Magic, Mechanics, Shuraba Vol 1 Chapter 12

Volume 1 Chapter 12 – Against You Till Death

Approximately ten minutes later, all the partic.i.p.ants in today’s Mechanical Engineering guidance match and their guidance teachers arrived in the battle arena. Other than the guidance matches between the senior and the freshman, there was also the annual battle between the seniors.

The opening act of the day was the match between commoner student Ouyang Tao and the current strongest student in Augustus Academy, Tia Jacqueline.

n.o.body thought that Ouyang Tao would win —— including Ouyang Tao himself.

To the students and teachers in the spectator stands, there was only one thing worth watching in this match. It was to see how long Ouyang Tao could last. Some of the bored seniors even opened up their own private gambling den to bet on how fast Ouyang Tao would lose.

“Can both compet.i.tors please enter the ring.”

Following the instructions of the broadcast, Ouyang Tao and Tia walked out of their respective ends. They were more than a hundred metres apart. Ouyang Tao looked tense, as if welcoming a dangerous opponent, whereas Tia looked extremely confident.

“You may start channeling your magic! Countdown in ten!”

Ten seconds before the match started, both parties started transferring their magic into the pile of materials. This was to ensure they were able to complete their construction as quickly as possible after the match started. At the same time, a protective barrier was raised around the stage to protect the audience.

“10, 9, 8…… 3, 2, 1, START!!!”

At the sound of “START”, the electronic board above the stage began its timer. Tia showed her strength first, by creating four human-shaped machines. The thick s.h.i.+eld on the left arm of the machines stood firm on the ground, and formed a barrier in front of her. The right arm of the machines were equipped with a cannon that was already rapidly firing. A series of explosion surrounded Ouyang Tao and smoke covered the battleground. Ouyang Tao could not be seen from within the smoke.

As they watched this scene, the students watching were ferociously discussing about the match.

“Wah, she’s so cruel.”

“Wah, looks like the Big Miss is being serious.”

“I don’t think that kid can last longer than a minute.”

This wasn’t an exaggeration; all the students in the Mechanical Engineering department had faced Tia before and knew how good she was. Most of them lost too quickly, and even those who could withstand her attacks were unable to retaliate.

The ammunition fired by the cannons were designed and repeatedly improved by Tia. When using magic stones to increase its power, they could pierce armour, and had the ability to explode. Its effectiveness did not even lose to normal rockets. Furthermore, the speed at which she modified her machines was so fast that just withstanding her attack was not easy.

The best defense is offense. Using strong firepower to pressurise the enemy to obtain an advantage and then react according to how the opponent reacted. This kind of aggressive attacking style that relied on vast experience and strong foundations was Tia’s usual fighting style.

However, Lu Yun who was observing the battle from high above the stands saw some hope on this battle.

Even though she held the advantage, she did not let her guard down. She continued firing for another half a minute. However, the countdown continued ticking down which meant that Tao was blocking her first round of attacks.

It was weird that even though the first attacks were withstood, at this point, the opponent should’ve already retaliated. Why was he still not making a move?

Her instincts tingled and Tia realised that Ouyang Tao’s materials were continuously being used up. He couldn’t be……

Tia immediately stopped her a.s.sault and created a large fan to blow away the smoke and dust. At the same time, she observed from behind her machines’ s.h.i.+elds to find out what the commoner was up to.

The smoke soon cleared up and what appeared in front of Tia was a protective wall. It was made out of many small hexagonal-shaped pieces that could change its shape according to the situation. Tia was surprised. This was not a commonly seen machine type. Just what the h.e.l.l was it?

“Hmph.” Quickly, Tia softly hummed and appeared unfazed. She realised Ouyang Tao’s tactic: “To waste time using full defense, too naive! Subst.i.tution!”

At the sound of “Subst.i.tution”, Tia quickly changed her machines. She changed the cannons into a heavy artillery gun, and even gave it a frame for support.

As the firing continued, the firepower was ten times stronger than before; the heavy artillery gun constantly fired armour piercing rounds on Ouyang Tao’s wall. Despite that, he was still not defeated after forty seconds. The protective wall continued to be built by Ouyang Tao, and stood strong in front of Tia.

