David The Gray Mage Chapter 38 Overwhelm

Both teams stood In their respective courts, each court was 60 meters in quadrat diameter giving the players ample space to move and dodge out of the way, the walls were erected as well all placed in the very middle of each court against the other court in a straight line while spaced away from each other about 3 meters each, each of these wall had 5 balls behind it making a total of 25 balls.

Before the match would begin David and Valentia had both talked about their plan to win this game, usually in this game it was a free for all that decided everything meaning the side that had the most skilled individuals would usually win it was simple as that, because of this the people who were considered skilled were always prioritized first to be taken out in this case being Valentia.

But they didn’t know that it wasn’t actually Valentia they had to prioritize, but rather David who they knew nothing about.

As soon as they started talking Valentia’s plan was very simple.

-When the game begins raise all the balls and fire at them.

It was so simple that David couldn’t help but doubt his ears, he was all but expecting some kind of fancy tactics or unique techniques to win them the game, and even though David knew that this was likely the most efficient method he still couldn’t help but doubt it.

Valentia understood that, but what else could she thought of? This wasn’t a battle after all, all her expertise lied in actual combat not in children ball games, and either way Valentia was looking forward the moment the game would start, she nervous of losing her hard earned points, but David on her side she felt that this wasn’t going to be an issue at all.

The opposing team, too talked about what they would do, they all pretty much agreed that they should take out Valentia first meaning focusing all their fire power towards her, David was mostly left alone as they didn’t think he could even control his mana sufficiently enough to make the ball move much less launch.

Mishalka believed that they could easily win, but for some reason a bad premonition still continued to ride on her, looking at David and Valentia she simply couldn’t understand why she was feeling that way forcing her to ignore it as she decided to focus on the game, her points depending on this after all and even though 16000 points weren’t a whole lot, those were still a huge chunk of her savings and if she won she would get 32000 points, points she had no intention of sharing with her teammates as they had no stake in this matter.

Finally, David and Valentia stood behind a wall each as did the opposing team, there was one unknown student who stood in the very middle checking both teams before raising his hand and then shouting.

-Alright, ready! Begin!

With this the start of the game had begun, the crowd cheered as they got excited about who would win, the stakes were high after all and even though it wasn’t the most exciting game, the players were all that counted.

-Mishalka’s team immediately went into the offense as they didn’t bother to hide behind their walls choosing to strike while the iron was hot, out of the 4 Mishalka and Gehena were the fastest as they immediately levitated the balls near them, Mishalka was capable of doing 3 at the same time while Gehena astounded everyone through 9 balls fly up into the air, indicating her mana control was at least 3 times greater compared to Mishalka’s who could only do 3, as for the other 2 because their training was rushed and not very long they could barely control a single ball as it flew near right after Mishalka and Gehena were already ready to fire.

This display of skill immediately made the crowd dumbstruck as no one believed Valentia’s team could actually win anymore, everyone thought the game was over before.

-WAIT! LOOK AT THE OTHER TEAM!

Someone shouted, even though it was unknown who it was, it didn’t really matter as everyone turned their eyes from Mishalka’s team who performed a stellar performance towards Valentia’s team, but as soon as their eyes saw what they had just witnessed they turned into saucers as the crowd suddenly went quiet, it was so quiet that even needle could be heard dropping if it dropped at that very instant.

And it was for a good reason as well as what they saw was 25 tennis balls all levitating in the air dotting the space with Valentia’s and David’s court.

Compared to the balls Mishalka’s team controlled which lightly swayed and bopped the balls within David’s court were completely still as if they were frozen mid-air.

The image was so surreal that a lot of people thought that they were seeing an illusion or that their eyes were playing tricks on them, but no matter how much they rubbed and blinked the balls didn’t disappear and neither was it an illusion.

-What the…?!

Even Mishalka and her teammates as soon as they witnessed the dotted space full of tennis balls went wide eyed as they couldn’t comprehend what was happening, they were frozen still trying to process what they were seeing, Mimir and Roland even dropped their balls because their concentration was blow away from what they were seeing, even Gehena and Mishalka had trouble keeping their balls afloat as they felt shaken about what they were witnessing.

-This. This has to be dream!?

Mishalka muttered, but no matter how much she denied reality it wasn’t going to change one thing, instead she tried to calm down, narrowing her eyes she looked at Valentia trying to figure out what was going on.

But as she turned her gaze, she saw Valentia too staring at her, smiling even as she gave her a mocking smile with a playful wave.

