Chapter 199: Let The Race Begin
At the end of the conversation, Lancet left understanding a few things.
Astensia and Thor felt constricted inside the Summon Space. The feeling must have only worsened with the introduction of Espel and the fact that she, unlike them, got to live in the real world and continue with living as normal.
However, their situations were different. Espel wasn’t dead before Lancet summoned her. In factuality, Astensia, Thor and Spectra were meant to be grateful to Lancet for even summoning them.
And they were.
But Lancet couldn’t help but feel a little guilty even though there wasn’t much he could do about it for now. Bound Summons and Invocated Summons worked differently.
With Bound Summons, Lancet didn’t have to spend a lot of Grace since they were already anchored and present in the world. But Invocated Summons had to be anchored to present reality, which meant spending a lot of Grace.
This was why Lancet couldn’t just allow Astensia and the rest to roam freely like Espel. If he did, he would barely have the Grace to do anything and they would eventually fade off after two days.
The only way he could ultimately do something like that was if he could absorb and separate Grace so fast that he would never be in lack of it. For that, he needed to learn the Open Pores Technique.
Miss Estelle Nightingale had promised to teach him after the Inter-Class Competitions were over. But Lancet was getting pretty impatient. Regardless of the fact that he was the creator and master of these Heroines, he couldn’t stop his own desire to please them.
To treat them fairly.
Perhaps that was a weakness. Perhaps it was a strength. All he knew was that if these characters he created were going to have motives, they needed to be outside his Summon Space to accomplish those motives.
But Lancet knew ultimately he had to wait. After the Competitions, he would learn the Open Pores Technique from Miss Nightingale. And he had to learn it fast because Lancet knew exactly what happens after the Competitions.
A war was coming.
××××××××
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" the announcer’s voice boomed over the speakers, the sound washing over the hundreds of thousands of spectators. "Welcome to Day Four of the Inter-Class Competitions! Today, we leave the open battlefields behind and step into the meat grinder. I present to you... Capture-the-Core!"
As for today, the fourth challenge of the Inter-Class Competitions was starting.
The fourth ended with Summoners at the top. Nereus Grimlake, inspired by Lancet’s victory for Summoner-D, led Summoner-A to victory.
And despite the efforts of the strongest student, Vernon Heavenblum in Elementalist-S, and Valeria Bloodgood in Specialist-S, Summomer-S managed to take second position thanks to Dogden Egerton, the younger brother of Arcival Egerton, Head Professor of the entire Summoner Class Group.
Summoners ultimately claimed the top position, Elementalists came second, Enchanters third, and Specialists fell to the last position.
But today was a new day and unlike Territory War, Capture-the-Core was a combat heavy challenge which meant the Specialists were not the underdogs this time.
Cheers filled the platform as excitement reigned supreme. The massive holographic screens floating above the stadium displayed the new terrain where this challenge was going to take place.
It was a sprawling, ancient ruin: a treacherous labyrinth of shifting stone walls, hazardous magical glyphs, and automated sentinel golems.
At the dead center of the labyrinth sat a towering, circular plaza. Hovering above an altar in the middle of that plaza was a massive, pulsating blue crystal.
"Think of this as a concentrated battle over a central objective," the announcer explained in a gritty, suspenseful cadence. "Your task is simple in theory, but brutal in execution: Capture the Core. That means you must not only have capable fighters, but smart ones. You need people who can control space, identify traps, and hold a position long enough to matter. The first team to reach the Core and synchronize with it for ten continuous seconds wins the entire match!"
This challenge was pretty straightforward.
On the Summoner-D transport platform, Lancet stood at the forefront, his eyes sweeping over the maze below. Behind him stood his roster for the day: Min Tu, the gloomy Necromancer; Kylen, a Beast Tamer flanked by a massive shadow-panther; Rina, another Spirit Caller in the class; and finally, Luke who had his eyes locked on Renan Falconhart the moment they stepped into the battlefield..
"Listen up," Lancet said, not looking back. "This isn’t a footrace. The arena is rigged with traps and monsters are lurking. Let’s not forget that the other teams will be trying to stop us as well. Min Tu, you have a skeleton army now so use them as fodder to trigger the tripwires. That way we can run freely while other teams try to be careful and aggressive at the same time. More importantly, we have to move as a team."
