Arc 1: Part 3

It didn't take long for Eric and the other person, whose name was Elise Ercoff, to return with the permission to use the training room.

"All right, then let's go and get changed into comfortable clothes first and gather at the training room." Everyone agreed and left the class to go back to the dorm to get changed.

Kyle and the other boys talked with each other. He gathered that only some of the nobles were in his class, and either they were friendly enough to befriend commoners or they just held back their disgust.

Despite the era changing, those with power often discriminate against someone lower than them. It was like nature itself; the strong were always above the weak. Kyle had no problem with it. As long as the strong didn't break the laws and did their jobs properly, they had the right to receive privileges. He was not a person that believed absolute equality existed; there would always exist someone weaker and more pitiful in this world.

However, not all nobles deserved those privileges. Nobles received those privileges through bloodline and connection, but not all of them earned it through their hard work or strength, and not all of them had the ability to make them deserve and keep that privilege.

After they got changed, they went to the training room.

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"So, how should we handle this?"

"We need to know each other's strengths. So why don't we do one-on-one? Then a group fight?" No one raised an objection to that.

"Then, why don't Kyle and I begin first?'' It was a dreadful voice, and Kyle instantly glared at Friena, who had offered them for the first spar.

"Well, if you guys want to? And if there is no objection?" said the other. Unfortunately, there was truly no objection. And even if Kyle tried to object, he didn't have any good reason to do so. In the end, he would have to fight Friena unwillingly.

Standing on the sparring ground, Friena had her training sword out while Kyle only wielded two knives.

"The spar will end if one of you surrenders, is unable to fight anymore, or is pushed out of the ring. No excessive fighting since we are here to spar, and tomorrow we have to study."

"Don't worry, I'll only give him a small bruise," Friena said with a grin.

"Right ... then, begin!" Right away, Friena's sword let out a burst of flame. Kyle noticed that she was truly trying to not let him off without a bruise.

The Kollstang family was a knightly family, and they were skilled in imbuing fire magic into their martial arts, and Friena was not an exception to this.

Friena rushed toward him. Her speed was boosted with magic which made her easily cover the distance. Kyle sighed and threw his knife, which missed the target. Friena swung away with her sword, and it seemed she swung it at nothing, but she actually cut a small string that connected the knife to Kyle.

"I know your tricks!" Friena shouted and swung her sword down at Kyle. As childhood friends, they had fought with each other before and knew each other's tricks. It was this which made Friena confident to attack Kyle directly.

Kyle dodged to the left as he watched the fire which shrouded the sword lashing out. If he had dodged by retreating back, he would still have been hit by the fire unless he retreated further. And the attack didn't stop there. Friena pulled her sword back and swung it toward Kyle again, leaving him no room to fight back.

Friena's plan was simple: she would push Kyle and leave him no room to breathe. It was her strategy while knowing that Kyle's fighting style was weak against a straightforward fight.

But it all felt strange for her. She had noticed how Kyle didn't look panicked at all. She also noticed that he avoided her attacks by a hair's breadth and never once got hit. Being friends with him made her pick up something about Kyle's behavior.

"Fight me seriously!" She let out a huge wave of fire, which couldn't be easily avoided. Kyle stood his ground, and his fingers flicked while a translucent shield appeared around him. The wave of fire got blocked and left Kyle unscathed.

"You won't fight back?" Friena asked while preparing herself.

"I did." Kyle pulled his fingers, and suddenly Friena sensed her entire body had got entangled by small strings made of mana. She traced where the strings came out, and it led her to Kyle's feet. The strings probably came from his fingers and were moved to the feet first to avoid her attention.

Friena reined in her anger and relaxed herself. She turned towards the others and said, "I surrender."

With that, Kyle released her and walked to the others. "Yeah …. That's our skills. Friena here is skilled with weapons and fire magic. As for me, I'm good at controlling my mana and trapping people like that."

"So a straightforward type and an assassin type?" Eric mused.

"You could say that," Kyle agreed. "Although the spar ended too quickly and Friena is too angry to―"

"Shut up!" Friena jabbed him with an elbow on the left side of his stomach. "Anyway, we didn't show our full capability for now." While they had decided to get to know each other. It didn't mean they had to show everything to everyone. It might hinder their teamwork, but for now, they needed to build trust in each other before showing their full power.

"That's fine. At least we know what you guys are capable of. Who's next?"

