Chapter 57

The Director gave me a few minutes of rest to recover my mana and get my head straight since I had taken several tests in a row.

"Pandora, the simulated duel test will work against a mana puppet, you don’t need to win it, I will watch and evaluate your performance so even if you don’t achieve victory, you can pass."

"Okay, Director Akari." I won’t underestimate the test this time, I was very arrogant thinking I could get 100% on everything, this time I’ll take it more seriously.

Soon I see a girl running down the hallway.

’Those two buns are impossible not to recognize...’ Celeste comes running down the corridor.

"DIRECTORRRR!" she shouts to get the director’s attention, soon she arrives.

"Director, can I participate in Pandora’s simulated duel? You just need one fight, right? So it can be with me," she says excitedly.

"...What do you think, Pandora? The test is yours, if you accept, I’ll allow it."

"...Sure." I don’t see any problems with that, and it will be good to see how strong humans really are, the level system has always been slightly confusing for me due to the disproportionate difference in numbers, so it’s better to check in practice.

The director teleports us to an arena, I notice an incredibly strong magic barrier, probably to prevent damage to other places and maybe to protect the students from dying in the fight.

"You can go to your places and get ready." The Director goes to the stands while I move away from the center, the arena is quite large.

"Ready?"

"Yes," we both say.

"...3...2...1...Begin." I stay alert and wait for her first move, logically, if no weapons were offered, we’ll have a magic-focused combat.

"" she starts using her magic quickly, I see a magic circle form extremely fast, soon several light rectangles are floating around the entire arena.

"..." Nothing happens, I prepared to make a barrier but it was in vain, I see she’s good just with that, although she hasn’t attacked me yet, the formation of the magic circle was incredibly fast, and that uses brain processing, so you need to know exactly what it does to be able to form the magic circle so quickly.

"" she uses another spell, a fire lance is created, the ground around it slowly melts.

"" I protect myself from the impact with a neutral barrier, everything outside the barrier is covered in flames.

She starts firing these lances consecutively while I defend myself, they don’t seem that strong, but the heat is a problem, I can feel it from in here, so out there must be terrible.

’I don’t have water magic, I haven’t learned it yet... but I have ice.’ I don’t need to be like Kaelith and avoid using magic here in the kingdom just because I’m me, so I’ll use the spells I have available.

"" I start firing a stream of ice at the barrier, I’ll reduce the temperature of this attack as much as I can before breaking off a piece of the barrier.

"...?...Tsk." My barrier started to break, the reason soon becomes obvious, it’s my fault, the ice and fire are generating thermal shock, so the barrier has weakened.

"Doesn’t matter..." I continue firing the ice stream at the barrier while the fire lances don’t stop, they just seem to get more frantic.

"...20 degrees below zero... I think that’s enough." I deactivate the barrier and quickly enter the shadows, coming up behind Celeste while an ice stream follows my movement.

"!!!" I kick her in the ribs while aiming the ice stream at her.

"W-What..." Suddenly I see her kick coming at my face so fast that I didn’t see when she recovered, I can’t dodge or block it since my two hands are aiming the ice stream.

I receive her kick to my face and am thrown back, thus undoing my magic. I quickly recover and look at her.

Blood is dripping from my nose, but I ignore it.

’When did she get so close?’ She was falling and suddenly I could only see her kick coming.

"Not bad, Pandora," she says with a slight mockery.

On instinct, I defend myself and again see her kick already close to my face, I manage to block it while being slightly pushed to the side, I jump back to put some distance.

But she’s on me again with another kick ready, I dodge by leaning my body back while doing some backwards somersaults to increase the distance.

’Damn, how did she do that?’ She’s getting so close that I can’t see anything, but there’s something wrong with that.

"Come on, Pandora, I expected more, it seems that being gone for a while has made you much weaker, Hohohoho."

"" I use the wind magic, cutting the area where she is, she quickly dodges while using another spell.

"" a large light explosion occurs, soon I feel her kick my stomach, again she covered a giant distance faster than I could keep up.

I took damage from the explosion and the kick, the light attack seems to have given me ongoing damage, which is annoying.

’I think I understand...’ Soon she does it again, approaching quickly, I grab her kick and crush her body against the ground.

"URK" I start lifting her and slamming her body against the floor, I spin her and throw her against the wall.

"N-Not bad, P-Pandora," she speaks with slight difficulty.

’If I’m right...’

I generate several darkness spikes beneath her, she soon disappears from my field of vision and appears far behind me.

"What an amazing magic, Celeste," I say, realizing exactly what she’s doing.

"...Tsk...You’re right, I’ve trained it a lot since our last Duel...I can’t believe you figured it out so quickly..."

She is literally moving at the speed of light, but only between certain paths, and that’s why she spread those mirrors around the arena, and also why her first attack was a continuous fire attack to distract me from the mirrors.

