The mood was significantly more cheerful in the dining hall during breakfast the next day. Everyone had tallied up their points, had already concluded their last matches didn't really matter for their final rankings - except for a select few, of course: namely Lara and Dev, and perhaps a few stragglers in the lower ranks - and were overall much more relieved than earlier in the week. There was even a bit of a party atmosphere among the third years, with several students congratulating their friends on almost-graduating.

  Aida wasn't immune to the festivities. The Class 2 girls had swarmed her as she entered the cafeteria with Sue by her side, congratulating her on a guaranteed third place final ranking among the Water students.

  "Even if you had a draw or outright lost today, you're so far ahead in points it doesn't even matter," Natalie crowed in satisfaction.

  "But don't you dare just lose," Tera said fiercely. "You do your best either way, okay?"

  "Yeah, if you don't even try I'll kick your butt myself!" Sue declared, heat emanating from her body as she grinned proudly at Aida. The other four girls in Aida's class all cheered at Sue's words, reassured that Aida was sufficiently cowed and wouldn't dare to do such a thing such as taking it easy on her opponent.

  That was why Aida was taken aback when Lyn stared at her angrily from across the ring, the both of them slightly winded from their initial exchange. It seemed Lyn had been expecting Aida to take pity on her.

  "Why don't you just relax a bit? You already have your spot," Lyn gritted out. "It's not like anything will change if you beat me."

  "I don't see what that has to do with how our match goes," Aida said coolly. She skipped backwards as she launched a few more icicles at Lyn.

  Everyone else was right: she didn't have to worry about her fight against Lyn. Tera's twin didn't seem to have improve at all compared to their fight during the beginning of the school year; the comparison only served to make Aida cringe at how weak she had been when she first arrived.

  As such, Aida was treating this battle as target practice. Her aim was atrocious when it came to moving targets, especially if the targets decided not to maintain constant velocity; however, unlike the rest of Aida's Class 2 classmates, Lyn hadn't been working on footwork or any other nuanced strategy over the year, so she was still depending on her base instincts when it came to dodging Aida's attacks.

  In short, Lyn was the perfect practice target for Aida's level. She was also helpful for Aida to test her basic defenses against, as Aida had to split her concentration to fend off Lyn's mana attacks.

  "You shouldn't have been here in the first place!" Lyn burst out angrily as she just barely cleared an icicle spearing into the ground behind her. "You're from a no-name family, and had no talent to speak of!"

  "If I didn't have talent, then why can't you beat me?" Aida retorted, lining up her next shots. She was delighted that she managed to land a hit on Lyn: the first icicles had been intended to redirect Lyn, distracting her from the third sneaky icicle that managed to clock Lyn in the head.

  Lyn staggered, tears welling up in her eyes as her hand reached up to rub her scalp. She glared at Aida. "You only got into Maglica because Suelina begged for your inclusion! And all of these skills you learned - you didn't learn them yourself! You can't do anything on your own and you still have the audacity to act like you earned all your opportunities!"

  "Is that what you're so worried about?" Aida asked indifferently as she continued sending icicles after Lyn. Lyn had caught on to the pattern that had struck her, so now Aida had to figure out a new one. "Score!"

  Lyn tripped over a small block of ice Aida had raised from all the melting water, sending her sprawling as she was helplessly pelted by large chunks of hail. Aida had to hand it to her, though: Lyn's defense was one of the strongest she had seen among the Water students. She didn't even flinch from the impact of the hard ice. Probably because she's used to taking hits.

  "By the way, I take issue with your accusation that I didn't 'earn' my opportunities." Aida had started freezing the limbs that were splayed on the ground, and Lyn noticed. She was futilely fighting off Aida's mana control of the water, but she also had enough sense to struggle physically, making it more difficult for Aida to complete her objective. "I didn't ask or beg or steal for the opportunities I was given. But you bet I wouldn't be idiotic enough to not do my wholehearted best when they're offered to me."

  Aida finally restricted enough of Lyn's movements to complete her ice prison, leaving the girl shivering on the ground, her head the only thing exposed.

  "What other insults do you have for me?"

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "It's not an insult if it's true," Lyn spat, her pink eyes quite literally on fire as she glared at Aida. "It's not my fault if you're too stupid to understand what the point is."

  Aida smiled mirthlessly. Classic. "It really is so hard to talk with you. I feel for Tera."

  "How dare you?!" Lyn began shrieking profanities and insults Aida couldn't quite understand, since she was lacking the cultural context - but she couldn't help but be intrigued by some of the analogies, until Lyn finally landed upon an extremely personal one: "I bet Ezra would happily kill himself because of you."

  It was like she was the one trapped in that ice block on the ground now. Logically, she knew there were multiple interpretations of Lyn's insult, at least one of which could be positive. On the other hand, it was obvious Lyn's intention was malicious.

