The AI Archmage - Chapter 66

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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AI Grand Mage Episode 66

The rules of the duel were simple.
Each Tower would field five competitors, and whichever side claimed three victories first would win.
“Juniors.”
Hayden gathered the Red Tower mages who had come with him and were participating in the duel, then addressed them.
“I don’t doubt your victory. Of course I don’t. The Blue Tower could never hope to defeat mages from the Main Tower.”
“Yes, sir!”
But there is one more thing I will demand of you.”
Hayden spoke in a cold voice to the Red Tower mages.
“Win overwhelmingly. Make it so those fools would never dare to look down on us. Make it absolute.”
“Yes, understood, sir!”
They answered with complete confidence.
Not a soul among them harbored any doubt of victory.
The gap between them was that vast.
“Good.”
Hayden smiled faintly.
‘Even if something unexpected happened, it wouldn’t matter.’
For days, he had thoroughly investigated the Blue Tower’s situation.
Whether any new mages had been brought in, for instance.
And after verifying everything, he had concluded there was nothing to be wary of.
As expected, the Blue Tower had not recruited any new mages.
Furthermore, the students’ level remained unchanged.
By Hayden’s assessment, at that level, there was no way they could defeat his people no matter what they tried.
‘If they resort to Magic Tools, that wouldn’t be bad either.’
He could seize on that as leverage to pressure Lumia.
With a cold smile, Hayden observed the Blue Tower mage ascending to the Duel Arena.
‘Nothing special.’
The mage appeared to be at the 3rd Circle level at most.
Well, that wasn’t unusual.
Given that Sion himself showed no intention of winning this duel, he probably hadn’t put much effort into selecting participants.
The mage who ascended was a girl with a somewhat stern impression.
She waited for her opponent to come up, her expression flat.
“Nothing impressive.”
Hayden let out a derisive snort and called over one of the Red Tower mages who had been preparing.
“Collin!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t forget what I told you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand!”
Collin, the Red Tower mage, nodded with eyes gleaming.
‘This is my chance to catch the senior’s attention!’
Hayden was the disciple of Rotel Kaul, the current Red Tower Master, and was considered the true powerbroker of the Red Tower—a candidate for the next Tower Master.
In other words, this was an opportunity to make an impression on such a powerbroker.
‘I’ll make them regret ever stepping onto this Duel Arena.’
With a vicious smile, Collin confidently ascended to the Duel Arena.
At a glance, he confirmed that his opponent’s magical realm was below his own.
“I’m Briella.”
“Ah, yes, pleased to meet you.”
Collin smiled thinly and extended his hand.
“Let’s have a good match.”
“Yes, all right.”
Briella’s expression showed clear displeasure, but she grasped the hand Collin offered nonetheless.
The first duel.
The Blue Tower students held their breath in unison.
They believed Sion’s words, but nervousness seized them regardless.
After all, they knew the gap between the Blue Tower and the Red Tower better than anyone.
As everyone fell silent in tension, the first duel began.
Collin’s mana swiftly began to take shape.
‘I’ll end this spectacularly with 4th Circle magic!’
The most effective way to demonstrate a clear gap was to overwhelm an opponent with magic that showed the disparity in absolute terms.
And if he executed 4th Circle magic swiftly and claimed victory, he could certainly make that gap undeniable.
Then it happened.
“Coalesce.”
Briella extended her hand forward quietly as she spoke those words.
The incantation went no further.
It was far too brief to qualify as a proper magical incantation, and crude besides.
Naturally, a girl beneath his own level couldn’t possibly manifest magic with mere words like that.
Collin scoffed at the sight.
‘Ha, she must have made a mistake. Magic won’t manifest with such a fumbling incantation.’
Of course, this suited him fine.
It would make his victory all the more dramatic.
“Oh flame, I beseech you—grant this humble servant your great divine power, that it may root within me like a volcano of…….”
“.”
“……What?”
The instant Collin saw the mana sphere manifest in the girl’s hand, his jaw fell slack.
