The Hage Village square had lost its charm. Usually, it was a place of comfort—sun-baked dirt, the smell of drying hay, and the slow, rhythmic creak of potato carts. Today, it felt like an execution ground.
A crude perimeter of heavy hemp ropes had been staked into the earth, marking a circle roughly thirty feet across. Looming over it all was the Grimoire Tower, its ancient stone casting a long, judging shadow that seemed to chill the air despite the rising sun.
Lencar stood at the edge of the crowd, his arms crossed to hide the slight tremor in his hands.
The air was thick, suffocatingly so. It smelled of ozone, unwashed bodies, and the sharp, metallic tang of mana being flared in panic. Nearly fifty teenagers from the surrounding region were packed into the square. They clutched their grimoires to their chests like shields, their eyes wide with a mixture of hope and terror.
For most of them, today was the death of a dream. They were here to fight for a ticket to a life that didn't include dirt under their fingernails.
Lencar felt a pang of something that wasn't quite guilt, but was close enough to taste sour. I'm not like them, he thought, his thumb brushing the rough leather of his hip holster where his book rested. They're fighting for their dreams. I'm fighting for mine.
He scanned the "Contestant Pool," forcing his mind into the analytical grooves of Kenji Tanaka to keep the anxiety at bay.
To his left was Asta. The boy was vibrating. Literally vibrating. He was doing one-armed pushups while screaming about becoming the Wizard King. He had zero mana—a void that made Lencar's senses itch—but his physical presence was a hazard. He was a variable Lencar couldn't calculate because Asta defied logic.
To his right, leaning against an old oak tree, was Yuno. The four-leaf prodigy looked bored. His mana signature was a calm, deep ocean compared to the frantic puddles of everyone else. He was efficient. Deadly. A barrier Lencar wasn't ready to cross yet.
And then there was the Mob. The other forty-seven kids. Their average mana capacity was pathetic—barely enough to light a candle or water a garden. Lencar felt a twist of pity. He was going to have to crush them.
"Listen up!"
Tower Master Drouot's voice cracked over the crowd. The old man stood on a raised wooden platform, looking sweaty and uncomfortable in his official robes.
"This is a simple elimination bracket!" Drouot shouted, wiping his brow. "Two losses and you're out. The final two standing get the travel passes and the recommendation to the Capital. No killing. No permanent maiming. If I see a spell that looks lethal, I'll stop it immediately. Do you understand?"
"YES!" the crowd roared back, a desperate, ragged sound.
"Then let the first match begin!"
Lencar stayed back, melting into the shadows of the onlookers. He watched the first few bouts with clinical detachment, though his stomach churned.
They were messy. Inefficient. A boy with Earth Magic tried to build a defensive wall, sweating buckets as he poured his soul into the spell, only to have a girl with Water Magic turn the ground beneath him into mud. They screamed. They flailed. They exhausted their mana pools in minutes, leaving them panting in the dirt, their dreams dissolving with their magic.
It was pathetic, But it was human.
"Next match!" Drouot bellowed, looking at his scroll. "Lencar Abarame versus Rekka of Sosie!"
Lencar's heart skipped a beat. Showtime.
He stepped over the ropes, feeling the eyes of the village land on him. He kept his face blank, his posture relaxed.
His opponent, Rekka, was a tall, broad-shouldered boy with a nasty scar on his chin and a sneer that looked practiced. He held a three-leaf grimoire that was already glowing with an aggressive, jagged orange light. Lencar knew his type. A local bully. Someone who used small sparks to scare kids who couldn't fight back.
"The kid with the blank book," Rekka laughed, stepping into the ring. He cracked his knuckles. "I heard about you. The 'Wind Mage' with the brown book. This won't take long. I'm going to the capital, peasant. You're just a speed bump."
Lencar didn't respond. He couldn't. His throat was dry.
He dropped into a slight crouch, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet. He opened his internal floodgates.
Toggle: Mage Mode.
