Azure ripples rolled like silk, and the lake flashed like fish scales in sun.

The arena tension pulled tight like a drawn bowstring, a hush pressed like fog on reeds.

Blue and Green each took their question, eyes sweeping the page like hawks over fields.

Through the scrying broadcast, thousands outside held their breath like nets dragging the deep.

Seconds dripped like water from eaves, and just as folks waited for a lightning answer, a weird lull opened like a sinkhole.

“What on earth happened?!” the afro commentator’s voice popped like firecrackers in dry grass.

With waterweed stuffed in his swim trunks like soggy moss, he shouted from the bank like a gull on a piling. “It’s been three minutes already, so why hasn’t either side put pen to paper?”

No pens moved, like a pond sealed in ice.

Look at Blue, at Lance’s side, where Jasmine’s brows knit like willows in wind and her lips pressed like a crimson seal.

She read with a clouded face: “If there were no air, would light attenuate?” The words floated like stones in the shallows.

Would light fade, like dusk sliding over rooftops?

This wasn’t a normal spell question; the question itself bent wrong like a warped bow.

Before knowledge far past her reach, Jasmine lowered her head like a flower under rain, shame warm as steam.

“Lance… I don’t know this one.” Her voice was a moth’s wing, lost in lamplight.

The afro’s wide ears flapped like fans and still caught it, his excitement sparking like dry tinder.

He didn’t care about the weeds clinging like kelp; he jumped and yelled, a heron startled from reeds. “It stumped the honor-student beauty—what kind of monster question is it?!”

He leaned in, and his eyes almost fell like marbles on stone. “It’s one of the century’s top ten spell conjectures?!”

The support battle mage for commentary lifted a spell like a lantern, throwing Blue’s question onto the public screen like ink on snow—“If there were no air, would light attenuate?”

The crowd outside went dumb as stones in mist, their chatter swallowed like rain in sand.

In Nordland, the light attenuation problem was posed a century ago, a thorn that gleamed like ice.

Many believed it, like sailors trusting the pole star, yet no one proved it, like hands grasping smoke.

Now this conjecture sat in a quickfire quiz, an answer as impossible as catching moonlight in a jar.

Jasmine offered softly, hope thin as thread. “Lance… should we draw a new question?” Her words trembled like leaves.

At the same time, Green had already dropped their quill like a fallen feather and gone to fetch anew, boots tapping like hail.

So Green got an impossible card too, fate balancing like scales in a breeze.

The audience protested like a rising tide, voices pounding like surf on cliffs. “Using a spell conjecture as a question—are you kidding us?!”

The judge added, voice steady as a lighthouse beam. “With each draw, the difficulty drops one level, like steps down a hill.”

“Draw often enough and the last question gets so simple a child could answer,” he said, an extreme example tossed like a pebble.

The grumbling ebbed like tide, leaving wet sand and footprints.

Only then did people grasp that this quiz hid gears within gears, like a box within a box.

Not only the floating platform gauntlet had tricks; even the questions spun like wind-in-water.

If platforms tested a squad’s cadence, the questions tested a whole class’s management, like a drumline holding time in rain.

Since difficulty dropped step by step, each side had to draw twice or more, like climbing down ledges until ground felt firm.

But a group that cleared a platform once would be tired as spent coals and couldn’t run again like new flame.

So the class had to pick new runners from the rest, names drawn like arrows from a quiver.

If the second still proved too hard, they had to plan for a third, like waves cresting again and again.

So this quickfire tested not only teamwork but command, human resources handled like chess under thunder.

Fulin hadn’t planned that deep, her map only one layer, the judge’s board five layers, like hills behind hills.

Man plans and heaven laughs; the more you scheme, the more fate trips you, like vines snagging your boot.

“Miscalculated… did I?” Lance’s fists tightened like knotted rope, frustration rising like smoke from green wood.

Jasmine didn’t blame him; she tugged his sleeve like a breeze at dusk, voice warm as a hearth. “Lance… let’s send someone to draw again, okay?”

Her gentleness spread like tea scent, and the classmates’ anger cooled like iron in snow.

Hands pressed to chests like vows, or fell on Lance’s shoulder like steady stones.

“Blazing Fire Knight, leave it to us!” Their eyes burned like coals in night.

“Yeah, stop trying to show off alone—we’re here too!” Their grins flashed like knives in sun.

These youths weren’t close to Lance, yet they showed a leniency like spring rain, soft and sure.

By rights they should’ve cursed him like crows on a wall, but they didn’t; they chose trust like a bridge over flood.

From first to last, Battle Magic Class One picked faith, like riders keeping formation in wind.

“You guys…” Lance was moved, his eyes misting like glass in fog.

“Can I really lean on you?” His voice felt out the dark like a hand on a wall.

“Oh, count on us.” The answer landed like a drumbeat, loud and firm.

Rely—yes, rely, a word like a lantern in a tunnel.

In truth, this was a path Fulin could’ve chosen from the start, a road like a lane under willows.

She could’ve chosen not to be Lance Morrison, could’ve found a kind household like a warm porch, and lived by playing cute for lunch like a kitten.

But she didn’t set her feet there; she walked another shore like a boat crossing fog.

“I only want a quiet life.” That simple wish rested like a stone in a stream and pushed her to wear the mask called Lance Morrison.

Fulin wouldn’t lean on others; she would trust herself, a blade kept honed like moonlight on steel.

With her resolve settled like a peg in earth, Fulin put on Lance again and the rogue swagger returned like a smirk in a mirror.

He waved off their kindness like smoke in sun. “Come on, you’re looking down on Lance Morrison too much!”

The crowd bristled like cats, whiskers stiff with annoyance.

“Don’t throw a tantrum!” Voices snapped like twigs.

