The Magic Tournament

Jason put his hands on Selena and the atmosphere turned quiet. 

"Good luck," he says awkwardly as he tries to pick Selena's mood back up.

A loud announcement was heard in the center of the Colosseum which attracted everyone's attention.

Everyone turned over and saw that the emperor and empress had arrived.

Everyone bowed out of respect and only got back up after the imperial couple signaled them.

"Today is a very important day for an empire. Magic is the foundation of this empire and the promotion of magic is vital to our culture. The new generation will be the pillars of our empire in the future so we should give them all our support. For this year's magic tournament, I will grant the winner a wish in the name of the emperor. If it is within my ability, you can get anything you want. Now, Let the magic tournament, Begin!" The emperor said with majesty and vigor.

The crowd erupted, the rewards for the magic tournament have always been generous but they have never had something as good as this.

Some people even ran up to sign up at the last second, no one wants to miss this chance. 

As the scene got more chaotic, the original group split up and naturally went into the positions indicated on their sheet.

After everything was finalized, The first round of matches started.

Jason is up first, he has to face his opponent.

The crowd starts whispering.

"Isn't that the counterfeit prince?"

"Is he good at magic? I hardly hear anything about him"

"If he was good at magic, would he be so poorly accomplished?"

"He can't even compete with Lance, right? I doubt he would make it far"

Many voices started beaming from the crowd until it got drowned out by a loud explosion.

The crowd looked back in the ring and saw a lot of smoke.

As the smoke disappeared, the opponent Jason faced was lying on the floor.

Jason withdrew the flame spear that was in his hand and turned to the referee.

The referee was shocked but immediately announced Jason had won.

The crowd was too shocked to even cheer. After a while, Someone yelled in amazement.

Cheers started ringing out, the match was so quick. Most people don't see something this exciting outside of the battlefield, they are amazed.

Selena smirked while seeing how quickly the crowd switched sides. Happiness and pride filled her heart as if she was the one the crowd was cheering for.

After the commotion, the next matches came and went.

Then, it was Ivory's turn.

"Isn't this the Mandeline princess? I heard she was part of the three golden goddesses from the Academy"

"Really? She's in the same level as Fiona?"

"She has to be right? They won't call them the golden goddesses for nothing. I heard they helped win the war in the southern region"

"Now you're getting me excited, let's see what she got!"

The attention went back to the ring.

The match started. The opponent dashes towards Selena.

Magic wraps their fist like a ball giving a very dangerous aura. They wind their arm backward, getting ready to blast Ivory with one punch.

Ivory looks at the situation calmly and then takes a deep breath. Magic fills her lungs and then she breathes out everything on the floor right in front of her opponent.

The floor instantly freezes which disturbs the movement of her opponent. The opponent slips and falls forward towards Selena.

Ivory wraps magic on her fist and then walks forward slowly as the opponent's body is about to fall in front of her. 

She then punches the stomach of her opponent before they call. The body freezes in half as they stand there stuck as a statue. 

Ivory turns to the referee who is stuck in a daze. The referee realizes what's going on and immediately calls the match.

"Ivory, Wins!" The ref says as the crowd erupts.

"What was that skill just now? What cool magic!"

"I told you she would be amazing!"

Selena stared in awe, "Ivory really got much better. The battle experience is great".

After Ivory's match, the tournament continued. Eventually, it was Selena's turn.

Her back turned cold, It was time to face her fears.

She has never beaten Fiona in her entire life, She was suppressed everywhere and naturally developed some fear and envy of her.

"But today will be different, I have learned a lot and I can compete with the other geniuses of my age", Selena thought to herself as she tried to pick her spirits up.

"Fiona, This is the day I tear you from your high pedestal"

On the other end of the ring

"Here comes this woman again. She thinks offensive magic isn't worth learning, how foolish. Offensive magic is the core and foundation of our empire. How can we move forward if we don't master it and take it to a new level" Fiona says while clenching her fist.