The sensation was immediate. The mana he had siphoned from Yuno flooded his system. It felt like sticking his finger in a socket. His veins hummed. His muscles tightened, reinforced by the pressure. The fear receded, replaced by the cold clarity of power.
He analyzed Rekka. The boy was top-heavy. He was channeling all his mana into his upper body, telegraphing a frontal blast.
He thinks he can burn me, Lencar thought. He thinks I'm going to stand here and duel him.
"Fight!"
Rekka roared, thrusting both palms forward. "Fire Creation Magic: Burning Burst!"
A cone of flame erupted from his hands. It was impressive for a commoner—hot, bright, and loud. The crowd gasped as the heat wave rolled over them. To them, it looked like a wall of unavoidable destruction.
To Lencar, it looked like a slow-motion video.
He didn't cast a spell. He didn't have to.
He used the Mana-Forging. He didn't move like a mage; he moved like a piston firing. He pushed off his back leg with explosive force.
He blurred to the left. The heat of the flames licked at his tunic, singeing the fabric, but he was already gone. He slipped inside Rekka's guard before the fire had even dissipated.
"What—?" Rekka gasped, his eyes widening in genuine shock.
Lencar was already there. He could smell the sulfur on the boy's breath.
He pulled his right fist back. He didn't want to use the [Towering Tornado]. It was too big. Too flashy. It would paint a target on his back.
Improvise, Lencar commanded himself. Don't cast the spell. Coat the weapon.
He channeled a tiny fraction of the siphoned wind mana into his knuckles. He didn't release it; he compressed it, creating a high-pressure "shroud" around his hand. It was a crude application, dangerous and unstable, but it was quiet.
"Wind-Enhanced Kinetic Strike."
He punched.
The fist connected squarely with Rekka's solar plexus.
WHAM.
The impact wasn't just physical bone-on-bone. The compressed wind exploded upon contact, a localized "pop" of atmospheric pressure that acted like a secondary concussive wave.
Rekka didn't just fall. He was launched. His feet left the ground. He flew backward, flipping over the ropes in a ragdoll arc, and landed face-first in the dirt ten feet outside the ring.
He skidded to a stop. He didn't move.
The square went dead silent. The only sound was the wind rustling the leaves.
Lencar stood there, his fist still extended, steam rising from his knuckles. He took a steadying breath, willing his heart to slow down.
"Winner: Lencar Abarame!" Drouot announced, his voice squeaking with surprise. "Time... uh... four seconds?"
Lencar stepped back, closing his grimoire. He looked up.
He met Yuno's eyes.
The prodigy was still leaning against the tree, but his posture had shifted. He wasn't looking at the horizon anymore. He was looking at Lencar. His golden eyes were narrowed, calculating.
Lencar also looked at him and for a moment both of them looked each other in the eye and Lencar and Yuno nodded to each other.
Lencar broke eye contact and walked back to his spot.
As the morning wore on, the heat of the sun began to match the intensity of the battles. The initial nervousness of the crowd had evaporated, replaced by the bloodlust of competition.
Asta was a nightmare.
Lencar watched his fight. Asta didn't use strategy. He was a whirlwind of chaos, swinging that massive, rusted black slab of iron with a violence that terrified the other contestants. He screamed constantly. He took hits that should have knocked him out, only to bounce back harder. He didn't use magic, but he didn't need to—his sword simply deleted whatever spells were thrown at him.
It was terrifyingly effective.
Yuno, conversely, was a surgeon. He stood in the center of the ring, barely moving his feet. His four-leaf clover glowed softly, and he ended every match with a single, elegant flick of his finger. A gust of wind here, a tornado there. He wasn't fighting; he was cleaning up trash.
"Lencar Abarame versus Sela!"
Lencar stepped back into the ring for the Round of Sixteen.
His opponent was a girl named Sela. She was small, with dirt-smudged cheeks and hair tied back with a piece of twine. But her eyes were fierce. She gripped her grimoire so hard her knuckles were white.
