For the first time since the matches started Stella frowned.
“Out of all the possible enemies she had to fight one of the two that I specially didn’t want her to”, she thought as she inwardly gritted her teeth.
Then she stole a gaze at the place where the half emperors were sitting and a bitter light glowed in her eyes as she glared at Sawyer and Arthur, but it wasn’t even a second before she buried her thoughts deep in her heart.
The referees stepped down the platform and the match officially started, not even wasting one second an ice mask appeared on Gina’s face, unlike the weak freezing effect of the blizzard element Wade showed before, this was true ice element.
“Woaahhh!”, the people on the stands majorly the male students cheered, ice is a rare affinity after all and a pretty girl was the one that had it too, it was perfect.
But then the girls also went crazy, Calant gallantly smiled before taking out a hand sized gray ball from the storage ring proportioned by the academy.
With a wave of his hand the ball changed its form to a semi liquid one, then a dazzling light blinded everyone before the metal covered his chest, shoulders, arms and legs taking the form of a non-detailed armor, that’s right, his element was metal.
The supreme elder from the Allier family gritted his teeth, even in affinity terms the older twin got the better one, metal affinity was considered the direct upgrade of earth affinity after all and this pattern of weaker element and stronger element has been repeated through a lot of generations.
Behind her ice mask Gina frowned, apparently Calant had chosen that gray ball made out of metal instead of a weapon, but that explained also why he was only using leather armor instead of a more protective one.
The metal directly manipulated by a mage was way lighter compared to a pre-fabricated metal armor after all, and they were only allowed to choose a thing besides the armor of their preference, Lana chose that crystal she munched, and this time Calant chose that ball of metal.
Of course, an expert in the respective field made sure that the quality of the things was the same, for fairness’s sake.
Calant then snapped his fingers before he said in a calm voice.
“Silk Knight”.
p and lavender colored silk covered the raw armor and after a couple of seconds, the armor changed from that rough appearance to refined one with lots of lavender colored decorations.
“Kyaaaa!!!”, some of the first-year female students had little stars sparkling in their eyes as they looked at Calant, in a matter of seconds he changed from a handsome youth to a refined brave knight.
At the skybox of the elite class, Calvin snorted, he as someone who appreciated female beauty, felt disgusted by the noble front Calant was putting on, and he wasn’t the only one, Yvonne also raised an eyebrow, with her eyes she could deduce that even before he took out that ball of metal, he was already using a spell, thanks to his mana flow.
Daimon on the other hand was slightly amused by what he was seeing thanks to his infinity eyes.
“The whole area around five meters of him is full of metal threads covered in that silk, to make them invisible”.
Back then when the ball of metal shone, he separated tiny bits of it and changed them into metal threads which he covered with his silk to make them invisible, then all the spectacle of the knight armor took part, in other words the threads were the true purpose of that spell and the refined armor was just a distraction.
Although this spell seemed rather two-faced, as the say goes “everything is fair in love and war”, so Daimon didn’t find it despicable, instead he was more interested in why the girl from the snow leopard race didn’t take the opportunity to attack him.
The formation of the armor was purposedly done slow, the idea was for the opponent to underestimate Calant and attack him while he was “careless”, and then the metal threads will take them by surprise with their pants down.
And yet while Calant was putting all that show, Gina didn’t move from where she was standing until the armor was formed.
“It might have something to do with that ice mask”, wondered Daimon, he could see some traces of mana coming from the mask which had no holes even for the eyes, nose or mouth.
“We’ll see, if I can’t understand what’s going on, then I will use the x-ray effect of the infinity eyes”, he concluded.
With x-ray effect Daimon meant the accidental discovery he did back when he was inspecting Arianna’s mana circuits, after lowering the amount of mana to a point where he could only see-through external elements like armor and… clothes.
Back at the platform, Calant was externally all smiles, but inwardly he was cursing in his heart since his opening movement didn’t have the result he wanted.
