For the next two matches, Derek found himself paired up with tier zeroes. It was their misfortune to match up so poorly but Derek gave them both time to show off what skills they had gained. With their families spectating, this small indulgence was appreciated.

Garrett’s day ended in the fourth round. He did well, defeating one tier one and an early tier two in his second and third rounds, but he lost to Tristan in round four. Lynette got defeated in the third round by a magic warrior who lost to Monica in the fourth. That left Derek, Tristan, Desmond, and Monica still in the day’s competition going into the round of sixteen.

After the fourth match was a three hour break for the competitors to rest and eat lunch. Derek met up with his friends and family to eat and go over their matches. It was quite the lively atmosphere. Even Blake opted not to ruin the mood, which was a pleasant change.

Derek’s fifth fight was against a decently talented tier one but it still posed little difficulty for him, but Monica went up against the only remaining tier two other than Derek and Tristan and she lost during this round. In the round of eight, Desmond went up against Tristan and lost, while Derek got another relatively easy fight, facing the last tier zero to make it this far.

Looking up to the announcement board by the official, Derek saw that his next opponent would be the other tier two, while Tristan would be fighting the last of the tier ones. Heading over to the location of the next fight, Derek saw the young man he was to fight. This was one of the more low key individuals of their year. He was a prince from the interior of the continent but had made few waves during the year and focused on his training and class work.

Seeing that his opponent had opted to equip a poleaxe, Derek chose a glaive and entered the training field. His opponent nodded politely before taking his stance. With the announcement of the official the fight started.

Derek started once again by casting his enhancement spell upon himself while his opponent did the same. He noticed that his opponent had used a pure earth based enhancement, which he could assume to provide much greater defense and incredible weight behind the blows, but not much in agility and speed.

Knowing this, Derek began testing his opponent. He quickly learned that he was right about the opponent’s agility but the man’s strong technical foundation meant that he would make few mistakes and the young man managed to parry seven out of ten strikes. The strong earth based shield spell absorbed the few that got through.

Stepping back out of reach, Derek weighed his choices. He knew that a fight with someone with this level of defense and strong earth based enhancement would mean that he could take the offensive. The opponent’s fighting skills were solid but not as advanced as his own, which meant that as long as he made no mistakes he could keep the other youth under pressure and prevent him from attacking as long as he made no mistakes.

The question would then come down to mana and stamina. The strong earth based enhancement and defensive stance would ensure that his opponent would not tire as fast as him and as long as his opponent blocked most of his attacks, Derek would run out of mana long before he depleted his opponent’s. Thinking about it made Derek smile. Finally, a challenge!

His opponent watched him warily. The young man knew his victory lay in tiring his opponent so he had to be much more alert. Derek’s skill and agility, along with the weight of his attacks gave him reason to pause. He was uncertain that his attrition based strategy was going to be successful with an opponent this good.

Smiling Derek stepped back further and ended his Righteous Blessing. Shortly afterwards a red glow gathered around him as flames sprang into being in his vicinity and the temperature began to spike around him. He had cast Righteous Fury. It was a risk to cast this, as the mana consumption was much higher than his other spell, but Derek believed that his opponent’s mana would drain far faster than his as his shield would be resisting the area of effect damage of this spell.

As his opponent showed surprise to his action, Derek advanced again and began to pressure his foe. The young man’s guard was fantastic, managing to block or deflect many of Derek’s attacks, but over the next few minutes the strain started to show. The young prince’s mana started to bottom out before finally collapsing under a flurry of attacks from Derek’s glaive. With a flash of white, the armor protected the contestant and Derek withdrew while ending his spell. Amazingly enough, the young man’s stance had not been greatly affected and he was still standing.

“Amazing,” Derek couldn’t help but praise his opponent. He clasped his hands and bowed slightly in respect for his opponent before returning to his corner. He checked his mana pool to find that he had consumed ninety percent of his own mana to win that fight. Just a minute more and he would have lost.

Stepping down from the field, Derek stripped his armor and rested for a moment. He glanced up to see that Tristan had won his match. The two of them would fight next in the final round of the first day. That fight would be held in the Arena in half an hour, so Derek sat for a while to regain his mana and stamina.

After a few moments Derek saw Ovid come over. The man clapped his shoulder before sitting next to him. “Good fight, I wondered how you would handle that guy.”

Derek smiled at him, “His foundations were good and his style favored defense. With a stronger mana pool he would be unbeatable.”

Ovid shook his head, “It would indeed be difficult to beat him, but not impossible. There is no unbeatable style. It would be best to remember that. If you are done resting, let’s head over to the Arena. The others have already left to get seats.”

The two made the short trip to the Arena. There were lines outside of all of the entrances, but the two were waved in by the attendants. Ovid headed up towards the seats while Derek took a ramp down to the waiting rooms below the field.

When he arrived he saw Tristan already waiting with a wry smile on his face. “It was lucky that you had to fight that guy. I am sure I could have beat him but I wouldn’t want to start this fight with my Mana depleted.”

Derek laughed at that, “Yeah, it’s a bit unfortunate. I am not sure I can regain all of mine before the fight starts.”

Tristan shrugged, “Don’t expect me to delay the fight for that. I know how good you are. I am going to take any advantage I can.”

