Derek smiled as his friends and family came over to congratulate him. The other matches were continuing but at this moment he just sat in the ready room recovering from the fight. The room was packed with well wishers and he was pleased to see them.

Tristan glanced over from where he was sitting. “So, how much did you have left?”

Derek smiled wryly. He knew what his friend was after. “Thirty? Maybe twenty percent.”

Tristan shook his head, “Damn, I was hoping it was closer.”

Derek nodded, “Yeah, our mana pools are very similar in size, but your need to maintain flight to avoid melee and the higher cost of your attack spells meant that it was a matter of time if we kept fighting like that. I just needed to keep up the pressure and make sure you didn’t catch me with any of your truly powerful spells. It pretty much forced you to take a gamble with that Windstorm and since I knew you had to do something I was only waiting to see what you would do to use my own counters.”

Shrugging his shoulders, the young mage sighed, “Yeah, well there’s always next year.”

“I look forward to it.”

At the end of the day the ten champions for the various grade years had been selected. The next stage of the competition would be held on the grounds of the city’s Colosseum itself. The contestants all received a day off to watch as grand contests were held in celebration of the event. There were displays of strength, magical prowess, martial arts, beast taming, and acrobatics. Finally, the capstone of the day’s event was a duel between Grandmaster Giovanni Fior and House Windreach’s Master Ovid Balder.

It was an excellent display of skill. The two men fought for well over three hours, demonstrating the use of several weapons, but even after so long, neither was able to defeat the other. It was true that Fior still had a higher tier than his opponent but the honor of the Grandmaster demanded that he compete on weapon skills alone. In the end, the two men stopped to catch their breaths, laughed heartily and walked out of the arena arm in arm.

The crowd was incredibly excited and the news of Fior and Balder’s latest duel spread like wildfire throughout the city. By morning there was hardly anyone who had not heard of it. Derek was happy for his master. If the man had stayed in the city all these years, he would have been just as widely renowned as the Grandmaster.

With the end of that fight, the day of celebration came to a close and the Priests of the War God blessed the packed dirt grounds where the tournament would continue the next day. The duels to come would be overseen by them and the competition would be sanctified by the War God himself. Excited for the challenges he would face in the morning Derek joined his family in returning to the Academy.

The next morning Ovid led Derek into the waiting rooms under the competition grounds. He coached the young man on what he would expect. This competition would last three days and would have four rounds in both the winner and loser’s brackets before the winner of each bracket would face off. The first round of the first day would be held between the youngest four grade years. The first and second year champions would fight, followed by the third and fourth year champions. The winners of those fights would advance to the second round.

This did give the older students an advantage, but on most years the difference between the various grades was sufficient that it was not considered problematic. The existence of the loser’s bracket would give everyone who had lost in the first day a second chance anyways. That said, Derek’s first opponent was a talented young Mage from the second year.

When he ascended the ramp onto the grounds of the Colosseum, the sheer spectacle took his breath away. He turned slowly, looking at the roaring crowd of fifty thousand plus spectators. They were all cheering wildly, encouraging him and his opponent to fight their best. Turning, he saw his opponent, just as taken away by the experience as he was.

Standing between them was a Priest of the War God in bronze armor and helm, wearing a scarlet cloak. “Haha, young men, is this your first time? It can be quite the thrill standing before the crowd. Many warriors never get enough of it and are drawn to come here to compete for much of their adult lives.”

Derek smiled while looking back at the man. The sheer pressure the man gave off was tremendous. He seemed to give off a sensation of barely restrained ferocity. He glanced at his opponent, who seemed equally impressed by the man. “Thank you for your words War Priest. I have looked forward to this experience.”

The other student nodded in agreement, “I had heard that being here would be entirely different than being in the stands, but only now do I know just how true it was. I can feel the raw energy coming from the crowds. It is easy to understand why some would become so beguiled by this place.”

The Priest threw his head back and laughed loudly, “Good, good, you two! Just know that today you are fighting under the eye of the War God himself. Do not hold anything back. Who knows? If you can catch his eye you may receive a boon. Even those that lose but fight with skill and heart have a chance to earn his blessings!”

With that the War Priest stepped back, “Fighters, are you ready?”

“Yes!” The two men shouted in response.

“Fight!”

Hearing the War Priest’s instruction, Derek dashed forward while casting his Righteous Blessing. His opponent cast an Earth based enhancement on himself, and used the blessing to shift the earth underneath himself and slide back. The Colosseum’s fighting space was much larger than the Arena’s had been so the young man had much more space to move in and attempt to kite his opponent.

