Mage Steel: A Western Sci-Fi Cultivation Series

FOURTEEN

"I'm Alexandra," Benny's descendant said with a wide smile. She had similar features to Alexandros, softened and more feminine without the years of strain. Curly black hair was cut short, dark eyes shone with an intensity as she looked past Kon and toward Benny. The old man had been polite, but more curt than anytime Kon had heard him.

Her grip was firm as she shook his hand, fingers strong and long as she turned to look back at the two other mages behind her. Both were men, roughly their age but a study in contrasts. The first was milk-white with fine platinum hair that he had in a long braid. The other was dark with black hair and eyes, hair shorn to his scalp while neon bright tattoos were tattooed into his temple, swirling designs that drew in the eye.

"Loras and Beto," Alexandra said, pointing to the men in turn. Loras stood stock still and acted as if we weren't there while Beto came forward and offered his own handshake which Kon took.

"We're mage lord Alexandros students," Beto said. He had a musical voice, light and higher pitched than Kon would have assumed. Loras didn't say anything, his body language neutral.

"Kon Lorgairi." That caused Alexandra to stiffen, a pained look in her eyes as she glanced at Benny, but it disappeared as fast as it had appeared.

"I've never seen a mage fight," Kon threw out, trying to break apart the awkward silence that had fallen as all three young mages had slowly seemed to retreat with Kon giving his adopted name.

"The Lorgairi is an ancient mage house. It is an honor to meet one," Alexandra said through gritted teeth. Kon licked his lips and realized he was treading in deep waters that he had no idea how to navigate.

"Fight, right," Kon said, missing Diur more by the moment as they all moved over to the far side of the room as Alice walked to the far side while Alexandros slowly tottered to his side.

"Lord Lorgairi, would you allow me the honor of shielding?" Alexandra asked and in her voice was such a tendril of hope and desire that Kon had to hide his wince at her desperation. Benny looked at her and his hard look didn't soften, but Kon thought he saw something stir in the old man's eyes.

"I will shield us. Relax and try to learn something," Benny said. Alexandra deflated a bit, but nodded as she turned around to watch as the spar began.

"You ready?" Alice yelled and Alexandros pulled off the top layer of his baggy robes, tossing them to the side. He wore a sleeveless tunic that was tucked into a wide belt that looked more like it was designed for back support than it was for fashion. Metal bracers ran down his arms and even with Kon's limited experience he could tell that it was treasure-alloy. Monster cores were embedded in the bracers, every few inches. There was no stray energy emerging from them that Kon could detect, but from their size they looked like E-Grade cores.

"Is the size of the core going to affect the power of the magic?" Kon asked, leaning toward Alexandra.

"Yes, but it can be mitigated by high efficiency. Modern mages don't rely on brute forcing spells anymore. It causes a higher burnout rate," Alexandra explained. Kon kept his doubts to himself, he'd seen what happened when Alice went all out and it involved people dying in great droves.

"Ready!" Alexandros said as he straightened and Kon got a glimpse of the man he used to be. Strong, tall, proud, and powerful. Alice didn't wait any longer, she simply jumped across the entire area without another word.

Runes appeared all around Alexandros, dozens of twisting and twirling runes that made Kon's eyes hurt to see it all. Power flooded through the area and Kon could taste the wildness of unfiltered monster cores in the air.

A glittering shield of refracted light appeared all around Alexandros while at the same time a dozen spears of light appeared. They fired at Alice in the space of a heartbeat, the knight hardly having time to hunker beneath her shield before seven blades of light hit her.

Light shouldn't have mass, there was nothing there to propel her backwards theoretically. Kon should have known better as the bolts hit the knight's rose-gold crystal shield. Bits of crystal shattered as Alice was flung like a ragdoll across the arena. She hit hard, bounced with an audible crack of bones, and landed on her feet. Regrowth appeared around her and Kon could see as bones shifted in her body to line up properly while her shield, which had seven craters in it, regrew in an instant.

"Korvani's General Defense and Michel's Heavy Spear," Loras said, speaking for the first time. Kon took note that he had a deep voice and spoke with a slow cadence, but he was watching as Alice had begun to smile as she stalked forward.

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Resonance began to flutter around her and the broken chunks of crystal shield that had sprayed around the room vibrated fiercely for a moment before growing still again. Alexandro's either hadn't seen them move or was ignoring it as he began to weave another set of formula into being.

"She's tough and a regenerator. Normally a bad match up for a mage since they can outlast the damage a mage can output," Alexandra said. The three mages were breaking down the fight in a running commentary which Kon didn't mind as much as he thought he would.