Mishalka understood none of it, at first she thought that this was Valentia’s doing, but seeing her so relaxed as if she was doing nothing made her start to believe otherwise, but then what other explanation could there be? How was it that 25 balls were frozen in mid-air inside their court who was doing this? It couldn’t be Valentia, the last she checked their skill level shouldn’t have grown so far apart, so how?

-Senior Mishalka, I think you need to change your perspective…that girl isn’t the one you should be focusing on.

-What are you talking about?!

Mishalka shouted back at Gehena, putting her attention beside Valentia towards the other person who stood there, the freshman named David, the commoner who only had his good looks going for him, Mishalka really never thought much of anything of him other than him being a possession she coveted at her side and started this entire mess.

But now as she looked at him she started to realize that her impression of the boy was wrong, he may have looked harmless, sweet and gentle, but it turned out he wasn’t totally harmless at all, having a single hand raised the boy looked calm and concentrated as he had an air of absolute control around him, almost as if.

-He…It couldn’t be he is controlling those balls?

-I am not sure, but it totally looks like it…

-I just used my Detect Magic spell, there is no doubt about it it’s that freshman that is control those tennis balls, and not only that the amount of mana he is using is insane!

As a student finally verified the truth using his own magic the other students all started to make an even bigger commotion, they were all pretty much talking about David and discussing how it was possible that he was controlling so many tennis balls at once.

A lot of people called David’s action a foul since they couldn’t believe he was actually that good and instead must have been relying on some kind of magic tool or other gizmo to make it possible, unfortunately those claims went nowhere as more and more people used their own methods to try see whether or not David was really cheating, ultimately the verdict was that indeed no, David wasn’t cheating at all, investigation showed that it was all David’s own ability at all play here quickly shutting up everyone who claimed he was breaking the rules.

Back to the game itself, David had been actually just been following Valentia instruction this entire time, he could have launched those balls immediately upon raising them, but she had told him to wait a few seconds and let everyone see before doing it.

David at this point was already a mini sensation at the academy, in the future people were likely going to talk a lot more about him, his ability couldn’t be hidden forever as he needed to be recognized by the academy if he wanted to be rewarded, showing them now and showing them later didn’t make any difference which is why Valentia thought that David shouldn’t hold back and immediately go full throttle.

David too knew how odd he must seem, but now that the necessary waiting time had elapsed it was time to end this round.

He lowered his hand and pointed at them.

-Senior Mishalka! Hide!

Gehena was the first to notice David’s assault, being a Dragonkin she was extremely sensitive to any sort of magic, in fact from her view the world looked slightly different compared to how ordinary humans viewed it, she could in fact see mana with her naked eye as if she was using a Detect Magic spell, it was another one of the Dragonkin’s signature abilities Dragon Eye, unfortunately since Gehena was a half-Dragonkin it wasn’t as powerful as the real thing only allowing her to see mana when it was being used, otherwise she needed to focus heavily to see passively flowing mana in the atmosphere.

Currently David was using his mana extremely actively, and what she saw was literally a wave of mana launching those balls towards them.

There was no special way the mana was being utilized it was in the simplest form being utilized as a launcher, but since there 25 of each these launchers that dotted the space they were formidable none the less.

Gehena for a moment couldn’t help but imagine what David could do if he was launching arrows or spears at them instead while also giving them a spin and fully guiding them, even a rank 1 wizard wouldn’t be able to block something like that, most wizards would likely have been drilled full with holes even if they were able to put up some defensive shields demonstrating how simply ridiculous David’s mana control capabilities were.

With this amount of control, it wouldn’t be a surprise if David could become a rank 1 wizard within a few months time, mana control plus sufficient knowledge was largely what was necessary to advance into the next rank.

But most importantly Gehena couldn’t help but notice how much mana David possessed, it was unnatural really, she couldn’t measure him precisely just by looking at him, and she didn’t have the time either as she quickly tried to hide behind the wall lest she would get hit.

Mimir and Mishalka also heard Gehena’s warning, since they had prior training their minds were used to shifting gear very quickly allowing them to snap out of their awe and quickly hide behind their walls.

It was only Roland who didn’t have such training who couldn’t reacted in time, because of this he was quickly pelted dozens of balls hitting him everywhere they could reach.

-Ow! Ow! Ow!

His pathetic crying and yelping caught the attention of everyone soon enough Roland was completely reduced to tear stained and snot nosed little boy as he feeble sat on the ground on his knees holding his head while shivering.

The assault quickly ended, and while Mimir, Gehena and Mishalka avoided getting hit, they still lost 2 of their walls in this one barrage, some of the balls that hit roland bounced off to other walls which counted as a hit as long as the ball hadn’t hit the ground yet and with this Mishalka’s team already suffered heavy casualties, even though David had no more balls in his court, none of Mishalka’s teammates looked optimist about this game anymore as they realized the huge gap between their skills.

