Lucas stood up from his chair, a bit bewildered by Eleven's acting, but he brushed it aside.
"Follow me.", Eleven said before sprinting over the rooftops. Lucas wanted to sigh but had to follow him.
'We couldn't even get a word in, does he have to act like a mute as well?'
Lucas was carelessly following him, he could be lead into a trap, but he was sure that Eleven wouldn't do something like that. There were reasons to try and remove Lucas from the picture but also benefits from letting him stay. He just needed to prove his worth to increase his chances.
They came to an open field not far from the city.
"Before I bring you to my place, I want to request something."
"And what might that be?", Lucas said while flashing a slight smile.
"I want to duel with you, no killing and we'll stop the moment one of our lives gets in danger. What do you say?"
"Pointless violence is frowned upon, you know?"
Eleven paused for a moment, thinking that Lucas wouldn't fight for no reason. 'So he wants something if he wins?'
"I'll give you a low-level magic crystal, is that good enough?"
"Sure, why not.", Lucas was glad to see that Eleven could understand his way of thinking.
Eleven adopted his fighting stance, he had plenty of unwanted training, but it did make him into a trained warrior. He could fight with weapons as well as magic. He had the clothing of an assassin, but that was merely to hide his identity.
The two men stared each other down, Lucas had his hands behind his back while Eleven had his in plain sight. They knew that the next movements would decide who was stronger.
Eleven was starting to get nervous, he knew that Lucas was a genius, a prodigy even. So any attack needed to flow into the next one. He had a lot of training, but he wasn't the strongest around.
'Let's go!', Eleven started to rush toward Lucas, conjuring a wind blade while doing so. After he shot his blade, he started on his next spell to create a special kind of spear from dirt. The blade got close to Lucas before it hit a shield, leaving not even the slightest mark on it.
'Shit, he has a magic shield! Will it be enough?', he learned a special spell that could turn stone into metal but it required a lot of energy, in return, it was a lot stronger than stone. He could even sharpen it, which he immediately did after seeing Lucas' protection.
He only needed a few more steps and his spear would reach Lucas, he was thinking that throwing it would be faster, but the shield would most likely stop it.
BOOM
A giant condensed cloud of steam appeared out of nowhere. He couldn't see in front of him but knew where Lucas would be. "HYAH", swinging his spear horizontally would have the most significant chance of hitting Lucas while removing part of the smoke. Suddenly he lost his footing, stumbling forward.
His instincts screamed at him, from his left side he could feel a great source of heat and danger.
BOOM
A second explosion went off, yet this time it wasn't as harmless as some steam. An enormous fireball hit Eleven's sides, blasting him outside the cloud of smoke. His clothes were burnt and his flesh started to catch fire. Eleven used a few Light spells to control the damage, but he wasn't out of danger yet. The smoke would've gone away by now, but the explosion created an even bigger cloud of dust, hindering his vision.
'I even used a magic shield at the last second, if I didn't I would be dead! Going in there is suicide!', he wasn't sure how he lost his balance. He was a trained soldier, even if he were somewhat scared and nervous, he wouldn't fumble like that. Taking the same approach as Lucas he started to conjure all kinds of projectiles that could be fired from afar. Fire, ice, wind, stone, and some even metal spears started to fly through the cloud of dust, adding to the chaos.
'I'm almost out of mana, but with this, I should've shown him I'm stronger than a normal Rank 1.', firing multiple spells of different elements was a lot harder than just the spells focussed on the mage's primal element.
"Very well done, I must've been hard to fire so many different elements at once."
Eleven's heart stood still, if the voice came from the cloud of dust it would've made sense, but it came from behind him. He didn't dare turn around and make his suspicions become true.
A hand was placed on his shoulders. Lucas was next to him with the same smile as before. "How about we stop this, what do you think?"
Eleven nodded, affirming his inferiority to Lucas. The steam clouded his vision, the way he lost his balance, and the explosion of fire bigger than any normal fireball showed him enough.
'This man is a prodigy, for sure.', Eleven was almost out of mana, but Lucas had barely used any energy.
"Thank you for indulging me with this duel, I'll give you the crystal when we get to my home, but first. How did you make me lose my balance?"
That was the one thing he couldn't understand, everything else he could see a possible solution, but that was left unsolved.
"I first thought I should've used wind magic to bring you out of balance, but that would've required quite a lot of energy, so I made the ground uneven."
Eleven was in wonder, 'The plane was flat, there wasn't anything to trip over, but he created the smoke screen to make me lose sight of my footing? The moment I lost my footing he was given the perfect chance to fire his spells at me, otherwise, I would've dodged them!'
"Being a mage isn't just about shooting tons of spells, but their use and goal.", he said before moving away.
'Did he predict I would be using a magic shield after he showed that he had already made one? He's more than just a genius!'
"Yes, you're right, thank you."
All the while Eleven was glorifying Lucas, he himself was calm.
'It seems that tactic works somewhat, there's still a lot of problems with them.'
At the beginning of the battle, there was some time before they actually fought, enough to create the smoke bomb behind his back silently. All he needed was willpower and mana to create something. The first thing he created was a magic shield, which he learned not too long ago from his own experiments. The smoke bomb came from the teachings of Micheal and all the rest were his own creations.
'We need to figure out how to silently cast spells faster.'
'We are already pretty fast, I would rather work on the combination of different elements.'
'No, just darkness would be enough to massacre everything so just focus on that one.'
'And what if we get hurt, or our bones get broken? What are you going to do then with your stupid darkness?'
Lucas debated a little more before following Eleven again.