Above them, two teenagers floated like gods. One of them wore a red robe that matched his black hair and red eyes. His height was medium and he did not have much muscle mass. His hands were still behind his body. His neutral gaze made it seem like he was looking at children.
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The other wizard was a girl with white hair and eyes of the same color. His skin was white to a strange point. She was wearing a cute dress that mothers normally put on little children. Completing its design was a parasol covering its entire body. What no one knew was that this mere parasol was a staff that filtered mana. Not only that, he was at the peak of the mage realm.
An eerie silence began in the arena. Just two people, alone, could scare the two teams together. The two made eye contact with Kayden, Locke, and the other commander, all people they considered potential dangers.
"Attack", they just ordered their team forward. If something went wrong, they would step in immediately. If they only won through brute strength, they might not have the best gains in merit points.
Kayden activated his path and, as previously agreed, neither of the two teams moved forward. The boy was accumulating an absurd amount of mana around him. His path, with the addition of two concepts, elevated him above any apprentice.
When team 2 got to about 100 meters away, they started to notice static energy around it. Most didnât pay much attention, only apprentices sensitive to the lightning element noticed.
When they reached 50 meters, everyone started to get anxious. The wind was strong, pushing the tall grass across the plain. The imposing sun and spaced white clouds symbolized a great day for a battle.
"The sea of lightning," Kayden muttered the name of the technique he developed using Zeusâ lightning as a base. It consisted of manipulating much more than just a small area. At the moment, Kayden was practically covering the entire other team with the spell.
The amount of mana used was simply absurd. It would take at least 30 apprentices perfectly performing the task and synchronized to achieve the strength of this attack. Within seconds, chaos began.
BOOOM!
BOOOM!
BOOOM!
It felt like a divine punishment with dozens of lightning bolts falling on all sides. Each of them was capable of knocking an apprentice out of the arena and hurting those nearby. Cries of pain and despair were heard by the dozens.
The first to react were the mages who instantly took action. The boy went towards Kayden carrying a spear, while the girl began to heal the wounded troops.
With a joint effort, hundreds of spells from the two allied teams flew at the wizard, preventing him from approaching quickly. This only took a few more seconds but managed to drop the number of participants on the other side to just 25 members.
The spell that Kayden used now could be considered a genuine first-realm spell. Its destruction potential was ridiculously high. The only problem was that there was no way to select the targets correctly.
With that, the battle began. Locke and Kayden were responsible for trying to take care of the wizard while the rest of the team faced the other wizard with the survivors. While the battle was going on, the three were just staring at each other. The rest didnât matter. This fight alone would decide 50% of the outcome.
"You are mere apprentices. The difference between us is too great. I have one path and four concepts. Just give up," said the wizard. One path and four concepts. Just those words carried unimaginable weight.
Kayden didnât respond and, utilizing his path to the fullest, approached the wizard at high speed. What was extremely fast for him was average for the wizard. But it still surprised him, as it was average for those in the first realm.
Kaydenâs attack landed deadly on the opponentâs neck, who only defended it with a blow of his own. The force pushed the katana back and, before he could land another blow on Kayden, Locke came from the side and attacked horizontally.
This small exchange showed Kayden that the difference in strength was very large. It was different from facing a weak mage like he did in the entrance test. Still, he didnât give up and tried to make the best of it.
The opponentâs spear began to fill with water around it, and small drops kept dripping from it. Locke used a fireball spell to test the ground and the water from the spear spread out into a blanket and defended as if it were nothing.
Kayden wasted no time and went towards his opponent again, using his technique to the fullest and everything within his power. He arrived in front of his opponent and attacked from the side. The blow was defended by the blanket of water and the spear came tearing at him. Kayden didnât even have the opportunity to defend himself as a huge gash opened up on his shoulder.
Locke followed closely behind, his body was on fire from a secret royal family technique. His strength approached that of a weak mage, but the two concepts he learned were stacked, increasing his strength. Even so, his attack was parried by the blanket and then he received an attack that cut his chest slightly. The attack only wasnât deep because the flames started to spread towards the wizard.
The water couldnât even put out the flames. It seemed like she was alive and would consume everything she could. Within seconds, a part of the spearmanâs shirt was turned to ash. This was the royal familyâs signature ability, divine flames.
As the spearman retreated, Kayden took the opportunity to strike from the blind spot. Again, the water blanket parried the attack and pushed him back. His retreat was accompanied by the spearman who stuck to him with his weapon and attacked the same shoulder.
Ghastly, Kaydenâs arm was hanging by just a few strands of flesh and bone. He could see practically everything, and yet he didnât even blink. His next attack was a Zeus bolt. He had planned to take the blow and put the spearman exactly where he wanted.
BOOOM!
This ray used the sum of four concepts and all the mana in the region that Kayden could control. Two concepts pushed his path to a new level and the other two concepts increased his proficiency in his element.
For a moment, a gigantic flash stopped all the fighting that was going on. The earth shook as if a bomb had been exploded in the region. The shock wave swept across the entire plain.
"What the fuck?" Once again, the dean found himself surprised by Kayden and had to rethink his conception of the apprentice level. This spell was genuinely at the page rank, not only that, it was not of the early first realm.
The spearman staggered away, holding one of his arms. Half of his body had serious burns, his hair was standing on end, and his clothes were destroyed, leaving him with only a pair of pants hanging by threads.
Kayden didnât give him time to recover and rushed at his opponent. The man in the environment was still scarce for him to use the lightning again, so he could only rely on his reserve and physical strength.
"The path of the river is eternal," said the spearman. With the sentence, the blanket of water expanded into a small river in his domain that floated around him. He took several different forms, but the main one was a dozen spears made of pure water.
As soon as Kayden arrived, he was met with several blows in a row. Without any fear, he defended himself with a strike of his own, and... Kayden staggered forward as he passed through the spear made of water easily.
Without hesitation, he retreated, but his slip came at a cost when another spear stabbed into his left leg, leaving a large gash in his thigh. His mobility should have dropped to dangerous levels at this moment, but unnaturally, the boyâs mana kept his leg intact through perfectly woven mana threads.
"This is a losing fight," Kayden said. All of the spearmanâs wounds were being healed by the water at an accelerated rate. In just a few seconds, he was already back to his peak. Locke even tried to stop the healing, but was caught by the formless spears and received a deep wound in his arm.
Half of the spears were against Kayden and the other half against Locke, in just a few movements the two were in tatters, the spear was soft and hard at the same time, it had no shape, no texture.
Locke was the first to be eliminated, he could have put up a good fight if he had used all his techniques, but he still hadnât managed to balance his concepts correctly with his old skills and this severely hampered his performance.