing pole, though. When I beat you in the first exam, you were more mad about the money being stolen, so that was more valuable to you, right?"
"What?" Rowan blinked, trying to process what Davi had just told him. It felt so random and like it was coming out of nowhere. "What are you babbling about?"
"What's your relationship with your father?" Davi asked.
"Why in Haru's name would I tell you!"
Davi jammed his sword down, poking the tip of the blade to Rowan's throat. "What's your relationship with your father?" He said again, still as blunt as the last time. "The way you were acting and screaming makes me think it isn't good. What's up with that? You hate him or something."
Rowan made a face and thought about trying to cast another spell but knew it would be useless. His magic was meaningless here, and he no longer had a weapon. He lost. Plain and simple. With a sigh, he bowed his head. "It's the other way around. He hates me."
Davi tilted his head to the side and lowered his sword. "Why do you say that? A dad is supposed to love their son."
Rowan let out a bitter laugh. "I have water magic." The man spat out and looked down at his hands. "Do you get it now?"
"Nope."
Rowan's eye twitched again. "You're an idiot, huh?"
"Yep."
"Don't agree so easily!" Rowan sighed and sagged again. "My mom has wind magic." He said after a moment. "My dad has gem magic."
"Oh." Davi clicked his tongue. "I see."
Magic was tricky, but there were rules in place. When two mages had a kid, three things would happen. Option one: the child would have the mother's type of magic. Option two: the child would have the father's type of magic. Option three: the child would be born with a brand new type of magic that was a fusion of the two parents. This was how new magic was created. Someone with fire magic had a baby with someone with earth magic, and it eventually produced a child with lava magic.
That raised a question, though. Gem and wind didn't equal water…
"My mom loves me," Rowan whispered, almost as if he were ashamed of what he was saying or implying. "She's loved me since the day I was born and is the reason I'm a Zyne at all. She took care of me, raised me, and gave me my friends, Sera and Ashley, to watch over me. She married into nobility and came from a lesser house that often served nobles, so Sera and Ashley were her cousins whom she secured a job for, letting me grow up alongside people my own age. She loves me because I'm her son. My father, though… Well… Do you know the story of House Zyne?"
"Do you even have to ask? Of course I don't," Davi said flatly.
Rowan managed to laugh before his bitter look returned quietly. "Long, long ago, they say that a member of House Zyne engaged a demon from the underworld in combat. He won the fight, but he bore a terrible curse. His seed would be reduced."
"His seed?"
"It's hard for members of House Zyne to have kids," Rowan explained. "Many of them fail no matter how hard they try. It is a house's duty to produce heirs, but with Zyne falling so far behind, it has become disgraced. This can often leave the men frustrated. My father fell into this category and further disgraced our house. It was long before I was born, but everyone knows the story… While away at war defending his country, instead of thinking of his loving wife who he had back home, he was found with his pants down, engaging in activities with an enemy soldier. Worse yet, the woman he did the deed with was a Magical Mutant." Rowan's lips almost cracked into a smile before he frowned once again. "He disgraced himself, his kingdom, and his House. Worse than that, he broke the trust with his wife, whom he had grown frustrated with since she still had yet to bear him a child."
"So your mom also went and shagged someone else for revenge, huh?" Davi asked casually.
Rowan flinched a little and didn't meet his eyes. "No one knows. What is known, though, is that one year later, I was born, looking nothing like my father and having a type of magic neither of my parents had." Rowan let out another sigh. "Go ahead. Say it."
"Say what?" Davi asked, confused.
"I've heard it all before," Rowan said bitterly. "Sera and Ashley say I shouldn't treat my father like my dad. They said I shouldn't be doing what I am for his sake. They say all sorts of things, over and over again, in some effort to get me to stop. You're the same, right? You're going to tell me I shouldn't be trying to become a Knight for my father's sake? That I shouldn't be doing this for his affection?" Rowan spat out. "But you don't get it, do you! He believes in me! For the first time ever!"
Davi lazily shrugged. "You're right. I don't get it. I don't care either, though. I was just curious about it; you can do whatever."
"What?" Rowan suddenly gave the other man a confused look. "What do you mean you don't care?"
"I mean, you have your reasons for why you want to do what you're doing," Davi said again. "I don't know your dad. I don't know you. I don't know why you want his attention or why it's so important to you. Maybe it's toxic and you should stop, but we're just two strangers who were trying to kill each other a moment ago. I doubt there is anything I could say to change your mind." Davi casually placed a finger to his head and tapped it. "Why waste the brainpower? Your choice and what you do won't affect me."
Rowan didn't know why, but he suddenly felt mad. He had been expected to call him a fool or an idiot for his worldview, but somehow the dismissive way Davi brushed him off hurt worse than anything Sera or Ashley had said to him over the years. "What's your reasoning then?" He asked through clenched teeth. "Why the hell are you doing what you're doing, huh? What made you this strong?"
Davi's dull blue eyes met Rowan's rage-filled ones. "If the roles were reversed and my parents lost a son, I know that they'd stop at nothing to get revenge, even if it killed or corrupted them. Don't I owe it to them to feel the same way?" Rowan felt another deep chill course through him at Davi's bleak words. "That's the only advice I can really give because it's the only perspective I have," Davi admitted. "So maybe you should think about it. If the roles were reversed for you and your father, would he go through the effort that you are?"
"I…" Rowan felt his throat lock up. "Who the hell are you?"
Davi shook his head. "It's not important. You said you want to help your father? You want to become an Arcane Knight for his sake? In that case, this will be easy." Davi held both his arms out as he collapsed backwards, crashing to the ground in a heap. There was a bright flicker, and suddenly the vault collapsed, shunting both of them back into the real world. The small crowd that remained saw Rowan still on his knees and Davi Hawker flat on his back.
Davi just said three words.
"It's my loss."
Rowan Zyne won the duel.