The poor faun, I do feel guilty recalling what I did. I want to plead my case, but I can only say it was ruthless and rooted down on fear rather than malice.  

We collided with enough force to momentarily make me doubt the effectiveness of my plan, especially after I lost my balance and fell right on top of them. But I had no time to devise another plan with the prince at my heels.  

“Shadow slip.” A spell to slip into a shadow. 

There’s not much difference between sliding into the shade of a tree and a creature who is not moving. The difference comes when it moves. Mimicking movements becomes complicated when the subject under the spell resists.  

It wasn’t my intention to get them hurt I was going to use them as a separator or like something in the middle as a distraction so I could attack faster. I know it sounds bad, and it kind of was since I had forcibly attached myself to their shadow. Plus, I did bind them down to prevent my spell from breaking once they moved against it. 

“Sorry, I need your help.” I did apologize for what I was doing, but I was clearly aware that I took advantage of the faun. 

“Don’t-” They tried to say before I cut them off. 

“He’s coming.”  

The heaviness of the prince’s aura was slowly wearing me down, which meant every minute the fight dragged on weakened me more.  

“Arachno,” eight tendrils resembling a spider’s legs emerged from below the faun. The legs ran forward at a fast speed, but the prince kept up easily.  

Below the faun, I could see the prince closing in on us, and I could tell he was ready to attack with his sword again. The idea wiggled in like a roly-poly trying to squish itself under a rock. It wasn’t pretty, and it was a smidge bit villainous, but I also wanted to pass. Besides, the test was basically a competition, and to compete, you had to stand out by using your talents. Not saying that acting like a villain is my talent, though I did change quite a bit due to some circumstances. 

I don’t regret what I did during the test too much, though I do feel bad about it. And I understand now how a lot of students in the academy had a negative opinion of me as a bully or called me an evil witch. Though that evil witch thing happened once, I met a certain someone who decided to become my friend despite the fact that every SINGLE time we chatted, it came out as a bad interaction to onlookers who decided to spread bad rumors, but that’s just me rambling. Back to the action. 

He was coming at us from the side after faking a forward lunge, which I saw through with my own intelligence. That’s a lie. I just created several illusions, each taking off in different directions to avoid being hit.  

It wouldn’t have been a problem for the prince to slash through all the illusions like a hot knife through butter. The problem came when one of them popped like a bubble and caught his sword in a sticky mess. Inside an afterimage of the illusions, I appeared and pushed the faun into the prince. After careful calculations, I did consider the faun's safety when I decided to honorably sacrifice him to take my place in the fight. 

There are no exact instructions to find an opening in a sword master's fighting style because it has a lot to do with the master’s speed, agility, and swing. Plus, it can change based on the type of sword being used. Depending on the skill level, it's sometimes easier to create an opening by facing the sword master head-on. Still, finding an opening or creating one with a sword master is hell, I came to know that personally a big number of times through my half-elf sword master grandfather and also from my father. Aside from being a magic tools maker, my father is quite accomplished in using a great sword. Watching him spar with my grandfather was always an educational and overwhelming sight.  

As for the spell, I don’t want to say I devised this spell on the spot, but I can’t honestly remember the root of creating this dual-purpose spell. I know I was racking my brains for something to slow the prince down, especially after I did not see number five’s group. Then again, I didn’t particularly look carefully at the vast area the prince had used for his battleground.  

The spell I used is called a dual-purpose spell because it does multiple things at once. The difficulty level is moderate. It just takes more mana and concentration to get the ratio correct. My ratio was twenty percent shadow, twenty-five percent solid form, twenty-five stickiness, and thirty percent speed. It had to have a solid form to hold the stickiness spell. Sounds complicated, and it can be if a mage doesn’t have enough practice.  

After pushing the faun and stealing one of the scrolls on his waist, I ran away with another swift spell. Was it right for me to steal it after using his shadow for my benefit? Maybe, especially after leaving him to an uncertain fate. Even though I was pretty sure the prince would not kill a citizen of an empire he may one day rule, it was still not a nice move to use.  

As for number five’s team, I heard, during a gossip session after the test was over, how they held their own against the prince, but it became very clear they couldn't win. Their last chance was to do their best to outmaneuver him. It resulted in a strategic retreat which, apparently, I unknowingly helped with when I used my broom to fly above them. Essentially, we all just kept passing the fight with the prince to the next unsuspecting creature. Not that I said this to free myself from blame, just that I want the record to show I wasn’t the only one to do this, which says a lot. But the summary is this: no one wants to go toe to toe with Prince Liam Isahm Knoles.