"I'll go," it was Ninia Umell. The one who became her opponent was someone named Triss Goldian. They faced each other, and Kyle noticed that Ninia was standing in a relaxed manner while Triss seemed serious and irritated at Ninia's attitude.

"Begin!" Triss made the first move. She moved fast thanks to her magic enhancing her physical speed. And yet, Ninia didn't make a move.

Triss was wielding a sword, and she made a quick thrust with it. However, Ninia, who was not wielding anything, slapped the sword away with her bare hand.

{'Oh, barehanded martial arts,'} Kyle whistled. In this era, where technology and magic prevailed, barehanded martial arts were a rarity. Compared to the weapon arts, it had limited range and versatility. However, this was just a common opinion. If martial arts were trained well and infused with magic, these limits would be broken.

But that was not what made Ninia interesting. Trained people could infuse magic within their martial arts, and it was a quite normal thing. But what Ninia did went beyond that. She was close to mastery of her martial arts.

No matter how hard Triss tried to attack, Ninia fended it away with ease. Triss' only choice was to use more of her magic, and she did so. Wind gathered around her, and her speed became faster. Her sword also became sharper, and simply touching it would injure someone.

But Ninia didn't falter. She slapped Triss' sword away and then launched a punch that hit Triss' stomach and sent her flying away.

{'To think someone learns how to use ki in this era. How fascinating.'} Ki, it was the energy inside a person. There was a difference between ki and mana. Ki came from inside the body, the more you cultivated your body and trained your ki, the stronger your body became, and it wouldn't leave you. As for mana, it came from the environment, and humans basically processed mana with their bodies to be used. They could make mana stay in their bodies, but it wouldn't last forever.

Ki users became scarce because it took a long time to cultivate it, and it was not as versatile as magic. Magic could unleash a fireball easily, but with ki, it took a great deal of mastery to unleash one. What ki could achieve would be easily achieved by magic. However, ki had firm basics and fundamentals and could bypass magic when trained enough. And if someone was at the peak of mastery of ki, then the magic of this era would become useless.

And Ninia did exactly that. Despite having plenty of mana stored within her. She had used ki to deflect Triss' attack and sent her flying.

{'It would be hard to fight her unless her opponents are really skilled and have powerful magic spells. Or if they know how to use ki as well.'} While ki sounded great, magic could in fact still overwhelm ki when used properly.

"I'm a barehanded fighter," Ninia answered everyone's silence. "I can use magic for long-distance spells, but I will mainly fight in close combat."

{'Whoah, she is cool. I wonder who taught her ki,'} Kyle thought. He believed that nowadays, nobody knew much regarding ki. He was sure that his classmates didn't know about it, and even if they used magic to sense energy inside her, they would be confused. But he also believed none of his classmates had such mastery over mana sense to detect ki clearly within Ninia.

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After treating Triss, the sparring matches continued. Kyle could see the potential of everyone, but unfortunately, they focused on mainstream magic. Almost all of them used the exact same magic spells. He couldn't tell whether they didn't know any other magic spells or if they were just hiding their strength, though.

Eric and Wanda had theirs among the later fights. Eric overwhelmed his enemy by using a spear coated with shadow magic. Eric's style was a tricky one. He used his shadow magic to bind his enemy or let his magic move his body, which made him able to fight in a long battle even after his body tired. But that's not all, he also had a shadow spirit, but he hid it well.

As for Wanda, she overwhelmed her enemy by using multiple elemental magics. She fluidly used fire, ice, water, and wind. She clearly didn't hold back by showing her control of four elements. Normally, people focus on one elemental magic because they were only good at that one element or still lacked the mastery of other elements. So Wanda having used four elements means she had a huge talent, and she had been trained for a long time.

{'What hidden gems they are,'} Kyle mused. Aside from them, there were six other people he noted for being good as well, but not as good as the above-mentioned. They were Johan Ashburg, Meryn Lilia, Ozi Yule, Lorenz Abstan, Mia Kelly, and Chloe Vohansen.

They had talents, and if Eric and the others didn't exist, they would have become the best in the class. Sadly, they had to stay near the bottom for now.

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"Now, since we got to learn about each other through sparring. Shall we continue with the team battle?" said Johan. "We will pick our teams randomly. Sounds good?" Everyone agreed. It wasn't something that they needed to think a lot about after all.

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Author: Aida Hanabi

Proofreader: Teppo