Swoosh!

Clyde had been impatiently waiting for the command to start, and as soon as the Vice Dean finished speaking he tapped his leg on the ground and began his attack. He started chanting a magic spell, and at the same time a huge magic circle appeared beneath his feet.

Tssss!

White threads of mist was originating from where Clyde tapped his leg. This mist condensed and turned into a thin layer of ice that quickly began to spread across the arena. Before long, the entire battle arena was covered in ice.

Shad was stunned when he saw the thin layer of ice, preventing him from charging Clyde in a frontal attack. He wasn’t one to hesitate though, and quickly began to prepare a spell known as magic circle shield. This was a rankless magic spell, that was capable of being cast regardless of a mage’s rank, attribute, or talent. However, the amount of mana it required was astonishing for a spell with no rank. It was a spell designed only for defense, where the user creates a magic circle and imbues his mana into it in order to make it as hard as steel. The final strength of the shield depended on how much mana the mage could supply, but regardless of a mage’s strength the shield could only last two minutes before it disappeared.

Normally, a mage cast this spell by raising his hand in front of the attacker and allowing the shield to appear in front of him, facing the attack. However, Shad did the opposite. He positioned his hand as though he was praying, and the magic circle shield appeared horizontally in front of him. Once it was complete, he jumped on top of the shield so that he could evade the thin layer of ice that was going to freeze his leg if he stayed on the ground.

The entire audience, including the professors and staff that were watching, gasped in surprise. Never in their wildest dreams had they imagined someone could use this type of shield as a stairway. Not that it was impossible, simply that they had never used it in such an unorthodox way. They were all forced to silently congratulate Shad for his creative thinking in response to Clyde’s attack.

“Not good,” mumbled Shad with a look of irritation on his face. While it was true that he managed to evade the ice attack, Clyde was already finishing his second spell. Shad was allowing his opponent to control the flow of battle.

“Ice Creation Magic, Icy Storm!”

Fwoosh!

A magical whirlwind 10 meters wide and composed of snowflakes and ice shards rapidly began to grow in strength and size on the arena. Within the maelstrom, shards of ice danced around like daggers, prepared to ruthlessly destroy anything in their path.

“Mana shield!”

Before the maelstrom reached his position, Shad cast a mana shield around his body. Normally people didn’t use mana in this manner because it was such a waste of energy, but Shad had no choice in this situation, plus he had an incredibly large amount of mana. This was the only skill he could quickly cast that would protect his entire body. It wasn’t technically considered a spell, because the user did not need to chant any spell in order to create it. Instead, they needed to release the mana throughout their body and then manipulate it spiritually. It required both a large amount of mana and very strong spiritual energy. The mana shield’s strength and elasticity depended on the user’s spiritual energy, rank, and the amount of mana they possessed, but once it was fully created nothing could damage the user until he is either out of mana or cancels the shield. It would require a disproportionately powerful opponent to break a shield such as this, and in a fight between two mages of similar strength it was a nearly impenetrable shield if they had the mana and spiritual energy to keep it.

Inside the shield, Shad looked at the devastating effect of the Icy Storm, which was a 3rd tier magic spell. His shield was repeatedly struck by the ice shards within the maelstrom, but they were unable to penetrate his shield, which encompassed his entire body like a second skin.

“Clyde truly deserves the title of the number one junior mage throughout the Academy. He is not simple at all,” murmured Shad as he watched Clyde begin his third attack of the fight. It was obvious that Clyde had large amounts of battle experience, as he showed no hesitation in his attacks and they were well planned to complement each other while countering the strengths that Shad had shown in his previous fights, which was his physical abilities. So far Clyde had controlled the entire flow of the battle, and even his opponent’s responses were well within his expectations.

First, he had prepared a thin layer of ice that would counteract Shad’s mobility. He must have prepared the spell beforehand, because Shad had never seen anyone other than himself who could cast a spell instantly, and even then the only one he could cast was to channel electricity out of his body. The only explanation was that Clyde had used voiceless incantation while he was talking to Shad before the fight. Since the spell was immediately cast at the start of the fight, Shad was immediately forced to use some type of spell that would allow him to avoid his attack. Clyde expected this to be some type of spell that would allow him to get into the air, and he was correct.

After immobilizing his opponent, Clyde had used a large area of effect spell that could damage his opponent even if he wasn’t on the ground. This both made Shad’s exact response meaningless, since Clyde’s spell covered a wide area, but also further kept Shad at a distance and prevented him from closing the gap with his physical abilities. At this point in the fight, Clyde expected Shad to have used more than half of his mana, but his calculations were designed for a regular 3rd class mage at most. He was unaware of just how strong Shad had actually become.

After thinking through Clyde’s attack patterns in a split second, Shad decided he needed to go on the offensive. He cancelled the magic circle shield and dropped to the ground. With his mana shield still active, he was able to stand on the icy ground with no problem. Shad quickly began to chant a 3rd class magic spell. While he was training in the mountains, he studied many ways to shorten and master every one of the magic spells that he knew, which allowed him to complete his chants much faster than Clyde. Unfortunately, Clyde had started chanting before him, and so they finished their spells at roughly the same time.

“Ice Creation Magic, Ice Snake”

“Lightning Creation Magic, Dragon Thunderbolt!”

As they both released their spell, the powerful magics began to disrupt the air above the battle arena. Two destructive magic spells were about to make their appearance.

In front of Shad, a golden magic circle appeared and spawned multiple bolts of lightning. These bolts of lightning quickly converged and began to twine together, forming a helical pattern that gradually morphed into the giant head of a dragon. It raced towards the huge snake made of ice that had appeared on the other side of the arena. Both snakes opened their mouths wide as though they wanted to swallow their opponent.

BOOOMMM!

The two spells collided, creating a shockwave that spread throughout the entire arena. Both the snake and the dragon were dispersed, and Clyde and Shad were both pushed back from the large amounts of energy released in the explosion. Clyde stood firmly at one end of the arena, but his face was pale. He had not expected Shad to counterattack, and the explosion from two powerful spells colliding had been completely unexpected.

The audience watched the two combatants in awe, including the professors. They finally realized that Shad was immensely more powerful than he was two years ago, and they had all grossly underestimated his strength. Right now, both students looked like angry gods, one of ice and the other of lightning.

The spell Shad used was a powerful 3rd tier magic spell that was only used sparingly due to the large amounts of mana it required, as well as being notoriously difficult to control. In addition, he had somehow shortened the chant to under three seconds. Normally, this spell would take at least 10 seconds to cast. Even the professors were surprised at just how well he had managed to shorten the chant, even the Dean who had a slight smile on his face from the display.

Clyde’s spell was similar to Shad’s, but his incantation was two seconds longer than Shad’s. While the power of the spell couldn’t be denied, he had started his incantation earlier. If they had started at the same time, he would have lost the fight, and he knew it. Seconds could be years in the middle of combat. Despite this, he prepared himself to continue, firm in his resolve to emerge triumphant over the Fourth Prince.