I accepted the cane and nodded to Sera in thanks.
“True. Okay, we ready?”
Everyone acknowledged their readiness. Jin looked a little more skeptical, and I understood why. “Let’s go open the door first. Maybe we can take a look before the fight actually starts and formulate a strategy from there.”
Jin looked noticeably better after I said that. “Agreed.”
We walked over to the door.
There were three keyholes.
As far as I knew, we only had two keys left — the red one from the box, and the one Jin had just retrieved.
Fortunately, Sera pulled out a third. I raised an eyebrow. “Where’d you get that?”
“That series of pillars that led to nowhere above the water in the room I started in? Turns out you were right. There was an invisible platform over there with an invisible key on it.”
“Nice.”
We inserted the three keys.
The door slid open.
Inside was a plain, circular room, almost like what I’d expect from a fighting arena.
There was no visible stairway within.
Instead, on the opposite side, was Professor Meltlake.
Patrick said what we were all probably thinking. “Uh, guys?… That might be worse than the dragon.”
“Hello, students.”
A blazing aura enveloped the professor’s body. “Welcome to your final exam.”
Chapter XIV –These Tests Are Never Fair
Somehow, in spite of having actually fought one of my professors inside the spire, it hadn’t occurred to me that one might show up in the fake spire test.
Teachers weren’t exactly typical spire monsters.
Then again, the professors at this school did seem to have a bizarre fixation on beating up their students in general, so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised.
We paused in the doorway, hesitant. This was a bad situation for a number of reasons.
Professor Meltlake was renowned for her fire magic. Her surname was a title she’d earned by literally evaporating an entire lake.
The best way to counter that was ice magic, but even if Sera was at her best, she wouldn’t have been strong enough to do much against someone of Meltlake’s level. And Sera was still far from recovered.
This was going to be messy.
Sera stepped forward. “Professor, is that actually you over there, or a simulacrum? I need to know if we should be using lethal force.”
“An excellent question, dear. I’m a copy. But even if I wasn’t, I’d invite you to do everything in your power against me. A group of first-years isn’t much of a threat.”
That helped resolve any concerns about killing Meltlake by accident, at least.
“And I assume we have to beat you to conclude the test?” Patrick asked.
“Correct, Patrick. Unlike the rest of this exam, there are no hidden tricks here. You can think of me as a floor guardian.”
That was unfortunate. If there was a hidden trick, we’d have had decent odds of finding it with this group.
“Also, Patrick,” Meltlake continued, “no using the high ranked spells I’ve been teaching you. You’re not ready to use them in an actual fight yet.”
“Aww.” He frowned. “If you say so.”
Professor Meltlake clapped her hands, causing her fiery aura to swell out for a moment before collapsing back around her. “Well, if you students are done with the questions, shall we begin?”
Sera whispered, “Jin, Corin, go right. Patrick, with me. Go.”
Jin and I rushed forward, then veered right.
Jin drew a pistol and opened fire while on the run. His bullets disappeared into Meltlake’s aura, and I saw no sign that any of them connected.
Sera and Patrick ran the opposite direction, and Meltlake turned to follow them. Apparently, she saw them as the threat — and she was probably right.
Meltlake threw a sphere of fire in their direction, which Patrick blasted with a jet of his own flame, knocking it back toward Meltlake. It exploded part-way, and I felt a wave of heat wash over the entire room.
Sera followed up by hurling a shard of ice. Meltlake didn’t even move. The ice shard hit her aura and melted on contact.
Jin and I were safely behind Meltlake now, and I fired a few blasts from my dueling cane at her back.
The spheres of mana hit her aura, crackled, and vanished without a trace.
Meltlake threw a blast of lightning, which forked into two. Patrick’s aura shifted into a crackling field of electricity, causing the lightning aimed at him to rebound off harmlessly, but Sera took a hit. Cracks spread across her shield.
Sera folded her hands and whispered. “Child of the goddess, I call upon your aid—”
Meltlake slammed her cane into the floor, and the whole room shook. Sera fell back, losing her concentration on her spell.
I didn’t have my sword or gauntlet, so I just kept firing the dueling cane at Meltlake. It was ineffective at hurting her, but I had to hope it would work as a distraction.
Jin fired another bullet into her aura, but again, nothing happened.
This is ridiculous, we can’t even hurt her. Unless…
“Jin, can you do what you did to the Tyrant?”
His jaw tightened. “Just tried. The bullets are melting too fast.”
Resh.
Should I ring the bell and get Marissa?
I shook my head, dismissing the idea.
No, she’d have to run all the way across the fire room to get to us, and she’s still probably injured. I can’t lean on her to handle this for me.
Shrouds are less effective at close range. If I had my sword, I could reach that far, but the dueling cane is too short.
I’d seen that problem solved before. Keras could form blades out of his mana, and Marissa had learned to shape her shroud in a similar way.
I still couldn’t do that. My shroud stubbornly refused to move into a blade shape, in spite of numerous attempts.
But I did have another idea, based on something else I’d seen Keras do, and one of my own older techniques.
I pressed a rune on the dueling cane, bringing out the blade.
Then I pressed my hand against the metal and concentrated. This was going to take a minute.
While I focused, Meltlake was beginning to attack with greater ferocity. She threw another sphere of fire, but when Patrick blasted it like before, it split apart into three smaller spheres instead of rebounding.
Those smaller spheres flew apart, then righted themselves and continued flying at Patrick and Sera.
Sera countered one of them with a burst of arctic wind, causing it to detonate prematurely. The explosion knocked her back, but she didn’t look hurt.
Patrick’s aura shifted from lightning to fire. It wasn’t as intense as Meltlake’s aura, but it still was bright enough that it was hard to look at. The other two spheres hit him dead-on, exploding against his shroud, but his own flames deflected most of the damage.
Most. I could see thin cracks underneath his shield. Like deflected like, but there was too much of a difference of raw power here for his fire to protect him completely.
I was surprised by his next move — he charged.
Meltlake threw a lance of flame at Patrick, but he side-stepped it, and the spear slammed into the wall behind him, melting a hole in the stone.
When Patrick came in close, he swung a burning fist at Meltlake’s face. She knocked his hand aside with her cane, then kicked him in the chest. He flew backward, a crack in his shield where she’d connected.