Inside a training facility room, a female magician who's currently garbed with a white training suit is standing in the middle of the room without any movement. This a 200 square meters wide room and designed for combat training.

The training suit perfectly contoured her curvaceous body allowing anyone who could see her to be captivated even just by a glance. She had long red hair reaching on her chest and her eyes were closed as if in deep thought.

There was another female student within the room and she's wearing her academy uniform. After she noticed the red-haired girl in the center of the room had readied herself, she nodded and turned around to leave the room.

As soon as this girl left, the lights within the room disappeared leaving the red-haired girl in complete darkness.

At the same time, not knowing where they came from, several shining eyes opened within the room surrounding the girl. Because of complete darkness, their whole body could not be seen.

After these creatures appeared, two magic attacks were activated. It is a Freezing Fog and Paralysis Fume that was aiming to immobilize the girl.

This time, the girl started to take action. With still closed eyes, she activated her mana shell and using her left hand holding an exquisite dagger, activated another magic skill.

Her mana shell that was activated can cover more than 3 meters around her stopping the 2 magic skills that were aimed at her. This allowed her to activated 2 more magic skills.

"Fire Blessed Armor."

"Domain Magic -- Continuous Flame Orbit."

The Fire Blessed Armor wasn't really a skill that could summon an armor for her to wear but a magic skill that could create a fire that is lingering around ready to protect her. This skill also allows her not to be affected by the second skill she activated.

Domain Magic are skills that allow the magician to affect their environment. The one she activated, Continuous Flame Orbit, would change her environment to a burning site. Since this changed the whole surroundings, without her Fire Blessed Armor activated, she would also be affected by the excessive heat released by her second skill.

The room was now lit up with her magic. This time, she opened her eyes and looked at her surroundings that were filled with raging flames.

She noticed that the 12 creatures she needed to defeat were still struggling in the flames and it seems that they wouldn't go down so easily.

She waved her right hand and at the same time, the mana artifact she's wearing on her wrist produced a dull crimson light. She looked at the 12 creatures with a curled lip that could indicate sardonic as they were covered by another wave of flame.

"Lava Mine. Detonate."

Baammmmm!!

A loud explosion was heard within the room as the creatures were now heavily damaged. The 12 human-like creatures are a mana artifact that has a certain level of magic resistance and has close combat skills that were perfect for practicing magic skills. They were still struggling to get up after the explosion, this could tell how high their endurance is.

"Good, let me see how strong this new mana artifact."

The girl was even happier upon seeing the inhuman endurance of these 'targets'. After all, this would only allow her to use or try more of her magic skills.

Right now, a rare expression is on her face. Her perfect and white teeth can be seen as she smiled while observing the target opponents. Her eyes lit up as she continued her assault on the poor mana artifacts.

***

After 15 minutes more in the one-sided battle, the room became silent before a group of people opened the door and magic swept the place cleaning the surroundings from its mess. Some burn marks could still be seen but it could easily be fixed by the facility officer at the end of the day.

"Sheryl, these mana artifacts you made are really interesting. It's a good thing you choose to prioritize artifact forging."

The group that has entered consisted of 3 students. There's a single female who stood in the middle. She has wavy blue hair and bright blue eyes, she was smiling back at the girl as she felt contented being praised by the opposite. The two male students beside her were just standing behind her as if guarding Sheryl.

"Thank you, Kyla. If you have any more suggestions, you can just tell me so I could make some adjustments to its magic structure."

Kyla shook her head as she felt that the artifact really suited her style and couldn't think of other improvements at the moment.

"I'm just curious, your family specializes in ice and water magic pathway, but here you are, dabbling with fire magic pathway."

Kyla was really amused by this 2nd year transferred student she befriended. She was aware of her background and knew that this girl is a previous student at Leonhearts Academy and a combat magician at that. But now, she's studying artifact forging and was even selected as a participant in TMAC as one of the 3 mana technicians that will be representative for 2nd-year students.

"Haha. Don't be. I just found my interest in forging mana artifact that's all."

Sheryl answered Kyla as she approached the latter.

Frost Queen, this was the title given to Sheryl and was acknowledged even in a popular magazine 'The Fortune in Magic'.

She transferred to another excellent magic academy, it is one of the most outstanding educational establishment capable of nurturing talented magicians, the Mystic Gate Academy.

***

Wallace was now at his workshop reading some information about the five 2nd year combat magicians who will be participating with him on the competition. He wants to familiarize himself with them as although the papers couldn't give him enough information, it would be enough to at least know their backgrounds, habits, and skills.

He was then notified by his parents about a recent transaction they made with Golden Trident Group as they met the criteria that Wallace had set up before selling the artifact, Float Drive System.

He noticed a large increase in his savings on his bank account.

"Good timing, I could buy more materials with this. Since I also needed to practice creating those mass-produced mana artifacts and magic structure."

Wallace was grinning upon seeing the huge amount of money added on his account.

He opened his laptop and gone to the same online store which is Secret's Shop to purchase necessary materials also for creating those standard mana artifacts.