NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 42
Chapter 42: Dark Demon Cannot Feel the Joy of Dueling
After explaining some small rules for dueling.
Professor Jones took out a jar full of tokens and had the students draw one by one.
The young magi came forward, reaching into the jar to draw their tokens.
Surprisingly, among the four classes, only seventy-eight students truly completed the “Magical Beast” in this week.
On average, each class had less than twenty students!
The rest were mostly still in the process of failing their creations and having to accumulate credits to buy material packs.
It felt as if the professors had set a trap, opening Traveler’s Street before teaching the creation of “Magical Beasts,” giving some first-year students who didn’t know moderation a lesson on spending credits recklessly.
As for whether others learned from it, who knew? Wit and Robert definitely did…
Whether they would change after receiving the lesson was another matter.
…
Dark walked up to the jar and grabbed a token at random:
⑦.
“What a coincidence, I have a connection with ⑦?”
Diana came close again: “Hey, what number are you?”
Dark: “7, what about you?”
Diana: “77, hehe!”
Rose: “55…”
“Those who draw tokens inject mana into them and split them open, handing me the blue side.”
Professor Jones took out another empty jar to collect the blue tokens.
Dark only then noticed that his token was red and blue. Injecting a bit of mana would cause the red and blue sides to lose their magnetic properties, making them easy to split apart.
Following Professor Jones’s instructions, Dark handed over the blue token and held the red one, waiting quietly.
The central arena was divided into four equal parts by props, and Professor Jones placed two Mana Guidance Balls in each small arena.
Students without “Magical Beasts” needed to fill the Mana Guidance Balls with mana and learn how to open Life Barriers.
Professor Jones also selected four people as judges.
“The competition uses a single-elimination format. Winners advance, losers leave. The world of Mana Duels has only a champion.”
Professor Jones randomly pulled out two blue tokens from the jar and placed them aside, then repeated this process four times, creating four groups of tokens.
She flipped the tokens and read aloud: “First round, seventy-eight to thirty-nine, four groups simultaneously. 6 vs 8, 3 vs 28, 66 vs 7, 49 vs 5, prepare to go on stage.”
…
“Celebrating the start?”
Dark glanced at his red 7 token, not particularly concerned.
But Diana and Rose seemed more nervous than him.
“Dark,加油! I’m always on your side!”
“加油!”
It wasn’t like they were going to participate in a talent show.
Dark walked darkly towards the ③rd arena.
Eight people went down at once, some nervous, some calm.
Dark looked around and saw that the 66th competitor, a girl from the Mana Academy with twin tails and big eyes, looked somewhat pale.
He casually comforted her, “Don’t be nervous, it’s just practice.”
“Okay, um.” The girl clenched her teeth, tightening her fingers.
The two arrived at opposite ends of the competitor positions.
Official competitions have a competitors’ platform allowing participants to oversee the entire arena from above, but here there were only simple competitor positions marked with white lines.
Dark stood in position and looked at the arena.
This in-class competition simply replicated the real arena’s rules, dividing the area near the competitor positions into a Summoning Zone.
This meant the summoning region for Mana Spirits was limited, preventing direct summoning onto the opponent’s face—known as “face summoning!”
Apparently, the earliest Mana Duels didn’t have this rule, leading to frequent “tactical summonings” that made duels brutal and chaotic.
Some Magus even used “gaze interference tactics,” directly summoning large Mana Spirits to block their opponents’ vision…
Later, rules gradually improved, reducing such incidents.
However, human creativity knows no bounds, and there were still numerous tricks within the rules.
The referee for the ③rd arena was Lentchen from the Noble Academy.
“Hi.”
Lentchen waved at Dark, looking unusually dispirited.
There was no helping it; being a referee was like public execution.
Why else would they fail to create “Magical Beasts” within a week?
Dark naturally remembered this classmate who went shopping early Saturday morning.
Judging by his appearance, he probably spent all his credits in Traveler’s Street, resulting in insufficient credits to buy more material packs for experiments.
His fellow sufferer, Shiweite, seemed to be right next door…
Dark smiled reservedly.
Official duels require placing decks on the “spellboard” in the competitors’ platform, with mana projection mechanisms enlarging the Mana Cards for audience viewing.
There are also rules like “on-site shuffling,” “starting hand of 5 cards,” “30 seconds per round,” and “drawing 2 cards per turn.”
The duel process is divided into three phases:
① Preparation Phase: shuffling, communication (taunting), starting hand;
② Battle Phase: drawing, summoning, battling (attacking);
③ End Phase: communication (taunting), collecting cards, declaration;
…
Of course, today’s duel doesn’t have so many rules.
The Mana Academy twin-tailed girl even held her only “Magical Beast” card tightly, nervously awaiting the referee’s whistle.
Dark suddenly worried she might damage the “Magical Beast” card?
Both Mana Guidance Balls had already deployed 500-mana Life Barriers, floating in front of each participant.
Manipulating Mana Guidance Balls with mana is an advanced technique not covered in first-year lessons.
Thus, moving the Mana Guidance Balls requires physical force.
Lentchen: “Beeep—start preparation.”
Dark took out 【Magical Beast: Eevee】 from his deck, holding it between his index and middle fingers, entering the preparation phase.
Lentchen: “Battle Countdown, 30 seconds!”
Lentchen: “3, 2, 1, start!”
At the instant the battle phase began.
“My turn! Mana Summon!”
Dark raised his Mana Card in an instant, successfully summoning his Magical Beast in the 8th second of the battle phase!
Eevee landed lightly without any hesitation, running swiftly like the wind.
By the 12th second, it had crossed the 10-meter battlefield and pressed the Mana Guidance Ball on the ground with its paw!
“Pi~ω?)”
Tilting its head to look at the girl across from her, Eevee showed a cute expression.
Then, it tapped the Mana Guidance Ball four times, breaking its Life Barrier into mere health points.
The twin-tailed girl was literally stunned into action, mana interrupted, hurriedly starting a second summon.
Eevee gently waited for her to summon her Magical Beast, then dealt the final blow to the Mana Guidance Ball.
“Battle over!”
“Victor: Dark Diemon.”
Dark sighed, collected his cards, and turned away.
Boring…
Tedious…