“Keep this up and we’ll lose!” Worry rippled like wind on wheat.

“Yeah, don’t be shy—just hand it to us!” Their pleas rose like sparrows from eaves.

Lance shook his finger like a metronome and smiled with calm like still water. “It’s not that I don’t trust you.”

“Then what is it?” Confusion blinked like owls in daylight.

“Because we’ve already won!” He raised his hand to answer, a spark tossed into powder.

Like boiling stones dropped into water, the move sent the audience roaring like steam.

The commentator’s just-seated eyeballs popped again like beads off a string. “No way! Absolutely no way!”

“But look at this—Blue’s Blazing Fire Knight wants to answer a century-old spell conjecture?!” His hands fluttered like startled fish.

“Is he flat-out crazy?!” The question hung like a hawk.

“Or—does he have a way?” Suspense tightened like wire around every heart.

Tension gripped everyone like iron in winter; no one’s breath felt free like wind in pines.

Even the judges’ table wasn’t spared; it buzzed like bees under eaves.

Professors argued in sparks like flint on steel, and as Green hustled back with a new draw, they decided to allow Lance’s answer.

The judge spoke, face solemn as an anvil. “Blue representative, answer this—if there’s no air, does light attenuate?”

Noise died in a heartbeat, like snow falling on drums.

Every ear rose like foxes’ and every eye widened like moons, chasing each syllable like fish to bait, catching each gesture like a net.

They had three minutes; after one silent minute like a held breath, Lance finally spoke. “Even without air, light still attenuates.”

“Why?” asked the judge, the word a nail tapping wood.

Why—on Earth it took five hundred years, like mountains eroding grain by grain, to say why.

In Nordland, with the tree of tech bent another way, the road would be longer, like a river looping a plain.

The original Lance couldn’t answer, but this Lance was Fulin wearing his skin, like a dancer in a borrowed mask.

An ordinary office worker with ordinary schooling had tools enough, like a pocket knife in a thicket.

Yet Earth held many theories in the twenty-first century, two most loved like twin lanterns.

Redshift from the Doppler effect described wave light losing energy with relative motion, like a note lowered on a sliding string.

The four-dimensional medium theory spoke of particles crossing a medium, losing along the way like sand from a boot.

Both could explain fading light, like two paths to the same ridge.

But this wasn’t Earth; this was Nordland, a sky with different stars, like a map drawn fresh.

If she spoke those terms as Lance, who knew what ripples would spread like circles in a pond—and how would she prove it, like a bridge proving air?

No—wrong. Fulin never needed proof; she needed to veil the sky and cross the sea, a stratagem like fog on water.

“Because light, like Battle Aura, has wave properties,” Lance said, the claim landing like a stone on quiet water.

At once the audience felt the words slide like smoke; the grammar was clear, the sense was mist.

The judge kept steady and asked, voice a plumb line. “Why does light have wave properties?”

Lance didn’t answer with words; he asked for parchment like a sheet of snow.

He cut two slits like twin reeds, then lit Battle Aura flame before them like a small sun.

Behind the slits, fierce light left banded ripples like rice fields on a hillside.

The judge stared, eyes fixed like nails in wood, at the shimmering stripes.

The other professors were the same, faces blank as slate.

This sort of pattern appears only if light is a wave, like rings only form on water.

The judge rubbed his temple like smoothing a knot. “Fine, fine. But how does this show attenuation?”

“Because waves attenuate under relative motion,” Lance said, and tossed a firestone into the water like a comet.

Under heat, the stone boiled forward like a red fish, kicking waves as it went like a drumbeat.

Ahead, the ripples packed dense like reeds; behind, they thinned like threads.

A plain-show Doppler effect, as clear as rain on dust; people got it, or faked it, faces smooth as lacquer.

At least the judges truly got it; they watched and then huddled like ravens on a branch.

While they whispered, Green drew their second question and nailed it, ink crisp as frost.

But by rule, Blue had answered first like a bell struck at dawn.

If Blue’s answer was judged correct, Green’s would still lose by delay, like a shadow late to the sun.

So Blue’s fate hung on the judges’ knot of words, tight as a sailor’s hitch.

The crowd inside and out almost suffocated on suspense, throats tight like cords.

Stephen of Green spoke, tone neither warm nor cold, just nettled like a burr. “Sir Lance, you really dared to answer—aren’t you afraid it’s wrong?”

Lance answered with nonsense logic but full blaze, like a banner in wind. “Faith is my chivalry. If I hold to what’s right, the road will rise to meet me.”

At that same moment, the judges’ near-brawl found one voice, the crash resolving like thunder to rain.

“The Blazing Fire Knight’s theory and experiments are viable. Blue’s answer is correct,” the judge declared, voice ringing like a gong. “By our mock duel rules, Blue submitted first, so Blue wins!”

With that, the taut air blew apart like seeds on a gust, and cheers burst like fireworks.

Battle Magic Class One lifted Lance high like tossing a torch, hugging and shouting like wolves baying the moon.

Warder Class One didn’t sink into gloom; they just watched with envy like dew on another leaf.

“They won because they believed in me…” The line echoed in their hearts like a bell, bright as a blade catching dawn.

“Not bad, Lance Morrison. I’ve lost again,” Stephen said, convinced at last like a knot undone.

In a storm of cheers, the second mock duel ended clean, a blade slid home like a whisper.

That night, Lance’s group returned to Maple Manor on schedule, to trade intel like cards at a table.

Before they stepped inside, Lance raised a hand like a gate, and everyone halted like horses reined in.

“What is it, Master?” Yuna tilted her head like a sparrow on a branch.

The Mountain Wind Knight didn’t ask; he drew his blade slow as dawn cutting cloud.

“There’s a bloody scent riding the wind inside,” he said, face set like stone under snow.