Chapter 125 - Round-Robin Competition

Although for the second and third-year students, it was almost guaranteed that the ranking for the different classes would not change, things were completely different for those in the first year.

Nerun's arrival had caused a complete turnover, and 3 of 5 remaining students were from the lower-ranked class, which almost guaranteed that they at the very least would promote to become the middle-ranked group. Although many of their companions had lost early in the competition, most were excited and thankful, because they saw the chance to get stronger and get more resources. And if Nerun and company were among the best, perhaps they could even become the top-ranked class.

Solda, who was in the audience, seated with the rest of the Outer Class students, was furious and apprehensive at the same time. He couldn't fathom how exactly could Nerun be so powerful, and was filled with regret at the fact that he had offended him before. But there wasn't much he could do now. He could only train bitterly and hope to get the opportunity to once again promote into the Inner Class, otherwise, his family was sure to punish him.

In the meantime, Anastasia called the 5 students that had been victorious from each of the different classes. The third-year students were to go first, so Hernani, Roman, Julieth, Cindy and Mathew approached the central arena. At some point, Samuel had also gone down and was standing close to Anastasia. To make things go a little farther, two battles would be happening at once. After the two battles were done, then the second-year students would battle, and afterwards the first-year group. Then it would cycle back to the third-year seniors. In this way that would allow the students to recover somewhat from the continuous battles. It would not be completely fair, but this type of test with constant fighting would also show the endurance of the students.

The first two battles were between Hernani and Roman, and Julieth and Mathew.

Hernani was somewhat inferior to Roman in strength and Qi level. So although Hernani fought valiantly, and used several powerful techniques in succession, in the end, he fell to a powerful from Roman.

Julieth had a massive advantage since being able to fly meant that she could stay out of danger for a good amount of time. So, unless the warrior was able to approach Julieth before she could go airborne, most warriors were doomed to be defeated. Mathew, albeit being a talented student didn't manage to even touch a single one of Julieth's hair before losing to her spell bombarding.

Immediately afterwards it was the turn of the second-year pupils. Both Marcos and Albert fought with two other students, but they managed to defeat them with relative ease, since both of them were the top and second-ranked students in their class.

The turn for the first years came. The first students to battle would be Karles and Gonzo, and Nerun against Reina.

Reina and Nerun were smiling while ascending the stairs towards the arena. Although they were good friends, they were rivals at the moment, and even if Reina knew that she was somewhat inferior to Nerun, so far they had never gone all out. It would be disrespectful if they didn't show everything they were capable of, so both of them had agreed beforehand to showcase their full might, and the victory would go to the best.

After both were standing in the arena, 30 m apart from each other, it was time to begin. Reina took the initiative and immediately ran towards Nerun with such a speed that she almost apparated next to him. Light was surrounding Reina and soon after she approached Nerun, two other images of Reina made of light appeared as well.

Nerun was astonished by the technique, since Reina had never used it before, and the clones had actual real substance so he couldn't afford to ignore them. Even though Reina could not completely use the elemental power of her Core Meridian until she was at least a Centurion, there were special techniques that could be used by those with specific Central Meridians in advance. Of course, these techniques were quite rare to find, and only Noble Families and the best of Academies had them.

However, Nerun had no time to be astonished.

He started fighting with his stance and managed to fend off all of Reina's attacks while waiting for a chance to make a counterattack. If Nerun had to say what was his biggest advantage over others, it would probably be his defence. His defence was close to unmatched for his level, and even Praetorians would not find it easy to break it. Soon, one of the clones found its energy source impeded by Nerun's disruption and slowed down for half a second. Nerun quickly took advantage by quickly using and appeared beside it and attacked it with full force, making it disappear.

Reina tried to take back the rhythm and momentum of the battle by executing her and attacked Nerun with her full power, however, Nerun quickly used fists and kicks to parry all of the attacks and in the precise moment that the kicks were about to end, before she managed to recover her balance, he quickly punched towards Reina's face stopping right next to her temple before the remaining clone could approach him.

"I won sister Reina," said Nerun smiling.

"You did" answered Reina with a sigh. However, she quickly composed herself and smiled back at Nerun and continued, "You are very good brother Nerun. Make sure to win it all!"

Reina punched Nerun lightly on his shoulder in a friendly manner and quickly stepped down from the arena. This time, she was truly convinced by Nerun's prowess, since she did not manage to force him to use his full power to defeat her.

The other battle ended a few minutes after Nerun had ended his. Although Karles tried his utmost, in the end, he could barely defend himself against Gonzo's fierce attacks. Before the Ranking began, Gonzo was stronger than Karles, but not enough to make him fill despondent. But, right before the test, Gonzo manage to make a breakthrough and promote to Praetorian. This difference in rank sealed the deal and Karles was ultimately defeated without Gonzo having too much difficulty.

After defeating Karles, Gonzo turned towards Nerun and stared at him intently. There was a powerful battle intent in his eyes. Nerun looked back at him and didn't shy from the staring contest. Soon, both of them stepped down from the arena, so the third years could battle once again.

