Chapter 25: Battling Joshua Again

Not long after Alicia left, Firia came back and she sat beside Alex.

"Alex, how is my performance?" said Firia while smiling.

"Pretty good," Alex didn't say much as he only said that with a single nod.

"Ehehe... So when are we going to train together? You've promised me," even so, Firia was happy with that.

"An hour each day after class, what do you think?" Alex replied.

"Just one hour?" she pouted.

"I need to go to see my teacher," he mentioned his teacher as an absolute excuse.

"Fine!" she couldn't keep nagging at Alex when he had mentioned his teacher, the dean.

Alicia and her opponent arrived on the stage, she looked a bit nervous but could maintain her presence well. Since both of them were ready, the referee announced the fighters again, "Alicia Versus Sigma". Alicia who was called without her honorific had made Alex surprised.

"He didn't call Alicia with 'Princess'?" Alex asked Firia.

"The Academy is a special place, the dean made policies to treat nobles and commoners equally. Even His Majesty has approved it. Even Your Highness, Crown Prince was called by his name when he was a student here."

Alex only wanted to know the reason. So, he merely nodded and didn't say anything back.

Sigma was 17 years-old rank 1 pinnacle earth mage while Alicia was 16 years-old rank 1 ice mage. From the look of it, Alicia was at a disadvantage.

"Princess," he bowed to Alicia politely.

"Please have a nice and fair match," replied Alicia as she smiled at him.

"Match starts!"

"Earth below, hear my command. Get up and strike my enemy. EARTH SPIKE!"

"Ice, hear my command. Freeze the water and shield me. ICE SHIELD!"

The earth spike charged at Alicia, while she made her ice shield. The earth spike almost pierced Alicia's shield, many holes were formed because of spikes and the shield ultimately got destroyed.

"Ice, hear my command. Freeze the water and strike my enemy. ICE SPEAR!"

"Earth below, hear my command. Get up and shield me. EARTH WALL!"

Now was Alicia's turn to attack him. Unfortunately, when the ice spear crashed into the earth wall, it was immediately broken.

"Princess, please surrender. Although ice is a rare element, it can't win the earth element in any way," pleased with his power, he proudly said.

Alicia was infuriated by his word. Although she wanted to keep this a secret until she met Alex on the stage and surprised him, she decided to use this move since she needed to keep winning if she wanted that to happen even if she couldn't surprise him anymore.

"Water in the air, decrease your temperature, and freeze my enemies."

She chanted her magic and the air around her suddenly became colder. Noticing this, the referee immediately arrived in front of Sigma as he grabbed him and escaped outside the arena.

After she finished her chant, she froze half of the arena. In other words, she froze everything in a 10-meter radius, including Sigma's earth wall. If the referee didn't save Sigma, he would be frozen too.

Looking at Alicia's magic, everyone drew a cold breath. A few teachers and students realized something odd, they never heard about this chant. If not because of her insufficient Mana, this magic will have the same power as an intermediate magic spell.

The one who realized it can't help but utter,

"What is this magic?"

"I never heard about this magic."

"This magic, is it an intermediate magic spell?"

Hearing many comments, everybody shuddered.

"16 years old, rare element ice mage, using her own unique chant and her chant even has the power of an intermediate magic spell?"

"A genius!" the ruckus slowly became a cheer.

"Alicia wins!" the referee announced after calming a bit.

Alicia was panting in the arena. Hearing the cheers, she looked at Alex while making a big smile.

'Beautiful' was the only thought that was present when they saw Alicia's pure big smile. The smile Alicia gave just now, was like a snow lotus, pure and untouched. Make everybody want to protect her and her smile.

She left the arena and when Alicia came back, she jumped happily to Alex.

"How is it, Alex?" she was grinning

"Mmm, it's a good fight," Alex nodded.

"Alicia, what was that magic just now?" asked Firia right away. After a week, their relationship still grew despite fighting with each other for Alex. They were friends…probably.

"Alex taught me," she smiled happily with a peace hand sign, she seemed very proud of it.

"What? Alex?" Firia glanced at Alex, she was surprised to hear Alicia's answer.

"Alex taught me the meaning behind the chant, and he taught me about the concept of Ice."

"Meaning behind the chant? The concept of ice?" she kept asking since she was getting more curious, she glanced at Alex then back to Alicia.

"The current chants we know have a meaning and about the concept of ice…what I mean by meaning is about how the ice was formed. In fact, ice itself is freezing water. Another parameter to measure why the water freeze is called 'temperature'. When the temperature dropped to a certain temperature, it started to freeze. We are clueless because we only blindly use those chants. That's why combining those knowledge results in my new magic."

"What?" Firia was surprised by the statement. She glanced at Alex then turned to Alicia and repeated the process a few times, "Since Alex was the one who taught you all of that, that means Alex can do the same?"

"Of course, Alex made a new chant just after me and my sister taught him the basics about magic," she forgot to keep this secret since she got carried away to the point she was flying to cloud nine.

"..." Speechless by the sudden fact, she looked at Alex like a wolf, preying a big fat sheep.

"Alex... you've promised to practice together with me, right? You promised to teach me, right?" with a seducing tone, Firia grabbed Alex's hand. Alex felt two heavenly mountains in his arm. As expected of a fiery goddess, he thought.

When Alicia saw this, she immediately realized that she had done something wrong. She regretted bragging to Firia.

"What are you doing! Don't you dare to seduce him!" Alicia became angry. In fact, she wasn't angry because of Firia. She was mad to herself specifically because she couldn't stop her mouth from blabbering all of that.