And he was even angrier after noticing that there was white mist coming from the platform due to Gina lowering the temperature, until it showed signs of freezing.
“Crack!”, little cracking noises echoed through the arena confusing the spectators as they couldn’t pinpoint where they originated, Calant on the other hand was inwardly gritting his teeth.
“That bitch froze my metal threads until they broke!”, he thought, still the silk was still covering them, so even if they broke others didn’t see the little pieces of them which were now spread through the ground five meters around him.
“Where is your weapon” said Gina in an indifferent voice.
“Acting so high and mighty, just wait until the exploration” thought Calant but on the outside he smiled as she answered.
“How could I dare to use a sharp object against you”.
Gina’s face was covered by the mask so no one could see it, but she felt the urge to puke, Calant has been courting her since they first met one year ago, and while gallant attitudes were popular among ladies of noble birth, she knew that wasn’t his true self and she hated hypocrites the most.
She extended her hand and white mist came from it which later condensed into an ice trident, after making it roll with her hand, she jumped towards Calant making him grin.
As he changed his stance to a defensive one, he was waiting for the moment she stepped on one of the many shards of metal which were hidden thanks to his silk, then he would change it into a spike to make her lose her balance to finish the battle.
But his smile froze when he saw her make a roll on the air, what touched the ground around five meters of him was the prongs of her trident.
“Haaa!”, Gina shouted as he used the momentum to impulse herself into the air again, her body did a perfect turn midair and before Calant could react she landed behind him.
“Slash!”, the sound of air being split apart woke Calant from his trance as he saw the trident coming his way, but as he was about to materialize a weapon with the leftover metal of the ball which he was hiding below the chest plate, his eyes widened as the trident grew larger.
From his point of view, it was as if the trident teleported from being one meter away from him, to be a few centimeters away from his face.
“Clang!”, the sound of metals colliding echoed through the arena as he managed to use the armor of his arm to block the trident, the impact sent him back two meters, his arm was trembling.
“What!”, the spectators where amazed by what they saw, not only Gina had a really high purity ice, she had an amazing control over her body to maneuver like that.
An almost unnoticeable smile flourished in Stella’s face, according to the records of her family, the ancient magic beast snow leopard lives in frozen mountain areas, besides being well adapted to low temperatures, its body is naturally flexible and strong as it has to jump from risks and walk in rocky inclined areas.
Calant looked downwards and his pupils widened, the trident was so sharp that although he managed to block the attack, there was a perfect cut in the armor from which his blood was oozing, he felt his face burning, he the fourth ranked which was supposed to be in a position to challenge Samuel Jolbaris she was actually wounded in the first move.
Feeling the ridiculing gazes coming from the members of the Faresh family, some of the people in the stands and even the area where the half emperors were sitting, Calant gritted his teeth and then all the little shards of metal on the ground became needles.
He then changed the armor on his right leg into a large flail with three spiked heads, he then rushed towards Gina to return the previous humiliation.
The heads of the flail in his hands rotated accumulating impulse and when they hit the prongs of Gina’s trident, they broke.
“You are mine”, he inwardly shouted, Gina took a step backwards to put some distance as she created a new trident, but then Calant shot the invisible needles at her.
Unfortunately, once again his plan didn’t work, Gina contorted her body as she dodged most of the needles while using the rod of the trident to block the others.
Once the attack ended, there was only a small piece of ice left of the trident, a proof that those needles were quite dangerous, but none of them touched her body.
This time Calant finally couldn’t keep his composure.
“Impossible!”, he shouted, the speed of the needles wasn’t that high, but they were invisible, while it was possible for her to dodge some of them if she had a good perception or a good hearing sense.
They were shot from both the front and the back, so even if she dodged the front ones, she shouldn’t have the time to dodge the others, it was as if she grew a pair of eyes in her back.
The trident in Gina’s hands reformed as she pointed it at Calant.
“Use the other legacy spell of your Allier family, right here in front of everyone… I will crush it”.