Benjamin went to look for a seat, paying no mind to the stares he received from his actions. He closed his eyes in relief, there's was no need to participate.
Seeing how someone just accepted to be last among the top ranks, a ranking position filled with competition, they all had one similar thought. 'Something was wrong with this dude.
The admissions officer, Mr. Booker furrowed his brows but became unconcerned soon after.
"You could choose to concede. That's fine, but if anyone else concedes that person will have to fight against him." He stated, pointing to Benjamin who was seated.
Benjamin was slightly puzzled by this declaration. It would be stupid to not participate only to partake once again.
"Alright, you are now five due to one of you making the choice to yield. You all will use the dome-like platform to fight. Anyone who gets thrown off first loses. The ranking order from last to first will be determined based on who gets thrown off in that sequence. You are all allowed to fight using magic spells and if you like, martial arts."
"Sir could we also use weapons?" Zahad posed a question.
The others looked at his side and saw the sheathed knife. They all had one thought, 'bumpkin'.
The fact of it all is that martial arts and weapon arts originated from the eastern kingdom, a place where humans cultivated magical powers and imtegrated them into combat. They were strong enough to face beasts with their strength.
The irony of it all was that they were the weakest among the three kingdoms, possessing strong martial skills didn't mean you could win a fight with a mage, mages are not beasts but human with higher intelligence. In the past, at the Western kingdom, a mage and researcher named Hyser Odderson disapproved the use of martial arts, seeing it as something applicable to non-mages.
Normal combat as mages involves using spells and different magic techniques to deal damage to the opponent.
The higher the talent, the higher the probability of a mage securing victory over his opponent.
The knolls came along and disapproved that rule, bringing about more versatile and credible techniques that could even overpower a syne three mage.
The knolls made them to understand that if a mage has enough close combat intelligence he could win against another mage who was stronger, but this was only if they were caught unaware. Martial arts as a source protection and defense against attacks waned overtime as the moves could be avoided and deflected using suitable magic spells also owing to the fact that the magic spells did not consume much stamina when compared to martial skills.
Martial arts is currently implemented by mostly mages below syne three. So it was normal for the students to also use fighting styles whilst casting spells.
Anya, Paul, Sarah, Zahad, and Marcus all came to the platform. Each of them getting in position for the fight.
The platform bore a semblance to the one they had at their high school with the exception of this one being more durable and larger.
Mr. Booker paused, giving them a little time to prepare before uttering.
"Start!"
"Doom!"
The first person to move was Zahad. He hit Sarah with a flame ball, almost flinging her off the stage. She cast a water-wave spell to help defend herself against the attack, it worked.
That didn't stop the next attack which came from Paul. He casted a stun spell, which would have hardly worked if she was paying attention to him, he then followed up the attack with a bolt to her stomach, flinging her off violently.
Anya had been hitting Marcus with attacks since the beginning of the fight. For her, he was the only one that would give her a tough time. So she went for him first, unfortunately for her, Marcus decided to only focus on defence. He created a wall of earth and also put boulders in place to deflect any other stray attacks. This move put them at a stalemate.
After Paul succeeded in throwing Sarah off, Zahad looked at him and smile subtly. Paul was confused. 'Did this guy think I did it for him?'
"Why are you smiling?"
"Nothing really." Zahad replied before moving forward, heading straight for Paul, closing the distance.
Paul became alert chanting a spell under his breath, his thoughts running at full gear. Somehow he felt disturbed.
He was right to be as in the next few seconds, Zahad dodged his attack and stabbed him in the shoulder with a knife.
"Ugh!!"
He shouted as the pain triggered a sense of fear in him, remembering the last time he fought in close quarters.
Zahad had a neutral expression, his face was focused as he tried to stab the other shoulder.
Paul's quick thinking helped him this time as he struck Zahad's face with a lightning spell, halting the attack to his shoulder.
Zahad wasn't deterred as he began using spells and knife arts stacking injury after injury on Paul's body. Slashes, cuts. The space was filled with blood.
"Aack! I'll kill you." Paul groaned in pain, he didn't stay idle either as he switched to close combat while striking Zahad with lightning spells. He held Zahad arm and struck him with a bolt spell charring the side of his face in the process.
Anya and Marcus were surprised by the turn of events, seeing the humble Zahad and the calculative Paul fight in such an erratic manner.
Seeing the both of them so engrossed in fighting, Anya thought it was better if she struck one down before dealing with the other, their conditions didn't look good and her fight against Marcus had not yielded any progress.
Anya interrupted the fight, a light-ray spell was directed at Paul.
'This bitch.' Paul thought as he countered it with a spell of his own. Anya got struck instead. She began to support Zahad, ganging up against Paul.
Hit after hit landed on Paul's body, the fight he had against Oscar would be considered a joke.
"You demons!" Paul uttered angrily.
'I know the first position is no longer mine for the taking, I won't go down, if I go down one of you is going down with me.' Paul assured himself.
He started making plans there and then, a sense of calmnesss washed over him.
His aura which was erratic before changed.
Zahad noticed, moving away from Paul with immediate effect.
Anya noticed a little too late, Paul chanted under his breath, "…suryon".
This was a lightning spell that moved mana to a lightning mage's legs enabling them to have short but explosive bursts of speed.
He appeared in front of her preparing another attack, this time she also used a light spell focused on speed. Her's was even better, it granted her all round speed for a longer period.
Anya was always ahead of Paul, attacking repeatedly before he could close the distance.
Zahad wanted to interfere with the fight but stopped once he looked at Paul and realized something. It was also the reason Marcus stopped.
They were moving very fast for syne-one mages. Even if any of their opponents tried to attack it wouldn't reach them before they moved.
Also, before the fight Paul was just an awakened mage but now he had broken through to syne one. This wasn't the only reason why they didn't attack.
"He..."
"This guy..."
Once again, Anya didn't realize till it was too late.
'A double-edged attack' Zahad and Marcus thought almost simultaneously.
"You are done Paul, just accept defeat and leave or do you think that the first position would ever be yours?." Anya said jeeringly.
Paul looked on. This time instead of chasing her, he timed the place she wanted to go and reached there before her. Standing in the same spot as Paul, she thought he would strike her.
'huh?' The strike never came.
She got a hug instead. Before she could process what was going on, Paul used the mana in his legs to make a jump, with Anya still in his embrace, he muttered close to her ears as he chanted a spell ''...lectro".
"Bzzz!" An abundant amount of electric currents went into her body. Anya received the shock of her life.
Well, since Paul embraced her while chanting the spell he was also electrocuted though the intensity wasn't as strong because he could bypass the charge.
The spell Paul used was a powerful lightning spell used by mages from syne two and above. The spell made the lightning mage gain the ability to pass current electricity through his body to other materials. A syne one mage was capable but they could end up hurting themselves if it's not done properly.
Paul once tried it while training and ended up bedridden for days. This was the second time he was doing it.
'Since I have broken through I should be out for a few days but it's worth it.' This was Paul's line of thought.
Anya's body was numb with pain as they both jumped off the platform together. Her body touched the ground outside of the platform first which meant that she lost before Paul.
Experiencing an excruciating seizure of pain. Her body went through involuntary muscle contractions.
Paul let go of her, feeling pain in all his joints.