Roman easily defeated Cindy who barely put on a show, since she wasn't really trying. After all, she was in love with Roman, and didn't want to figth him for real. Hernani decided to give in to Julieth without a fight, in an attempt to be gentlemanly towards her. Julieth's eyes brightened a bit and was quite happy to be able to gain a victory without fighting, after all, even though she had rested a bit she had not been able to recover much mana after her previous battle. The mana cost for her Magick Spells was off the charts given their power, so she was thankful towards Hernani. The latter was intoxicated by Julieth's smile and happiness. However many of the elders, teachers and experts present in the venue thought that this was derisory and shook their heads in disapproval.

For the next round, Albert did not fight. Marcos managed to secure another victory, putting him in the head with two victories and cero defeats in the second year.

Once again, it was Nerun's turn to fight. This time he was to battle Marcia, a battle that promised to be exciting since she was the best adept among those from the first year. On the other hand, Reina would face Karles. Both friends knew each other thoroughly and had sparred multiple times since the beginning of the school year. Their victory and defeat were 50/50 so far, and none had truly an advantage over the other.

As the battle started Marcia started moving trying to stay away from Nerun while chanting several spells.

"Αστραπιαία μπάλα" - /Astrapiaía bála/*

Multiple lightning balls appeared in Nerun's path and attacked him at great speeds. Nerun had to use his full focus while manoeuvring with his to avoid the attacks, a fact that allowed Marcia some respite to keep attacking Nerun with several spells while the latter was still afar.

Nerun was approaching her, when Marcia joined her hands and looking at him coldly said:

"Δαχτυλίδι κεραυνού" - /Dachtylídi keravnoú/

A ring of lightning surrounded Marcia and quickly expanded outwards, a technique used by adepts to make unsuspecting warriors getting close to them back off and allow them to keep pummeling with spells. Nerun managed to stop abruptly before being touched by the spell and gathering Qi and Mana in both hands he pushed forward managing to resist the spell while having to step back in order to deal with the recoil.

Marcia was content having been able to hit Nerun and thought that even if his hands were protected they should have been hurt somewhat, however, she was disappointed noticing that Nerun's hands were as pristine as ever.

She wasn't discouraged and using lightning attached to the sole of her feet she managed to move quickly around the arena, so she did not become an easy target. Her movement was agile and quick since lightning is known as one of the fastest elements.

"Αστραπιαία βόλτα" - Astrapiaía vólta

Nerun quickly thought of a countermeasure and decided to use one of his trump cards. While using his , his speed was not any lesser than Marcia, he was even a bit faster. Then, he gathered mana in his right hand and threw five fireballs that flew in different intervals towards Marcia. The latter used lightning balls to interfere with the fireballs, their use of mana was exquisite and the power of the spells was quite close. However, Nerun was at a bit of a disadvantage since his spells were limited, after all, he had only learnt a couple of them, and although he had limited their use, he could not fire spells at will, since his amount of Mana was lesser than that of normal adepts.

But this was enough. Marcia got distracted for a moment by Nerun's attack and he was closer once again, barely 5 meters away, a distance that Nerun could cross in the blink of an eye. Marcia prepared once again to use her lightning ring, and in the meantime, the spell she had been preparing for so long was almost ready to be used. This was her trump card and she had been charging for it for a while.

She was never able to use it though. Once Nerun got close, he looked intently into her eyes and the golden ring surrounding his eyes started to swirl furiously as he chanted:

"Καλειδοσκόπιο" - /Kaleidoskópio/.

This was the original spell he had used back when he was a child, and although he had a more powerful version, he decided to use the original one, since it was more than enough. Nerun had mostly used this spell on rivals that were stronger than him at the time, but now, using it on someone that was at the same rank as him, its effects were noticeable.

Marcia lost clarity and she started seeing multiple images of Nerun at the same time, overloading her senses. She lost control of the spell she was trying to cast and the Natural Energy surrounding her vanished into the air. Nerun then quickly got to her and stopped right when his open palm was next to her face. When Marcia reacted it was already too late. She knew it then and there that she had lost irrevocably.

"Thank you for your guidance," said Nerun with a small bow and stepped down from the arena accompanied by the cheers of most of the audience. He had quickly become one of the audience's favourites.

Meanwhile, Karel couldn't help muttering to himself, " Ocular Meridian open and a visual Magick Spell. Those are quite rare".

Karel and Reina were close to finishing their fight as well. When Nerun turned to see them, Reina and her light clones were attacking Karles with ferocity, but the latter managed to mount a stalwart defence and used a powerful attack to destroy one of her clones and corner Reina. However, Reina claimed victory in the end when she used a that temporarily blinded Karles and she used it to flash above him and attack him with a powerful axe kick that finally made him concede defeat.

"Hehehe Karles, I'm the winner this time. Dinner's on you," said Reina with a laugh as she slowly got away with an ample smile on her face.

Two battles had been completed. Three to go for the final ranking of the Inner Class. Tempers were running high while the third-year students got ready once again for their turn.

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Αστραπιαία μπάλα: Lightning Ball

Δαχτυλίδι κεραυνού: Lightning Ring

Αστραπιαία βόλτα: Lightning Walk