The student body erupted with amazement as they watched the hundred and twelve students who had signed up for the selection process duke it out in combat arenas that eliminated half of them in the very first round.
The air was charged with excitement and magical power, illuminated by the afternoon Sun, as the students gaped with amazement and enthusiasm at the show that the participants had put up. The battles that involved the favorites of the magicademy were especially exciting and generally one-sided as they faced off against some of the more ordinary participants. Almost all of them made it past the first round, with the exception of Silian, who had been bested by Virlyd in the most overwhelming battle of the first round.
"We will now commence the second round, comprising a total of twenty-eight matches!" The announcer's voice spread through the facility. "Each of the match-ups had already been highlighted in the tournament bracket board. Without further ado, let us begin!"
The matches of the second round began immediately after a ten-minute break, allowing the participants to recuperate some of their stamina so that they could be in a stronger state of mind.
It was why most of them had chosen to end the first round sooner rather than later to preserve stamina as much as possible.
Cæ had been no different.
STEP
STEP
He arrived in the combat arena, finding himself face to face with his opponent, Marwily Kornin.
Her red eyes twinkled with battle lust as she could scarcely hide her desire to fight with Cæ. She even had a headband with a symbol of an eye on it, hiding under the bangs of her tomboy haircut.
"Looking forward to fighting with ya." She grinned. "It will be even more fun beating you up."
Cæ didn't bother humoring her with a response as his sharp, stormy gray eyes remained fixed on her.
"Draw your wands or weapons."
She brought her arms before her in a cross, featuring the bracelets on her arms, while Cæ simply raised his wand, pointing it at her.
The air grew tense as both fighters grew intense with anticipation, on the very edge of attacking.
"And begin!"
The very instant the battle began, several magic circles emerged before both of them.
Yet, Cæ's magic a beat sooner as he unleashed a beam of light against his opponent.
BOOM!
She barely managed to get a body hardening spell out of the way as she curled up, barely withstanding the attack.
A smile emerged on her face.
"I knew it, you have a very quick rate of magic processing. But…"
Magic circles emerged before her very eyes as she surged forth with a great charge towards him.
"I can read you like a book!"
Cæ's eyes sharpened as several magic circles emerged before him in the blink of an eye, as he fired a wide-scale blast of wind in her general direction.
He knew from watching her previous battles that she was able to evade discrete singular attacks quite easily with very little effort, thus he tried for a wide-scale attack that swept across the entire combat arena.
And yet, her confident smile didn't even remotely waver as she perfectly timed a counter-wind blast just around herself, effortlessly negating his attack.
"If it's spread across the entire battlefield, then its potency becomes diluted, you know?!"
WHOOSH
She arrived before him in the blink of an eye, throwing a powerful fist at him.
WHOOSH
Much to her surprise, he effortlessly dodged the physical attack.
That wasn't all.
BAM!
She gasped as his fist found its mark on her solar plexus, knocking her away a few steps as her breathing became painful. Cæ's eyes flared with ferocity as he unleashed a barrage of magic spells against her.
Her expression stiffened as she leaped away, still reeling off-guard by the earlier attack as she used her divination magic to perceive the flow of magic and evaluate exactly how the attacks were going to come for her.
What she wasn't prepared for, however, was just how little of a timeframe there was between the magic circles and the magic itself.
It was a split-second, unlike with the other students and her other opponents. The gap was so small that she basically had to react to her own predictions with pure reflex in order to evade all of them.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!
She gritted her teeth as she ran across the combat arena, trying to evade the attacks to the best of her ability.
And yet, Cæ was just getting started.
In the blink of an eye, ten magic circles emerged before him.
"Tsk." She clenched her fists as several magic circles.
Apprentice mages were generally defined to be limited to fifteen or fewer first-circle spells, meaning he was rapidly approaching the limit of the apprentice rank despite having only studied magic for a year.
Most apprentice mages in the Elendir Institute of Magic could only manage seven or eight.
The fact that Cæ could easily conjure ten at once showed just what caliber of a mage he was. In particular, she had to admit that his eidos manipulation was spectacular.
She activated maneuvering magic as she manipulated her own body to push herself around the combat arena, allowing her to evade his attacks with greater ease.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!
She weaved past several blasts of wind, before somersaulting through the air to evade spikes emerging from the ground in the combat arena.
FWOOSH!
A giant fireball headed her way the very moment she landed on her feet, threatening to burn her where she stood.
"Tsk, annoying! Just how many spells can you cast?" She leaped away, running across the combat arena as she continuously evaded his relentless siege of spells. What stunned her the most was the diversity of spells that he had at his disposal, allowing him to constantly keep her on her toes.