She has never liked Selena, she felt like Selena was too pretentious and too idealistic.

Her mind flashed towards the southern territory, she remembered the poisonous lake her father talked about.

She gritted her teeth, "I may have taken down the most people but even I know how important it was to cure that lake. Was that magic she likes really that good? If so, what have I been doing this whole time? Wouldn't that mean I have been waiting my time on the wrong thing?" 

Fiona fell into thought as she approached the ring. "No, I can't get swayed. Sure her magic may be helpful but I know what the real foundation of magic is"

She locks eyes with Selena and then gets a bit shocked. "Her eyes, does she really think she can beat me? I have never seen her so serious before. She doesn't even have the slight fear in her eyes as usual".

Fiona's eyes get a bit darker, "It seems I am still being underestimated" she whispers to herself.

The referee gets ready to announce the start of the match. 

"Fiona, today, I will take you down" Selena yells as she gets into a battle stance.

"Come at me then Selena, Show me what your little magic can do" Fiona yelled back. The match starts and Fiona faces her hands behind her and then explodes her fire magic while dashing forward.

The increased speed made her go lighting fast as she approached and quickly punched Selena's face.

Selena could barely react as she put up a barrier at the last second to block the attack. The barrier breaks but it still pushes Fiona back. 

Fiona reacts and quickly shoots a powerful fireball at Selena but when the fireball hits, it goes right through Selena as if it was a mirage.

Fiona grits her teeth, it seems that magic can be quite troublesome.

Selena looks around and sees many different Selena's around the ring. 

Selena faces her hands towards the floor and shoots a giant force of wind which propels her up. When she reaches the apex, she looks downward and shoots dozens of fireballs aimed at all the images of Selena. 

The fireballs hit the images of Selena one by one until a barrier popped up at one of the Selena's.

"Found you," Fiona says as she lands lightly and quickly dashes towards Selena.

Selena puts her hand on the ground and softens the floor where Fiona is running. She then puts her hand on her body to lighten her body.

She dashes towards Fiona who was getting ready to counterattack until her legs bucked at the change in the floor composition. She was about to fall down but quickly stuck her arm out and then propelled herself up in the air. 

As she's rising, she sees Selena already in the air with her arm winded all the way out.

Selena then crashes a punch toward Fiona who quickly uses a barrier and crashes toward the ring.

Ivory, who was watching from the stands, gasped. "Selena? When did you get so strong?" She whispered as she looked at the battle.

Fiona slowly got up in shock, "This woman..." She starts to say as she slowly adjusts her mentality.

Fiona can't remember the last time she was forced to use her barrier on someone who wasn't Ivory. This irritated her.

She takes deep breaths and calms herself down. 

"I don't know much about her magic but she knows a lot about the mind. I'm at a natural disadvantage. Let's just take it slow" Fiona says as she gets into battle stance.

Selena watched as Fiona stopped dashing towards her impulsively and slowly cursed under her breath.

She was hoping to take advantage of being looked down on to constantly land enough counterattacks and then take advantage of the gap between health to win in a frontal battle. But now, she only got to land one hit before Fiona stopped being impulsive,

Selena looked at her hand and it was slightly numb. Fiona's barrier was indeed very powerful, I hardly ever see her use it. She's strong.

"But I won't lose here," Selena says as newfound confidence rushes into her body. 

Selena then aims some magic at Fiona and then activates the skill. The wind slowly circulates around Fiona without causing any damage.

Selena then adds a lot of dirt and dust until the wind circulating Fiona turns vividly dirty.

It's getting smaller and smaller while the particles start hitting Fiona bit by bit.

Fiona takes a deep breath and then slams her hand towards the floor. The impact was amplified many times by her magic which caused wind to fly away from her at a fast speed.

The circulating wind gets overpowered by Fiona's magic and hits Selena. Selena quickly puts up her barrier and the wind crashes into it. 

Her barrier is getting weaker and Selena starts panting.

Fiona stares at her with cold eyes but doesn't rush forward.

