The area glowed and a huge magic circle with numbers and equations appeared. I dodged something flying at me which looked like a chakram. Mathguy caught it and was holding an 8 and not a chakram, he was also holding a 1 in his right hand.

  He started talking, but I knew he was trying to distract me; I’m not taking this snow out of my ears, as Mel’s charm laced words would destroy me.

  I could see through the shared vision that Giana was being merciless. She had also pulled up some suspicious filters.

  Back to Mathguy, he fights similarly to how I sometimes do, so I know the weaknesses of planting magical circles during or before battles. I messed with his magical circle, causing it to fail.

  He tried to sneakily seal Giana so Mel could deal with me. I made a shadow clone and gave it a task to deal with any attempts to seal Giana. He activated another magic circle, but I let this one slide because I was interested in it. This guy uses some kind of arcane magic that forces certain conditions upon everyone in it, including the caster.

  Assassin, Mathguy and I got a math equation we needed to solve, failing to solve it would force certain effects on us. These skills were very strong because they ignore a lot of resistance. This magic can only be used by drawing magic circles, so needs a lot of preparation. He could damage me with fire if the magic circle allows for it, in case, I fail one of these conditions.

  He kept throwing the 8 at me, and dashed in and used the 1 he was holding as a sword while solving his equation. Assassin had to solve ‘1x1’ so he finished quite fast.

  I delegated my tails to swiftly solve these because Assassin and Mathguy only got 1 equation but I had to solve 6. I parried his sword strike and kicked him away to evade the 8 flying around. My tail dropped a Dawnlight to nullify an incoming [Shadow Bind].

  We both passed this round and the circle churned out another problem. It read” =0”

  What the fuck is this supposed to mean? I assume it has something to do with algebra? Mathguy was doing something, but I couldn't tell what. He created a 0 and nullified the [Water Blast] I sent to him. Do I need to nullify damage? He seemed to fulfill his requirements so I decided to test something.

  He created a spear with the tip looking like a 4 and threw it at me. I used [Dragonvein: Churning Waves] and dropped the ambient temperature to 0, freezing everything and blocking the attack with a frozen wave.

  The spear landed 4 impacts before it disappeared. I met the conditions and the next problem started. I was curious about what would happen if I failed a condition, but I also didn’t want to get hit because I’m sure it has some nasty effects.

  I thawed the water and used [Surface flip]. Mathguy and Assassin, who thought could sneak up on me, got flipped under the surface. I had to solve 15 long math problems which my tails were tasked with.

  Assassin got 4 really easy ones, but he had difficulties solving them because he was underwater, and I was sending [Ice Spikes] at him. I was keeping Mathguy busy and underwater too. Now, what will happen to them if they fail.

  Mathguy created a big 0 which had air in it and put it on his head.

  He popped up on the surface so I used [Surface Flip] on him again and used [Dragonvein: Drowning Pulse] to his frustration. He was fuming and it looked amusing. My equations were solved and Assassin and Mathguy were too busy with staying alive to bother with their equations, but really… 7x2? And Assassin was struggling with that? He really must suck at math. I’m no math genius either, but my tails are.

  The 2 failed and the magic circle slightly changed. Interestingly enough, the coefficient of how my attacks scale got increased, suggested by the temporary changes in the mana runes. So, this could also interfere with magic circles on the mana rune level? This had my curiosity first, but now it has my full attention, it’s time to steal this and make it my own!

  I didn't see any effect on them, but it’s possible that the coefficients of their attacks dropped. I don’t think anything happened when all of us succeeded, so I assume only something happens when one or more party fails.

  The next problem was… a Problem. An interesting problem though, I had to land attacks following the Fibonacci sequence, but if I would do this these guys would certainly die. I was already analyzing this magic circle so that I could copy its properties. I wanted to see more variations though, so I broke this magic circle with frost magic and drained all the mana from it.

  Another one appeared, but these seemed to be more related to shapes. These guys were still drowning, and I could easily form shapes out of water, so I succeeded while both of them failed. Their volume altered, and every shape on their body that resembled a sphere or cylinder got replaced with cubes and cuboids. They looked very blocky and comical. Not funny if you want to move around, or you are the one getting hit by this.

  But this is also crowd control, right? They were unable to move properly as the body isn’t designed to have all spheres and cylindrical shapes be replaced by cubes and cuboids... How would joints work like that?

  I continued analyzing this magic circle because cool things could be made out of this. Assassin and Mathguy somehow made it to the surface in their blocky states but their offense had dropped. The next circle activated, and a cube spawned before me, and I had to mathematically prove that this cube is a cube.

  Ok, I’ve had enough of this bullshit. I destroyed this magic circle too with frost magic.