With the six elements and conjuration, change, and manipulation at his disposal, he had a wide variety of magic spells at his disposal, making it difficult to predict him compared to opponents that had a more focused suite of magic spells that were useful in combat.
On top of that, she wasn't even a particularly direct, confrontational fighter because much of her eidos capacity was already being used up for divination. The spell allowed her to see the flow of magical power as it converged with eidos, allowing her to understand what the spell would be even before he launched it.
Her attention was drawn back to him once he began chanting Magia under his breath, even as he cast magic spells at her with magic circles.
"Double-casting…!" she cursed as she immediately began taking a more aggressive approach to reach him, seeking to try and get to him before he could complete his incantation.
Incantations took time, but, in turn, they were more powerful because they had a greater capacity because of the time they took. They allowed a mage to greatly exceed their conventional limits as long as they could complete their spells without being interrupted.
"Tsk!" she began weaving through the attacks he cast at her aggressively, desperately trying to reach him before he could cast his big spell that would likely knock her out.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!
She took a risky bet, skidding under several blasts of wind while evading blades of fire with a jump, before sidestepping several beams of light.
WHOOSH
She arrived before him in the blink of an eye.
And yet, she was too late.
A single remark escaped Cæ before he concluded his incantation.
"You."
Her eyes widened as her divination spell allowed her to foresee exactly what the spell would be.
And yet, because of how fast Cæ's magic activated, she wasn't able to react in time.
BOOM!
Her body began spontaneously accelerating with great force as if blasted by some great power, before flying out of the magic arena with great speed and power.
BANG!
She struck the other wall on the other side of the facility wall, protected from critical injury as the enchantments on the athletic uniform lit up.
"Winner: Cæ!"
The student body lit up with a roaring excitement.
"How did he do that?!"
"She's so hard to land a single attack on her!"
"He just blasted her out of the combat arena that easily!"
Unbeknownst to them, it was a magic spell on her body itself, using manipulation magic to fling her out of the ring by force.
Since her form itself was the target of the magic, she could dodge it.
Normally, an interference field prevented other mages from casting magic directly on one's body, but because Cæ had painstakingly used an incantation to build up more power, he could overwhelm her interference field and cast magic on her directly.
"To think he can also double-cast! That's incredible!"
"His chances of winning the selection process are even higher than before!"
"To think he is a polyelemental and an apprentice double-caster! What unfair talent!"
Of course, they didn't know that both of those were merely side effects of being a pure mage. It granted him many individual side effects that were considered rare talents in and of themselves.
He threw one last glance at Marwily, who was carted away in a stretcher for medical aid, before walking off stage.
He was glad that he had ended with a single battle, but he was not pleased by the fact that he wasn't able to do it without revealing his double-casting. It was one of the trump cards that he had hoped to reserve for later in the fight. He directed a sweeping gaze at several of the participants waiting for their turn, studying him with a severe expression.
They had undoubtedly taken note of this ability of his and were likely already considering how they were going to use it.
Of course, the only way it would be relevant is if they fought him in the seven-contestant final round.
The moment his battle ended, he began studying the other contestants and their fights, looking to see who would be the most threatening to deal with.
Yet, one fight drew his attention the most.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Mielin waved the staff in her hand as her golden hair elongated, lashing out across the combat arena with great ferocity and power. Her opponent, Hyoken Sirura, was hardly moved by the unorthodox magic, simply swinging his spear with expert movements as his body cast waves of ice that chopped at her hair, leaving them covered in a layer of frost.
CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK!
Mielin's eyes sharpened with bloodlust as several more magic circles emerged before her in the blink of an eye.
"How dare you chop my beautiful hair, you icy scoundrel!"
With a wave of her hand, her hair began growing hotter and hotter as the air and light around it began dancing because of the heat. The heated hair strands lashed out towards her opponent as a myriad of hair whips threatened to blast him where he stood.
His expression hardened as his spear turned into a blur, unleashing a tremendous wave of frost, threatening to freeze her solid as he had his previous opponent.
SZZZ SZZZ SZZZ!!!
Steam erupted in the air as the intense heat of her hair met with the ice, causing vapor to immediately ascend from the ice, curbing the ice attack with heat and force.
Meanwhile, the ice reduced the temperature of her attacks while smothering the momentum of the hair that she manipulated.
"Hah!" Several more magic circles emerged before her as she waved her hand, causing her hair to grow more intense in its power while they began spreading into individual strands that were too many to individually track.
WHOOSH!
The air shook as the hair surged towards her opponent, threatening to get a hold of him if he so much as missed a single strand of hair!