……What is this?
How…… did magic manifest?
“No, wait…… this can’t…… ugh!”
Thud!
The Magic Missile struck Collin squarely, and he collapsed to the ground.
Pain bloomed across his solar plexus, but he couldn’t believe what he’d seen.
‘Did she use a special magical tool? Or a scroll?’
Before the duel, they’d both confirmed the absence of any magical tools or scrolls on either side.
And yet, he still couldn’t accept it.
How could a Blue Tower mage of inferior rank manifest magic with nothing but such a brief incantation?
Confusion seized him, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself up.
This wouldn’t do.
Without looking back, he could well imagine Hayden watching him with an expression of utter disdain.
He fought to maintain his composure as he spoke.
“Ha, ha, quite skillful. But my next spell…….”
“Coalesce, .”
“I……ugh!”
Before Collin could even begin his next incantation, the Magic Missile struck again.
Though Magic Missile was remarkably weak as far as offensive magic went, a direct hit still hurt.
Moreover, most mages had fragile constitutions.
Naturally, he couldn’t recover his wits.
“What, wha…….”
Crack!
“No, wa…….”
Smack!
Reeling from the relentless barrage of magic, Collin could do nothing but absorb blow after blow from the Magic Missiles.
Thump.
At last, he lost consciousness and crumpled to the ground.
“…….”
Silence descended over the Duel Arena.
“……Huh?”
Briella, seemingly unable to believe what she herself had wrought, turned back with an awkward expression on her face.
“Did I…… win?”
Eira quietly nodded in response.
Yet rather than celebrating in jubilation, Briella merely tilted her head in confusion.
“Why…… was it so easy?”
The duel had gone far more smoothly than she’d anticipated.
“……What, what is this.”
Hayden, meanwhile, stared at Sion with an expression of utter shock.
Sion was simply smiling.
As though this outcome had been inevitable all along.
If Sion had been sincere in his sympathy toward him, his expression shouldn’t look like that right now.
“What…… on earth…….”

* * *

The Duel Arena of the Blue Tower held painful memories for Lumia—a place she could never quite forget.
It had stolen so many of the Tower’s seniors from her.
That was why she had neglected this place for so long.
But now, standing here, she felt those old wounds returning in an unexpected form.
‘What is this?’
What in the world was happening?
The scene unfolding before her eyes was something she could never have imagined.
“Magic Missile.”
“Aaaaagh!”
Up on the arena floor, Eira of the Blue Tower was utterly dismantling a mage from the Red Tower.
The Blue Tower’s mages could not possibly be superior in magical knowledge to the Red Tower’s.
And yet.
“What—what is this? Such a short incantation…?! Flames, I beseech you, heed my call……”
“Magic Missile.”
“You…!”
In terms of dueling, the Blue Tower’s mages held an overwhelming advantage over any from the Red Tower.
All because of a single edge: incantation speed.
And in a duel, that edge was absolute.
Dueling was a domain where practicality and speed mattered far more than magical knowledge or raw power.
A fast-casting 1st Circle spell could be more effective than a devastating 4th Circle incantation that took longer to complete.
This was the result.
Simply put, the Blue Tower’s mages cast faster.
There were slight variations from pair to pair, but the Blue Tower mages were uniformly swifter.
“Aaaaagh!”
Eira’s opponent from the Red Tower fell without mounting any real resistance.
“That’s…it?”
Eira raised her hand, making no effort to hide her disappointment.
“Teacher, I won, didn’t I?”
“Well done. Come down.”
At those words, Eira descended from the arena and began examining her hand with a look of curiosity, as though seeing the effects of magic for the first time.
Students from the Blue Tower crowded around her, chattering excitedly.
“Wait—we actually won?!”
“The Red Tower isn’t so impressive after all?”
“…I guess not?”
Eira nodded, looking somewhat bemused at the turn of events.
Under normal circumstances, she would have dismissed such talk as nonsense, but now she couldn’t quite argue against it.
“This can’t be…”
Hayden muttered, his voice trembling as though rejecting reality itself.