  This should be enough for me to create magic circles like these. A valuable learning experience, fighting humans isn’t completely pointless. Mathguy was human, right?

  His blocky appearance suggested otherwise, but that was caused by his own magic. Is it permanent?

  I eagerly awaited the next magic circle, but there were none, to my disappointment. It was disappointing for me, but these skills were strong, Raishin would have gotten destroyed by this. A lot of strong individuals or skills get made out to be pushovers when encountering the mythical and legendary, Mathguy had put up a good fight, although inadequate against a mythical beast,

  Assassin however… he was struggling more against Mathguy’s attacks than mine as I haven’t done much.

  I messed around with Blocky Mathguy and blocky Assassin until they turned back to normal. Mathguy put a 9 on his head and suddenly there were 9 of them. An interesting way of using clones, but 9x0 is still 0. He should know this, as math is his thing.

  I drew Nilah and cut all of them in half. Just Assassin was left now. He was very reluctant because he knew I wasn't serious. Giana notified me to watch out and I jumped aside. Mel decided to go after me to use me as a hostage to get back at Giana. I would have no problem fighting her if she didn't throw charm attacks around like it was candy. The only reason I was relatively fine was because I’m already charmed by Giana.

  Countless jellyfish were latched on Mel to her annoyance. Normal jellyfish would exhibit some toxic behavior but it appeared Giana’s jellyfish had 0 firepower.

  I teleported toward Giana and shot ice arrows at Assassin and Mel. Most of the cultists had found a dry spot and didn't bother intervening, probably because of all the water. Their leader finally decided to step up, and he brought 3 strong-looking people with him. They looked human, but I just realized they weren't.

  Hmm, I was already wondering why a group of humans would suddenly care about 9t but if it's other races then it makes more sense, they are in general more attuned to the state of the world.

  Giana responded but I couldn't hear her. I wanted to take the snow out of my ears but she blocked my hands, shook her head and pointed to Mel who seemed to be still talking. Damn, Giana is hot.

  I shot lightning at all the jellyfish in sight so they could deliver zaps to anyone they caught.

  The leader changed form and grew in size, revealing his race to be a Brown Warbear and one of his lackeys seemed to be of the merfolk and he was making sure their group would do well and walk on water.

  This guy might become a problem. I’m good at underwater combat but I’m not arrogant enough to think I could match merfolk. I had a 40%-win rate against Shidar Fishfingers, assuming this merman is weaker than Shidar might get me killed, or worse… captured by a succubus…

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Mel was using her succubus wings to fly so she had no problems with this water. One of the other guys seemed to be an elf or a half-elf and the last one is a human? She resembled Io, surely… The red-haired young woman roared and transformed a bit.

  A dragon? Or a half dragon? They surely are pulling out the stops… but a fire dragon… they should know that foxes don’t care about fire…

  She unleashed a fire [Dragonbreath] and I was disappointed. Not because I was expecting it to do something but because of all the interesting opponents they wanted to pit me against they chose something that specializes in fire… on this area full of water… I used [Surface flip] on everyone, including myself, and some steam erupted.

  The merman sent the leader and the elf to the surface and swam at me at blinding speed, while the dragon was coming at me by creating steam jets. Did Assassin not tell them that I’m perfectly fine around water?

  The dragon went for a heated punch after I subjected this body of water to [Boil]. I used [Surface flip] on her, and she got ejected out of the water. My tails, which were already spinning, started [Tail Dynamo] and I started throwing lightning attacks around.

  This merman was way faster than me underwater, but not to the extent that I couldn't do anything. Giana taunted the dragon, and now she was fighting Mel and the dragon. Elfman was harassing Giana with arrows, so I used [Surface flip] on him and the Leader to send them back down. I restarted [Dragonvein: Drowning Pulse] which wasn't very effective because the merman was making sure Elfman and the Leader wouldn't drown.

  I used [Eternal Winter] to keep my targets below the surface. The dragon noticed the body of water freezing over and starting to breathe fire on it but there was no use as I had used frost magic.

  The leader managed to protect Elfman but they were still stuck. I got out of the ice and dispelled mel’s attempt to seal Giana, to her frustration. Mel blew a kiss to me, which got blocked by a jellyfish. Giana didn’t like this at all and went 9t mode.

  Waves rippled over the frozen area as time and space started to glitch.

  Mel is so screwed right now. I will just remove myself from the scene before I get hit by a charm nuke. My tail reacted and grabbed something invisible.

  Ah right, Assassin… you’re just in time to test a skill my tail stole from Mathguy and altered.

  Assassin got knocked out of stealth and an improvised ‘Mathcircle’ flashed.

