It must be hard to get first place in every discipline. Even I would have trouble riding a horse, so I wouldn’t have won that unless they let me ride my bears. Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses. It was going to be hard to win against someone who threw everything they had into the one thing they were good at. Maybe the lesson was that it was better to focus on improving one singular thing instead of trying to be good at everything all around.
“I want Shia to win, of course, but I hope you work hard next year too, Lady Seleiyu.”
“Next year...yes. I’ll need to practice even more for next year.”
Seleiyu looked like she was lost in thought for a bit, but then she smiled at Noa.
“Is something the matter?”
“No, nothing. I’m going to do my best to earn a clean sweep next year,” Seleiyu declared.
“I need to go now too. I hope you’ll come back to watch us again tomorrow.”
Seleiyu rejoined the Yufarian students. The spectators had started to leave, so we decided to head to the inn as well.
“That was fun.”
“Yes, I learned a lot from seeing all the kinds of magic being used.”
There sure were a lot of forms of magic, which made sense since you had to cast magic using the method that most easily came to you in your imagination. If you didn’t, the magic wouldn’t have any impact. That rookie adventurer I knew struggled with that too.
Soon, it was the next day of the competition. Once again, I had to don the uniform I thought I’d never wear again and head over to the academy. At the entrance, we met up with Shia and Seleiyu.
“Good morning,” Seleiyu greeted us.
“Morning,” Shia also said.
“Shia, Lady Seleiyu, good morning.”
“You two were waiting for us?” I asked.
“I forgot to tell you that the competition is held at a different location today, so I came here to get you.”
“I saw Shia heading over, so I decided to wait with her,” Seleiyu said.
Apparently, they were going to compete on the border of the lake of the school grounds today.
“What are you going to be doing on the lake?”
“Fabrication magic.”
“What’s that?”
“To put it simply, we’ll be creating things using magic while everyone watches.”
“So then does someone judge the things to decide who wins?”
“No, there’s no ranking this time. We’ll just make things and try to entertain the people who are watching us.”
Ah, so this time it wasn’t a competition. Today was going to be more like a presentation, then.
“What are you going to make, Shia?”
“You’ll just have to wait to find out, won’t you?”
We weren’t the only ones heading to the lake. The students and spectators were headed there too. We passed by yesterday’s competition grounds and made our way to the lakeside.
“Okay, time for us to get going. I hope you enjoy it.”
Shia and Seleiyu went back to join their classmates. We headed over to the spectator’s area, scouted out a spot, and set up our chairs.
Soon, a teacher started to explain what everybody would be doing. It was exactly as Shia and Seleiyu had described. Essentially, the students were going to make whatever they wanted using magic.
There was a little pier on the lake, and we saw one of the students headed that way. That student used water magic to conjure something up from the lake. You could always just convert your mana into water, but that would be taxing. If you just used some water that was close by, you could retain more of your mana. The same held true for earth magic. Building up a wall of earth made from actual soil was completely different from making the earth from scratch through your own mana.
The student made the water float up and started to sculpt it. The water changed shape and started to take on an animal-like form. People started to clap.
“Um, is that a wolf?”
Noa looked at the animal-shaped water. It did kind of look like a wolf. Magic was cast through the imagination, after all. To create a sharp shape, the person’s imagination needed to be strong. The student who had made the wolf bowed their head and got off the pier. Then the second and third students also showed off their water creations.
If I were ranking these, I’d judge based on size first. This was obvious, but the more water the sculpture contained, the more mana was needed to sculpt it. Next, I’d judge based on the level of detail in order to evaluate each person’s imaginative abilities and their skill at manipulating magic. If someone could do both at once, then they’d make for a great mage.
One student made a human shape, another one made the water move like a snake, then there was a student who made a school of fish that shot up into the air. That one was kind of pretty. But why fish? I thought birds would be better.
“It’s water, so I think fish work great.”
Well, I guess fish were more strongly connected with the water than birds were. But in my mind, I thought birds when I saw anything fly.
Then the students started a sort of water magic performance.
“It was captivating to see the water wind back and forth. Oh, I wish I could start learning magic soon. Then I’d be able to make bears just like you, Yuna.”
I gathered mana in my bear puppet, created a small orb of water, and formed it into a bear shape.
“Hee hee. It’s so cute.”
Noa touched the bear. Her fingertip poked into the water. After I stopped feeding it mana, the bear turned to regular water and splattered to the ground.
“Aw, it’s back to being water.”
Without mana, the water couldn’t retain its shape and returned to its natural state.
While I was goofing around, the students had continued with their fabrication magic as well. Now, it was Seleiyu’s turn. I watched her, wondering what she would make. She turned her back to us, then held her hand up to the lake and magically lifted some of the water. The water started to take shape, blooming over the lake’s surface.
“Pretty...”
Seleiyu had made a gigantic flower. The petals were detailed and beautifully reflected the sunlight. The audience clapped, and then the flower fell away back into the water.
It had only lasted about a half-minute, but the memory lingered.