Bab 150: Book 5: Chapter 24 – Ace Shocks The Entire Pavilion
"Why didn't you use impose earlier?" Killian asked as he watched Amira re-sheathe her swords. "You wouldn't have gotten yourself backed into a corner if you had."
He knew Amira's not using it earlier wasn't because she didn't want to; he could sense it during their heated exchange; at the time, she had genuinely been giving it her all, but that's why it didn't make sense to him.
Although it seemed equal, the truth was, Amira came off slightly worse after each exchange, and even if they both had unlimited energy, eventually, he would've won – but that was to be expected as he was one sub-rank higher than her.
Still, if she had used impose, he never would have stood a chance.
"I only comprehended it this morning with Uncle Aiden's help," Amira explained. "My control of it is still shaky at best. I'm not quite able to use it freely mid-battle."
Other than Ace and Arianna, who seemed to have already guessed the truth, the others all turned to the drunkard with a hint of surprise.
"So that's what you meant when you said about things being different had he challenged her the day before…" Mathias said, giving voice to his new understanding.
"Hmm? Why's everyone staring at me?" Aiden asked with raised brows before summoning a new wine gourd. "Don't you have a competition to finish?"
Mathias merely rolled his eyes before turning his head back to the stage. "Mira, as the winner of this round, you have now been promoted to second place."
"Second?" Faye blurted out. "Isn't Julius second?"
"I already told you that to keep things fair, since Julius isn't competing, one could take his place as long as they display strength matching or surpassing his," Mathias explained slowly to dispel any doubts the rest of the class may have. "And in that last round, both Amira and Killian displayed strength at Julius' level."
His words seemed to come as a shock to all the students, bar Amira, Killian, Ace, and Julian.
"He's right," Julius casually shrugged, not seeming that bothered by the decision to lower his rank to fourth. "As it stands, with my comprehension stepping into the profound realm, I can attack with the power of a ninth-ranked mage, and although neither Mira nor Kil can match that in raw power, Amira's speed has reached that level allowing her to dodge those at that level, and Killian's defensive capabilities have also reached that level, though he still can't maintain it for long.
But that's just part of the reason; the most important factor is their freakish battle IQ.
Even if I were to fight, I don't doubt that I'd be beaten black and blue by either of them."
His words were right on the money, allowing his classmates to understand the truth. Still, they couldn't help but look at him weirdly.
"Who knew fatty could be so perceptive when he stepped out of the kitchen?" Yulana voiced as she took a minute to reassess her judgement of the overweight genius mage.
"I'm not just a pretty face, you know?" Julius exclaimed shamelessly.
"No one with skin as thick as yours could ever be pretty!" Ace snorted.
As the students began bickering and laughing amongst themselves, Cirulus watched it all in awe, having never seen anything like it.
"It's one thing to have so many little monsters under one roof, but for them all to be as close as they are… It's incomprehensible," Cirulus muttered to himself.
He better than anyone understood the innate pride and arrogance of geniuses. Even though he was not quite at the level of his new young master and the rest of his classmates, he was still an elite-level talent at one point.
That's how he was all too aware that whenever a group of peak-level talents congregated, it would eventually become hostile due to their innate competitiveness and desire to be number one, but with these ten, there was none of that. Instead, they genuinely resembled a family.
"We shared your same thought process prior to taking them in," Lazerim, Arianna's third disciple, explained as he stroked his beard and watched the group of youngsters with a smile. "And had it not been for Ace's presence, their batch may have been a little more troublesome to manage."
"Because of young master Ace?" Cirulus asked, not understanding Lazerim's words.
"It's simple," Arianna's fourth disciple, Kimika, explained. "If you take Ace out of the mix, though there are still some slight differences in potential and natural ability, it's not too large, and the laws of the jungle would apply with everyone fighting to be number one, but because the throne is sat on by Ace, everyone else basically fell into line, knowing that chasing his shadow was basically futile."
"Haha, this king still remembers how hard they all trained that first year, challenging Ace at least once a month, hoping to close the gap even a little bit." Wukong chuckled. "But because Ace improves too fast, they eventually stopped challenging him as it was becoming too depressing."
"We couldn't ask for a better first batch," Lauriella sighed. "I just hope this next batch won't be too troublesome."
