Devin wasted no time, he started to draw runes with both of his hands, a feat only attainable with great dexterity and multi-tasking skills. A small plant appeared from the ground and spat gibberish to cover up Devin's verbal empowerment.
I decided my best bet would be to get close and burn everything.
"Boel! Denny! Execute order 42!" the two golems engaged Devin, Boel staying a distance away and trying to suppress with rapid-fire and Denny getting up into Devin's face and limiting his actions.
A far cry from their previous accuracy, Boel was having trouble aiming because their spirit core was too weak to handle the husk.
Devin, despite the pressure he was feeling from the golems, still managed to finish his spells. Two giant flowers erupted from the ground, spreading a gas poisonous to humans. His other spell caused two sharp trees to stab into the golems, crippling Boel's armor and barely scratching Denny
'Those upgrades were definitely worth it.' I breathed the air that my Changeling armor trapped in itself once it detected poison.
'Get in close now, it's the best opportunity.' Spirit advised.
I didn't reply, but I followed his instructions, I deployed my wings and charged forward, only inches above the ground. Once I got close, I opened the melee with a kick, using all of my momentum to make the hit worse.
"Nice try." One of the seed pouches on Devin's belt grew into a tree no thicker than my forearm, but it was like kicking a metal pole.
I screamed and recoiled in pain, Devin tried to use the opportunity to hit me with his half-assembled skateboard, but Orin appeared in between us and pounced on him, pinning him to the ground and landing the first good hit of the fight.
'His charm lost about ten percent with that, I need to get back in there.'
Devin activated a blood glyph and a pseudo-treant sprouted from the ground, pushing Orin to the side.
'Now is the time for fire.' I got close and used intuitive manipulation to put the oil into every crack and crevice of the treant.
"I'm gonna do it again!" I shouted, leaving a tendril of oil to myself, I ignited it with the heating stick, and like clockwork, little explosions started to cover its surface. Then suddenly my armor covered my entire body and heard a muffled explosion, the armor retracted and I saw that the treant was no more and Devin was down to 5% charm charge. I was at 78%.
I charged Devin and started to clash against his club with my quarterstaff.
"One hit and you're down, no pressure." I applied the pressure, I needed him off his game so he couldn't activate his seeds in time.
We clashed Quarterstaff versus club, seeds, and skateboard about seven times before I decided to use my herbicide. My armor produced a stubby appendage made of Mimic and used it to drop the herbicide at my feet, I kicked it up into Devin's face, both blinding him and killing his defenses.
"Yes!" I thrust my quarterstaff forward, aiming for his center of mass, only for vines to restrain me.
"No." Devin quit the act and wiped the herbicide away, I saw the same arms that had defeated me the first time appear.
'Where did my golems go? I forgot about them.' I looked frantically around, but both golems were entangled in vines and Orin was just breaking free of his.
"I'm the stronger one, herbicide would never work on plants infused with Eneru."
I conjured Full Guard out of my quarterstaff and ordered Boel and Denny to break out of their restraints at all costs.
"PEREN!" I shouted while casting Indse, or unbreakable. The full guard got a black sheen and offered no weak points other than its immobility.
'I just have to endure this until Denny and Boel take him down.'
'Orin! Help Denny out!' I projected my thoughts to the fox.
I heard a faint growling and tearing as Orin ripped the vines off of Denny.
"The duel is over!" Unda shouted and the black sheen of my armor faded away.
I broke out of my new cage and took in the scene. Boel was standing over Devin, holding a broken bow, he had shattered it on Devin's head.
"Woooo! MVP!" I ran up and hugged Boel earnestly. "I won fool!"
"WE won, fool." Orin moved up, indignant.
"You won, sure, but it was 4v1." Devin reignited our rivalry.
"You had plenty of time to prepare, you were on equal footing." I tried to shut him back down, to no avail.
"No amount of preparation could have won me this, there are too many against one."
We bickered back and forth about the "real winner" for the rest of class, being ushered off the platform after a minute or two.
Right before we came to the conclusion that both this and our first duel were draws, Unda interrupted us with a few comments.
"Ingen, turtling without a plan is clumsy and stupid. Devin, you rely too much on spells, if you ever encounter a situation where you can't you're a sitting duck. On a positive note, I noticed a lot of creative uses of your equipment and spells as well as some good subterfuge. Well done."
"Thank you, professor, I will start work on a form of offense."
"And I will work on my martial skills. Hey Ingen, wanna spar?"
"Let's go."