Chapter 27: Accident on Arena
In the arena, there were ten students from each class and they were the representatives of each class. Of course, Alex was not in the line since he had lost the other day.
"The class challenge started now. We will give the opportunity for E-Class representatives to choose their opponent first."
Cheers erupted from the audience signaling that the challenge had started.
"Student Arwin, please choose your opponent," Arwin was the number 10 of class E. He is an 18 years-old warrior with spiky yellow hair and delinquent looking face.
"I chose student Caroline from D-class," Caroline was placed 9 in class D yesterday. When everyone saw Arwin choose Caroline to be his opponent, everyone was booing him. Both of them had the same power, which was rank 1 warrior, though.
"Wuuuu..."
"Challenging a woman? Be a man!"
"You are a sissy!"
Arwin shamelessly walked to the arena like he didn't hear any booing.
"Please go easy on me," Caroline said politely. Her long white hair was fluttering on the air as she greeted him.
"...." Arwin didn't answer her and chose to maintain his silence.
"Match starts!"
The moment the match started, Arwin immediately charged at Caroline as he swung his sword. This sudden action caught Caroline off guard. She desperately dodged, but it was too late since her left hand still got an injury.
"Wuuu..."
"You don't have any chivalry. You can only use a sneaky attack."
Arwin ignored them and slashed his sword to Caroline but the girl could dodge his slash completely this time. After the previous attack, Caroline raised her guard to the maximum. She instantly parried his attack and sent another swing toward him. The pain of the wound was there when she moved her hand, but she chose to withstand it. Not wanting to look weak in front of others as well.
Now, it was Arwin's turn who got shocked. He thought a woman like her wouldn't be able to withstand the pain when she got injured. So he immediately slashed at her to end the match. But not only she didn't scream but she also made a counter-attack at him.
Caroline saw a little bit of shock in Arwin's face and she took the chance and swung her sword at his center of gravity. Arwin parried the attack but lost his balance. Ultimately, he fell to the ground and Caroline didn't let this opportunity go, she immediately pointed her sword at Arwin's throat.
"End of the match. Caroline wins!"
Cheers erupted again from the audience, especially when they saw the shameless Arwin lost to her. Upon realizing this, Arwin's face became pale because he knew he wouldn't have a place anymore in this academy.
"Caroline!!"
"You reap what you sow, shameless!"
"Bas..."
Caroline left the arena to treat her injury. Seeing that, Alex commended on her, "She has many battle experiences."
Alicia and Firia were shocked when Alex gave a comment about her. They determined in their hearts, 'I won't lose'. Firia, who lost in round 2, still could participate in the challenge since the S-class only had 20 people. The rule said that as long as they won once, they would be in the top 10.
"Next match, class E, please choose your opponent."
The challenge continued for two hours. The winning rate of lower-class fighting the upper class was thirty percent.
Finally, the challenge from the A-class started and their target was surely the S-class.
"I choose Miss Firia as my opponent," the one who said that was an 18 years-old young man, though he was not handsome, he was still above average. He fancied Firia a lot, so he used this chance to show her his worth. He fixed his short blue hair while waiting for her.
"Alex, I'm going," Firia said goodbye to Alex.
"Mmm...Be careful," Alex nodded.
Hearing Alex's response, Alicia was jealous and she pouted. On the contrary, Firia was fired up after hearing him cheering her up. She was determined to win this match.
"Please, go easy on me," Firia said politely.
"If I win, I can teach you, Miss Firia. We have enough time to practice together later on. Of course, in S-class, I will guide you 'thoroughly'," he gulped down when he saw Firia's fiery figure.
Firia disdained him, 'What do you mean by 'thoroughly'? you bastard, I will make sure you won't have the chance to enter S-class'
"Match starts!"
"The fire in my body, hear my command. Manifest yourself as a ball to burn my enemy," the two fighters chanted at the same time.
"FIREBALL!"
The reason he said he wanted to guide Firia was because he was confident in his Fire Element. But the result was not as he planned to be.
He released three fireballs, while Firia released four fireballs. As they were not in the same number, one of Firia's fireballs blasted him away.
Firia only showed three fireballs in yesterday's match. So he thought he could win since he could use three fireballs too. It had never crossed his mind that Firia hadn't actually concealed her full strength. He felt regretful for underestimating her. He thought he could beat her with his firepower.
"Firia wins!" the audience cheered. Of course, many of them were Firia's fans.
Firia only ignored them and came back to her seat.
"How was my battle, Alex?"
"As long as you are not injured, it's okay," he nodded.
She gave Alex a bright smile while Alicia was pouting again. The challenge continued for a while. After the eighth challenge, Joshua was chosen this time. Since the one who already challenged couldn't be chosen again. That means only two people left, which were Joshua and Alicia.
Joshua challenger was a rank 1 pinnacle warrior. The warrior wanted to imitate how Alex won from Joshua. But since Alex was a rank 3 while he was a rank 1 warrior, he lost easily.
Now it was time for the last match which was the fight between Garu Tekuis, a rank 3 warrior vs Alicia.
"Princess."
"What is it?"
"Be careful. I prefer to see you lose than see you get hurt," Alex said worriedly.
He was worried since her opponent was a rank 3 warrior, the same as him. He himself knew well how strong he really was. But he never thought Alicia would be far stronger just because of the two bottles of Spiritual Liquids that he gave yesterday.
Alicia smiled, "Fine, I will be careful."
After she ingested the magic power from Spiritual Liquid, she now had the same magic power as a rank 3 mage.
"Princess, I advise you to surrender now as not to get hurt," Garu arrogantly said. Rank 1 and rank 3 had a big difference in their power.