Though she didn't come out and say it, the other instructors knew what she was getting at. The chances of them finding another talent on the level of Ace, who was simply unreachable to his peers, were virtually zero, which meant that the pride and arrogance of this next batch would go untamed.
"You worry too much," Wukong replied. "If the new pups start getting ahead of themselves, we still have the older lot to put them back in their place."
"Little Kong's right," Mathias nodded. "But we're getting ahead of ourselves; we still need to wrap up today's festivities."
As he said that, he turned his head back to the stage. "Mira, as the new second place, would you like to continue challenging or end things there?"
"Continue challenging," Mira grinned as she turned to face Ace. "I need to ensure our top disciple hasn't gotten rusty these last few months."
"Rusty?" Ace asked as an exciting grin suffused his lips.
He had a feeling this would happen; it was why he had initially wanted Arianna to heal him completely.
Although Mira wasn't jealous of Ace, it didn't mean she had given up on chasing his shadow. On the contrary, she would take whatever chance she could get to challenge him.
Even though he wasn't 100%, he had recovered enough to remind his classmates why his ranking would never change.
"Good luck, Mira," Killian declared before hopping off the stage to give the pair room.
"Mira?" Ace asked, feigning heartbreak. "What about me?! I'm your brother!"
Killian took another glance at the battle-ready little Amazonian before looking back at Ace. "Yeah, but she still scares me more."
"Traitor!" Ace said back before turning back to face his opponent with a smile.
"Aren't you going to take out your weapon?" Amira asked as she re-unsheathed her twin katanas. "You better not go easy on me!"
"Don't worry," Ace replied calmly. "I learnt my lesson a long time ago; I won't be making that mistake again."
She knew that Ace was a better warrior than a mage, so she didn't understand why he didn't take his glaive out, but as she could sense his sincerity about taking this seriously, she let it go.
Seeing that both fighters were ready, Mathias gave the signal for the match to begin, and as he did so, Amira took off at her fastest speed.
Julius was right. After using [Soru] in tandem with the fused [Supersonic] and [Soaring], Amira's speed had reached that of a ninth-rank warrior.
Despite having close to 20 meters separating the two of them, Mira had still closed the gap in a fraction of a second, making Ace sigh in appreciation, as he knew that Mira had officially surpassed him in terms of speed now.
Still, before the blade of her sword could make contact with his neck, a blazing red skin-tight aura coated Ace's body slowing her slash to a near crawl where it went on to be stopped by his now blackened skin.
Though power wasn't her strongest attribute, that was still the most powerful physical attack she could muster, combining both states of wielding, impose, and her speed. All things considered, she reluctantly had the power of an early-stage ninth-rank warrior, and yet Ace was able to block her attack with relative ease.
"Were you trying to kill me with that last attack?" Ace asked as his fiery palm stretched towards Amira's flawless neck, snapping her out of her dazed.
"Only if you had held back," Amira said with a fiendish grin as she leapt back, easily evading Ace's palm.
She was just about to attack again when, despite the fact that it was the middle of the day, the sky seemed to brighten tenfold, and the temperature in the surrounding area skyrocketed.
Subconsciously looking up towards the source of the sudden illumination, Mira's eyes turned to pinholes as her face was covered in sweat.
"[Scorching Spear Shower]." Ace said calmly.
In the skies above were hundreds of crimson, fiery glaives, identical to Ace's 'Newgate'.
"You… that…" Amira stammered as she looked at the spears in disbelief before looking back at Ace. "Peak Arch-Magus…"
That's right, the power of Ace's spell had reached the peak of the ninth rank, meaning he held the power of one of the generals. If he were to truly attack… Forget Amira, the whole of the Yin-Yang mountain would end up incinerated.
No one could believe what they were witnessing.
Though the other students were shocked by Ace's power which had apparently reached the very apex of the mortal world, the instructors were surprised by something else entirely.
"Is that… Has he really…" Lauriella stammered as her shock got the best of her.
"How's that possible?" Mathias asked, no less surprised than his wife.
The most shocked by this sudden display was, without a doubt, Cesar, which was why when he heard Aiden's lazy voice confirming their suspicions, he almost fell on his back.
"That brat has officially comprehended his first complete profound mystery."
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Book 7: Chapter 30 – Kannal's Swordsmanship
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