"I saw what you did to Rekka," she said, her voice trembling but determined. "You're fast. You hit hard. But you can't hit what you can't reach!"
She slammed her grimoire open.
"Vine Creation Magic: Thorny Labyrinth!"
The ground rumbled. Green, barbed vines erupted from the dry earth like agitated snakes. They grew with unnatural speed, weaving together to form a dense, suffocating cage around Lencar. The thorns were an inch long, dripping with a glistening, purplish sap.
Paralytic poison, Lencar analyzed instantly. Smart. She knows she can't overpower me, so she's going for area denial.
The crowd cheered. This was magic. This was what they came to see.
Lencar stood in the center of the tightening circle. The vines were closing in, reducing his maneuvering space to a few feet. He couldn't speed-blitz her; the vines blocked the path.
I have to cut through, he realized. Physical strength won't work on these; they're too elastic. I need an edge.
He opened his grimoire. He needed to use "Wind Magic" to maintain his cover, but the [Towering Tornado] was a blunt instrument. If he cast it here, the recoil in this confined space would crush him against the vines.
I have to modify it, Lencar thought, panic fluttering in his chest. I have to hack the spell.
"Wind Creation Magic..."
He focused. He channeled the mana into his palm, but instead of letting it erupt upward, he clamped down on it. He forced the mana to spin horizontally. He compressed it, fighting the spell's natural desire to expand. It felt like trying to hold a spinning saw blade with his bare hands.
"[Towering Tornado] - Output: 5%."
He didn't release the full spell. He held it in his palm, "throttling" the mana until it formed a flat, horizontal disc of screaming, grey wind. It wasn't a stable spell. It was vibrating violently, threatening to explode in his face.
Do it now.
Lencar spun in a circle.
He extended his arm, the disc of compressed wind expanding outward like a deadly frisbee.
It wasn't a beautiful spell. It didn't have a fancy name. It was a mechanical saw.
SHREEEEK.
The sound was ear-splitting. The high-velocity air cleaved through the thick plant matter like it was wet paper. Vines were severed instantly, green sap spraying into the air. The "Thorny Labyrinth" collapsed, falling to the ground in a heap of shredded vegetation.
Sela gasped, her eyes going wide as her creation turned into green confetti.
She stood there, defenseless, her mana connection severed.
Before she could cast again, Lencar moved. He stepped over the ruined vines, the wind still swirling around his hand. He closed the distance in two strides.
He didn't strike her. He stopped a foot away.
He was breathing hard, the strain of controlling the spell evident on his face. He looked at Sela. She was terrified. She was just a kid, like him, trying to get out of Hage.
He let the wind die down. He placed a hand on her shoulder. It wasn't a grip; it was a weight. He let the pressure of his siphoned mana—Yuno's mana—leak out just enough for her to feel it.
It was heavy. Oppressive. The weight of a hurricane waiting to happen.
Sela's knees buckled. She looked up at him, tears welling in her eyes. She realized, in that moment, that the gap between them wasn't skill. It was raw, unfair power.
"Yield," Lencar said. His voice was quiet, almost gentle. "Don't make me hurt you."
Sela trembled. She looked at her ruined vines, then back at the boy with the blank eyes. She dropped her head.
"I... I yield," she whispered.
"Winner: Lencar Abarame!"
The crowd cheered, but it was a confused sound. They hadn't seen a flashy explosion. They had seen a dissection.
Lencar let go of her shoulder. He felt exhausted. Controlling the tornado had taken more mental energy than physical.
He walked back to the ropes, ignoring the cheers. He looked at his hand. It was shaking.
That was too close, he thought, wiping sweat from his brow. I almost lost control of the wind. If that disc had shattered, I would have taken my own arm off.
He glanced at Yuno again. The prodigy was no longer looking at him. He was looking at Asta.
Lencar let out a breath. He had survived the second round. But the tournament was far from over. And the monsters in the bracket were only getting bigger.