Reborn with a Necromancer System - Chapter 95

Chapter 95: Preliminaries
Today was the day.

The Arcane Crucible preliminaries, the largest magical event of the academic year aside from the complete matches, had finally arrived, and the air on campus was electric with tension and excitement. Students buzzed around the preparation halls, casting minor illusions, and checking mana levels with magical devices.

Each team was sent magically form-fitting skin-tight suits. Each suit had a bar with three sections in green.

Spectators were already seated in the ethereal viewing platforms floating high above the grounds, waiting for the first true clash of the season.

In many parts of the city, he’d seen people viewing a sight of the grounds from a floating screen.

‘They’re like babies that their parents give a phone for the first time and they get glued to the screen..’

For Kai, it was just another storm to walk through.

He tightened the straps on his protection suit, a sleek black bodysuit etched with glowing silver glyphs.

Around him, Mari adjusted the clasp on her staff’s headpiece, Willam muttered equations under his breath while his hands sparkled with erratic blue energy, and Naia casually tossed a coin into the air, catching it with the same hand every time, but the length of time it was in the air changed as she altered it’s weight with gravitational magic.

A staff official’s voice rang out through the intercom system:

“Attention all teams. This year’s Arcane Crucible preliminaries will be conducted as a Free-for-All Elimination. All fifty teams, two hundred and twenty competitors, will be dropped into the Crucible Arena simultaneously. The suits that you’ve all been given will absorb up to three magical hits before locking up and flashing red. You will be unable to move and will be out for the rest of the round. No resets. No warmups. Last teams standing advance. Good luck.”

The arena shimmered into view, a massive, floating battlefield composed of shifting stone platforms, mana-fueled weather systems, and glowing ley line rifts. A soft wind stirred Kai’s cloak as he stepped to the teleport platform with the others.

“Okay, quick strategy,” he said, pulling them into a tight huddle. “Naia, your job is crowd control. Delay and restrain as many as you can. Mari and I will manage defence, comboing shadow and light. Willam-”

Willam gave a nervous chuckle. “Don’t expect precision today. I’m winging it with predictive spell modeling. Could work. Could accidentally summon a rain of frogs.”

“Noted.”

“Perfect,” Mari said, deadpan.

Then, in a pulse of white light, they were transported.

A loud magical chime echoed across the coliseum. The floor shimmered beneath them as the magic activated. A massive, rune-covered dome sealed the battlefield.

The chaos was immediate.

Explosions of light and magic ruptured the air. Hundreds of spells lanced out across the floating battlefield. Shields rose and crumbled and students screamed and dodged and fell one by one.

Naia struck first.

Magic burst from her palms like chains, entangling five students mid-spell. One of them, an air mage, screamed as three spells from other students struck them. Their suit locked up, glowing red, before they vanished in a soft puff of light.

‘All of the teleportation magic at the academy feels the same. It has to be one of the lecturers doing it. If I turned them or manipulated their soul, I could go wherever I want, whenever I want.’

Kai raised a shadow dome as fireballs exploded around him, and Mari stood beside him, channeling beams of pure light through the gaps he left open.

His shadow magic quivered before her magic, and everything within his shadow space screamed for him to run away, but he trusted her.

At least as Mirlin Orth.

Willam launched himself into the fray, cackling as his spell constructs spiraled unpredictably. A crystalline tornado sucked three enemies into the air before detonating into glittering ice shards. He then floated above the field on a makeshift mana disc, launching arcane pulses with a manic grin.

‘I think that removes the entire point of floating platforms, but that could be helpful in the crucible.’

Then it happened.

A direct hit from magic to Kai’s shadow barrier shook the ground benearh his feet and the barrier cracked. Another strike smashed into the barrier and it shattered.

An inferno roared to life around him, circling with such heat it melted the edges of the nearby platforms. Fire rose like a wall, sealing him inside.

Only one person wielded that kind of arrogant fury.

“Emille,” Kai muttered.

From across the ring of flame, Emille stepped forward, his hands wreathed in spiraling fire, eyes burning with contempt.

