The battles between everybody raged on while Sagar stood with Talia engaging in some discussion with her. Sagar only knew that she was someone of the Expert level but he wasn't sure of how she fights or how well she could fight. Whenever she would meet up with him at the training grounds at the Drak residence not once did he see her practice or engage in any sort of spar.
He was curious about how she would do against the other Experts in their group and wondered which one it would be. Each of them were around their age so they were probably from well off families with each having their own specialization. Most of the Experts were actually mages but there two warriors among them so Sagar wondered how they would stack up against their magic casting counter parts.
Anyway Sagar eventually got called up once again to fight against someone else. It was to the same platform as last time so it was either a coincidence or the judges actually did have some sort of structure to this entire test.
His opponent this time was a mage instead of a warrior and he wasn't sure what kind of element this person had been using while the one in question might know the one he uses. This was because Sagar purposely didn't really pay attention to the matches as if he ever encountered someone who means him harm he most likely won't have any information about that person and it wouldn't be a friendly match at that time.
While Sagar had technically accumulated a good amount of battle experience that was mostly against beasts and not humans. Some beasts may have special abilities that may catch him off guard but in the lower levels in power they're a rare find, for example the alpha wolf he fought a couple years ago was one such beast.
You could say that Sagar has experience fighting humanoids or at least beings with some form of higher intelligence but Sagar didn't really count that. He had the total initiative in the encounters with him launching an attack first, a sneak attack at that. He also wasn't in a good state of mind when he was attacking them as well so he wasn't able to fully digest the experience as recalling it now most of his actions were a complete blur to him.
Either way the judge announced the start of the match and neither of the two fighters moved. Both of them were trying to gauge the other in case something out of their expectations happened. Sagar decided to take the initiative this time and started forming a tiny explosion near the mages body. Noticing Sagar's move the mage quickly cast a spell as well but before Sagar could clearly see what that spell was his explosion already went off causing dust clouds to kick up and cover his opponent.
Seeing that the mage wasn't knocked out of smoke Sagar assumed he did something to block the explosion. Before the smoke could clear though Sagar felt the presence of some mana coming from below him and quickly responded by jumping into the air.
What burst out of that ground looked to be some sort of water tendrils that tried to wrap themselves around Sagar, at least they would of if he was still standing there. Feeling that their prey had jumped into the air the tendrils followed after him at a relative speed.
To try and get ride of the tendrils Sagar focused his manipulation of the explosion element into his hand trying to control the dispersal of the actual explosion. When he felt that it was finished he unleashed his attack which released like it was some sort of beam of power. To say that the tendrils were evaporated would be a complete understatement because as soon as they touched Sagar's attack they vanished as if they weren't even there in the first place.
This spell was something Sagar was working on at the moment as while looking though some of the regular spells that the Drak family uses he found one called 'Explosive Cone' in which the caster would focus an explosion he casted and send it to whatever desired target he wanted. The only problem with the spell was that it couldn't be used near the caster as the blow back may potential hurt them so they had to move the spell elsewhere. Moving it at a good speed required heavy control so this spell was usually used on defensive structures or opponents that are acting like turtles.
Sagar was just releasing it in front on him which would cause him some damage if he had a normal mages body. He would say that even a warrior might be hurt from it depending on the amount of power used in the attack. Sagar could be a bit carefree with it because technically he had the body of a warrior of the Expert level but even still he couldn't put too much power into it.
Landing back onto the ground Sagar turned to look at his opponent who was now visible as all the smoke was cleared up. The mage was wrapped up in a sphere of water which was probably the reason he didn't go flying from the explosion and also wasn't hurt by it, but the sphere seemed like it would disperse at any moment along with the mage inside looking a bit worn out.
What Sagar didn't know was that the tendrils of water he destroyed was one of the aces that this mage liked to use. It wasn't an appropriated spell for someone of his level to use as it uses quite a bit of energy but the results from it are astounding. The tendrils themselves are very hard to destroy and everyone that this mage has fought has never really been able to deal with them. They either exhaust themselves or get ensnared after which the mage would naturally win. Unfortunately Sagar used something that could completely get rid of them causing the mage to not only lose all the mana he put into them but also suffer some negative feedback from it as well.
Soon the sphere of water dispersed and the mage collapsed from exhaustion with the judge declaring Sagar to be the winner along with somebody to come over to pick up the unconscious mage.
Walking back to where Talia was Sagar noticed she wasn't standing there anymore as she was actually walking towards one of the platforms. Talia noticed that Sagar had finished up his match and gave him a thumbs up which Sagar returned in kind.
Her opponent was of course someone else of the Expert level and was also a mage like her. Both Talia and the mage got ready while the judge announced the start of their match. Before the judge had even finished shouting begin mana from the mage surrounded Talia which then formed into a sort of long stone mats which then began closing on each other trying to crush Talia, but before they could meet her a barrier formed around her preventing them from closing on her.
Not even a moment after the collision something erupted from the sides of Talia's barrier completely destroying the stone mats and leaving the barrier itself look like it took no damage from the collision. This spell was something Sagar at read about in the Drak library called the 'Explosive Barrier'.