-I…I HAD ENOUGH! I AM NOT PLAYING ANYMORE!

Roland who suffered the most especially broke down after being pummeled by the heavy hitting rain of tennis balls, the tennis balls themselves weren’t hard, but they were hard enough to cause pain and with the launch their damage wasn’t small either, Roland was a prime example as his entire uniform was completely covered in dirt and tennis ball marks, and what was worse Roland was in this state in front of almost one fifth of the student body, never did he feel so utterly humiliated before, coming from a noble merchant household, even when his status was low Roland had always been treated extremely well and garnered attention whenever he went with his looks. In truth Roland never even wanted to this academy, but since this was a big opportunity and because Roland was talented in magic he was forced to go by his parents.

At this moment Roland hated everything, the academy, the students, Mishalka, but the one person he hated the most stood before him with an apologetic look on his face.

-David…I swear I will make you kiss the ground before everyone.

Cursing under his breath Roland gave David one last Nasty glare before turning around and running away, already there were a few people laughing at him, Roland simply couldn’t continue bear continue standing there and humiliate himself more.

Mishalka who saw Roland run off wanted to stop him as the game hadn’t ended yet, but if she left now and chased after him she would also get disqualified essentially giving Valentia team a free win right off the bet, she couldn’t do that and shouting at Roland didn’t work at all as he completely ignored her making her fume with rage.

-This…Argh!

Mishalka tried hard to calm down, eventually calming down as she raised herself causing the other two to also stand up, now that Roland had run off they had play 2v3, and to make sure the other wouldn’t run just like Roland she glared at them as if she was going to kill them making them know what Mishalka meant.

-(Don’t make me lose this or else…)

-…

They understood without needing to be told and since they game was still going and the balls were in their court without bouncing back, they finally started to begin their counter-offence.

All this time David and Valentia watched as Roland fled the scene, David felt very bad about what he did to Roland, he had only just met the boy, but he had embarrassed him in front of a whole lot of people, he wanted to apologize, but since he ran away he didn’t get the opportunity.

Either way David and Valentia didn’t have time to care as balls started to fly their way requiring them to pay attention.

A total of 13 balls flew and tried to hit both Valentia and David in their court, Valentia seeing the balls incoming told David to go hide, but David didn’t listen, no, rather than not listening he instead didn’t seem to care at all as he watched the balls incoming.

Valentia for a moment thought that maybe David froze being assaulted by so many balls, she was about to come over and pull him down, but as soon as David raised his hand with an open palm, the balls that flew into their court immediately stopped as if they were caught by an invisible force.

Again everyone was amazed by what they had just witnessed, to them seeing David do all of this simply looked like as if he was toying with them, it didn’t even look that difficult to him as if he was in total control this entire time.

Even Valentia momentarily surprised as what she just saw David do wasn’t something she thought was easy.

-How did you catch those balls? Isn’t really hard to catch quick moving objects with your mana?

Valentia’s question was a valid one, but for David who focused on only mana control his entire life, it was an easy one.

-That’s true if you are using your eyes to try perceive them, but I actually spread my mana like a net to help me with that, if anything comes inside that range I will immediately be able to know and pin point the location of the object that entered my net, once I know that it isn’t different from how you usually raise an object.

David explained, making Valentia feel even more surprised as she had never heard of such method before, she tried to ask David whether this method was recorded in his book that taught him mana control, but David denied that as he honestly told her it was something he figured out himself which brought another bout of surprise to her as she thought it was David’s own creation which made her feel impressed.

In reality, what David was doing wasn’t something only he thought of as many people before him had already figured out the same thing, also It wasn’t really strange that Valentia didn’t know such a method existed either, she was more focused on spells then something elementary like mana control, nowadays most wizards focused far more on spells then their mana control, they only ever tried to meet the bare minimum of mana control necessary for their spells instead of diving deeper into the topic.

Techniques David displayed with his Mana Net were advanced techniques that actually did exist inside the library, for free at that too but unfortunately no one was interested as this technique could easily be replicated with a simple detection spell, furthermore to be able to use a technique like Mana Net the user was required to work very hard for it, an amount of hard work people could easily invest in their spell casting instead to power up more quickly.

In the end what David was doing wasn’t really something considered new, it was just that in modern days’ wizards were prioritizing different things making David an oddity as not a lot of people had seen individuals like him who were capable of such feats.

-What?!