"Hehe... but Alex has promised to teach me, I need to pay him," said Firia with a sly smile.

"You want to pay him with your body? No way, if you want to pay him, you can pay him with money. Now go away," Alicia tried to separate them but it didn't seem to be working.

"But I don't have money now. The first-grade student can't go out unless there is a special event from the academy, so I can't get my money, which means I only have my body," she kept clinging tightly at him.

"You can pay him later. For now, you need to keep your distance from him," Alicia was infuriated by her action, 'He is my fiance. How dare you to seduce my future husband in front of me! Bit*h' of course she can't say that aloud. Unbeknownst to her, she already accepted the engagement between them.

Fortunately, their seat was a bit farther from the crowd, so the crowd's attention was still on the arena, not them.

"Princess, Miss Firia, it is now my turn. So please excuse me," he said that while making his escape.

"Hmph," seeing Alex had escaped from them, they looked at each other and snorted at the same time. Something like this always happened when they fought, and Alex escaped from the situation every single time.

Alex's opponent was Mira, a quiet girl in the class. When she saw Alex was her opponent, she surrendered.

The battle continued and in the semifinal, it was decided that Firia will fight Alicia while Alex will fight Joshua.

Alicia won from Firia, Alicia was grinning happily after she beat her. While Firia angrily left the stage, "You can win only because of Alex, hmph."

Before Alicia can get her praise or before Firia can get her consolation from Alex, the guy they were fighting for had arrived on the stage without no one noticing.

It was the time for Alex to fight with Joshua again. The rematch from a week ago could be an exciting match that everyone was waiting for. Now, the match was about to begin.

"Hmph, you could win before just because I underestimated you. But you still trash to me!" Joshua spouted so much nonsense while Alex still maintained his silence.

"Match starts!"

"Earth below, hear my command. Awaken and strike my enemy. EARTH GOLEM!" four golems charged at Alex and he still dodged the golems easily.

"Earth, obey my command. Earth becomes a bolt, one bolt becomes another, get up, and pierce my enemies. EARTH BOLT!" more than a hundred bolts surrounded Alex and charged at him.

This surprised everyone in the arena. Alicia had used intermediate magic today, and now it was Joshua who did the same.

"Die!"

Alex was surrounded by earth bolts and was still hindered by the golems. He was searching his way out. Just about the bolts reached him, he jumped out to the air. The bolts destroyed the golems.

Alex was still in the air and Joshua chanted his spell once again.

"Earth, obey my command. Earth becomes a bolt, one bolt becomes another, get up, and pierce my enemies. EARTH BOLT! DIE!"

Now, Alex didn't have a way out. The dean was angry and he was ready to move at any moment, "Impudent!"

"Wait, Dean Marco. This is the battle between students. We old men just need to sit here and watch them," said Taiga cheekily.

"Taiga, what did you teach your student? Did you teach him to kill his classmate!" the dean roared at him.

"The sword and magic don't have eyes. Wounds and injuries are normal in a fight."

But when everyone thought Alex was finished. He raised his hands and he compressed the air with his Mana and burned a bit. He threw one to the ground to make the explosion. The explosion blew away the bolts and Alex didn't forget to throw another one in Joshua's direction.

When Joshua saw the explosion ball coming toward him, he wanted to escape. The ball exploded not far from him and the referee tried to save Joshua, he made a shield with his magic.

The shock wave blew Joshua away from the arena. Even the referee's hand was scorched a bit.

"Impudent!" Taiga was the one who was angry this time.

"Wait, Teacher Taiga! This is the battle between students. We old men just need to sit here and watch them," the dean stopped Taiga with the exact words he said to the dean seconds ago.

"Marco, what did you teach your student? Did you teach him to kill his classmate!"

"The sword and magic don't have eyes. Wounds and injuries are normal when battling with each other, don't you agree Taiga?"

Taiga was angry hearing it because this was just what he said to the dean. And now it came back to him. While he distracted Taiga, he didn't know there was another scheme for Alex in here.

"You ruthlessly hurt your classmate, do you want to kill him?! You are disqualified," the referee said. Of course, the referee had been bought off by Taiga, so he supported Joshua.

"..." Alex looked at him coldly. He knew this referee must be targeting him.

"Everybody has watched what happened just now, so I'm sure they can decide themselves. Anyway, I don't have any interest in this kind of competition," Alex said those threatening words and left the stage.

He never wanted to be the number 1 anyway, the reason he kept winning was that his teacher told him so, he didn't have any intention to gather attention so he rejected his teacher. But the dean kept nagging at him to win, so he said he would do his best for his teacher.

Since the referee disqualified him, he had an excuse for his teacher now. So, he happily left the arena.

While Alex was happily leaving the arena, both Alicia and Firia were infuriated by the referee. They cursed the referee for being unfair and the dean was busy keeping Taiga in check, so he didn't hear the referee disqualified Alex. If he knew, he would skin this referee alive.

When Alex came back, Alicia and Firia complained.

"Why did you just accept what the referee said, Alex?"

"Yeah, what qualification does he have to disqualify you? Joshua wanted to kill you, but the referee didn't even help you. But when Joshua injured a bit, he disqualified you? That doesn't make any sense."

"Since when you two don't oppose each other?" Alex's concern was not his disqualification. Instead, he was confused by Alicia and Firia because these two girls were usually going against each other's words.

"We..." Alicia and Firia were looking at each other and didn't know what to answer.

"Don't change the topic. We are talking about you right now!" Alicia was angry at how Alex just gave in.

"Yeah, we are talking about you right now!" Firia followed Alicia's words to give her more support.