Derek nodded while looking as the attendants signaled that they were ready. He turned to his friend. “Don’t worry about it. I would have done the same. Are you ready?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

The two went up their respective ramps to the Arena grounds above. They were taken aback by the number of people jammed into the building to watch them. The sound of the excited spectators was almost deafening. Derek felt his blood race as he saw all of these people. He thought about how Garrett had described fighting in the Colosseum and could almost understand the other boy’s excitement about it.

They moved to equip their gear. Derek took a warsword of similar proportions to the Thorneblade and equipped his armor. Tristan chose a staff and a robe with the same enchantments as the armor.

The two stood ten yards apart from each other. If it was half a year ago, Derek would have to cross that distance while soaking or deflecting Tristan’s attacks to get to Tristan. Now, though, he had more tools for dealing with a mage opponent.

Once the two were ready, the official started the fight. Derek knew his mana was low so he opted not to enhance himself. Meanwhile Tristan cast an enhancement on himself of the air element. Derek watched as his opponent floated a few yards from the ground. Derek didn’t even bother approaching, instead taking his stance.

Seeing that Derek would not approach, Tristan began casting Wind Blades and firing them at Derek. Derek watched the bombardment of spells and deftly slashed outwards six times. Each slashing attack shot out a weapon channeled Wind Blade back at Tristan’s and they smashed each other apart. The rest of Tristan’s barrage pounded into the ground around Derek kicking up sand and chips of rock.

Tristan cast again, sending a barrage of Fire Bolts down at Derek, which Derek similarly destroyed with a water based counter attack. Each time Tristan attacked, Derek selected the most mana efficient counter. Tristan quickly understood what Derek was attempting to do. By using the most mana efficient counter to all of Tristan’s attacks, he could potentially rebalance his mana disadvantage and if it went long enough, Tristan would naturally lose. Once both ran out of mana, Derek was still a warrior, while Tristan would not be able to protect himself at close range.

Derek was using the same strategy as his previous opponent, defending until the other side was too weak to continue. Tristan knew that he couldn’t afford to play into Derek’s strategy. Thinking quickly, he switched to a much higher level spell.

He started by casting three of the same spell and anchoring them near him. These were a higher level form of the Fire Bolt that repeatedly cast the same spell over a period of time until all mana used in their casting was consumed called Fire Sentry. It was a simple spell that required little concentration to direct their targeting.

Once these Fire Sentries were in place and Derek was busy casting Water Blades to disrupt them, Tristan started casting a much more powerful and slower to cast spell. Derek saw it and knew that this was the moment to decide the fight. Once that spell was cast one of them would be defeated. He continued to defend against the three spells until he saw his friend cast his next spell. His heart jumped into his throat seeing the sixth level Flame Burst spell spring from his friend’s hands and fly directly at him.

“Be Careful,” Tristan shouted.

“Hah, this is it. Take my strike!” Derek shouted in response. His arms then blurred as he slashed forward five times with his blade. Then he cast a wind sequence enhancement on himself and dashed forward.

The audience was cheering madly, the fight had come to a climax as the three Sentries continued to blast downwards and the great orb of the Flame Burst quickly made its way towards Derek. Five bright slashes of energy shot back from Derek’s position. The first intercepted the Flame Burst and the energy within the slash burst the orb like a bubble halfway to its destination. The energy of the blast seemed to corrode as the bright energy seemed to consume it. In a cascade of red then whitish blue, the Flame Burst ceased to be in a colorful, if anticlimactic way.

The next three slashes pierced into the three sentries causing them to burst in a blast of red fire mana before continuing on to splash into the shield in front of the spectators. That shield fluctuated in place before calmly reforming.

The final slash struck Tristan who was still recovering from his last casting. The shield from his enhancement flared to life before the bright slashed flared and consumed the shield and enhancement. Tristan found himself falling back to the floor of the Arena and was only able to cast a quick spell to slow his fall before he felt a hand on his shoulder.

He looked up to see Derek holding his shoulder. Derek smiled, “I win.”

Tristan stared at him dumbfounded for a moment before finally getting a grip on the situation. “You used weapon channeling with your dispel? How?”

Derek laughed, “Well, yeah, I have been working on ways to use weapon channeling with all of my spells since I learned it. I figured it would come in handy and it did.”

The crowd had gone insane. There were to be nine other fights in the Arena that afternoon and already this one had been incredible with demonstrations of powerful Mage and Magic Warrior techniques. The later fights would all be higher years of students too, so the crowd could not wait to see how good these older students would be if the first years were already this good.

Tristan Brennon-

Previous Classes-

Prince, Royal Mage

Permanent Enhancements-

Royal Mage, Tier One: +2 Agility, +4 Mind, Increased Essentia Pool

Royal Mage, Tier Two: +2 Agility, +4 Mind, Increased Essentia Pool

Natural Attunement Elixer: +2 Mind, +5 Water, +5 Wind, +5 Fire, +5 Earth

Alignment Attunement Elixer: +2 Mind, +5 Order, +5 Light, +5 Chaos, +5 Dark

Equipment-

Runic Robes: Basic Protection Mid t2, Maximum defensive spell level 7

Runic Staff: +10 to all elemental attributes, Maximum offensive spell level 7