At this point, the people watching the match grew more interested in it. Although until now, Tia had only used Grade 1 machine “soldiers”, but able to withstand a minute of Tia’s firepower was already not simple.

Tia also started to become nervous since she self-proclaimed a three minute victory. However, almost half the time had been used and Tao’s protective wall still stood tall under her heavy firepower. It didn’t even seem to have suffered much damage. Even Tia started to wonder, could the wall this guy built from those alloys really be that indestructible?

However, her vast combat experience told her to calm down. Since her opponent chose to defend, the advantage would still be in her hands. As she continued to fire the artillery gun, Tia started to carefully observe the protective wall.

Although the wall didn’t seem to take damage, Ouyang Tao’s materials had already lessen considerably. This means that he had been continuously constructing something. This seemed very odd……

“It can’t be…..” Tia thought of a near crazy possibility, but she still chose to check it out. Hence, she created a high-speed observation machine to collect data. Half a minute later, the results came out: “It really is like that……”

The structure of Tao’s wall was simple. Every hexagonal piece could be ma.s.s produced at high speed and was a reactionary armour by nature. Every time Tia’s machine fired a round, the hexagonal piece exploded upon contact to nullify the impact of Tia’s round. Ouyang Tao was therefore continuously producing the hexagonal pieces to replenish the usage, which allowed the protective wall to remain whole.

Obviously, doing this would use up a large amount of magic power very quickly. Such a tactic could not be used for long.

This also proved that Ouyang Tao was determined to drag time.

“Okay, let’s see how much magic power you have to consume against me!” With only one minute left, Tia decided to be merciless and increase the number of machines to the highest limit of six and remove the s.h.i.+elds; both arms of the machines became heavy artillery guns, and suddenly increased their firepower up by three-fold.

“d.a.m.n…… My ears are about to go deaf from all the explosions…… Is she done yet…… Huff…… Huff……” Behind the protective wall, Ouyang Tao had not relaxed at all. On one hand he was concentrating on maintaining the controls of the orb in his hand and on the other, he was complaining about the situation.

Although he could temporarily withstand it, the feeling of being suppressed and attacked caused him to be unhappy. Luckily, his stubborn determination helped him overcome his fear of battling for the first time, which thus allowed him to fully concentrate on the battle.

At this point, he was already covered in sweat. Just as Tia thought, this kind of strategy used up a lot of his magic power. What’s more, with Tia’s increased firepower, his magic was used up even more quickly. As he started to lose his strength, Ouyang Tao half knelt on the ground —— He even started to wonder whether or not he could withstand all of it.

Then, he raised his head to look at the countdown timer. Two minutes and fifteen seconds left, which meant that the three minutes were about to be up. This spurred him on as he gritted his teeth and held on: “Huff…… Huff…… Good…… Just a bit more…… A little bit…… Daddy here will stand against you till death.”

As he watched the stage, Lu Yun had already let out a hardly recognisable faint smile. A complete newbie who was solely relying on willpower, was actually withstanding the ferocious a.s.sault of a senior for three minutes. This had far surpa.s.sed his expectations.

Tia’s guidance teacher, Professor Cologne could no longer take it and shouted from below stage: “Tia, what are you doing! It’s already been three minutes!”

What!? Three minutes!? It’s already been three minutes? Tia couldn’t believe it as she looked at the clock which stated that there were two minutes left.

Ever since entering Augustus Academy, no one was capable of fighting her in the arena for more than three minutes, let alone this commoner freshman!

Unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable! Tia’s pride suffered an enormous blow.

The students in the audience, who had never seen anyone last three minutes, were now fully concentrated on the match.

Could he even force a draw with me? Tia began harbouring such thoughts in her mind. No, I absolutely can not let that happen. Everyone’s watching! Even though she had essentially lost already, she definitely had to win on stage!

Thinking about this, Tia became even more merciless. She was going to use the remaining two minutes to teach the opponent before her eyes, a ruthless lesson.