With Boris as their guide, the elite class arrived at the training grounds, the facilities were shared by all the classes so they could see other students with their respective teachers, normally the elite class has its own private place to train, but Boris took them to a public ring so others could see what was about to happen.
Boris clapped to draw his student’s attention.
“The best way to get to know each other is a good fight, so for your first lesson you will form pairs and fight against each other, magic that directly hits your opponent is forbidden… needless to say but any try to cause a lethal wound will be rewarded with me beating the crap out of the perpetrator”.
“Do you have an opponent in mind, or do you want me to do the pairs?”.
Since Boris didn’t bother to speak in a low tone, many students from other classes gathered near them.
The only one that rose his hand to ask for a specific match was Alexander, something everyone expected, unfortunately for him Boris ignored him, since it was more than obvious who he was aiming for.
“Tutor… I know you have your favorites but at the very least, let me choose my opponent!!!”, exclaimed Alexander, since a lot of people was now witnessing the situation, he decided to play the “victim” role.
Boris snorted.
“Jolbaris brat, let’s make a deal, if you can beat the person that is directly in front of you in the ranking, then you can choose your next opponent… but if you lose as miserably as I believe you are going to lose then you will shut your mouth and follow the instructions given by your teacher for the rest of the year, do you accept?”.
…
Alexander was perplexed, Boris literally gave him the chance he wanted, so he immediately nodded.
“Deal”.
Aliya who was observing the whole situation shook her head, “what a fool, he didn’t even stop to think in twice… as expected of a Jolbaris I guess”, she thought.
The first match was already set, Alexander against Mikael, they both went up the platform and distanced from each other, the conditions for the win were quite basic, either knock the opponent out of the platform of make him surrender, no lethal attacks, no magic devices or magic weapons and lastly no direct hitting spells.
Boris gave the green light and the match started, Alexander immediately charged at Mikael, as a member of the Jolbaris family he was quite confident on his physical strength, there was no rule against him using his claws so he decided to focus on that since casting a spell which couldn’t directly damage his opponent was a waste of time on his mind.
The crowd that was watching the fight was fascinated seeing the famous tiger claws of the Jolbaris family appearing on Alexander’s fingers.
*Slash*
The whistling sound of wind being teared apart by the quick movement of something sharp, made clear to everyone that Alexander’s claws were quite dangerous, but while others were surprised, Mikael just slightly moved sidewards to avoid the attacks.
Aliya who was writing some observations in a little notebook suddenly stopped, although she now wasn’t on duty anymore, she had her fair share of experience in combat, so with that little exchange she already decided that… Alexander was going to lose.
And just like she predicted, Alexander tried to land a hit on his opponent only to be easily avoided by Mikael’s footwork, of course it was not only a physical achievement, while Alexander approached him, Mikel used a wind element spell to augment his agility.
The exchange continued by a couple of minutes, without Alexander noticing he was led by Mikael to the border of the platform, he was frustrated because no matter how much he tried he didn’t manage to hit Mikael.
Normally he would have overwhelmed his enemy with continuous lightning discharges, unfortunately that wasn’t allowed and since they started exchanging blows Mikael has been interrupting him every time, he tried to cast an accelerating spell.
Without stopping his assault Alexander shouted in a try to take Mikael by surprise.
“Is avoiding the only thing the man that got a rank above me can do!!!”.
Mikael snorted, his image suddenly flashed and then Alexander fell sidewards, of course he wasn’t that much of a fool, if he were to completely fall then the result of the fight will be set in stone, so he used his hand to impulse himself in a try to get back on his feet.
“Gahhhh”.
As soon as his hand touched the floor of the platform Alexander screamed, he felt as if his skin was melting due the scorching high temperature, of course his body reacted on its own by trying to distance itself from the source of pain which ultimately made his try to get up fail miserably.
*Thud*
A dull sound echoed through the whole area which now was completely in silence, Mikael kicked Alexander on his ribs with enough force to knock him out of the platform.
“Young master!!!”, it took Jason and Daniel a couple of seconds to process what just happened, once they reacted both ran at Alexander’s side, Daniel inspected his young master’s hand, besides some bleeding the outer layer of his skin was completely scorched, but that was all, the kick he took to the ribs didn’t affect him at all.
