Professor Aldrick's voice cut through Isaac's internal joy.
"Students, gather and quiet down. Take a seat. The duel was an impressive display of Noësis, yes." His lips twitch, barely, as if recalling the thermochemical maelstrom that had unfolded moments ago. "But remember: this is still a lecture. You are here to learn, not to place bets on which foolhardy student loses an eyebrow next."
A ripple of sheepish laughter dies down; the two fighters returned to their individual friends. Of the repaired arena, hundreds of chairs rose from the simple twist of Professor Aldrick's foot.
Wow…
"Now. Let us dissect what just transpired, because I assure you, what a wonderful example it is. Much so that none of you had truly grasped the depth of that exchange, except the combatants, of course. You two! Don't answer!"
Both nodded their heads.
"First, who among you noticed the moment Caelum altered the refractive index of his own steam?"
Silence.
"No one? He speedily exhaled. "Hoh… And you call yourselves Wave Binders."
He ignites a makeshift flame and repeats the same motions that Caelum did. The emulation flows in blue as it orbits and erupts into steam that shifted light in what seemed to be random directions.
Water magic perchance?
"This was not mere Water Noësis. I'd say it's more akin to applied thermodynamics, woven through Clause- Construction. Can you imagine the mental load on Caelum as he engineered a phase transition of water to steam so precise, factoring in movements of Darius's evasion?! That he was precisely able to convert the correct amount of water, had it placed in the position where light itself would form a mirage?"
A beat. Then, dryly.
"Which, incidentally, is the starting point of why the fool's face was fused to the arena floor."
Laughter erupts, but Aldrick immediately silences them with a look.
"It is an extremely impressive calculative and spatial analysis feat by Caelum. Everyone, a round of applause."
In the back, Turaiya could be heard asking:
"Did you really calculate that? Or did you just bs it?"
.
.
.
Only one wasn't taking these jokes well.
That's fucked up… Dude… How seriously fucked up are the rest of these kids that someone who just went through fourth-degree burns, as is half-steps away from being retarded, a laughing matter?
Unless they're all so used to it…
"As for Darius?" A smirk. "A miscalculation. His Pyrokinesis was near flawless. Round of applause. Hell, I could send him to the Fourth-Year's Practical Lessons for that alone. But they both forgot one immutable law that sets you First-Years from Fourth-Years."
The previous words evaporate. Now a single flaming word sits in front of them.
ENTROPY.
"Noësis bends the world and beyond," Aldrick says, "but the world always fights back, and it will always collect its due."
The Magister interrupts.
"Aldrick. Come on. Everyone already knows that. Get back to the lesson." He steps forward, counterintuitive to what he said. "I'm sure I do not need to explain to you the reactions that took place when the stone tiles melted, yes?"
Nobody says a word.
A sigh.
"Hah… Oh my Urge… Unlike Doctor Chessie, I am no Genius in chemistry and its reactions, yet even I can analyse what happened. Pay attention, students."
Idiots… I understood the fight in its entirety, DEFINITELY not cuz of TAV2…
Def not.
"Let's start from the beginning. No. Further behind. Can anyone tell me? What are the standardized dueling arenas used primarily for Noësis and striking made of?"
Isaac raised his hand, recalling a scene from his eidetic memory.
From my worldview, the platform they stood on was this:
01000010 01100001 01110011 01100001 01101100 01110100 00100000 01001100 01101001 01101101 01100101 01110011 01110100 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01000011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100100
The ASCII UTF-8 translation is…
"Basalt Limestone Compound."
"Isaac Mun, right? Not bad." The Magister stomped his feet, and the chair made of the dueling ring was assimilated back into the ground before erupting next to the Magister, now in the form of a protrusion.
This left Isaac falling on his ass, which he promptly backrolled onto his knees and raised his arms to the sides of his face. With no hesitation whatsoever, the raised arms combed and brushed back his lustrous hair.
This guy…
"Hoh?! How impressive, Isaac Mun! I myself know that as a Magister, my retractions and extensions of Earth are something that First-Years usually can't react to. The fact that you even readied a stance to comb your hair says enough about you. Though do reduce the hostility in your gaze. It was just a simple prank. Here—"
Another chair made of a separate portion of the arena was made for Isaac, which he tried ever nonchalantly to sit on, brushing off what happened.
Fucking bastard… Forcing my hand, drawing more attention to me…
What's this guy's issue?
Professor Aldrick pushed the chuckling Magister aside and resumed the lesson.
"Oi! Speak for yourself, Ren… That boy is still injured, you know? Ahem… As you now know, the floor of the dueling rings was made of a basalt limestone compound. Which makes you wonder why the usage of it, in its molten form, was so prevalent in the latter half of the duel."
Wacao… Now letting everyone know I'm injured as well.
"The initial squabble was definitely an ego-driven move; good, no other comment on that. What I really liked about our two combatants is Darius' application of what he has at his disposal, and Caelum's adaptation, foresight, and strategy with what he has in his arsenal as well as the environment. See this:"
Professor Aldrick brought his hands together and In-Threaded the Clause Construct M.K.A, dielectrically heating the air within his palm. He extended his Zone into Mold 1, before replicating Darius' movements and firing T.K.D into the air.
The explosion was deafening for Isaac, and it was clear that the diameter and explosive energy were perfectly limited so as not to harm even the birds in the sky.
"Can anyone explain why that was such an important step that Darius conjured up at the moment?"
Sephalyn, all recovered now, responded.
"A lot of energy is wasted heating the cool air surrounding T.K.D. Though P.L.P.F is generally considered a weaker Clause Construct, the condensation of it allows for higher temperatures and penetrative power, something Darius needed to match with T.K.D."
"Precisely, forcing the hand of Caelum, who I'm sure couldn't know whether a second impact of his Out-Thread would survive from an In-Thread of similar penetrative power, but higher destructive power," Adlrick confirmed.
"But I'd like to differ," Magister Silas Ren spoke up. "Whether Caelum understood the effects of a secondary impact, one thing is for sure. The move to use L.C.A.F was a deliberate obscuring of his after-actions. Perhaps he knew his 'friend' all too well and planned for the future accordingly?"
"Yeesh… Hush with your hypothetical nonsense, Ren." Adlrick faced the students once more. "Haha… As you can tell, Ren over here is more interested in their mentalities than their abilities—"
"Oi!"
"—Abilities. Still, Caelum invoked the foundational Water generation Clause Construct incantationless. Impressive again. Causing ionizing airborne water to turn into a mist of charged droplets. In an instant, they flash-boiled into superheated steam, hovering on a vapor cushion beyond its boiling point."
Leidenfrost effect.
"It was probably in this time that Caelum began grinding some of the arena into limestone powder… Or should I say… Calcium Carbonate?"
A majority of the students realized and understood how the natural context of the remainder of the duel would play out, and thus began discussing with one another about the theoretical explanations of all that transpired.
Both professors picked up on the understanding and found it astute to skip forward to their favourite parts.
"Students! Ahem… Discuss with the two combatants after lecture. For now, I'd like to highlight a few of my favourite moments that I hope you take into account in your creativity."
Ren stopped his bickering with the assistants to explain the following.
"My favourite? Caelum emulating P.R.I's Goldstone–Deal relation and eikonal ray-bending. I'm definitely adding this trick into my arsenal." He looked towards Caelum and offered the slyest smile. "Thank you, Caelum Veldt."
He nodded solely at the Magister.
This New EAA version of the Magister is so much more… Playful?
"The underlying principles were in C.S.M.F.A creating a spatially varying density field through centrifugal partitioning, where denser air flung outward and rarefied air in the core, added with P.V.F's plasma jet, increasing temperature. Since n(x) - 1 = kp(x) and pM / RT, you now have two independent knobs sculpting the refractive index instead of one; light bends along a warped path, which is why the decoy can flicker and shift position rather than sit static like an ordinary mirage." Magister Ren lifted his hands at 90 degrees. "Absolute cinema as you kids say."
Fata Morgana principal as well.
Also, are we deadass?
Important historical events don't get transmigrated, but memes do?
Aldrick followed, giving his own favourite.
"I can't decide, haha… It's two consequential moments in the second half. First, it's Caelum's D.S.L.U.W to throw Darius and extra Calcium Carbonate, before the truly outstanding usage of chemistry. Caelum formed his 'Zone' into a 3-dimensional conical 0.1 mm nozzle and drove a needle-thin jet of water at what would be hypersonic velocity."
Every student flashed back to the moment; it had only been for a split second, but the jet struck the calcined pocket at the centre where a chunk of powder had already been driven white-hot by surrounding temperatures. The resulting flash was just steam alone but flames: trapped acetylene pockets and an oxygen-rich ignition produced a stabbing, roaring micro-plasma with temperatures near the impact point spiking into the thousands of degrees; burning gases and superheated steam tore outward (FYI: An Oxy-Acetylene Inner Core Flame reaches temperatures between 2,800-3,200°C, usually 3,000°C).
"Caelum added onto it with a distraction and prevention of aggression, In-Threading H.M.P to blast Darius' jaw, but also to allow the exposed quicklime to react with fresh water. Thus causing a caustic spray at scalding temperature that burned at fabric, skin, and I'm sure Darius' Shielding."
The Darius who prided himself so much on being one of the best Fire Wave Binders at his age could not help but blush and rub the back of his head, embarrassed that a mere 3,000°C would be too much for this Thaumitonic Shielding.
Shielding…
"No, no. Don't get me wrong, Darius. All that you have accomplished with your Shielding is leagues above what I did at my age. More so, the fact that you had the guts to flick the slurry off. Even that fraction of a second of grazing alkaline mist surely had left flesh blackened and ruined for good, if not for our amazing assistant. Go thank your seniors another time."
As if traumatized, Darius shivered, looking down at his supposedly 'ruined for good' fingers.
"Still, I think this moment outweighs the other more. Answer me, Darius. We both know that Pyrokinesis is not a Clause Construct that manipulates anything that is hot. No, no, no. It is something that manipulates flames. Now… Explain to me how exactly you manipulated slurry with Pyrokinesis?"
Darius stood up from his seat, still embarrassed, of course.
"Ah well… It was a spur-of-the-moment idea… But I thought that since Pyrokinesis' principle works by treating the weakly-ionized chemi-ion population in a flame as charge carriers that respond to an applied Thaumiton field via Coulombia body force. Applying that to the ionized combustion/caustic byproducts of the slurry reaction instead of an ordinary flame, using the field as an electrostatic funnel, pulling the reaction's dispersed charged species toward a single convergence point would work."
"Bravo!" Aldrick. Impressive!" Silas.
Every person there began to clap their hands.
Even Sepahlyn. Even Caelum.
The Brute found the seam in the arena tile instead of either of their faces. The 'talentless' found that his sleeves were still burnt from the previous combat instead of listening to their claps.
He needed not to look.
Sephalyn's hands he could place without looking. It was three methodical claps before dissipating from his mind.
Caelum's he couldn't stop hearing.
All of them clapped for the boy who by no means should be the one receiving this applause. He was walking back to his chair and lowering himself before the sound had finished. He had the brightest smile out of everyone there.
Clap.
Through the clapping of Isaac's hands.
He saw the boy sniffling.
Clap.
He saw the 'talentless' wiping his nose.
Clap.
He saw the Brute find his home.
Like the sound made from the clasp of shaken hands, these claps ignited Darius.
Into his newfound flames.