Everyone gasped the moment Virgo dispelled her golden barrier. She was still locking Abyrath's hulking fist with her slender palm in a spectacle surreal enough that few students pinched their forearms, only to wince. They weren't dreaming.

Among them, Elliot's thoughts veered in the opposite direction. He cheered until his voice turned hoarse, both fists raised, tears still streaming down his cheeks, not from despair anymore, but hope. If he were dreaming, he prayed not to wake up. "Beat him, Adam!"

Beside him, Desmond's eyes widened at Virgo, then narrowed at Adam with vindictive anger. He cupped his hands around his mouth, roaring. "Why did we suffer if you could summon someone that powerful, you blue bastard? Wait... How can you summon anything when you're not an invoker?"

Adam smirked at his friend from the duel venue, noting how everyone leaned forward as if he would answer an unsolvable equation. "Who said so?" he shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance.

Indeed, who said that a House's speciality was exclusive to its members? No one, not even Haldris. All he said was that the first established House was the House of Exorcism, and that should have given them all the clues they needed. Or did they foolishly believe that back then, no exorcist could summon creatures or use transmutation? Of course not. He got the clues and even came up with the reason for the latter division—specialisation. What today's mages lost in versatility, they made up for in mastery; one broad field they were best at with fewer distractions.

He shook his head, ignoring Dorian's stupefied look to lock gazes with Elliot.

"Elliot!"

At his shout, the boy straightened and roared back. "Yes!"

"Let me teach you my three ways to defeat an invoker. The first one is the simplest: summon something stronger." He gestured toward Virgo, his voice dripping with mockery when he noticed Astride's disturbed scowl. "If you may push that thing back... please."

With an amused nod, Virgo flicked her palm upward. Everyone watched in shock as the soft movement lifted tons of coral and volcanic stone, lifting and hurling Abyrath up several meters as if its weight meant nothing.

"Abyrath!" Dorian roared, his slack jaws clenching, shock giving way to solemnity. He swung his wand at Adam, the blue gem at its base flooding mana into the wand's conduit-like engravings.

Tremors rocked the venue's slabs beneath Adam's feet. From every possible angle, water javelins filled his vision, their spiralling streams shrieking like drills.

With a smile, he stomped on the ground, his own mana bursting down. Wherever it passed, slabs thickened and glistened as they morphed into brown minerals that strangled the tremors of a condensing geyser in the crib. He had seen through Dorian's strategy. Immobilise him with the geyser, while the projectiles ripped him mid-air.

That was why Dorian hadn't launched them instantly. That was also why the teenager was hurling them with an urgent twist of his lips.

As Abyrath fell in a cloud of dust behind him, Adam allowed the lethal projectiles to close on him. When they entered his range, he stretched his arms, water spewing as he spun on himself. He guided the javelins with the movement, slowly merging their streams into his.

Fractal lights danced along the water as he made it twirl like long sleeves caught in an enchanting dance. Purely for style, of course. Then, he spoke. "My second method is the most effective."

Elliot let out the breath he had been holding. He leaned forward, eyes twinkling more than the first time he had taken Viktor's class. But before Adam continued, the water he commanded obscured him, just for the time it took him to blink. Yet, when it splashed to the ground, Adam was gone.

A lightning clap made him snap his gaze to Dorian. The teenager trembled, sweat trickling down his temples. How could he not! Adam was behind the teenager, a smile that would make a ghost cry curving his lips, and holding a finger against Dorian's throbbing jugular.

"Ignore the invocation. Kill the invoker." Adam freed Dorian by pushing him forward.

The teenager surfed on brine to put as much distance as the venue allowed between them. To regroup with Abyrath as well, before Adam caught up with him.

But Adam didn't follow. He waited for Virgo to move beside him, then continued. "Thank you for helping, Virgo. Enjoy the rest of the show, or you can return to... Ahem. Cancel the summoning."

"I'll watch." She stepped back with a simple smile.

"Alright. The third method is my favorite and the best." He rolled his sleeves, flexed his neck left and right, and crouched. Then, his smile faded, and his eyes turned predatory. "Overwhelm them both."

As soon as his words reverberated across the almost religious silence of the room, purple lightning arcs exploded at his feet. He darted at the pair, hair fluttering in a sky-blue trail behind him.

"Fool!" Dorian howled even though he could barely see Adam. "Victory was yours twice, and twice you've let it go by pure arrogance! I'm not losing! Never!"

He slashed his wand in Adam's path. Raging waves erupted from the tip, rising to the ceiling and rolling down. Beside him, Abyrath slammed his palm on the ground. Magma hissed, turning into thousands of molten spikes hurled by the waves.

All Adam could hear was the sound of collapsing waves approaching. He slid toward the ocean's gaping mouth, the spikes resembling its teeth. The air around his right fist vibrated as he hurled it at the tsunami with a sharp twist of his hips.

CRACK

Cracks stretched across the air upon impact. The entire room quaked, forms blurring into entangled lines that had lost all their meanings before Astride and the disciplinary committee members restored order around the venue with muttered curses.

And in front of Adam, the waves halted cold in their tracks, their forward momentum scattered, their threat turned into a wobbling jelly that had lost its direction. The spikes burst into obsidian shards a centimeter in front of Adam's lips.

Grinning, he blew forward. The moment his breath-laden mana touched what was left of the tsunami, frost spread upwards with soft, freezing cracks.

With a flick, the ice crumbled before him, revealing Dorian and Abyrath gasping, clutching the ground as if an abyss would open beneath them at any moment. Well, he could have done that too, but where would the spectacle have been? Vibration and ice felt grander. Or were his lightning throne and blasts better?

For a heartbeat, he seriously considered the question. Then, he condensed a lightning throne, sat on it, and snapped his fingers. Two lightning halberds, as defined as an enchanter's masterwork and taller than Abyrath, hung suspended above the duo, rumbling tips pointed at their backs.

Adam interlocked his fingers in front of his pensive scowl, his eyes on Astride. "Must I cripple my adversary for you to end this duel? Be a bit sensible, Teacher. My demonstration is over."