{August 6, 1991, Inside the ballroom of the Rosier Family}
"So now, let us continue with the next item on the agenda. The magic demonstration and dueling."
This was the main attraction of the gathering, giving the pureblood families the chance to show off and climb the ranks, so the mood was accordingly good. This was a great way to earn more prestige for the family, like one could say, our family defeated the xy family, so we are naturally stronger and should be involved in more important decision making.
This was mainly for the adult wizards, but the young wizards also got the chance to participate and duel against their peers. This would help them form a natural hierarchy and let the lower ranking families understand why the ancient families still held so much control.
Waving his wand, a square platform rose in the middle of the floor, spanning around 10 meters in both length and wide. The dais was podium was covered with archaic-looking golden glowing runes, which were used to block spells strayed from there target or were dodged form harming the audience.
On the platform itself, where two markings, representing the respective starting positions for the dueling mages.
"I would like to challenge Corwin Blackwood", a tall blonde wizard called out. After giving a nod, another wizard, this one having a smaller stature and ebon hair, stepped forward and they both got on the stage and opposite sites. Bowing down, some basic etiquette that was done before a match, they took their wands out and got in position to fight.
After getting the go from the man that announced everything, which would take the role of a judge. They didn't linger at all and started to cast some spells directly instead. The blonde wizard cast some green spell, that seemed quite powerful. Looking at it Mordred was quite sure, that he would be completely annihilated if hit, even if he used a counter-spell. Well, this was the gap between a child, that had only recently formed his mana core, and a full-grown wizard, with a full-fledged one.
His smaller opponent, answered with defense charm, which dispelled the attack. Returning, he send a red lightning bolt to his opponent, that left the air around it crackling with red sparks. Already prepared, the tall mage let a big silver shield materialize in front of him, hoping to block the spell. When the attack connected, the silver shield exploded with a loud boom, sending fragments in all directions that were stopped by the barrier and soon started to dematerialize.
But the attack continued on after the shield and hit the wizard, piercing him right through the chest. Falling to his knees with a gapping hole left in him, the winner was clear.
"That's what you get for messing with me", the smaller wizard sneered and walked down from the platform.
A few servants rushed over to take care of the looser, but it was already to late. The crowd wasn't shocked at all and after some cleaning the duels continued on.
The following duels were more moderate, resulting only in a few injured but nothing serious, that couldn't be fixed.
The most interesting duels, where a man and a woman fighting with quite equal power that both stubbornly refused to forfeit and continued even though they were covered in wounds. The fight only ended after the man passed out. And the second one was when two scions of two ancient houses fought. Both of them had apparently finished Hogwarts, last year. Although the spells were quite powerful, than most mages, seemed to be on friendly terms, using this as some sort of reunion ritual or the like.
Still the first match was quite outstanding, since the power demonstrated by the Blackwood mage, was only matched by the two friends, hinting that he was quite strong.
This match concluded more or less the fights between the adult wizards and gave the younger generation a chance to show case their power.
These duels were quite unspectacular, since the power demonstrated couldn't even match the weakest shown before. Still it was quite amusing to watch, until suddenly a new quest popped up in front of him.
[New quest received: Win a duel]
[Quest rewards: MP +5 ]