Fighting for survival

Knowing full well what was coming, and not being able to tell the others was a terrible feeling. However, he could not do anything in the face of an official mage.

This same feeling of powerlessness that he had felt when he was facing the official mage named Max, and his master, while he was in Marcell, as well as the advanced knight named Lucius in Ferdon, the capital of Pierre, resurfaced ow as well.

Suddenly, he remembered about the mage names Max, and his master, Daron remembered about this old enemy of his. Not only had this guy hatched the plan of leading a Rank 2 beast into Bard, destroying the entire city and separating himself from his family at the church, but also chased him like a dog all the way to Marcell, where, due to pressure from draconians, he had to give up the chase.

Because of him, Daron had spent such a long time building up his business in Ferdon, hoping that his family would hear the familiar name of the business, Blaze, and come looking for him.

However, in the end, he had to leave that plan halfway, making the old man promise to take care of them if they came while he was gone.

Determination flashed in the eyes of Daron as he recalled how most of the accidents that had occurred in his short life were caused by this max fellow, and killing intent built up inside him abruptly.

However, he quickly suppressed this emotion, since it was a really dangerous thing to be blinded by hate and revenge. Not only in his novels, but in most others, anger and hate would sometimes activate the 'plot-armour' of the main character to satisfy the audience, but in most novels that were well regarded, such a thing never worked, just as in real life.

Whether it be a fight, or a conversation, anger often led to the main character losing focus of his goal, and just do things on impulse, often leading to many things going wrong.

Also, he had been becoming increasingly moodier with time, due to the puberty face of his body, which also led him to slowly gain more and more control over his emotions to prevent accidents, just like right now.

As soon as they entered the fog, the ship began to slow down, and finally creaked to a full stop at the base of the mountain. Nothing but silence greeted them in the white fog.

At this moment, he heard the mage's voice in his ear.

"I'll be going now. Remember, you need to survive 2 weeks on this ship. Whoever can remain on this ship will be sent to the Phoenix college. But for that, you need to be able to protect your ship. Kid, you have piqued my interest. If you survive, I might consider taking you under my wing. So, try and stay on this ship for as long as possible."

With that, the voice faded.

This was all part of the plan by the many organisations. They knew that infighting among each other was impossible during this waiting time, since it was 2 weeks long, in order to wait for every ship to appear.

Therefore, instead of allowing such disputes to escalate because someone killed the favourite disciple to be of an official mage of a rival organisation, the various groups came together and made a few rules:

1) Fighting between official mages is strictly forbidden in the fog.

2) Official mages must leave their designated ship within 10 minutes of entering the fog, and only come back when the time limit is up

3) Official mages must not look for the culprits of murders

4) Fighting between everyone else is allowed

5) Killing is allowed

6) Whoever, is able to stay on a boat, gets to go to that respective college. Those who are removed from boats must wander the dangerous wilderness and return to their homes, if they can

7) Only 20 people are allowed on a boat.

This was also what the mage had told Daron a few months ago, but he had also warned him that he was simply indulging his interest, and therefore, Daron was strictly not allowed to tell the others until he left.

Now that the mage had left, he quickly went around the ship explaining the situation, and that he had gotten this information from the mage protecting their ship from any Rank 3 or higher magical beasts, who had just left.

"So essentially, it is a king of the ring situation." Patrice commented.

"Yes." Daron nodded after he had finished explaining the situation to everyone.

Just as he had finished explaining, Daron's instincts as an Intermediate knight made him move his head back a little bit.

Just at this moment, Sirious also gave him the same instruction, but he had already moved, so it was no use.

This was the first time that his instincts had beat Sirious detection, but he had not time to be proud about his improvement, since just in front of him, barely a millimetre in front of his nose, a fireball flew from his left, scorching away the sweat and mist that had condensed onto his nose, and flew straight towards an unprepared Beginner mage, who was instantly covered in flames.

Within just 5 seconds, his non-existent defences had failed to protect him, and he had succumbed to the flames.

But within those 5 seconds, another 4 spells were hurled at the ship; most of them fireballs, causing maximum damage to those on the upper deck.

Thankfully, the ship itself was also treated with the same fire-resistant coating as the kitchen, and would not burn up. However, within those 5 seconds 3 knights in training on the upper deck were struck by fire, having no way of extracting themselves from the mana-induced flames.

Within another 10 seconds, they all died as well.

However, there was nothing but silence for those 10 seconds.

Suddenly, 2 burly looking men appeared onto the ship that was not on the ground instead of floating in the air. Daron instantly recognised them as Official knights, while Sirious provided more information.

[The one with a moustache is Rank 7, while the other one is Rank 8.]

'They must be from another ship, that was either destroyed, or they are here simply for fun…'

"He can take them" Patrice said in a confident tone, while she began casting her spell.

However, how would a knight give a mage the chance to cast their spell, since if that happened, they would be nothing more than moving targets.

Instantly, the two charged towards Patrice, ignoring little old Daron; the knight in training with a shabby sword.

However, that would be their greatest mistake. Realising that Patrice was in danger, and the fact that no mages were allowed within the fog, Daron released some of the Internal energy he had sealed up since before the journey to hide his knight identity, and sped up his movement.

With a blur, he appeared behind the two, and slashed horizontally. Under normal circumstances, such an attack, even against knights in training, would not have worked, since vertical and horizontal slashed are extremely easy to predict.

However, neither were these people even able to see Daron due to his speed, nor did they have eyes on the backs of their heads, which resulted in his attack reaching them both, heavily injuring them at the lower back.

The one with the moustache, who he had hit first, due to the sheer force in the swing, had his spine broken, while the other one only had a deep wound, that is left untreated, would cause him to bleed out in a few minutes.

'Success!' Daron thought to himself.