The two stood frozen, without either making a move.

Fiona then started to charge up some magic.

"I underestimated you, I'll admit that. I was saving this for your boyfriend but I think you're worthy now" Fiona says as the sky gets a little darker above her.

Crackling starts being heard all over her in the arena. Fiona's hands start flashing a little blue as she pulls her arm back as if she is aiming at Selena.

Selena slowly felt the sweat on her back grow cold, Is this... lightning? she muttered to herself as she panicked.

Lightning is a very high-level offensive magic that takes up a lot of mana. Most people don't attempt it due to its power and mana consumption becoming too imbalanced if you are not talented enough.

Fiona flicks her hand and a flash is seen.

Selena put up her barrier and it instantly shattered. She was electrocuted so hard she fell to the floor. 

Fiona was panting as she slowly approached, she never would have guessed she would be forced to use that move. Even Ivory never forced this move out of her.

"it's over now" Fiona muttered as she kept moving towards Selena.

She walked up and saw Selena lying on the floor. Fiona puts her hand towards her and prepares to shoot a small fireball to completely knock her out.

"Fiona, you lost" a voice that sounds like Selena is heard behind Fiona.

"Impossible," Fiona says as she quickly turns around but doesn't see anyone. She looks down and a small illusory bird on the floor is seen.

Fiona quickly realizes that something is wrong and turns back around but Selena is already in the air. A punch then connects to Fiona's face and a loud explosion sound is heard.

Selena pants hard as she can barely keep herself standing. Fiona flies in the air for a bit and then crashes on the floor.

Selena could barely make a smile, she was barely able to turn the vital parts of her body to electric insulators which kept her conscious. The magic was too powerful. She can't even use her barrier for a while. Luckily, I could fool her with the voice recording inside the illusory bird that I learned from Jason.

Selena continues to pant as she sees Fiona's immobile body still lying on the ground. 

Selena looks up at the sky as she continues to catch her breath. She could barely move right now.

A light voice was ringing in her ears. 

"Selena! Selena! Selena!", The voice was increasingly getting louder. 

Selena thought it was cheering, but right when she was about to turn towards the crowd, she noticed the voice was actually full of worry and warning. "Is that Jason?" she thought to herself.

Before she could think more, a sharp pain was felt below her stomach. It pierced right through and felt like it was burning. Selena was shocked, what happened?

She looked down, and a small needle-sized hole completely pierced through her. Her eyes bulged out as she took a couple of steps backward.

Blood slowly starts dripping out of the hole. She could tell it wasn't fatal but now she really can't move at all.

She falls down on the floor and then slowly looks up.

Fiona, who was just immobile, barely lifted her upper body up while on the floor and had her finger pointing directly where the wound was.

Her finger had smoke coming out of it which shows she just used powerful magic.

"So you weren't knocked out huh?" Selena says with a wry smile as she can barely maintain consciousness. Fiona slowly got up and staggered towards Selena's body. 

"If I didn't use my explosion to propel myself in the same direction as your punch to reduce the impact, I might've been knocked out by now. You did well" Fiona said quietly.

Selena thought back to the explosion she heard right when her punch connected, "Ah, so that sound was from you, not from me. Her reactions are truly incredible" Selena thought as a fireball was about to land right on her face.

"Maybe, it isn't that bad to lose to a woman like this," she said with a defeated smile as the fireball crashed into her face and she lost consciousness.

Fiona then stumbles and then falls on the floor aswell. She didn't lose consciousness but she could barely walk. She looked up at the referee who immediately reacted and announced the winner.

The crowd roared as the match was over.

"Fiona! Fiona! Fiona! Fiona! Fiona!"

"As expected of the three golden goddesses of the academy, they are incredible!"

"I haven't seen a battle like that in a long time! And what was that magic Selena was using? It wasn't offensive magic right?"

"I don't know but it was amazing"

The crowd continued to cheer as the medic team came to give treatment to the two women. 

Just like that, the first round of matches was over.