Arena Level Two

"Good morning everyone. I assume everyone knows what we're doing today?"

As Miss Amy stood in front of the class, everyone's faces were filled with excitement.

"Yes, Miss Amy!"

"That's the energy I like to see. Let's all get in line and get ready to go to the arena!"

A few minutes later...

As the class lined up in front of the entrance again, everyone gave each other a pep talk to boost morale.

Alex was no exception, as Sophia forcefully dragged him along to listen to Camille's attempt to rally their small little group.

When it was finally time to separate, he thought back to his first attempt on the second level as he arrived at the front of the line.

It was a disaster, so bad to the point that he didn't even survive a minute the moment he saw the golem.

Compared to the first level, it's too fast for any space to maneuver. There was no tricky or strategy around it.

Only one way to beat it.

A way that everyone in the class knew—a lesson that Miss Amy had told previously as he stepped forward.

---

As the light vanished, Alex was transported to an open plain field again.

Without wasting any time, he ran straight to the first obstacle course, which had a dummy that said 'Light Me."

The moment he saw the dummy, he was able to instantly cast out a light spell he had already prepped inside his mind.

A small ball of light gave Alex a score of 85 as the dummy vanished. Next, he ran straight to the next dummy that said "Dark Me."

Using a ball of darkness, he got an 85 before he ran straight to the last dummy.

This time, it wasn't just a basic element. Instead, it stated, "Stone me."

Standing right before the dummy, Alex quickly gathered a water element mixed with an earth element to form a piece of stone.

As it flew right into the dummy, a score of 80 popped up as Alex finally took a stop to meditate.

After feeling his mana was fully recharged, he quickly got up from the ground before slowly approaching the final challenge.

The moment he saw a small shadow in the distance, he already began brewing a spell for this challenge.

As the shadow grew larger and larger, a ball of stone appeared above Alex's head.

It continued to grow until it reached the size of a basketball. With a sudden flash, a flame appeared, engulfing the entire stone with a layer of flame.

The spell he had created was an actual fireball, not just a ball of flame he had done last time.

All of Alex's mana continuously flowed toward his creation as the shadow finally reared its ugly face.

The golem that almost the entire class has lost to—the speed demon that was in everyone's nightmare.

It rapidly gained ground as it soon approached less than fifty steps away, leaving Alex with no room to continue.

Unable to complete the fireball as he had hoped, he directed the premature spell right at the golem.

Despite the golem raising its arm at the very last second, the fireball was still able to damage it by fracturing half of its arm.

"Nice! Just one more."

As Alex began to retreat further and further back, the golem became fully enraged and increased its speed twofold.

The real challenge began as Alex ran for his life, running faster than he had done in life.

He could feel his heart racing as the golem continuously chased after him. Still, the effort he had put into running hasn't gone in vain.

It had gone all according to Alex's plan, giving him within a hundred steps away to cast a spell.

Water began rapidly flooding into the soil, turning it into mud as Alex used his remaining energy to burst into running further away once again.

At first, the golem tried to ignore the muddy soil on the ground but soon realized it had slowed its foot down to a snail's pace.

Alex was now almost back the same distance when he first saw the golem's shadow, a tiny little dot in the distance.

"Dumbass."

Not wasting any time, Alex immediately began to meditate, recovering all of his mana before casting the same spell as earlier.

Even though his mana regeneration had been drastically slowed down, the increased time allowed him to proportion his mana much more carefully.

He was able to gather the earth core as well as the fire outside with only half of the mana compared to the first fireball.

As the golem finally began to approach closer, he suddenly felt a sense of peace rather than panic.

The size of the fireball had given him confidence—a killer the size of a school desk that could destroy anything he imagined.

"Take this!"

As the flaming rock flew toward the golem, a loud woosh sound echoed throughout the entire plain.

The golem had already raised its arm, bracing for impact. But the fireball blew straight past it like a hot knife through butter.

With a loud explosion, a score appeared right into the air as Alex managed to get a 75 this time.

"Whew, thank god that thing died... That could have been so bad."

Alex murmured as he could feel his mana regeneration reach rock bottom, with barely any natural mana flowing and refilling his pool.

As the leaderboard appeared right before him, he was once again nowhere near the top 10,000. But to his surprise, Chloe somehow made it past the top 100 with a perfect score.

Before he could check any further, a light appeared before his eyes, sending him back into the challenging exit.

"What did you get?"

Sophia and Mary were both out already this time, way ahead of him, with the other four standing by.

"85, 85, 80, and 75."

"That's amazing. I'm pretty sure that's above half of the class now." Evelyn congratulated.

"Thanks."

---

As everyone walked back into the classroom, Alex could see that everyone's faces looked drastically different.

Some looked happy, while a small fraction of them looked extremely depressed to the point of almost crying.

