Grey’s last battle was against a student in the Eighth stage. Although he won, he was worn out from the after-effects of the battle he had with Damian. It took Grey almost ten minutes before he was able to defeat his opponent, and he was mostly on the defensive, trying to save as much energy as he possibly could.
One clean strike was all it took to defeat his opponent at the end. This was the first time Grey was this exhausted from the battles, the upside about the whole event was that his last opponent wasn’t either Sheila or Alan. He would have definitely lost if he had battled any of them.
After the battles, Grey went home directly. There was no way he could train in this condition, he needed rest.
He woke up just before sunset, the exhaustion had died down a little. Since he couldn’t train, he decided to try comprehending the elements. Damian’s use of the earth element gave him more understanding of it.
Compared to him, Damian was more adept in the earth element, hence he has more understanding and depth of it. Grey was able to learn some things in the battle, so he wanted to use his newfound knowledge and see if he could break through the bottleneck and successfully advance the grade to purple.
That day ended without any results.
The next day…
Grey went for his morning training as usual, after returning he felt more energetic compared to the previous day. The battle with Damian nearly drained him, the other battle, did the job. Luckily, he won both.
As it stands, out of thirteen battles, he had already won eight. He had five battles left, Reynolds and Klaus were two of the five, while the other three were Sheila, Alan, and another student at the Eighth stage.
“How are you feeling today?” Alice asked on seeing Grey.
They all saw how exhausted he was after the last battle he had yesterday, he was barely able to walk home.
“I’m much better, I shouldn’t have a problem with battling today” Grey smiled. He appreciated the support and care his friends always showed him.
When the group heard this, they all smiled. Grey’s situation could almost be said to be the same as Damian’s, the only difference was that Grey managed to struggle home, while Damian didn’t even know how he left the arena.
“Who would have thought Damian was a summoner?” Klaus asked.
“I was taken by surprise when the golem suddenly appeared” Reynolds joined in the topic.
“How did it feel to battle against it?”
“Well, not good,” Grey said.
After thinking for a while, he added.
“It’s like battling an unbeatable opponent. It doesn’t feel pain, so no matter how hard you hit it, it would just shrug it off like it was nothing. It can regenerate which made it almost immortal, it’s fast, which you all witnessed during the battle. And it radiates some sort of pressure that oppresses its opponent”
“Now that I think of it, it suddenly made sense why it was able to keep up with my speed. Although it’s fast, it shouldn’t be to the same extent as I am”
This baffled Grey during the battle, no matter what movement technique he uses, the golem was always able to keep up with his speed. There was a time he even infused his body with the wind element, coupled with the lightning element, but it was still able to keep up.
Speed was something he was proficient in, given the fact that he has two elements which boost the speed of the Elementalist.
“It truly is strong, but the consumption of elemental essence is terrifying. Damian wasn’t even able to keep it up for five minutes before passing out from overexertion” Reynolds said.
“I think it had something to do with its regeneration ability. Since it depends fully on the element essence of its summoner, technically, it would also need the essence in regenerating. This, in turn, would increase the amount of essence the summoner provides” Grey deduced.
He thought of this when he noticed the difference in speed after the first regeneration, this must have been a result of the limited amount of essence in the summoner’s body.
They continued discussing till the battles were about to start. Grey’s first battle was against Sheila.
When the crowd noticed the fighters, they all looked on with interest. Grey was already tagged the second strongest in the tournament. Although Grey was strong, they felt Alan was stronger by a margin.
Grey and Alan were the only ones who had never lost a battle since the tournament started. Grey and Alan were both tied on eight victories, with Sheila following closely behind with seven. The next student only has five, same as two others, Reynolds was on four, while Klaus was on three, same as Damian, and two others.
One student was on two victories, with one student having one victory. The last student had zero victories, and he knew his chances were gone.
After the battle started, Grey didn’t waste any time and sent out three earth spikes and six lightning orbs towards Sheila. He planned to end the battle as soon as possible to prevent any unexpected surprise, the one he had the previous day was enough for him.
Sheila dodged the attack expertly before sending out her own attacks. They exchanged moves with Grey getting the upper hand during the first two minutes.
“Lightning Rain” Grey mumbled under his breath.
He had been searching for an opportunity to use it, so when he got to the opportunity, he didn’t delay.
Sheila’s heart tightened when the first bolt struck towards her, she remembered the attack from the previous day. It was hard to defend against due to the number of lightning that strikes towards the target.
She used water to form a protective shield around her. It was able to survive the first set of attacks from the lightning, but on doing this, she couldn’t have a chance to attack since her focus was placed on her protective shield which was being bombarded with attacks.
On seeing his opponent fall on the defensive, Grey’s attack started getting more aggressive. Slowly but surely, the water started dying down and soon Sheila was left unprotected, Grey launched towards her and ended the battle quickly with Sheila admitting defeat after not being able to keep up anymore.
Grey went back to his seat and waited for his next battle. Klaus won his first battle for the day which brought him to four wins, Reynolds wasn’t so lucky.
Grey’s next battle was Klaus, which he didn’t even bother to go to the platform. Since Klaus was the only one present, he won by forfeit.
They all waited patiently. Grey had three battles left, one against Reynolds, one against the other student at the Eighth stage, and finally one against Alan.