Every scenario had collapsed.
The opponent hadn’t used a Magic Tool or Scroll.
They had won purely, fairly, using magic alone.
That was what made it incomprehensible. How was it possible?
When the premise he thought unshakeable crumbled before him, Hayden’s mind descended into chaos.
And that confusion rapidly transformed into rage, directed at the Red Tower mages.
“What are you all doing?!”
“We—we apologize!”
The Red Tower mages bowed their heads in submission.
In truth, they too could not comprehend what had happened.
How was it even possible?
Hayden’s fury turned next to Collin, who had been the first to take the arena and suffer defeat.
“What pathetic excuse for magic was that, Collin? How dare you bring such disgrace upon me!”
“I—I beg your pardon. But……”
“But what?”
“I don’t understand! How did they manifest magic with such a brief, concise incantation…?!”
Collin spoke in bewildered fragments, still unable to accept what he’d witnessed.
“The speed of their casting…the difference was simply too vast to comprehend……”
The other defeated mages spoke in the same vein.
Their incantations were impossibly fast—fast enough that there was no chance to respond.
And it appeared that no Magic Tools had been used in the process.
Because of this, the Red Tower students were experiencing the same kind of confusion that Hayden felt.
Hayden stood vacant, lost in thought.
This shouldn’t have happened.
‘What is this? Surely Sion Rostery was supposed to……’
The moment he looked at Sion while thinking such thoughts.
Sion was looking back at him with a slight smile.
As if he understood exactly what Hayden was thinking right now.
There was no sign of cooperation in that gaze.
“No way……!”
From the beginning, he had planned this?
So Sion Rostery had been confident from the start that he could win this duel, and had provoked it deliberately?
Hayden clenched his fists.
There had been no flaw in the plan.
He had visited the Blue Tower frequently to see Lumia and had checked the condition of the mages there.
And certainly their level was far inferior compared to the Red Tower.
Even now, it was no different.
‘But how……!’
Hayden imagined the situation where he would lose this duel.
‘This can’t happen!’
A Mana-Bound Contract is absolute.
If he lost, Hayden would naturally have to grant whatever Lumia wanted.
In other words.
‘I would have to commit perjury before the Council.’
Cold sweat broke out.
Lie to the Council about the state of the Blue Tower?
That meant he would have to keep moving forward to prevent that lie from being discovered.
On behalf of the Blue Tower, forever.
“Damn it…….”
Of the five mages he had prepared, two had already been defeated.
If just one more lost, it would be over.
And that one mage was walking up to the Duel Arena with an anxious expression.
“Wait, just a moment……!”
“Ah, yes?”
The Red Tower mage who had been about to step into the arena stopped with a reluctant expression.
“Senior, why…….”
“I, I’ll go instead.”
“Yes?”
“I said I’ll go!”
Hayden glared at Sion as he spoke.
“The Duel Rules state that ‘Red Tower Students’ compete! Since I am also a student, it should be permitted, shouldn’t it?”
“Well, it’s permitted, but…….”
Sion tilted his head questioningly.
“Are you confident you’ll win?”
“What?”
“Even if you win, what about the other two?”
At those words, Hayden’s face went deathly pale.
Because Sion was right.
“Shall I show you some mercy?”
“What…… are you saying?”
“Well, it’s obvious you have no chance of winning. I’m quite a sympathetic person, and I can’t hide how tragic this looks to me.”
Sion shook his head with a genuinely pitiful expression.
“If you win this time, I’ll count it as three victories.”
“……Sion?!”
Lumia, who had been listening quietly beside him, looked up at Sion in shock.
What in the world was this lunatic saying right now?!
But Sion’s words did not stop.
“On the other hand, if you lose, we’ll add one more thing to what you gain from the price I mentioned before.”
“Add…… one more?”
“Yes, one more.”
Sion tapped his neck absently, then continued.
“That Fire Dragon Pendant. You have it, don’t you?”
“……!”
Hayden’s eyes widened at those words.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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