Seating back down into his seat, Mis Amy began doing the usual example picks.

"Chloe, Sophia, and Mary, can you three come up, please?"

With all three girls heading up to the front, everyone waited for what was about to come up.

"I want everyone to give a round of applause for Chloe. She's the first in the class to achieve a perfect score and reached the top 78."

Everyone started clapping, their face barely flinching as if they had been expecting her to be an overachiever at this point.

Still, Alex was a little surprised by it, considering everyone else on the leaderboard had a display of mage level two.

After the claps died down, Miss Amy pulled out a keycard and snapped her finger as a screen displayed on the board.

In the video, as Chloe approached the first dummy, she immediately cast a spell that threw a bunch of small light spells in the shape of a marble ball.

It flew to the dummy so fast that Miss Amy even had to slow it down to show how it again.

"Remember, a bigger spell doesn't mean more damage. Condensing the element into a smaller area can be more effective.

Of course, it also means draining more mana. But practice can reduce ineffective mana usage as seen by how many Chloe was able to cast."

As the video continued, Chloe repeated the same strategy for the next two dummies, getting 100 in all three.

Everyone held their breath as the final challenge approached, the small dot in the distance.

Alex could feel some of the classmates who looked sad earlier looking away as if they didn't want to face it again.

He didn't pay much attention to them as he shifted his attention back to the video.

As the golem moved closer and closer, a spell began to take shape above Chloe. 

It wasn't just a spell. Rather, hundreds of wind blades all over the sky, all aimed right at the golem's face.

As she directed it right into golem, Miss Amy suddenly paused the video before it hit.

"I want everyone to notice something a little different here. So you all can see that she cast a bunch of small spells, right?"

Everyone in the class nodded in agreement.

"But look, as the wind blades flew closer and closer, they all merged rather than breaking to reach each other's momentum.

She had managed to control all of these spells as they flew towards the golem, not just using the last bit of mana to direct towards it."

As soon as Miss Amy raised her point, some of the class, including Alex, started to blush as they felt a little called out.

They all had directed their spell without actually attempting to control it after releasing it, as all of their mana had been spent forming the spell itself.

"Now, as all these wind blades merge, it is an actual resemblance of the Tempest blade."

The entire class fell into shock, as they had just recently learned about it during class, a tier two spell meant for level two mages.

As the video resumed, the class wasn't given any time to react as the merged wind blade pierced straight past its arm.

Before it pierced the head, the score already popped up, showing the golem's final score of 100.

"That's the creativity combined with a strong mana pool that everyone should be replicating rather than using strategy to exploit the dumb golems."

With everyone clapping for Chloe again, she shyly stepped back down before sitting down next to Alex.

"That was amazing," Alex complimented, his face still looking a little embarrassed by Miss Amy's callout.

"Thanks..."

"Now for our next person to applaud: Sophia and Mary are the only people in the class who managed to get 90 in the golem fight."

Everyone still clapped again as the score was still very impressive, albeit just not as crazy as Chloe's.

"Ahem, besides their impressive score, I want to tell everyone that this will be the last time I'm going to bring you all to the arena."

Everyone looked a little shocked as Miss Amy sent Sophia and Mary to sit back down.

"I know you might be a little disappointed, but now you can go on your own time and try the challenge yourself."

"How do we do that?" One of the students asked the question in everyone's mind.

"Just use your ID, which was given when you entered the school. Go to the front desk and tell them what level you want to enter."

Seeing everyone seem to understand the instructions, Miss Amy quickly took out the textbook.

"Now, everyone, please open your textbook and flip to chapter 3..."

---

As the class ended, everyone in the class was already grouping up with each other.

They all had one destination, which was to visit the arena.

"Alex, you want to come with us? We are about to check the arena out right now."

Chloe asked as she came back from the back, which included both of his sisters who had now fully joined their friend group.

"Sure."

As Alex followed the six of them out of the classroom, the school's exit was filled with people of similar age.

For a second, a particular memory hits him—a child who was lost among a bunch of blank faces.

He quickly shook his head, kicking the memories away as they walked onto the sidewalks filled with people going to their destination.

A few minutes walk later...

When the seven of them arrived at the arena entrance, hundreds of thousands of people were already at the front.

Most of them were at the front desks, lining up for the arena challenge services, while some were heading to the back.

They were wearing different-colored robes, indicating various mage majors as they stood in the main lobby chatting with each other.

Some of them were also much older, ranging from fully grown adults to even someone in their sixties with a white beard.

Their towering height made the entrance a little intimidating, but they continued forward as Sophia held Mary's and Alex's hands tightly.

"What do we do now?" Mary asked curiously, admiring the decorated main lobby.

"Let's go explore the building. I heard there's a shopping area and even a tournament happening in the back."

Evelyn quickly took the lead, tightly holding Luna's hand as Camille and Chloe followed right behind.