Lord of Charm

Water snakes scattered around Violet, waiting for her to land within their reach to bind her. Violet could see them and tried her best to land away from them.

Sadly, it was enough to make it too difficult for her to dodge the beams now. Whenever she landed on the ground, a snake would pounce on her and try to bind her, forcing her to use additional moves to dodge the snake too.

Eventually, a beam hit her side and threw her in the air, making her lose her breath. A few snakes behind her immediately seized the chance under Lena's control and wrapped around Violet.

Violet struggled to set herself free but to no avail; each snake destroyed was replaced by another. She was just spending her mana and stamina in a futile struggle.

Soon, another beam hit her while she still couldn't move, this time in the right shoulder. Her shoulder blade made a disturbing noise as it took the hit and her arm got dislocated.

"AH!"

Violet shouted from the pain. No matter how often she gets beaten by Lena, it was never getting easier. Honestly, Lena enjoyed beating Violet. she was vexed with her friends those past few months whenever they fangirling Gale in front of her.

She surrendered and the fight ended. Although she didn't get to show too much prowess in this fight, she wasn't worried about it. She knew her journey would end in the quarterfinals since the draws were out, so she did her best to showcase her talent in her previous battles.

"Lena did it again, she beat her opponent hands down within minutes! I've already started missing such short fights!"

The commentating stung Violet's heart, but she just sighed in defeat and accepted her bad luck. Steve then started talking again.

"It's already late and in the previous brackets, we already finished the tournament by this time. The judges, along with the empire's representative, decided to postpone the semifinals and finals until tomorrow. That's it for today, thank you for coming!"

Unsatisfied murmurs raised from the crowd, but they had no choice but to cooperate. Everyone left the colosseum, and Gale and the girls did the same.

"Be careful Lena, the empire's candidates seemed to be stalling for time on purpose. Their representative also pressured the judges to postpone the semifinals. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because they believe Jaina can't defeat you and they either have a way to boost her power or get rid of you during the night."

Gale warned his big sister worriedly. No matter how much he thought about it, those were the only two reasons he could come up with. Either those reasons, or they'd switch Jaina with an all-powerful twin sister who looked just like her.

"Don't worry, they wouldn't dare harm her during the night. Not only everyone would be suspicious of them, but they'd also enrage the representatives of the 5 academies. Besides, they would suffer a great loss by losing a genius of the empire for a few lands."

Shana calmed him down by explaining why Lena can't be in any danger. It meant they wanted to boost Jaina's power somehow, and he figured it might cost them a fortune.

"Why would they suffer a great loss? I thought the empire got many magi."

Gale asked the first question that popped into his mind.

"Many? They can't have too many magi. The empire with more magi will have the chance to break the equilibrium and conquer the others. According to the power ranking list, there are only 71 known True Magi in the empire. According to estimations, even including the hidden ones there are only around a hundred of them."

71 magi in the whole empire! Gale got a far better understanding of the importance of a single magus now. They were the pillars of the empire, and they were worth much more than a few lands, especially when those would be lost only for 30 years until the next tournament.

-------

Somewhere in the capital:

The empire's representative, Derek, summoned Jaina to his room. When she arrived, he signaled her to leave the guards behind and enter. Since her guards wouldn't help her fight off a magus anyway, she complied and entered alone.

"Check out those potions."

He beckoned towards a box on the table and Jaina opened it to check its contents.

"3 mana absorbers and 3 mana connectors?"

"Indeed, those are for you."

Jaina was taken aback. Those potions were in the seventh grade, and each cost a few million imperial gold coins. She looked back at Derek.

"Is this an instruction made by the emperor?"

She asked with a hint of coldness to her voice.

"No, it's mine. Do it and I will owe you a favor. I've paid for those potions myself, and you can enjoy the effects."

The potions' effects would give her great benefits; by consuming them all she would be able to get to the fifth stage overnight and even get herself strengthened by one element.

Besides, a favor from a magus wasn't something one could take lightly, especially when the magus was part of the imperial family.

"Sorry, I refuse."

Jaina refused without thinking twice. Although it seemed like a dream offer, it was anything but a dream offer. After consuming those potions, the next ones' effects would be so minor it wouldn't be worth the exorbitant price.

It might be important to mention that nearly half of the current magi only advanced using this potion when they were stuck at the sixth stage. Basically, by using those potions to advance to the fifth stage, she would essentially cut her chances to get to the magus stage by half.

Although she was a genius, she wasn't even in the top 5 among her peers, and even most of the top 5 would be stuck at the sixth stage forever.

Magi had a lifespan of a thousand years, yet there were only around a hundred of them; it meant that on average, in the past 1000 years, only one magus was born every decade. She couldn't afford to cut her only hope to the magus stage!

"Let's be honest Jaina. Out of all the magi I know, none of them wasn't considered a top genius of his generation. Even with the help of the potions, your hopes to get to the magus stage are unfounded."