Lola frowned at her status board, wondering why she had a strange feeling that it had changed.

Her attention was distracted by the man calling her name, and she turned with a smile. "Yes?"

He smiled politely, albiet hurriedly, and asked, "Excuse me, may I speak with you?"

Lola dipped into a polite curtsy, and then walked towards him. "What is it?"

It was a moment before she recognized him as the man who had taken her card test, and she shrank back slightly. "You're not going to..."

He hastily corrected her, looking back and forth at the curious children passing by. "Oh, no, definitely not. I promise I'm not here to yell at you again. I'm really sorry about that, by the way."

She smiled, forgiving him instantly. "Don't worry about it! What did you want to tell me?"

He seemed a little thrown, but grinned awkwardly. "Oh. Well - okay, then. I wanted to tell you, having that much mana can actually be detrimental."

Lola tilted her head. "Why? It means that I can do spells a lot, right?"

He made an 'eh' gesture. "Well... yeah, technically it does mean that, but to be more specific, it means that you're going to have to-"

"Hey!"

He was interrupted by a boy standing to Lola's left. He was wearing a modified version of the Weatherton uniform, with gold trim. He had fancy blond hair and a confident smirk, and looked very sure of himself. There were several girls following him, each one with an idiotic smile.

He posed, holding one hand to his forehead in a loose gesture. "You there! Young girl with the grimoire!"

Lola smiled. He was the first person aside from Xephyx to appreciate Codex! "Yes? How can I help you?"

He tilted his head downward, smirking. "Ah, so that's how it is! Smitten by my looks already - but I'm sorry, madame, I am unavailable."

Lola's forehead creased. "Wait, who are you?"

He flinched slightly, his pose loosening, but he recovered quickly and made a different pose, throwing his head back and holding both hands in the air. "Ha! Ha, I say! Your attempts at pretense cannot possibly fail against me! For I have an intelligence stat of twenty-five and a charm stat of forty!"

Lola smiled politely, but a little stiffly. "Um. No, but really. Who are you?"

For the first time in the conversation, if it could be called that, he dedicated his full attention to Lola. "I'm the duke! You know, the child duke Carl Cabaiegge?"

Lola shook her head, and his smirk changed into a disappointed look and then into an angry one faster than she'd thought possible.

"Well, then! I suppose I have no choice but to-" He posed again, one hand on his forehead and one outstretched towards her. "DUEL YOU!!!"

Lola shrugged. "Okay."

Carl seemed thrown. "Uh - wait, seriously? Didn't you hear my stats? I mean, I've got a mana pool of a hundred and six. Are you sure you want to do this?"

Lola pulled Codex from under her arm, going through the few spells she had available and frowning. What did Warp do? That definitely wasn't there earlier. Talking out loud, she said, "Of course! I want to be the Magelord one day, so I need to get a lot of practice fighting people."

Pulling himself together, Carl held up his satchel and dramatically pulled out a grimoire of his own, an expensive-looking blue one with an excessive amount of gold. "A-a-all right, then! I won't hold back!"

Flicking to the Mana Laser, Lola smiled. It was as good a time as any to test the new spell. "Are you ready?"

The man tried to interject, saying, "Um, this really isn't a good-"

A faint dome appeared around Lola and Carl, and the man facepalmed, realizing that the school recognized it as a duel. The dome would protect bystanders from any of the magic performed inside.

Carl began with a dramatic swing of his arm, yelling, "Ice Shot!" A strand of bright purple mana channeled through his hand and into his grimoire, forming into a lance of crystalline ice and hurtling towards Lola.

Instantly, Lola raised Codex, channeling mana into him, and then her mind went blank. Did she have any defensive spells? She couldn't remember seeing any, and she panicked as she realized she didn't really know what to do.

Codex took her mana strands and stabbed it out towards the ice. As the mana connected, Codex forced the tendrils into the ice and pulled. The ice cracked, and then dissipated. The mist from the shot formed into a clear strand of purple, and then sank into Codex's cover.

Carl's jaw dropped. "How-"

Lola raised Codex and shouted, "Mana Laser!"

Multiple people had gathered at this point, enjoying the uncomfortable duel. Several of them looked rather confused at this point, and began muttering to each other.

Carefully, Lola tried to channel a small amount of mana into Codex. She didn't want to hurt Carl, after all. Instead of obeying her, a massive dose of mana left her and poured into a rapidly forming cylinder floating above Codex. She knew that it was quite a good amount, even by her standards, and panicked. "Codex!"

Immediately, she saw the cylinder tilt upwards, still gaining massive amounts of mana and growing as it did.

Carl posed again, holding up his grimoire and shouting, "I may not recognize that spell, but it can be no match for my-" he paused again. "ICE WALL!"

As a flat sheet of ice rose in front of her, Lola wondered in the back of her mind why he didn't have more of a variety of spells.

The cylinder suddenly erupted in a blaze of pink, the tip exploding in a burst of power. It directed itself straight for the top half of the wall and sheared it off neatly, boring a perfect hole through it. The beam smashed into the wall and exploded, launching Carl clean over Lola's head.

She saw his expression as he flew over her. It was one of absolute confusion.

He crashed into the ground and stayed there. There was a visible stain on the seat of his pants that Lola was fairly sure hadn't been there before.

The surrounding people's collective jaws dropped, and the status board man told her awkwardly, "Um... yeah, I was going to tell you. Without proper practice, you're not going to be able to accurately channel that amount of mana into a spell."

Lola nodded slowly. "I see."