Alice was in the middle of the arena while Alexandros sat nearly in the corner, watching her carefully as more and more runes spun up and around him. Kon felt a sinking sensation at all those runes.

"She's not going to be able to win if she just sits there and takes a beating." Kon's thoughts seemed to be echoed by Alice as she charged, head and shoulders beneath the edge of the shield. Alexandros smiled and one bunch of runes detonated with a flash of light.

Kon's brow furrowed as he tried to figure out what happened, but then he saw Alice's feet sliding out from under her and the unnatural smoothness of the sparring room floor in a wide circle with Alice in the middle. He'd done something that had removed all friction, or something similar to that, in the circle.

"That's one way of dealing with that," Beto said with a chuckle. They were acting like it was already over as a series of whiplike electric bolts snapped into reality as another set of runes disappeared. Alexandros moved his fingers and the lightning began to strike at the Knight.

Resonance flared bright and then Alice was moving again, gliding forward as Momentum came into being. She picked up speed at supernatural speeds, slicing across the circle in a second and then leapt free, staying close to the ground. Two sets of runes detonated, one after the other.

The first sent a bar of raw energy at her which she took on her shield in a blast of light. Kon blinked the tears from his eye and saw as Alice staggered through the attack, having braced for a blow that had no weight and was now off balance. She recovered nearly instantly, but it wasn't fast enough as the second formula formed panes of glass that Alice bounced off of. More of them appeared and within a moment she was trapped inside of a cube.

"Is that all he does? Traps and limiting his opponent?" Kon asked.

"Victory doesn't need to be the death of a foe, but rather eliminating them from the battlefield," Alexandra said, coming to her master's defense instantly.

"How hard is it to make that cube?" Kon asked, already thinking of ways he could break out of it. The only thought he had was punching it as hard as he could, which seemed to be rather inelegant and not a surefire way of succeeding.

"Each advanced formula can require up to a dozen runes with very specific intentions behind them. Then there's the actual energy manipulation part, threading power into the runes and preventing them from shattering or underfeeding them and having the formula fail," Beto chimed in this time and there was definitely a sneer of arrogance in it.

"Does make it very flexible," Kon admitted as Alice worked with Resonance and walked straight through the panes of glass. Kon had to reevaluate resonance as a rune, he'd been underestimating its uses but Alice was using it with ease to work her way through every trick that Alexandros threw at her.

"Time for him to get serious," Loras whispered. Seven sets of runes formed around the old mage, each of them snapping and breaking into a ball of lightning that sat in the air, crackling and burning as Alice marched forward.

The first blast of lightning from one of the orbs diminished, but didn't deplete it. Alice blocked the blow and kept coming, Resonance burning brighter and brighter behind her. The second blast hit the shield and this time there was no spray of crystal as the bolt of lightning instead passed right through her.

"She resonated with that attack in an instant," Alexandra sounded impressed. Then the next ball of lightning fired and this one blew apart a piece the shield and Kon saw what the wily old mage had done. Each of the seven balls of lightning was different enough that Alice wouldn't be able to use her rune to just skate through the attacks.

While Alice pushed her way forward, tanking blast after blast of lightning, Alexandros was working again. More runes burned into reality and Kon saw as the first of the E-Grade cores burnt out and turned to ash inside of the bracers. Alice only needed to survive a bit longer to win the spar, but the new feeling from the runes felt more dangerous than what had come before.

"A poor showing from the Knight," Beto chimed in and Kon turned his head enough to see the mage was smirking, a pleased look on his face as Alice struggled.

"She's not done yet," Kon said. If anything, she was smiling even wider as her skin darkened and blackened, chunks of hair burning away as she pressed forward. There wasn't much space left between the two of them, Alice only five or so feet away from the glittering shield of light that Alexandros had created in the first moments of the spar.

Regrowth was glowing, but it was focused on the shield which continued to regrow as fast as it was destroyed. Alice got within a foot when Momentum burst to life and all the shattered, broken chips of crystal rose in the air and shot forward. The entirety of the sparring arena became a shower of glittering beauty as a rain of shards hit Alexandro's defenses and the shimmering panes of force began to crack and splinter.

All the while the bolts of lightning continued to hammer Alice, but Regrowth kept her on her feet, healing the damage as it occurred. The broken shards of shield ran out, but Alexandros's defenses were hardly there, nothing more than cracked and broken energy panes. Alice reared back and struck it with the edge of her shield and the defenses shattered like glass.

"Finally," Alexandros said and another dozen runes disappeared as the older man finally matched Alice's smile.