The moment his sword touched the ground, the fire layers around him dimmed as a giant ball of fire appeared. It was born from the tip of his sword, and kept enlarging in size, with Jim in the middle floating in front of the eyes of the three werewolves, his teammates, and everyone present at the arena.
Jim glanced at the three werewolves and assessed them. One was quite special while the other two weren't that bad either. "Surrender and I will show you mercy," he said in a tone that was so deepened, coming from the depth of the fire.
"Never," one of the youths said before he stubbornly used his claws to initiate the claw tornado ability. Yet Jim didn't faze and waited for him to finish his attack before laughing.
"Do you think you can harm me now?" then he waved his sword and he moved towards the youth with the ball of fire engulfing them both.
"Howl!" The werewolf was burnt by the fire in front of the close eyes of his comrades before dying a very agonized death.
"Your turn," Jim turned to glance at the second werewolf before adding, "surrender or you will meet the same fate!"
"N- Never!"
"Tsk, then die!"
"Howl!"
The second youth met the same painful end. Jim glanced at the gem he initially sat his gaze upon. "Your turn…"
"I surrender, I surrender, please don't kill me, please…"
Before he even continued his threatening words the last werewolf knelt to the ground and pleaded for mercy. 'A coward?' Jim muttered to himself, before adding, 'yet it's a good coward to me.'
"Stand, you are now my servant," Jim said before landing on the ground waiting for his ball of fire to be extinguished.
He didn't have full control over this spell yet, and so he didn't know to terminate it!
"The winner is Jim's team," the voice of the capped master rang in the almost silent arena. "Take a five minutes break and wait for your next challenge."
The words fell and everyone just realized what happened. The master used Jim's name this time as a sign of appreciating Jim's abilities.
"Let's go, we need to rest," Jim said as he led everyone to the side while waiting for his ball of fire to be extinguished.
Yet the ball lasted longer than he expected!
"Wow, you have such a nice trick up your sleeve," Lan was the happiest one here, as this fight which seemed desperate at first was brilliantly won by them.
This wasn't all; they gained such a talent to be added to their team.
"What's your name, wolf kid?" Jenny was the first to show interest in that werewolf, yet her wordings caused him to be quite annoyed.
"I'm not a wolf, that one here is the wolf," he arrogantly said before Jim gave him a silent glance to hurriedly add, "my name is Rick, nice to meet you all."
He tried to act humble yet Jenny laughed while Gorden sneered. "Don't think you are a mighty werewolf clansman anymore; you are like me, a servant for our mighty boss."
He gestured to Jim who just smiled and said nothing.
"Never thought you are this capable," Pat remarked before adding, "never heard of a human possessing such strength with fire! And you can use spells as well!"
It seemed what Jim did back there left quite the impression inside that youth and everyone else as they nodded in agreement.
"Spells are rare to learn outside the academy, even my ability is limited because I couldn't support it with spells," Rick said, trying to show his admiration and support.
"Let's stop this and start to rest," Jim said before turning to Lan, "it's your turn to know who is our next opponent."
Lan nodded and went fast towards the other side of the arena. After five minutes he returned with a puzzled face.
"What?" Jenny said, "is our enemy this strong?"
"Well, in fact we are the strong ones here," Lan laughed before glancing over the fire ball ignited around Jim's body, "everyone is afraid of his fireball, so no team volunteered to come forth and challenge us for this round."
"Really?" Ashley said, "so we are winning a round?"
"Yes, simply like that," he nodded before adding, 'hopefully your ball will last for the rest of the test, hehehe."
Everyone laughed while the capped master's voice rang in the arena. "There are no courageous challengers for this round, so Jim's team will win this by default," he paused before adding, "this is their third win. If the next round was won the same way, they will end up being in the inner academy."
His words seemed hostile, yet his tone was warm. Jim didn't feel any ill intentions coming from him, instead he felt trust in Jim's abilities.
It was like he wanted to see more, and thus he tried to push some to come forth and challenge his team the next round.
"What is he trying to pull here?" Deno seemed annoyed by the words that the master said. "Shouldn't he be fair?"
"He seems… quite energetic to see us fight," Lan turned back to glance at the master's direction. "While I was there, I overheard him speaking about our team in a good way."
"But this… he is pushing others to come and challenge us!" Jenny was annoyed as well.
"It's not important," Jim said while adding, "after all we are one battle away from winning this test."
His words were met by nodding from everyone. It was this close and yet they all felt quite nervous.