Back on the other side of the court, Mishalka was about to blow as she saw what just happened, their combined attack was completely ineffective against David as he stopped it the moment the balls entered his court, everything in his court was basically in his total control, at this point they knew that they could do nothing to defeat David anymore, Gehena especially saw how David was releasing fine strands of mana around him and covering his entire court with it like a spider net, application of mana like this she had only ever seen demonstrated by the Elder Dragonkin’s in Dragon’s keep, they too had extremely high level of mana control and used it like this every day as casually as they breathed, Gehena thought that skill like this was only ever possible for the Dragonkin she didn’t believe humans would be able to do the same, but now she had met someone who could do the same thing as her Elders, it made her question whether David was really human or not, but her thoughts were interrupted as Mishalka started to shout beside her.

-What are you standing there for! Continue shooting!

Mishalka’s orders started to slightly get on Gehena’s nerves, it clear that they couldn’t win anymore, but Mishalka refused to yield, in a sense this attitude was admirable, but Gehena felt it was pointless even if she did comply.

And just like that the game continued, Mishalka’s team did the best they could trying to hit David, but each time the ball entered his court they stopped dead and were then returned right back at them.

The walls they used to protect themselves were the only things they could use to prolong their fight, unfortunately those too exhausted instantly as David only needed to hit them 10 times to make them fall, eventually with no walls to hide behind Mishalka’s team had no other choice but to dodge the best they could, luckily all 3 of them were very athletic and since David wasn’t the best shot his tennis balls often than not wouldn’t hot or were relatively predictable of where they were going.

The only David had really going was the amount of balls he could shoot, and as they weaved and bopped dancing in their court trying not to get hit, Mishalka got the sudden idea that they could continue dodging until David started to get exhausted from mana drain.

Gehena immediately knew that this idea was likely not going to work since she was aware of how high David’s mana was like, even now even though he was constantly using his mana to chuck those balls at them it didn’t even look like he exhausted that much mana, an added effect of having high mana control was that you could use every bit of mana to the fullest potential if your control was high enough, wizards usually release small amounts of mana each time they used their magic, no wizard could be 100% efficient, but as they mana control increased they could slowly decrease this mana loss and save mana to cast more magic coupled with his already naturally high mana David was bound to last the entire day, the more likely scenario was that they would get exhausted far faster than David would deplete mana.

Gehena really wanted to tell Mishalka that, but having experienced last few times she said something similar, this time Gehena decided to just not say anything and continue until Mishalka herself realized her mistake.

Either way it was not like David was playing by himself as well, Valentia who they had neglected up to this point even though they had focused on her from the beginning was still in the game, and even though she didn’t any at the beginning she did start to participate once she knew that she was completely safe to throw balls at them.

Her aim was far better than David’s even though she couldn’t throw those balls in a barrage like David she was 10 times more difficult to deal with as her throw were all extremely difficult to dodge and fast swerving.

The one thing Valentia had over David was that she possessed a formal education in mana control, David his entire life had only a book and himself to serve as reference while Valentia had teachers and a whole mountain of books to take advice from.

She knew perfectly well how to use best utilize the little amount of mana control she possessed, spinning the ball to increase velocity and making them curve was elementary to her and with David who was constantly Barraging Mishalka’s team it gave her the perfect smokescreen to throw her balls at them with the rain of balls made by David.

If they wanted those two to stop, Mishalka and her teammates only needed to stop throwing their own balls, but the game had no time limit, and there was also an addition rule that said that if one court had too many balls and wasn’t utilizing them a random member would be outed, with so many people watching Mishalka, there was no way she could bend the rules without being instantly found out, her reputation too would take a hit for being that petty.

But if she didn’t do something fast, Mishalka knew that they were going to lose without a doubt.

She would have to pay 16000 points to Valentia or have her soul damaged.

Mishalka was in an extremely difficult situation and all because she foolishly agreed to that contract!

She didn’t know how she was going to get out of this.

Nevertheless, the game continued, and as it did, the crowd that was gathered continued to get bigger and bigger, news spread around quickly in the academy, people were rushing to the training grounds to see what was going on, most of the first and second years were already present with a good chunk of the third years also in attendance even some of the fourth and fifth years who were known to completely focus on their studies decided to come to watch, teachers and professors weren’t an exception as they all watched this weird game of dodge ball.

Unfortunately, the people inside the court hadn’t noticed the amount of people they had gathered, too focused on the game they completely shut everything out.

To David was the first he was using his mana control in an offensive way, in the past he did use it for a few pranks, but he never intentionally used to hurt anyone, he was nervous at first but he quickly got accustomed the more he used his ability.