"I will try to not disappoint him," she glanced at Alex.
"Him?" her opponent also glanced at Alex, "If he is the one I'm going to fight today, I might lose to him. But since I need to fight you, Princess, even if you have a rare ice element, you are still a rank 1 mage. So I will win, eventually."
"We can only see the result after the match."
"Match starts!"
"ICE SPEAR!" Alicia immediately released her magic. Many were surprised by her magic because Alicia did not even chant. Even Alex was surprised by it.
Since Alex's first magic training, she was shocked by Alex's talent. After that, she trained hard to catch up with him. Her competitive nature soared from that day, and she did not want to be outdone by Alex.
Looking at her now, Alex gave a faint smile. Although Alex still hadn't accepted her in his heart, this small intention still moved his heart. At least, there was someone who positively followed you even if she was your rival. It could make one heart smile a bit.
Four ice spears charged at Garu and the guy avoided them while closing his distance between him and Alicia. When the spear missed its target and planted to the ground, they immediately disappeared. Alicia made another ice spear and charged at Garu.
Garu evaded them continuously, his distance with Alicia had shrunk to only a few meters left. Alex became worried after seeing this.
When Garu arrived at her front, he slashed his sword toward her. Alicia tried to parry his slash with her wand. Although she managed to block it, the force left by the swing managed to blow her away.
But before she was blown away by him, she cast magic between them.
"ICE SPHERE!" an ice sphere appeared between Garu and her which ultimately exploded. It birthed a terrifying shock wave.
Since Alicia was blown away by Garu's strength, she didn't confront the shock wave directly from the sphere while Garu was blown away by her ice sphere.
Alicia immediately cast again, "ICE SPEAR!"
Yes, this was the advantage of using magic without chant. They can use magic continuously, as long as they can form them. If they used chants, as long as the chant was disrupted, the magic failed.
Four spears flew to Garu, two to his body, and another two were on his neck. It immobilized him.
"Alicia wins!"
Cheers became an uproar because a rank 1 mage defeated a rank 3 warrior. This was rather shocking news for everyone in the arena.
When everybody cheered at Alicia, Alex only frowned, 'The gap between rank 1 and rank 3 is so huge but she can win, Garu looks like he is inexperienced too.' Alex ponders this for a while, 'Power leveling? Garu did not hunt the monster by himself, but had others hunted them, and then he killed them? This is the most explainable answer at the moment.'
It took a moment for Garu to realize that he had lost, 'Me? A rank 3 lose to a rank 1? Impossible.'
Garu stood up, "Impossible, it's impossible. I'm a rank 3 warrior lost to her?"
Alex frowned and he stood up. He read many stories about this kind of narrow-minded people who would charge at Alicia while saying 'die', wanting to kill her without thinking about the consequences. Alex formed a hand size flame ball, he pinched the ball as the ball started to expand to the back like drawing an arrow.
"Alex?" Firia noticed Alex's movement. She was confused by his actions.
"Die!" Garu charged Alicia with killing intent. It really happened like the stories Alex usually read. The referee didn't have time to react.
"Impudent!" finally, many teachers became angry. But they also didn't have time to react to protect Alicia.
Alex released the ball and it flew toward the ground between Alicia and Garu. Of course, it was closer to Garu since Alex didn't want to hurt Alicia.
The moment the ball touched the arena, it exploded. The shock wave caused Garu to fly and knocked him out...
After a while, they finally realized what just happened. They suddenly looked at the direction where the ball came from. They looked at Alex, who was still in his drawing bow pose.
The teachers immediately went to the arena to calm the situation. A middle-aged man came to Garu to check his condition. He immediately got angry.
"You bastard!" he charged at Alex.
He threw a punch to Alex and he reacted to this as he made a shield of flame to block the attack. Even so, the fist still blew him away and injured him.
This time, the dean was the one who got angry, "How dare you!"
The dean charged at him and severely injured him, and then he checked Alex's injury.
"Are you okay, Alex?"
"I'm fine, Teacher, it's just a minor internal injury."
The dean let out a breath.
"You...you.... why did you injure me?" the middle-aged glared at the dean.
"What do you think you are doing, injuring my student like that? Do you think I'm just a side-kick," the dean was angry at the old man.
"But, he injured my nephew. He was not a participant!" the middle-aged man was Garu's uncle, David Tekuis.
"He dared to charge at Princess with killing intent even though he has lost in front of everybody in the arena," Alex broke his silence.
"You... But it's not your turn to teach him. There's still the referee in the arena."
"If he could react before anything happened, then I won't release my magic. But he didn't have a chance to react."
"You...He had a chance to react, he is a rank 6 warrior, he must have the time to react. So you must be punished. If not, the Dean seems to abuse his position."
The referee came to them.
"Look, the referee is here. You have the time to stop Garu, right?" he gave a threatening glare to him.
He heard about the referee targeting Alex yesterday and succeeded in disqualifying him. So he was sure this referee would help him as well. Unfortunately, the referee had been replaced. The previous referee got injured because the dean beat him hard yesterday.
But because David did not attend yesterday's competition, he didn't know the referee had been replaced.
"I don't have the time to react in the previous attack. This is my blunder and dangering the Princess. I'm ready to take my punishment," he was ashamed by this blunder.
He never thought Garu dared to kill Alicia, "If this young man didn't release his magic at that time, I couldn't imagine what might happen next," he pointed at Alex.
"You...How could you say such a thing?"
"I will report this to His Majesty with everyone as the witness. It seemed that the count wanted to rebel," the dean snorted.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone