Chapter 160: Golden Children [4]

Two days ago, before the test.

Ilya was, once again, training with Vera when the topic of the upcoming test came up.

"Tristan Amaury de Bellacourt, hmm..."

Vera crossed her arms as she considered the name.

"You’ll never beat him."

"...You hurt me, Senior. Do you really have that little faith in me?"

"In a fair magical duel? Absolutely. Tristan Amaury de Bellacourt is a genius, Ilya. Not the kind of genius students call someone because they get good marks or learn spells faster than everyone else, but an actual magical genius."

Ilya lowered his hand.

Vera continued, "He’s already a Third Circle wizard."

"...."

Among first-year students, reaching the Third Circle was exceptionally rare, with only a handful managing it before the end of their first year.

Even across the entire Magic Department, Third Circle students were far from ordinary, which made Tristan’s achievement considerably more impressive when he hadn’t even completed his first year.

"He’s already at the Third Circle as a first-year student," Vera said. "That alone should tell you what you’re dealing with. Most students entering the Magic Department are still working through the fundamentals of the First Circle, and plenty will spend years trying to reach the Third, assuming they ever reach it at all."

Ilya sighed.

Vera walked around him as she continued speaking, occasionally adjusting the position of his arm before stepping back to examine his posture.

"You’re progressing absurdly quickly yourself, especially considering how late you started, but that’s why you shouldn’t confuse potential with current ability. You’ve been studying magic for less than a year. Tristan has been studying it for most of his life."

"So you’re saying I need more time."

"I’m saying time might allow you to catch him, but nobody can promise that you will."

Vera tapped his forehead with one finger.

"He’s talented too, remember? You’re not chasing someone who’s going to politely stand still and wait for you."

Ilya rubbed his forehead.

"Annoying."

"Reality often is."

"So if we fought right now, I’d lose?"

"In a magical duel," Vera corrected immediately. "If both of you stood at opposite ends of an arena and agreed to settle things entirely through magic, then yes, I’d bet on Tristan without a doubt."

"Senior..."

"Don’t look at me like that. I’d happily bet on you against plenty of other first-years."

"Really?"

"Maybe."

"...."

"Anyway, Tristan has more mana available to him, access to higher-Circle spells, years more experience, and enough theoretical knowledge to actually make use of those advantages."

Ilya remained quiet.

"Your control is exceptional and your circulation technique allows you to squeeze far more out of First Circle magic than you should normally be capable of, but there are limits to how much technique can compensate for an entire difference in Circles."

He didn’t particularly like hearing it, but there wasn’t anything unreasonable about what she was saying.

He had never expected less than a year of obsessive studying to erase the advantage of someone who had spent most of his childhood learning magic, especially when that person happened to be one of the most talented students in the academy.

After a moment, Ilya looked at her.

"You keep saying ’in a magical duel.’"

"Heh."

Vera stepped back and gestured toward him.

"You’re a terrible matchup for anyone who thinks being the better mage automatically means they’ll beat you in a fight. You spent most of your life training as a knight, you’re far more comfortable in close combat than almost any wizard your age, and when something doesn’t work, your first instinct is usually to find another way to make it work."

"That almost sounded like a compliment."

"It wasn’t."

Vera laughed before raising one hand, mana already beginning to gather around her fingers.

"Besides, I said you’d never beat him in a fair magical duel. I never said you had to give him one."

Ilya noticed the gathering mana and immediately prepared himself, already expecting whatever Vera intended to throw at him next.

"I almost never fight fair anyway."

"I’m well aware. And besides, you have something Tristan doesn’t."

"And that is?"

"A Domain."

* * *

"What is this...?!"

Tristan immediately tried to create distance, but Ilya recognized the movement and stepped with him before he could retreat far enough to cast comfortably.

Tristan shifted to the right instead, only for Ilya to cut him off and drive another punch into his guard hard enough to knock his arms back against his chest.

This was completely different from fighting him as a mage.

At range, Tristan had controlled almost every exchange, forcing Ilya to deal with spells that changed direction repeatedly while Speculum Caeli turned the surrounding forest into an extension of his magic.

Up close, however, all of that superiority disappeared before a simple problem that no amount of magical theory could immediately solve.

Tristan didn’t know how to fight with his hands, at least not against a Belozersky wolf.

"Your stomach’s open."

Thwack——!

"Ugh...!"

Tristan’s body folded around the punch before he stumbled backward, one hand immediately clutching his stomach.

He stared at Ilya in disbelief, more confused by the amount of force behind the strike than the fact that he had been hit at all.

"I’m reinforcing my body with mana, so how the hell are you breaking through my defenses with raw strength?!"

"You are?"

Ilya stepped forward again.

"Strange."

The blizzard surged behind his arm at the exact moment he punched.

Thwack——!

Tristan barely managed to raise his guard before Ilya’s fist crashed into it. His reinforced arms trembled from the collision, and before he could properly regain his footing, Ilya was already closing the distance again.

"It feels like there’s nothing there at all."

Tristan’s expression darkened.

What he didn’t know was that Ilya hadn’t been relying on raw strength in the first place.

The blizzard accelerated his strikes at the moment of impact, adding its momentum to the strength already behind his punches.

It was the same principle Ilya used to propel himself through the air, and an extension of what he had already done during his duel with Anastasiya.

Back then, he had used the blizzard to add weight to his sword at the moment of impact, allowing his strikes to carry the force his body alone could never have produced.

Now, instead of a sword, he was applying that same idea directly to his fists.

Against Tristan, it was brutal.

Before Tristan realized it, Speculum Caeli had already deactivated, and Ilya seized the opportunity immediately.

’Ah... am I going to lose?’

For the briefest moment, Tristan could see Ilya’s fist approaching his face with startling clarity.

There was nowhere left to retreat, and not enough distance between them for him to comfortably construct another spell before that fist reached him.

’Me?’

His thoughts raced.

’A Bellacourt? The undisputed number one?’

Ilya’s fist drew closer.

’Against a northern mutt?’

No. Absolutely not.

There had only ever been one person in their generation Tristan had considered a true competitor.

Siegfried Tobias Bismarck.

An anomaly even among geniuses, a monster whose talent for combat magic had made comparisons between them increasingly pointless as they grew older.

No matter how much Tristan improved, the Imperial Prince had always remained that irritating existence one step ahead of him.

Then Siegfried died.

Tristan had known him personally, so of course the news had affected him.

But after the initial shock wore off and Tristan began thinking about what Siegfried’s death actually meant, a thought entered his mind that he knew he should have been ashamed of.

There was no one ahead of him anymore.

For years, whenever Tristan achieved something exceptional, Siegfried had already done something greater.

Now, the one person he had never managed to surpass was gone, and Tristan could finally look across his generation without seeing anyone he considered his superior.

There was no longer a Siegfried to chase, and for the first time in his life, the summit he had spent years chasing was empty.

It was supposed to belong to him.

Yet now, of all people, Ilya Belozersky stood in front of him.

A boy who couldn’t use Aura.

A failure who had abandoned the Knight Department.

A First Circle wizard who hadn’t even been seriously studying magic for a full year.

And Tristan was about to lose to him.

"I..."

Mana erupted from Tristan’s body with enough force to send the dirt around his feet scattering outward.

"I was supposed to be king!"