I stood facing her. Elena von Silberlicht, the embodiment of noble perfection, waited on the other side of the arena, her posture impeccable, her arms casually crossed behind her back. Even her uniform seemed tailored from a finer fabric than mine, a subtle aura of luminous mana enveloping her like a halo of innate prestige.

  As for me, my boots were covered in dust, a discreet tear marked my sleeve, and a stain of cold tea, a remnant of a rushed breakfast, probably sullied my collar. Nothing particularly intimidating, in short.

  Concentrate, Klaus. Objective: survival. Victory is secondary. Just stay standing.

  Professor Reiz raised an expert hand.

  "Standard regulations. One active spell simultaneously. Combat zone protected by energy barriers. Defeat is acknowledged upon falling to the ground or surrendering. Friendly duel, I remind you."

  "...Friendly?" I murmured, a hint of incredulity in my voice.

  "For us, perhaps," the professor replied with an enigmatic smile.

  His hand lowered.

  "Let the duel begin."

  I remained still. Elena too. Her gaze settled on me with a cold curiosity, devoid of hatred, but imbued with a quiet assurance, as if she were preparing to crush an insect without fear of soiling her delicate shoes.

  She raised a slender hand. A golden magic circle appeared, of delicate and precise craftsmanship.

  "Solar Dart," she announced with an almost detached politeness.

  A lance of incandescent light sprang from the circle and whistled straight towards me. My arm rose instinctively, in a desperate reflex.

  I activated spell number 3-b from my personal repertoire, an improvised variant of a basic elemental wind spell.

  [Inverse - Trajectory]

  It wasn't a spell listed in academic manuals, let alone authorized. But I had tested it the day before, in secret, on stray pebbles. The result was immediate: the lance of light abruptly deviated from its course and vanished into the protective barrier, causing a brief, blinding flash at the back of the arena.

  Perplexed murmurs rippled through the stands.

  Elena narrowed her eyes, a flicker of nascent interest in her gaze.

  "Interesting. That wasn't a known spell. You deflected mine."

  "Let's just say my thinking isn't the most conventional," I retorted, attempting a nonchalance I hardly felt.

  She raised her hand a second time, the movement faster, more decisive.

  "Solar Salvo."

  Three luminous projectiles converged in a fan, their speed making any individual dodge illusory.

  I deployed my spell [Retard], another of my creations, based on a rudimentary shield spell, enriched with a "temporal latency" rune that I had patiently deciphered.

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  The arrows slowed down spectacularly. Visually. They became blurred streaks, as if frozen in slow motion. I dodged, with calculated slowness, anticipating their decelerated trajectory. Not through superhuman agility, but through a simple application of spatio-temporal logic.

  Elena's brow furrowed slightly. Surprise was beginning to manifest.

  On my side, beads of sweat trickled down my forehead. Each "spell" I manipulated required considerable mental effort. Not in pure mana – my reserve was negligible – but in intense concentration. I had to visualize the structure of the opposing spell, identify its logical flaws, and then reconstruct an abstract countermeasure, an ephemeral magical equation traced in the ether. The slightest error in syntax, the most minute miscalculated variable, and it was instant calcination.

  Don't panic. Analyze. Observe the energy flows. Identify the tension points. Correct the formula.

  Elena changed tactics and charged, her body enveloped in a palpable aura of heat. No ranged magic this time. A simple, direct flaming punch aimed straight at my face.

  I hadn't expected it. The speed and suddenness of the attack caught me off guard. The impact sent me crashing to the ground with tremendous force. The shock knocked the wind out of me, and a shrill ringing echoed in my ears.

  Ouch… that was a very concrete application of elementary physics.

  I tried to get up painfully, my muscles aching. Elena approached, her posture still haughty, but a slight panting was perceptible.

  "You are more resilient than expected. Surprising. But this charade is coming to an end."

  She raised an incandescent hand. A sphere of burning energy floated in her palm, dense, concentrated, visibly unstable.

  "Solar Explosion. I will limit its power to forty percent. Don't worry, you will only be slightly concussed."

  I raised a trembling hand, palm open in a gesture of disarmament. My meager reserves of magical energy were exhausted. But I still had a sliver of twisted logic left.

  "[Doubt]," I murmured, a desperate attempt.

  An experimental spell, a pure theoretical abstraction. The concept: if a magical formula is inherently unstable, injecting a contradictory logical variable can cause its collapse. It was a risky maneuver, with unpredictable consequences. But I had no other cards to play.

  The sphere of light vibrated intensely, hesitated, then… suddenly extinguished, like a flame swept away by an invisible gust.

  A heavy, palpable silence fell over the arena. Even Elena seemed disconcerted. She stared at her hand, then turned her questioning gaze back to me.

  "You… made my spell fail?"

  I straightened up with difficulty, my body aching.

  "No. Your spell faltered. I just… planted a seed of uncertainty in its logical structure."

  She stared at me for a moment, her features drawn with manifest incomprehension, then took a step back.

  Professor Reiz raised his hand, breaking the silence.

  "Duel over. No winner designated. Draw."

  The stands remained silent for a moment. Then, a hesitant murmur spread, gradually growing louder. An insignificant half-demon. Level one. Without recognized affinity. A draw… against Elena von Silberlicht? The unthinkable had just happened.

  I left the arena limping, each step a painful protest from my bruised muscles. I hadn't won, but I hadn't suffered the humiliating defeat everyone expected. And in this merciless environment, that was already a victory in itself, far beyond my meager hopes.

  On the way to the dilapidated dormitory, I passed a group of students who moved slightly out of my path. No mockery, no condescending snickers. Just a new, heavy silence, charged with a curiosity mixed with incomprehension. A silence that crept under the skin.

  Later, alone in my spartan room, I collapsed onto my creaking bed. My arm still trembled from the stress and exertion. My meager mana reserves were depleted, reduced to nothing. I had drawn on my physical and mental reserves to the last drop.

  But it wasn't my fatigue that worried me the most. It was the spectral message that floated in my field of vision, discreet, persistent, like a warning slipped surreptitiously under my door:

  [Status Updated.]

  [Affinity Recognized: Abstraction - Level 1]

  [Effect: Generation of logical, unstable but unique spells.]

  [Alert: You have been spotted.]

  Spotted? By whom? The question echoed in the silence of my room.

  A new message appeared, just below, darker, more sinister:

  [Caprathor has opened an eye.]

  I remained still, my breath caught in my throat. It wasn't a figure of speech, a poetic image. I felt that strange warmth in the palm of my hand again. And deep within my skull, a faint murmur, a barely perceptible vibration:

  "Continue. Show me what you can break."

  I wasn't a hero. I wasn't a prodigy. I only aspired to anonymity. But it seemed that in this world governed by codified magic, rigid statuses, and predictable duels… a simple bug in the system like me was enough to disrupt the whole game.

  And if someone – or something – intended to prevent me from disturbing this established order… I certainly wasn't going to let them without sending a few lines of my own improvised magic code right in their face.