  And frankly, she saw no reason why she should be mature and understanding of Lyn's tantrum.

  Since Lyn had left nearly all of her defenses wide open in her berating of Aida, it was easy for her to try out the new skill she had accidentally discovered yesterday: Confusion.

  Lyn's mouth froze, her jaw completely open. Her eyes, which had been fixed furiously on Aida just a moment prior, began trembling. She let out a shattered wail as tears began flowing, the piercing screams making Aida wince.

  Oh my goodness. Aida glanced helplessly around, looking to Professor Kozu for him to end the match. Lyn had completely loosened her grip on her mana: it was clear she wasn't in any state to continue fighting. He caught her eye from the other side of the arena, his glowing red eyes shifting briefly to Lyn at her feet before nodding and raising his hand, declaring Aida the winner.

  ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

  "You shouldn't have done that," Healer Luk said to Aida disapprovingly when she finally returned to the Healer's station at the gate, where she was waiting for the other two matches to finish up.

  "She started it!" Aida said, outraged. "Why am I always getting blamed for other people's actions?"

  "That's not the reason why I'm saying that," Luk said firmly. "I'm saying specifically, you shouldn't have Confused the girl when she was already restrained - which, by the way, was already the clear end of the match - but because manipulating people's thoughts and emotions with mana inherently carries a great risk."

  Luk forced Aida onto a stool and stuck a fudge into her mouth just as she opened her mouth furiously to protest, successfully forestalling Aida's indignation. "Congratulations on completing your academic obligations."

  Aida inhaled the chocolate unwillingly, though she grudgingly had to admit it was tasty. She didn't know what Healer Luk had put into it, but it seemed to serve its intended purpose in calming her down - or maybe just the fact that she was forced to chew through the thick fudge gave her an opportunity to think, to realize she still had things to learn.

  "What's the risk?" Aida asked as soon as the chocolate had melted enough for her to unstick her jaw.

  "Hm?" Healer Luk had wrapped Lyn in a thick blanket and set up a small table of tea and fudge next to her while Aida had been preoccupied. Aida could see Lyn shivering despite the thick fabric and hunched form, clearly still under the effects of Aida’s psychic attack. "Ah, Confusion. In order to induce Confusion in your opponent, you inject some of your own emotions into them, thus overwhelming their natural mental state. Their susceptibility to being Confused depends on how emotionally stable they are at the moment; however, there are consequences for the caster as well."

  Healer Luk poured a cup of tea for Aida, handing it to her so she could wash down the remnants of the chocolate in her mouth while she continued lecturing. "While you forcibly inject emotions into someone else, you will also receive some of their own emotions as part of the principle of balance. If you do it too much, you might very well start losing yourself as you begin to permanently take on characteristics of other people's personalities - and who knows how well it will mesh with your own." Luk gave Aida a hard look. "So, my one and only warning for you: do not use that ability unless you absolutely must."

  "Is there risk of losing yourself if you use that ability on nonhuman creatures?" Aida asked after a brief moment of shock. That did explain why she felt so much more short-tempered, more rash in her responses; she had thought it was due to the stress of not knowing what to do for Ezra, as well as the final placement matches and looming troubles with her parents, but it could very easily have been because she absorbed some of Lara’s - and subsequently Lyn's - anger.

  "Significantly less risk, depending on how intelligent the creature is," Luk said briskly as she waved Weyn and Levan over. Dev and Lara were the only ones still battling, both of them wearing grim expressions and regarding each other cautiously during a lull in their fight. "Most animals' emotions are simplistic and motivated by basic needs, so it is easier to reconcile the exchanged emotions with a little bit of time than with a more complex person's emotions."

  "Got it," Aida mumbled from around the mug of tea. She was going to miss Luk's tea. "Not advised to use on humans. But surely there's a case for using it as a treatment method for a patient who is struggling? Someone who might have undergone trauma?"

  "Have you been listening or not?" Luk demanded as she handed chunks of fudge to Levan and Weyn as they collected their own teas. She waited until they had settled themselves on stools beside Lyn, looking curiously at the bundle, assured they weren’t eavesdropping. "The more emotionally unwell the receiver is, the more susceptible to Confusion they are. As well as the more disruptive the returned emotions would be against the practitioner."

  "Right, got it, use the skill in emergencies only," Aida said, abashed. Luk gave her another severe look before heading over to check again on Lyn's condition.

  Aida gazed sightlessly over the combat arena, where Dev and Lara had recommenced their fight. She had been hoping Confusion could be a useful skill to help people deal with their psychological traumas, but unfortunately it didn't work the way she had thought it would. But maybe she could use it to blunt some of her own pain? After all, if she just used it on animals instead of humans—

  Shrieks from the audience pulled Aida out of her own thoughts.