He also noticed how Valentia’s use of mana was very different from his, watching her spin balls as she threw them made him realize that it made them more stable increasing accuracy before he never considered doing that as there were a lot of other parts of mana control he was focused on and watching her do a lot more things he never considered before made David learn on the fly as he tried to imitate her.

This caused the barrage to get ever fiercer as the smallest of improvements was magnified with the amount of balls David launched.

It started to become so hectic that Mishalka, Mimir and Gehena quickly realized that they would soon not be able to keep up and finally someone messed up.

A spinning ball directly hit Mimir on the nose, the pain was so bad that her mind momentarily went blank, because she couldn’t recover quick enough more balls came flying the moment she stopped moving causing her to collapse as she fell to the ground battered.

Now 2 people were already out, only another 2 left and not soon after it was Mishalka who couldn’t go on any longer, she was simply too exhausted trying to dodge every single ball while keeping Valentia’s balls in mind was too much for her brain and her body, she ended up getting hit on the shoulder by one of David’s balls after barely dodging Valentia’s ball, luckily for her she knew that she couldn’t continue staying lest she would get completely showered with balls which is why she angrily left the court leaving only Gehena who still had a bit of stamina left.

Being left all by herself Gehena already knew that it was over, seeing Mishalka watching her with her narrowed eyes and arms crossed she could also tell she would get more than a few scolding’s after the game even though it really wasn’t her fault at all, life really was unfair.

-Are you okay?

Hearing a sudden voice asking whether or not she was okay, Gehena slightly surprised turned towards David who seemed to be a bit concerned about her for some reason, Gehena could tell that David was being genuine but she couldn’t tell why he was treating her like this even though they were clearly enemies.

The reason David was so concerned was because Gehena was the only one who he didn’t feel was malicious or anything, in fact from observing her David started to figure out that she wasn’t doing all this because she liked to making him sympathize with her.

-I’m fine, you are really skilled Sir David.

-Oh well, thank you very much, Lady Gehena you too are very skilled.

David returned the compliment with a smile, momentarily stopping his assault as he did, Gehena noticed that and immediately knew that she had gotten an opportunity, but after hearing what David said to her in return she couldn’t help turn red for a second as bit of shyness crept on her face while her eyes widened.

-L… Lady?!

Two players had now exposed themselves, it wouldn’t have been that of a big deal if it was just them alone, but they had neglected one other player in the game, and that was Valentia didn’t at all care about how Gehena was feeling and rather felt a bit offended that David was conversing with their enemy so closely, putting a few bad intentions into her ball she launched it directly at Gehena’s face hitting her squarely on the cheek making Gehena fall.

-Ugh!?

-Hah!

Two sound reverberated once the ball connected, one with small amount of anguish and the other with a bit of delight and with that throw the first round was finally over causing everyone present to cheer.

-We won!

Valentia shouted out not really thinking about it as she got excited even though they merely won a single round and not the entire game, her excitement led her to jump at David who she embraced, David was a bit surprised by the sudden embrace, but he didn’t rejected it and hugged her back as well, feeling her voluptuous body as her two soft mounds pressed against his chest.

It was only after the excitement subsided did Valentia realize what she was doing, honestly her conduct was a bit inappropriate towards a man like David, in a certain sense this could seen as Valentia trying to take advantage of David which is why she immediately tried to step away from David while blushing in embarrassment hoping he wasn’t offended.

Lucky for her David didn’t mind at all, he merely smiled her kitten like reaction which only served to embarrass her further before looking back at Gehena who was still on the ground

Gehena who was hit didn’t feel as much pain as one might believe, being a half-dragonkin she possessed a power physique which is why the tennis ball did no damage to her, instead what made her lie down like this was more because she didn’t want to face Mishalka who was likely going to yell at her.

Gehena thought that she could pretend to be hurt to not get yelled at, but a shadow started to come over making her believe it was Mishalka Gehena started to get ready, but as she raised her eyes instead what she saw was a handsome young man with medium sized blond-hair tied into a tail, his eyes were as blue and clear as the deep sky while his skin had a light tan giving him an exotic feel.

It was David and seeing him approach made Gehena momentarily unsure about what she should think, but before she could think about anything at all, David reached his hand to her offering her to get up.

-I had fun, thank you a lot.

Those simple words had Gehena in more disarray, but seeing the stretched out hand, for some reason made Gehena feel even more attracted to David, it was the first time a boy had talked with her this much and without even thinking about it she grasped his hand standing up as she felt his rough and warm palm that was clearly used and worked hard.

It wasn’t the prettiest hand, but for some reason Gehena liked it a lot.