Seeing this, Derek began slashing out with his warsword, shooting Dispels at his opponent, and anywhere else he saw mana condensing. After a few moments, he confirmed that his opponent prefered Earth system spells as most of the spells he cast were Earth based. He sensed traps being laid in the ground of the arena, Earth Fists being formed in the air and fired at him, earthen walls shooting up to protect the mage from the Dispels being fired at him and more. Only occasionally would a Fire Bullet or Wind Buffet be fired at him.

Thinking about the nature of Earth magic he assumed that his opponent’s defensive capabilities would be fantastic, along with high stamina and mana regeneration as long as he was touching the ground. The biggest trade off was a slower means of locomotion than what Tristan would have used. Still, with walls of earth appearing in Derek’s way and slowing him down, the young man didn’t need to be particularly fast.

Derek was relatively safe, his senses were fine tuned even without his Demon Sense ability giving him a much higher sensitivity to disturbances in mana and his opponent’s guileless but efficient style of fighting allowed him to catch all of his opponent’s attacks before they struck him. He continued his pursuit, driving his opponent towards the wall on the far side. Sometimes he would go around the obstacles left in his way, while other times he went over, raining weapon channeled spells down upon his opponent.

Finally, as his opponent was pushed into the corner, he used a familiar spell, Burrow. Derek smiled as he sensed the mana drifting off to his right before using Wind Steps to quickly sprint above that location. He then slashed downwards three times from his position two meters above the ground. The first spell was the bright green of an overcharged Wind Buffet, followed by the bright white of a dispel, and then the red of a Fire Blast.

These spells caught the young man in the ground off guard as he believed he was concealed from his opponent and he believed that at the worst Derek would have retreated out of the ambush location. First, the Wind Buffet hammered into the ground exploding rock, sand, and other debris from above the second year champion. The young man even suffered quite a bit of drain from his shields as his body was partially caught within the blast radius of the explosion. Next, the Dispel struck his shield, bringing it down and leaving the champion defenseless. The explosion of the Fire Blast shield was matched with the brilliant white of the training robes protecting their wearer.

The young man was still standing with his eyes and mouth both wide open from the shock of the situation. As he saw Derek approaching, he quickly got ahold of himself. Derek offered him his hand, “While the Burrow spell can mislead many people and hide your position, it still has a mana signature and there are vibrations that can give away your position to a veteran fighter.”

The young man nodded as he took Derek’s hand, “So that’s how you caught me...”

Seeing the two’s fight ending, the War Priest shouted out, “The winner of the first fight of the day is the Magic Warrior, Derek Thorne, Champion of the First Grade Year!”

Smiling, he approached the two, “Good fight you two. Derek you advanced to the next round. Arnaud, you will have an opportunity to fight tomorrow. You may return to your waiting rooms. Your next fight should be in about an hour, Derek. Rest up.”

Derek nodded to the other man. He shook hands with his opponent then returned down the ramp to his waiting room. When he arrived, Ovid was waiting for him. “Next round, you will be fighting whoever wins the second fight of this round, so either the Mage third year or the Magic Warrior fourth year.

“After that the rest of the second round will be the fifth year fighting the sixth year, the seventh year versus the eighth, and the ninth against the tenth year. This is the most fair you can expect as you will progressively have to fight older opponents. No matter who wins the next fight, I think you will be fine. You have faced more difficult opponents than either of them.

“But your third round will most likely be against the student from the sixth year, Marcus Riley. He’s a tier four Battlemage. He’s already a Dedicated of the War God and is considered the strongest student in the competition this year.”

Derek looked at him strangely, “The sixth year is the strongest student? Shouldn’t the tenth year be stronger?”

Ovid laughed, “It’s rare for a combat Mage or Magic Warrior to stay here for the full ten years. Most graduate shortly after getting to fourth tier and completing the required curriculum. Any student of the Mage or Magic Warrior College that is still here after ten years either grew very slowly or is studying something very intricate, in both cases, that means they are very unlikely to be very strong in combat.

“To be more precise the eighth to tenth years are almost never the strongest students in this competition. That is usually reserved for the fifth through seventh years. This year, it is agreed by many that Marcus is the strongest student, with seventh year Magic Warrior Xavier Celtus as the second strongest.”

Derek thought for a moment before looking up, “How do you think my odds are against Xavier?”

Ovid looked at his student with a wicked gleam in his eye, “Hehe, boy, let’s just say you are about to be gifted with an excellent learning opportunity.”