"And the good news just keeps coming…" mumbled Jacob.
Now he had to win against the dual affinity dreamer with nothing but him and Stephanie as his fighters.
Ressana was taken out of the arena quickly. As that was done Arthur, fairly justifiably, questioned their teacher.
"YOU WERE GONNA LET HER SHOOT ME!?" He shouted, outraged.
"First of all, lower your voice, second, look at the ground." The educated professor calmly responded.
A short look revealed the reason for the teacher's lack of interference.
There was no hole similar to the one created from the first shot.
In other words, the shot was a blank.
The first round had been to implant the idea of real ammunition while the second was to buy her a half second when he was within striking distance.
If all had gone according to plan the blank would have stunned him, allowing her to get a solid hit in and potentially win the match.
Of course, Arthur had instinctively revealed his second mana affinity. From what his analysis could grasp the ability was lightning-powered movement.
There was a rate of error with the ability due to a lack of data regarding similar abilities, but he figured he might as well trust it since he had no other guesses.
This left Jacob feeling some indignation.
First, he had to win with a team that only had three proper fighters of varying strengths against a team that had three good fighters, potentially four.
Then when he managed to almost win while only using two of his three real fighters, he encountered someone who was on par with his best.
Now he only had two non-combatants to win against someone who could go toe-to-toe with their good fighters, and had a relic, and an extra ability that allowed him to damn near teleport.
Before selecting a fighter Jacob decided to take a moment, he needed time to think of a strategy.
He called for a break from their teacher, which was mercifully granted considering the situation, not to mention Arthur would be given a chance to rest.
First was Arthur's relic, he decided to recall everything he knew to see if there was some angle he could use.
Relics were items that could be found as almost side quests in the dream realm.
Their technical name was soul-bound items, as they were the only objects that could be brought back into the real world from the dream realms.
But since a great many of them were found in ruins and other remnants of civilisation, many had taken to calling them relics.
They were categorised by rank and the realm they came from.
The way rank was determined was simple, mana.
The rule of thumb was that a ranked relic could be used by a dreamer of the same rank without consuming too much mana. For example, a rank two dreamer could properly use a rank two relic.
Of course, relics could be used outside their ranking, a rank one dreamer could use a rank two relic but would run out of mana much faster.
The opposite applied to higher-ranked dreamers being able to use lower-ranked relics much more.
The realm they came from was also necessary since the relic would only accept mana of the correct affinity, other mana types would simply fail to summon or utilise its function.
Since Arthur was most likely the same rank as them then his relic should be ranked zero.
This relieved Jacob somewhat as according to his limited research rank zero relics rarely held many tricks and simply acted as normal items that could be summoned at will.
This also meant that there was no obvious weakness to the blade, other than it using some of Arthur's mana to summon it.
Jacob sat there for a few more moments as he thought of a plan, he had gained another card to play right before Ressana had finished his fight, a little gift from his combat system it seemed.
But he also knew it wouldn't be enough to win the fight.
Luckily, he was used to thinking outside the box.
Soon enough he called for the break to be over and for Stephanie to step up to the plate, going over the details of his plan as he did so.
She looked at him sceptically as he finished his explanation.
Probably because his plan was less of a plan and more of a rough idea that he hoped would allow them to barely win.
After a solid three seconds of deadpan staring, she turned away and stood in the arena.
Arthur stood on the opposite side, clearly a little put off by his opponent's lack of confidence or proper stance.
A good thing too, any hesitation he had would increase the odds of Jacob's plan working.
Both opponents stood facing each other before the first move was made.
Arthur quickly moved forward, electing not to use his movement ability.
The wrong call, his second wrong call since he stepped into the arena.
Partway through his approach an odd head sprouted from the ground, it had large ears and a leathery grimacing face.
It was Stephanie's summon, the knocker.
What was even odder was that over the next few seconds, it smashed its hands into the ground and reared its head back as it roared, deafening the charging young man that had gotten close to it.
Arthur quickly recoiled, covering one of his hands with his ear as he did so.
But even that took only a moment as the man's ridiculous battle instincts kicked in again, allowing him to tune out the sound of the knocker.
He then proceeded to charge at his adversary, or rather its summoner to end the battle as quickly as he could.
That very adversary had moved around the arena, almost as if trying to flank him by using the sound of the knocker as a smokescreen.
But upon seeing him regain his clarity she decisively jumped off the arena.
After seeing her leave the arena he halted, happy that he had won without expending much effort.
Only to be hit in the back of the head by Jacob.
Hard.