Falling for a Gay Wizard (bxb)

CHAPTER 44

Burgundy

Three minutes in and I could already hear some kind of monster screeching from somewhere. Five minutes, I heard some grumbling and felt some quaking. Seven minutes, I heard what seemed like a huge body of water. My opponents had already set off some traps and had probably costed their place in this showdown. At least they would have the screen time in the replays or even in the live broadcasting.

In showdowns like these, the weak magic practitioners were always being exposed. Good wizards could sense a magical trap from its mana signature. If they tripped these traps, that must mean they were underdeveloped or incompetent. Sensing mana should be like breathing to wizards. Our study centered around mana and its behaviors. If one could not so much as detect mana from objects, then they did not deserve to be called a practitioner of magic at all.

I had been walking for at least ten minutes now and so far, so good. I hadn't encountered any trouble yet. I was completely unaware of the whereabouts and the situation of my opponents. I thought I could get clues from the commentators but any sound outside the maze were completely blocked out. But honestly, so far, so good. No traps, no opponents.

Not until I felt a flying sharp icicle from behind that grazed my left ear, nicking it. I felt a split second of sting at the contact and a midge of blood stained my finger when I touched it. I turned around and saw an opponent from God knows what school. He looked insignificant, probably why I couldn't recognize him. Even his mana didn't feel like it was strong enough. How did he become Wizardry representative of their school?

He was preparing to launch another icicle—a larger one—at me. He took too long to conjure a simple icicle that the slight sense of adrenaline that bloomed in me immediately withered, "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to win," sagot niya sabay hagis ng nabuo niyang icicle.

"Aren't we supposed to just look for our treasures to win?" sabi ko naman matapos kong pahintuin sa ere ang kaniyang icicle. I transformed this into water and dropped it on the ground.

"That or I could eliminate my biggest competition off the race," sabi niya while forming another icicle, "That's not against any rules."

Competition? You and me? You had got to be kidding.

I didn't even let him finish form his third icicle. I pointed my staff at him and casted a wind spell strong enough for him to step back and hit his back on the wall—which, based on the mana swelling from it, would set off a trap. Of course he didn't know that. He wouldn't have stood too close to the trigger if he had.

Sure enough, with a thud, he was on the wall and I could hear a mild mana surge after he set off the trigger. The ground started quaking, and I could feel something moving from beneath. Then, huge roots started emerging from the ground on his feet and snaked all around his body. He tried removing the bind with his free hand—the one that was not holding his weapon, which was a staff, too—but the roots grew too fast. He attempted to conjure fire, but even he knew he couldn't summon fire that fast. So, he was entirely engulfed by the roots, while I, on the other hand, went on my way through the maze.

That was a fun commercial break.

Anyway, I still needed to figure out what the treasure was. And I needed to find where it was located. Or vice versa. Not being able to tell which one would go first made this showdown a lot more difficult. What I knew for sure was that the treasure had a tactile trigger for it to transport us to the main stage. Which meant that we needed to touch to finish the showdown.

Touching everything would work if we had more time. And if it didn't mean triggering any traps. And if it weren't so unsanitary.

I spent another ten minutes roaming around the maze. I made sure to steer off the paths with traps and made sure to memorize the ones I took. Then, I thought about how the staff told us that they were placing us to our designated starting points. This could mean that all six of us were equally as far from the treasure when we started. I remembered the starting point to be by the wall. Assuming that all the other representatives also started by the wall, that meant that the treasure was anywhere in the center.