Magic Discovered

Chapter 18

When they woke up in the morning, the air was still just as hot, but this time they were all boosted by the knowledge that this was the day they would start the matches!

"Come on guys! Let's go!"

Delta was attempting to pull his teammates out of bed, practically bouncing with energy. The rest of them just groaned and rolled over.

"Come on! This is the one day that you chose to get up without a fight?" James whined. "Why aren't you ever this way back at the Quintessium?"

"Because, idiot," Delta said, yanking the covers off of his bed. "I don't normally have a match first thing in the morning!"

James was shoved onto the floor, following his covers, as Lydia and Algon shot up from where they had been pretending to sleep.

"What!?!"

"Like I said," Delta said smugly. "I've got a match in an hour. You guys overslept and the schedules were released a short while ago."

"Next time, open with that!" James yelled, chucking his pillow across the room as he sprang up from the floor and dashed over to the closet. Grabbing his Arcian robes, he joined Lydia and Algon in racing out the door.

"Come back, you idiot!" Delta yelled from the room. "You forgot your amulet!"

"AGH!!!"

They got to the stadium lightning quick as it was only a short walk away, and 3 of them were sprinting at top speed. For Delta, of course, it was nothing more than a light jog, a warm-up for the actual match.

This tournament only consisted of 1-on-1 fights; there were no obstacle courses or elemental constructs. This was a raw test of skill and determination between the mages of each school, with the winning team gaining much recognition from the rest of Reality and a reward they could put towards any program on their campus.

James slid into his seat and pulled out his schedule to check the match order while his friends grabbed an actual breakfast.

"So, when's Delta going?" Algon asked, sitting down beside him and forking over a sandwich.

"It looks like he wasn't joking. He's the second match of the tournament."

"Good, I was going to kill him if he was just waking us up for a joke. By the way, where is he right now?"

"Getting ready, I think. I saw him take a detour to the training room, probably to stretch a little."

"I hope he remembered to grab his pistols before we left the room," Lydia sighed, also back by then. "He's always forgetting them."

"I hope too. Because he's the second match, he won't have any time to race back and grab them, even if he is incredibly fast."

"By the way, if Delta's second, who's going first?" Algon asked.

James checked his amulet and shook his head. "I don't know them. It's a Lightning Elementalist and a Temporal Mage from the other schools."

They sat back to eat and wait for the tournament to begin. In his haste to get to his match, Delta had rushed them out when they actually had had quite a bit of extra time. As a result, Lydia was using the wait to come up with creative ways to get him back later on.

Headmaster Nu finally took the field, accompanied by Mr. Teilion and a regiment of guards, to officially declare the start of the tournament.

Lydia shivered. "I still can't get over his voice. It gives me the creeps."

The first 2 mages, fighting in the match right before Delta's, walked out onto the stadium floor and took their positions.

"I just realize, this is a much smaller stadium than the one back at the Quintessium," Algon said. "Delta might have a bit of trouble. He won't be able to move as quickly as normal."