  It gave him a low-difficulty algebra equation and if he failed, he would have to dance for 5 minutes. My tails solved it in no time, and he was struggling hard for the 2 minutes he had to solve it.

  At this point, I was just watching him suffer. He failed and started to dance uncontrollably. These 5 minutes might have been the longest 5 minutes of his life.

  The circle pushed out another problem, and he had to name 5 prime numbers. He looked around in confusion. Does he by any chance not know what prime numbers are? This guy is so screwed.

  He failed and had to walk on his hands for 5 minutes. It seems to be working, now time for more extreme and sadistic punishments. My tales went to work while I enjoyed, Assassin doing his best to walk on his hands, over the water’s surface.

  He was better at walking on water and walking on his hands than solving 2x-2=0 and solving for x…

  I knew that humans have abandoned science for magic, but is that smart if magic like this exists? What if there is a chemistry or physics version of this magic. Mathguy might have just been a mathematician, but he could potentially take over the world with this magic as most humans don’t bother with math. The fact that he didn’t… what is this cult’s objective? Restore 9t to power? That’s it?

  Maybe this cult isn’t that bad.

  My tail finished a sadistic circle, and my previous thought melted as snow under the sun.

  Time for 7 complicated integration problems, failing to complete them will have ‘killing your ally’ as a penalty.

  It’s a double-edged sword but even if I were to fail, I don’t believe that I could manage to kill Giana in the 5 minutes that these punishments would be active, so it’s not a big deal.

  The magic circle went out, and my tails got to it.

  Assassin just gave up. He yet again seemed to say something, but my ears were till plugged.

  The punishment activated and his face changed. He got compelled to kill his nearest ally and went after the dragon.

  Another magic circle activated as Elfman had triggered it. My tails finished the new waves of problems easily. The Elfguy was sweating but he made it on time.

  The more I think of it, the more brutal this magic becomes. Sure, the time limit gets more lenient with complicated problems as we had 10 minutes to solve these but… what stops me from cc’ing Elfman while he is supposed to solve these.

  Another version activated. 10 minutes to solve these. My tails went at it and I [Surface Flipped] Elfman and pulled him under. I kept at it for 5 minutes and then let him tackle the problems undisturbed.

  He ran out of time and failed. He spawned an enormous tree which attacked his leader. The vines whipped at him, causing sprouts to grow out of his wounds. The Leader kept ripping the sprouts out of his wounds, but he got overwhelmed and all the moisture got sucked out of him. Assassin got caught in that attack too and shared the same fate.

  That’s brutal…

  Mel flew by, picked up the dragon and Elfman and fled. She had electrical burns and countless jellyfish latched to her.

  All our opposition had died or fled. It seems that the other cultists, on dry land were getting apprehended by the City Security.

  Giana approached me, said something, and then took the snow out of my ears. “I couldn't finish her off, and now she escaped…”

  You did great, she would've messed me up if you weren't here, you also kicked her ass and humiliated her.

  “Yeah, I need to work on my charm magic, I had to impersonate Noelle to keep her pissed and focused on me because her charm was way stronger than mine, if she ignored me and went for you there would've been nothing, I could do… Thank you for the fluffy embrace, though, it helped me a lot.”

  Wait? You impersonated Noelle? With her venomous tongue? Shiit! I wanted to see that! But did you really need to go 9t mode on her?

  “You can’t silly! You would've gotten charmed! And I had to! My pride as a vixen was being challenged”

  Why is life so difficult…

  “Come on I will treat you because you helped me.”

  Life is wonderful!

  We tried to walk away from this mess, but someone stopped us.

  “So, Mr. and Ms. Ninetail, can you explain this mess?”

  I quickly hid my tails.

  Who is this?

  “Uhhm, that is Melinda, the person who taught Noelle how to become an effective and successful manager for our idol group but because we retired, Noelle isn't going to take over anymore and she got quite angry… She is also the daughter of the mayor of this city…”

  Another Mel? They sure are problematic! And uhh, I have no idea what you were talking about Mel2 we were just passing by while ehhh a date! Yes, we were on a date!

  “Agnis it’s rude to give someone a number in their nickname! Nobody wants to be number 2!”

  Ok how about Mel1 then?

  “That is not any better! You can’t just number people!” Giana said. I could tell that she didn’t mean it and was amused.

  Then how am I supposed to call her? I can’t call her Mel because that would be confusing!

  “Hey! I can hear your every word, so this is the man you chose, Giana? I can’t say I approve.”

  “I don’t care if you approve, My life, my choice! Let’s go Agnis, talking to her is a waste of time.” Giana grabbed my hand and dragged me away.