I deduce that it works like a path, she traverses this path of light instantaneously, in other words, as she moves at the speed of light, I can’t keep up with that speed, but she can’t maintain that speed or her body would shatter.

So when she finishes the path, she reappears, that’s why I see her kicks but don’t see her movement.

I think she’s using the light path that enters my eyes to appear in front of me, when the light reflection from the mirrors hits my eye, it forms a path for her to pass.

However, in the end, this is just a movement technique, since I know her attack doesn’t change direction in the end, she becomes predictable.

I think I can categorize this as a teleport, and it becomes obvious where she will appear, she is physically slower than me, so if she appears in front of me, I can use that to attack her.

Another thing is just to close my eyes, so she can only move between her own mirrors.

"You know, Pandora, moving isn’t the only thing I know how to do. " The mirrors explode, I see thousands of light particles.

"Wait...No." I quickly realize the problem, I try to use magic, but I quickly receive blows from various directions, now she has thousands of paths, I can barely defend myself, even though she can’t attack at the speed of light, it’s still impossible to keep up with each attack.

’0.4 second interval’ I’m receiving a punch or kick every 0.4 seconds, and all I do is try to protect myself, I can only see slight flashes of light that appear and disappear.

’T-Too fast’ I can’t take the time to pronounce a spell.

I form a cocoon of darkness around myself to be able to cut off any path she has, since Shadow Sculptures I don’t need to speak, it’s easier to use them.

It’s not good for me to use the shadow familiars because Mikael has already seen this ability, so just using the darkness alone won’t be a problem.

I noticed that although her blows are strong, they don’t have much impact, probably losing all the impact at the moment the movement ends, after all, if she kicked at the speed of light, her leg would explode, and also, although her movements are very fast, there is a small delay just because at the moment she gets out of the light path, she loses all her speed.

The darkness cocoon started to crack, she is attacking.

’She probably can’t use magic inside the light paths’ So far they have all been physical attacks while she was moving, in other words, she probably can’t use magic.

I start making several small holes in my body to soak myself in blood, although the idea of self-harm is a bit painful, it is still necessary for victory.

’I urgently need to learn new spells and martial arts’ My training in this aspect has been a bit neglected.

"" I form a thin layer of mana to protect myself from the explosion it’s going to generate and prepare myself.

I deactivate the darkness cocoon, soon I’m greeted by several blows, some hesitated blows, probably because she saw me soaked in blood.

’It wasn’t even you who injured me’ I didn’t take that much damage from her, although the damage I did take was more or less strong.

’Patience must be activated at the right moment’ I defend myself, waiting for the perfect moment, I notice she avoids vital points, she’s not fighting to kill, and that’s her mistake, if she dies in the explosion, it doesn’t matter to me.

’...Now’

BOOOOOOM!!!

At the exact moment she appears, a giant explosion occurs, the heat melts everything while the entire arena floor trembles, after the dust settles, I see the damage, the arena has a crater, while my clothes are about 40% torn and some blood drips from open wounds.

I see Celeste on one of the walls, she seems badly injured and can’t get up. I was going to go kill her, but I hear the director.

"It’s over."

"..." I start regenerating from the injuries while watching the director go heal Celeste.

"What’s my grade, Director?" I ask, ignoring the fact that Celeste was severely injured, in my kick to her ribs there, she got hurt, so she’s not very resistant.

"...89%, your destructive power is good, and your ability to learn about the enemy is also great, but your strategies are not good, using an attack that also injures you is not a good choice in a fight that is not a matter of life and death."

"Also, your magic doesn’t have a good base to launch it, your attack mode is at least careless, you fight like a warrior instead of a mage, that’s not necessarily bad, but it’s holding you back."

’Good to know’ Celeste in a fight to the death could certainly kill me, this makes it clear that humans are not beings I should underestimate.

"Thank you for the help, Director, so I’m officially a student at the academy now, right?"

"Yes, welcome to the Elysia Vitros Academy... Celeste passed out, so I’ll take her to the infirmary, I see you’re in pretty good shape, if you have any problems, go to the infirmary and just ask one of the guards." The Director disappears with Celeste, leaving me here. I raise my hands, cross my fingers, and stretch a bit.

’I’ll go to my room, I don’t want Shogo messing with my toys... I don’t even know if she knows how to use them, but it would be a problem if someone saw them.’ I don’t know if I’ll be able to "play" with them at the academy, but I decided to bring them anyway.

’I’d be embarrassed if someone cleaning my room at the mansion found these things, and some have questionable shapes and sizes.’

’Shogo, you better not have touched that suitcase.’ I start going, using the wolf in Shogo’s shadow as a GPS while praying that Shogo hasn’t touched the suitcase yet.

This is the image of Pandora in a white dress, I’m still working on the images of Shogo and Lilith.

Link = https://i.postimg.cc/JnzkG0zD/Pandora.png