The day after the instructors arrived, a stack of documents arrived. They were from the Capital.
"Dear Student Council of the Tuatri Academy,
We hope this letter finds you well.
Thank you for your offer to conduct a competition between academies. We agree it is good to compete and engage with fellow academies across the nation. As such, we have decided to accept your offer, under conditions. These conditions are detailed in the further documents which should be delivered with this letter, however we will indulge a summary.
To keep the competition fair, our competitors will match yours in rank.
Moreover, the respective presidents will not be allowed to compete.
Lastly, we would like to host this competition. Under our customs, our battles take form in a duel fashion. As such, over three days, three of your champions will face three of our champions, subject to the first condition.
That is all we ask for.
Moreover, as a display of good faith, find attached to the documents a brief summary of our members. We are already aware of your members and their capability.
We look forward to the day of the competition,
Student Council of the Royal Academy of the Capital."
'They are very confident they will win. Even worse, they are putting it as playing fair… but in truth they do not want to leave us any excuse for losing other than admitting we are inferior.' Markus thought
He passed the letter on to the rest of the council. Everyone had read it.
Whilst they all read it, Markus looked at the documents summarising their opponents. He noticed a few names.
"Vice-president, Vivien Aquabourne. Rank 4."
"Academic conduct officer, Leo Rilan. Rank 4."
"Secretary, Zane Crimson. Rank 4."
'It seems two matchups are already set… Amy never said anything about having a brother though.' Markus thought
For now he did not say anything in relation to that.
"Do we accept their conditions?" Markus asked the group
Everyone nodded
"Alright. Then I'll tell you the weakness of the wind should you face a wind user." Markus said
"Breaking the balance." He said
"What does that mean?" Latham asked
"Wind is a volatile element. Even more so than fire. You need to make a person distrust the wind. When they block, burn more essence to ensure your attack hits. When they evade, make your attack more ferocious so that they cannot outrun it. Eventually, they will grow desperate and break their own balance. This will force them to only use basic wind attacks and their own essence. They will no longer be able to draw on their environment. And with the isolation, their effective power is halved." He explained
"How do you know this?" Triss asked
"I did it to myself. I thought things were harder because I was close to breaking through to the next rank but it was the opposite. I was effectively losing touch with the wind. Beside my own essence, I am strictly limited to sensing the world around me or influencing the wind with my essence." He said with a sad expression.
With a heavy sigh he continued.
"The second you make a wind user lose their balance and trust in their own ability, the battle is almost won. Naturally this only works at the same rank as yourself. Even if I did know this when we faced Crimson City, there was no way for me to break the balance of three experts who had their focus on me." He explained
"But rank differences are not an issue here. That is indeed useful." Helen said, nodding as she understood a little more about the wind
After sending back a response that the competition would take place in three weeks, everyone went to seek advice from the elite instructors.
Markus meanwhile focused on the student council's duties. Disciplinary supervision, academic conduct and general reports about extra-curricular activities. It was boring work but it needed to be done. And this was also his way to atone for ignoring it for so long.
In a flash, two weeks had passed.
The headmistress entered the student council chambers.
"Ahead of our competition against the royal academy, we must leave the academy a week ahead of the competition. The capital is incredibly large and there is much to do before taking part in the competition. So you eleven will be leaving within the next few hours." She said to them
"Wait— us eleven? But there are twelve of us." June said
"Your president will not be attending." She said
"He can't compete and now he can't even attend— what is going on! This is not right!" Kal said
"It's okay everyone. I knew it would be like this. Win it and bring me back a trophy or something." Markus said, making light of the situation
The others couldn't really make a deal out of it when Markus himself was not fighting it. But it felt wrong for them all. It felt wrong to go to battle without their leader.
And just like that they left. The vice-headmaster Haroldson went with them. The headmistress remained at the academy to keep watch over Markus. However, her watch would be limited.
Bailey had come to the academy and Markus was called over.
"Seeing as you've got just about five weeks left to become an expert, it is safe to say things have become dire. It is not an exaggeration to say you're running out of time. So, we now take a radical plan." Charlotte said
Bailey cleared her throat
"The forest you've trained in before is a southern death zone. The zone itself is actually ruled by a lesser spirit. Moreover, over the last two months we have withdrawn all support and raids into the death zone, allowing the repopulation of deadly creatures. You will venture into the forest and seek the cabin you trained in. Your task is to survive the trip there. By yourself. Without help. This will be your death trial. If you die then we won't even collect your corpse. If you survive, it will be by a miracle or by advancing to the rank of expert." Bailey explained
"So everything until now was for nothing. All the near death shit I went through—" Markus said
"It helped you toughen up. But yes, from an advancement perspective, it was useless. The wind cannot be tricked. It knew you would be saved. But this time there is no help coming. Just you, the emperor in your head and the wind." Bailey said bluntly
"… let's not waste time then." Markus said with a sigh
As he headed out, he stopped as he saw a group of five people.
"Hey you five, you're in charge of student council affairs until either I return or the rest of the council does!" he said as he moved
By the night, he too had left.