Luke wasn’t fond of this idea, summoning Sunpiercer, he made it clear that his entire focus was on Renan Falconhart.
Lancet noticed this and tried to advise his former roommate. "Luke, if you break formation to chase a vendetta against Renan, you’re going to get yourself eliminated before you can even fashion an attack."
"Watch me," Luke growled.
Over on the Elementalist-D platform, the dynamic was infinitely worse. Frieda was leading the team this time. But right behind her, Kallan Kallahan was absolutely seething, still carrying the deep humiliation of being effortlessly flattened by Thor the day before.
"You are not leading this team, Frieda," Kallan snarled as he stepped up beside her.
Frieda turned and shot him a defensive look. "Instructor Blaze put me at the front for a reason, Kallan! My firepower can melt straight through anything!"
"Haha! That’s funny. I remember him also saying that your firepower is a liability," Kallan laughed, stepping into her space. "You can’t even control your own magic! If you try to melt the walls, you’re going to trap us in our own blast radius. Step aside. I’m calling the shots today, and we are going to do what I say."
Before Frieda could argue, the master horn blared. A deafening, deep, and resonant blast shattered the air.
"DEPLOYMENT INITIATED!" the announcer roared. "Let the race begin!"
The platforms dropped.
Sixteen students plummeted into the ancient, shifting ruins. The moment their boots hit the stone floor, absolute chaos erupted.
The Enchanters moved first. Lorielle, their Portal Mage, instantly tore open a shimmering tear in space, attempting to bypass the maze entirely.
But the arena’s automated sentinels woke up immediately. Giant stone gargoyles unhinged their jaws and fired concentrated beams that shattered Lorielle’s portal.
It forced Amira to throw up a desperate geometric shield hex to keep them from being instantly wiped out.
"We fight through!" Amira ordered, her hands glowing with complex equations as she alongside Sylas who was an Illusionist and two others sprinted into the corridors.
On the other side of the ruins, the Elementalists were already falling apart. Confronted by a massive, dead-end stone barricade, Frieda ignored Kallan’s orders. "I’ll clear it!" she screamed, unleashing a massive, roaring torrent of heavy fire.
As always, Frieda’s power was staggering.
The heat struck the stone, melted it down into a glowing, bubbling pool of liquid magma before the flames even touched them.
But Kallan was entirely right. Frieda couldn’t rein it in.
The flames spiraled wildly out of control, splashing backward. Nixa, their Water Mage, tried to cool the backdraft, but the resulting steam explosion threw their Earth Mage against a spiked wall.
"Stop! Pull it back, Frieda!" Kallan roared, coughing as the corridor turned into an oven.
Frieda panicked, her hands trembling as the fire continued to feed on her own overflowing Grace channels. The heat became so intense that the academy’s safety matrix flashed violently.
Smoke covered everywhere.
"Hold on!" Frieda took in a deep breath, sucking all the smoke, then she pushed her hand out to shoot out a torrent of fire.
But when the smoke cleared, they saw a skeleton standing there, all covered in green flames.
The skeleton moved, carving a hissing arc with its blade through the smoke-filled air straight for Frieda’s neck.
She was eliminated immediately.
A thunderclap roared but from behind and a bright bolt of blue-white lightning, no thicker than a spear, lanced from Kallan’s outstretched fingers and struck the skeleton square in the spine.
The creature shattered and disintegrated into a puff of fine, gray dust and a dissipating wisp of green smoke.
Kallan’s gaze was already past it, his eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as they locked onto the Summoner-D route across the chasm. "These bastards are pissing me off!"
But he was cut off behind a river of magma. Kallan cursed Frieda’s name.
Meanwhile, Luke was entirely off-script. Ignoring Lancet, Min Tu, and the rest of the Summoner team, the Arsenal class burst through a crumbling archway, his weapons fully drawn. He spotted the silver cape of Renan Falconhart cutting through the Enchanters’ traps in the next corridor.
"RENAN!" Luke roared, spinning his sword and using it to point at him. "Rematch right now!"