“You think I’d let you humiliate me twice?” Emille spat. “In front of the entire school, no less?”

Kai’s fingers curled. Shade stirred from the shadows, just out of view.

‘Should I keep Shade hidden? I need as many cards up my sleeve as possible…’

Emille snarled. “You were holding back. Don’t deny it!”

Then the onslaught came.

Fire lances. Combustion spheres. Cones of flame. Kai met each spell with a flash of shadow barrier or redirected pulse of elemental ice, sweat already beading on his brow. The arena’s heat choked him.

“Fine,” he whispered. “Then I won’t hold back.”

‘At least, not much. It’s not like anyone would see me use my undead except for Emille, but should I risk it?’

With a flick of his wrist, he summoned Shade. The creature’s sleek form emerged from the dark edges of the fire ring, its limbs cloaked in black smoke. But Kai kept the others, Joran, especially, hidden. No sense ending the fight in one punch. Not yet.

He poured strengthening magic into his limbs, too much, and launched himself forward like a cannon.

His punch collided not with Emille, but with a burning, molten hand.

A massive fire elemental rose before him, twenty feet tall, its form dancing and flickering like a bonfire given sentience.

Emille grinned, sweat running down his brow. “Been hiding this one. What do you think?”

Kai’s lips curved slightly. “Not bad.”

Then he moved.

Weaving between the elemental’s strikes, he redirected fire blasts with water shields and froze the ground to slow it, but the ice melted immediately.

Kai sent Shade in for quick hit-and-run slashes. He pushed his elemental affinity to its limits, switching between earth and electricity, ice and shadow.

The fight escalated into a duel of styles, precision versus power, restraint versus pride.

Eventually, the elemental faltered. Kai encircled it with a gust of wind and then fed ice into the miniature tornado. The fire, at first, flared up due to the increase in air, but the moment the ice joined the fray, it shrunk in size every second it existed.

It roared before dissipating into cinders.

Then, with one final lunge, Kai reached Emille and slammed a vortex of darkness and compressed air into his chest.

His body was sent flying across the battlefield.

Mid-air, Emille’s protection suit flared red, locking his limbs. He hit the ground in an extremely awkward position, his limbs sprawling across the ground like a starfish.

The flames died.

Kai stood, panting, smoke from all of Emille’s fire spells disappearing above.

Emille’s eyes, wide with fury, burned brighter than his magic had.

“I’ll beat you,” he growled as he was teleported away. “Next time, I’ll destroy you.”

Kai didn’t respond. He just turned toward the battlefield.

—

Elsewhere, Mari had been cornered by a trio of enchanters. Her light magic had kept them at bay, but the numbers proved too much. A series of binding spells clipped her shoulder, chest, and leg, three hits.

Even if the magic didn’t count towards the points, with half of her body sealed, her movements were limited.

Her suit froze, glowing red.

“I’m out,” she muttered as the teleport field grabbed her.

Meanwhile, Willam was laughing maniacally atop a spinning platform, launching gravity-warping glyphs like a mad scientist in a magic storm. One student got sucked into a miniature black hole and popped out, suspended in mid-air, flailing helplessly.

Naia was holding her own against three students, manipulating the concrete tiles beneath their feet and flinging them into each other after raising them from the ground.

With Emille gone and Mari out, Kai regrouped with Willam and Naia. They held fast against the dwindling enemy teams until, at last, the field dimmed and a chime echoed through the sky.

“Preliminary round complete. Winning teams advancing to final rounds: Eight.” The announcer’s voice roared.

Kai looked at the other teams so he could attempt to size up the others who would join the crucible with him.

Kai’s team stood victorious, their suits intact, breath ragged, hearts pounding.

Willam lost one point when he hit himself with his own lightning spell.

Later, as the teams were being sorted and scores calculated, Kai watched from the stands.

Emille’s team had barely scraped by, qualifying for the next round, even without their leader.

A rivalry had formed, one-sided, born of bruised pride and burning ambition, but a rivalry nonetheless.

And Kai?

He’d barely begun to show what he could really do.

‘We will win this. We have to. For Vepice, and everything else.’