Boris indifferent voice drew everyone’s attention.
“The winner is Mikael, miss Aliya please share your observations with us”.
Aliya nodded.
“Starting with the loser, his fighting style is full of flaws, those lame slashing attacks for example didn’t have even the slightest trace of technique, he wasted too much energy on making unnecessary movements, but the mistake which made him lose was that he didn’t used a spell before recklessly charging towards Mikael”.
Boris clapped, he turned to see the rest of the students of the elite class before saying.
“You are mages, not knights, for mages preparations are a must, think what would your opponent do and anticipate that, your first movement can decide whether you die or win… of course if you are strong enough plans and schemes mean nothing, but the people that can affirm that have reached that point can be counted with the fingers of one hand, so I suggest you to stick yourselves to preparations”.
The old man threw a little bottle at Daniel.
“Made that brat drink it, it’s a special healing potion with an anesthetic effect, its price will be charged to him at the end of the moth, of course he can refuse to drink it and go to the infirmary if he can withstand the pain”.
Alexander gritted his teeth, he couldn’t even think clear due to the pain he was feeling, so he took the potion from Daniel’s hand and gulped down in one go, after taking a couple of breaths he felt the pain finally going down, he stood up and shouted at Mikael.
“What the hell did you do, those weren’t normal flames, there is no way I who have a superior body constitution will suffer so much without a direct exposition to fire!!!”.
Mikael shook his head.
“My elements are fire and wind, needless to say but wind helps fire grow stronger… however that “superior body” constitution was what made you suffer that much pain, a direct exposition to my fire wouldn’t have caused you that much damage, but with enough heat your outer skin stuck to the floor and when you used all your strength to impulse yourself, you basically teared it apart”.
Many people in the crowd frowned their eyebrows, that sounded quite painful but still one would think that such a high-status person like the young master of the “strongest” family within the beast faction would be able to tolerate that much without losing his cool.
Among the elite class students, Liliana was impressed by Mikael’s methods, he planned everything since the fight started, Calvin laughed while he waves his hands as if he was mocking Alexander for not being able to withstand just a small non-lethal wound.
Alexander saw many of the spectators giving him disdaining gazes and he felt insulted, without saying anything he left the training grounds followed by his lackeys.
Boris shook his head.
“Well, since the Jolbaris family retired from our lesson, let’s continue, the next match will be Calvin against Liliana, any objections?”.
Calvin sighed, “come on tutor Ogien, I’m striving to get a girlfriend and you make me fight a girl which is five ranks above me… and with ice attribute on top of that”, he thought.
Still, none of them said anything, they went up the platform and waited for the green light.
Boris nodded and with that the second match started.
This time both of them prepared something beforehand, but no one but them knew what it was, they weren’t part of the elite class for nothing, so most of them have learnt to use non chant casting in at least one spell.
Calvin wanted to finish as soon as possible so he tried to make the area below Liliana quake to make her lose her balance but nothing happened, on a closer look he noticed that the floor below her feet was completely covered in ice which made him sigh.
Ice is a rare affinity for a good reason, with the correct amount of purity, ice can be as strong as steel and Liliana was a two-star ranked mage while Calvin was a peak one star, so there was a slight difference in the quality of the mana that their mafic cores refined, resulting in the current situation.
Of course, if Calvin was allowed to create spikes to directly attack Liliana, things would be different but unfortunately for him that wasn’t the case, as Liliana was preparing to make her move Calvin shouted.
“Time out, I give up”.
…
“Huh?”.
Even Boris was surprised by the result, the reason as to why he matched Calvin with who in his mind was the fourth ranked in the class, was because he felt that Calvin was hiding his true abilities.
“What the hell do you mean with “I give up”, brat?”, shouted Boris.
Calvin shamelessly smiled.
“Who in their right mind would want to get his handed by a girl, besides my fighting style depends on attacking with lethal force… a bad habit which I’m aware of, so I retire from this fight”.
Boris felt a vein popping on his neck, but there was so much he could do.
“Fine… the winner is Liliana, Calvin you and I will have a nice chat later”.
Calvin almost tripped when he was going down the platform, “god damn I wanted to go look for a cute girl and now I have to spend my free time with an old man… sigh what bad day”, he thought.