'Seriously, how am I so calm now?'

 Evin couldn't help but think again as he looked at the two he was sharing the stage with, to see how the two reacted.

The blonde boy, Decatur's reaction, was as Evin expected - he didn't seem to like it very much. But the vice-chair, on the other hand, looked quite impressed, like the voice suggested.

"I can arrange for one Conceptual and one Elemental as extra for you," he said finally.

<Say you want the Elemental one now. A Seyethe Shard. And add that it’s necessary for winning the duel.>

Evin paused for a bit… but soon parroted the voice.

“Hmm... I happen to have one on me,” the Vice-chair said and brought out a seemingly empty flask from his pockets.

‘Fuck it,’ he thought to himself. ‘Maybe I’ll get to see the voice making a fool of himself today. It’s a shame that I’ll be the only one who can see it.’

Just like Kon, Evin breathed the World Shard in, and could feel its magical effects settle inside him.

“Must you act like this?” the noble sneered. “Chasing after riches so desperately.”

<Tell him to choke on his mother’s dick.>

“…”

Evin barely managed to keep himself from acting weirdly.

“No matter. Let’s begin the duel. As you’re the one being challenged, I’ll allow you to choose how we’ll compete.”

<We’ll compete on who’s going to make the biggest fire.>

Evin repeated the Voice’s words.

“Fire? No problem. With one lodestone’s worth of mana, let’s see who can burn the brightest. I’ll start.”

Decatur grasped the lodestone in his hands and Evin could feel him absorbing the mana inside it again. The boy seemed to shine red in Evin's eyes for a second, before a wave of heat hit Evin's face.

Suddenly, something cracked in the air, and Evin could see a faint bluish spark appear in the boy's palm. The next second, it turned into a full-fledged flame as it greedily started to swallow the surrounding air. With every bit of air it absorbed, the flame grew bigger and bigger, until it reached the size of a tree. It also didn't act normally, with its fiery tongues lashing out towards every direction, instead of waving upwards like a natural fire would.

Moreover, the heat that came off from these unruly tongues was absolutely insane, as Evin couldn't help but flinch in panic when one of the tongues reached out a bit too close for comfort.

But, as impressive as the flame was, Decatur's show quickly ended as the mana inside the lodestone started to die out. Of course, the boy himself seemed quite confident in himself, as he glanced towards Evin with his signature look of superiority.

"Striking, young master Carew," the Vice-chair added.

"Naturally." Decatur nodded and glared towards Evin, his eyes challenging him to create a better flame. “Now let’s see the commoner’s fire. As you’re a newcomer, I’ll allow you to start the fire with your mundane means first.”

“No need,” Evin said.

But since it was time for him to perform, he felt somewhat nervous.

‘Is it really okay? This bastard inside my head couldn’t be doing this just to make fun of me, right?’

A chill went down his spine. That could very well be a possibility!

‘But there’s no way for me to escape now!’

<Alright, try to absorb the mana inside it.>

The voice’s instructions interrupted Evin’s thoughts.

He calmed down slightly and did as ordered. But then he met a problem. When he had only absorbed about a half of the mana inside the lodestone, he could feel his chest starting to feel a bit stuffy and full. His body told him that trying to absorb more mana would probably end up in something dangerous.

<I guess there's a limit to the amount of mana you can absorb... Not that I think about it, there was a class called Cultivation of the Mana-core or something, right?> the voice commented thoughtfully, <Well, nothing we can do about that. Turn the mana into Air energy and cede control.>

Evin felt a bit worried, but he did as the voice ordered. A moment later, he could feel his mana-core starting to work on something.

There wasn't any spark of fire to be seen yet, but Evin could tell that the voice was gathering a lot of air in one spot in the air. The Air energies must've been trying their best to draw in and hold an enormous mass of the 'oxygen' that the voice was talking about in one place. Evin could also feel his breath becoming somewhat more labored and some perspiration wetting his forehead.

"What are you doing? You've been doing nothing but stand there. If you can't do it, then just say you can't do it," the noble said impatiently, "Vice-Chair Bokh, please stop this boy."

"Well, let's just wait and see what happens," the man said with a smile. He seemed to know what Evin was trying to do, even though Evin wasn't really sure of it himself.

<Hah! He can’t feel what I’m doing?> the Voice sneered. <The vice-chair seems to know… But why doesn’t he stop me?>

<Whatever. He can die too.>

‘What does that mean…?’ Evin thought with worry.

After a minute, the gathering of air had become much larger than the house-sized fire Decatur created. Evin could also notice how the voice was struggling to keep it in check. Evin could feel that his mana-core was reaching its limits, but he knew that the organ wasn't in his control anymore.

But Evin wasn’t worried about that. What he was worried about was the Voice’s ravings.

<Fucking bastards all of them…>

<You wanna see me? You wanna see me? I’ll show you… I’ll show all of you…>

But there was nothing Evin could do. He couldn’t run, or stop the casting process, or ask for help.

Under the gaze of everyone, he could only continue acting like he was immersed in spellcasting. It wasn’t hard to sell the act, with his whole body sweating like crazy.

<When you see me, I’ll be laughing pissing over your dead bodies…>

<Do you not like it? Are you too high and mighty to be pissed upon by me?>

<Hah! Why are you mad? Didn’t you want to see me? Didn’t you want to die?>

Evin was losing his focus. Even if he couldn’t understand it with his mind, his body could understand the difficulty of what his mana-core was achieving. At this point, the onlookers, too, could understand that Evin wasn’t just standing there, he was working on something big. Everyone was a mage here. They could feel the energies around them stir.

The Voice’s ravings turned louder and louder.

<Hahaha! Didn’t you want this?>

<Why act surprised when you get what you wanted?>

<Since you wanted to die, then shut up and die!>

<Die! Die! Die!>

<DIE! ALL OF YOU! AHAHAH!> the voice suddenly shouted, before falling into a fit of cackles.

A great feeling of relief washed over Evin’s body. It was as if he was holding a mountain atop him and was finally allowed to let it go.

The spell he was holding onto was finally released.

A loud deadly boom covered everything.

The next moment, a powerful wave of heat hit his body hard from all sides, searing his skin and burning off his clothes. Then came a shock-wave, that battered his already burnt skin, causing wave of immense, sharp pain to assault his mind.

Everything was muffled and distant as if he was in a dream, but the pain all over his body told him that this was reality. Evin found himself looking around, and saw that a wall of earth had appeared in front of him and the vice-chair. He also noticed the noble boy lying on his back a couple dozen meters away, the right sleeve of his shirt burning unceremoniously.

A second later, all the muffled sounds became clear to his ears and hit him all at once. The voice's mad laughter, the crowd's panicked shouts, the vice-chair's angry grunts, and his own raspy coughs.

He looked at his body and found it full of burns and sears, and the pain all over his body instantly became ten times worse.

“What the hell did you do?!”

The vice-chair’s silhouette loomed over Evin, but the boy was in no state to explain himself. A wave of exhaustion filled his mind and darkness quickly enveloped his mind.

…