KOLGANE'S ARRAYE OF BONE SUPPORT
"I can see magic linking the guy's bloody magic to more than a few dozen people hiding in the audience", Sara told me to my surprise.
Sara had special sensors in her that could detect magic and the flow of those magic. The magic on Kolgane's bone shield didn't come from Kolgane himself but from many helpers who were hidden behind him in the audience, secretly powering his magic.
"Damnit, this idiot is cheating", I told myself.
I wasn't fighting with just Kolgane but a team of conjurers who were helping him secretly in the audience.
"Hey this is getting boring", someone from the crowd complained.
"Yeah, one of you just quit", someone told us.
"Would this last forever? I need to go home for dinner", a hungry guy said to us.
The spectators weren't patient with our slow duel.
But we were not in a hurry to win the match because there wasn't a time limit. We were still checking out the opponent's hidden trump cards before they used them.
Just like me, Kolgane must have plenty of hidden means up his sleeves and he had the backing of many conjurers behind him.
He also knew I was not that simple, and he just wanted to cautiously wait for me to reveal my strongest move before he retaliated with his strongest, to end the battle.
"I can see a pattern to this conjuration", Sara said to me.
Kolgane may have some conjurers in the audience secretly helping him, but I also have secret help in the audience.
"Infernal Beam of Bone"
Kolgane fired his conjured burning bone spears at me again, but I didn't evade the burning bone this time. Kolgane's fiery bone beam wasn't the toughest of conjuration and my magic armor was immense and I have plenty of magical resistance to fire, so I could absorb his beam without too much injury.
But I didn't plan to take his hit without retaliation as I dashed right into him. While I was evading Kolgane's bone beam, my footwork wasn't confined in one space. I slowly moved toward Kolgane's position, closing in on him.
"How did he take the bone conjurations without injury?" Conjurer Visor asked his peers.
"Maybe the last beam failed for some reason", a conjurer added his observations.
"It is the most logical explanation although I suspect it is something else", Conjurer Iras said to them.
I did reveal a hidden advantage of mine to Kolgane, it was my super body armor and magic resistance. But I have a perfect excuse for that.
"You poor scums cannot afford the strongest of magic armor like me", I shouted to Kolgane so that everyone would hear the reason that I managed to block his magic so effortlessly.
"So, he also possessed powerful artifact armor", Conjurer Ivior told the others.
"Wealth is also a kind of talent", another conjurer replied to him.
Finally, I reached where Kolgane was, and I dashed into his shields with a punch.
"Drums of Kradesh"
My punch was charged with a powerful sonic explosion that reverberated throughout the bone shield, shattering it.
But the bone shield quickly repaired itself.
However, I continued to smash the bone shield with my sonic charged explosive punches. Although the shields quickly regenerated, the cycle of shattering and repair was recorded by Sara.
"I found a rhythm in this. The weakest link is at the far right corner of the shield. That is where the regeneration is the slowest and weakest", Sara told me.
So, I quickly smashed the far right corner of Kolgane's bone shield. The bone shield regenerated themselves as usual but the place where my strongest force was focused, didn't repair themselves quickly enough.
"Drums of Kradesh"
I pinpointed at the weakest link in the bone shield and smashed there again. This time, the shield broke at the far right corner. I took this opportunity to cast my magic.
"Starfire Flash"
A beam of fiery flash penetrated through Kolgane's bone shield at the point where it broke. The magic struck Kolgane, burning him in a fiery flame.
Kolgane instantly lost his magic bone shield because he was too busy fighting the fire on his body.
"Drums of Kradesh"
Without any mercy, I struck Kolgane, breaking all his bones. Then I kicked him out of the arena.
"ONE PUNCH", I shouted to the audience as I raised my fist toward them.
"Yeah, brag. Without me your punch sucks", Sara told me on my wristband.
"Yes, you are the best", I replied to her.
"Oriese vs. ninety-nine. Oriese wins", the judge announced.
------
"Well, here is your apprentice conjurer certificate", Conjurer Iras presented a certificate to me as I sat alone among a hundred empty chairs.
"This is the quickest ceremony in the history of the Conjurer Court's Apprentice Conferment Ceremony", one of the conjurers whispered to the conjurer next to him.
Although some of the apprentices that I fought with weren't badly wounded, none of them would want to sit near me after I gave them a scare, as the Bully of Starri city.
They would sit out of the Conferment Ceremony.
"May I know what my reward is besides this useless paper?" I asked Conjurer Iras rather impatiently and perhaps even rudely, but he wasn't the kind to bother with trivialities.
"Hahaha… down to business right away young apprentice conjurer. Come to my office later and I'll show them to you", he told me.
I was about to leave when the Master Conjurer called me back.
"Don't go so soon. This is not over yet", Conjurer Iras asked me.
"It isn't over yet. Where is the fat lady?" I asked them.
"Who is the fat lady?" Conjurer Ivior asked me.
"It ain't over till the fat lady sings" was a colloquialism on Earth where my previous life spent most of his early life. This isn't Earth though and these guys don't get the joke.
"Forget it, what do you want?" I asked them.
"You still need to find a Master, as an apprentice", Conjurer Iras said to me.
"A master conjurer? Among all you guys, none of you are qualified", I replied to him to the shock of all the conjurers at the conferment ceremony.