(co-written by LookingAtPerks)
Altian felt a little bit better after the handshake. He wanted that reassurance that no matter what happened, even if they would be forced to compete against each other, their friendship wouldn't ride on the result. But then again, he never had to worry about that with Emerin. He was about as carefree as people could get. His power usage was a direct representation of that. So why did he ask the question? Was it for his own reassurance...or perhaps it was his own reminder to not take this competition so seriously? He did value his friendship over everything else, but there was still a small nugget of competitive spirit within him that wanted to go as far as he could in this competition.
There could only be one winner, after all...
There wasn't enough time to unpack everything battling inside of the bookworm as the PA system blared and the next event was announced to begin shortly. He stayed by Emerin, of course, as they walked back out into the center of the stadium where the next event would begin.
And it was a race he hadn't expected...mostly because it was to be expected. He knew that the Grand Magi Games got crazy and that no two years were ever the same in design or structure, but this felt like he was overthinking the process a little bit. The gimmick (apart from the traps and obstacles they would be racing past) were these gates scattered in each zone that allowed the contestants to progress to the next one. And they weren't specifically situated at the end, so teleporting past all the obstacles would be a waste of time. But he steeled himself and prepared his mentality as he nudged Emerin with a grin.
"Hey Emry-Shu. Ya think we're gonna go through Ezra Desert?" he asked, knowing that if they did, that would be a huge advantage for them.
"I dunno, Alt-shu..." Emerin replied. He did not know the full scale of the race, but he was interested in seeing where they would go. That said...he looked down at their clothes. "However, we are both overdressed for the desert, and underdressed for the cold...well, if we keep hurrying maybe we can pass through before it affects us!"
And with everything explained, the dragons roared and the race was on. Emerin led the way, taking Altian's hand as he started whipping up portals for them to pass through. They passed through the first one with ease and appeared just in time to see the super speedy man run smack dab into the invisible barrier. He couldn't discern exactly what magic spell was being used in the moment as there were several that could allow invisible barriers to exist. But he did have a quick tactic to get around it.
"Try short distance portals," Altian suggested as they went, "Randomly placed throughout. Make the distance no less than a few feet between. That way, we aren't missing anything except walls."
It wasn't a foolproof strategy, though. There was still a marginal chance they would be running into the barriers. But now that they could cut the space they were travelling through down and Emerin had the energy supply of a demi-god, they could keep this up until the walls weren't a problem anymore. With each portal Emerin created, Altian stabilized with a little bit of his own energy, controlling it to ensure it wouldn't collapse on them as they went through each one. He'd heard many stories of portals doing that to people and causing surprise paraplegic conditions to the caster and that would be the dumbest of ways to go out.
"Too much energy," he noticed, "Try using a little less magic. Remember, if you can control this energy, you can be efficient with it."
And that was something he'd told him before. They helped each other out as much as possible, constantly trying to better one another through various ways. Emerin usually tended to overcompensate, creating powerful torrents when a simple rainfall was required. Meanwhile, Altian tended to underperform, his focus on efficient mana use resulting in putting too little mana into the spell. But they both had tips and tricks to help bring out the best of their other and this was no exception.
"Alright! Lets do this!" Emerin stated, and began to use what he liked to call Portal Dash, which involved creating several portals in a row, never fully materializing out of any of them instead of just opening two portals over and over again. Interestingly enough, he had not even realized he was doing this, or that this was not actually what Altian had told him to do technically. Emerin was not the best with directions, which resulted in Altian usually being in charge of navigating them, and it appeared much like a blur of energy in a way.
In truth, Emerin was kind of doing what he told. The theory of Portal Dash was practically identical to what Altian had told him, just with a different result. There only difference was control. With Random Short Distance Portals, Emerin would have far better directional control then with Portal Dash, and it would be harder to track his movements. But with Portal Dash, it was like creating a tunnel of portals, only the tunnel was litterally being created right in that moment and disappearing in the next, allowing only Emerin and Altian to travel through it.
Naturally though, Emerin had little knowledge of this and would need Altian to point it out to him later, as he thought they were just running through as he created the random portals immediately, like running through a lane.
And then, that was when Emerin sensed it...
"Alt-shu! Duck!" Emerin shouted, not realizing that with what he was currently doing he did not actually need to shout that. As they might appear to others as a comet of energy flying around and forward, they would duck as they passed one of the cars...or, what they thought was a car, but suddenly transformed and tried to suckerpunch them! And if that was not enough, Emerin suddenly noticed they had to dodge as the streetlights began shooting out lasers randomly!
All of that caused him to forcibly dodge, which allowed two others to pass them...and then suddenly, fall into holes that opened up as they ran across them and down into the ground.
"They are really going all out!"