Once the presenter left the arena, thick pillars started rising out of the ground all over the arena, Rein quickly filled them in. “Before a fight, both parties can request a certain type of terrain, it looks like both fighters requested the same kind of terrain this time around.”

Half a minute later when the pillars had properly risen out of the ground, a gate opened up on both sides of the arena, and out came two students. On the left side was a student clad in black while on the right side stood a student in a dark blue robe. The two couldn’t see each other since there was a large pillar in the middle of the arena, keeping them out of each other’s sight.

The two both began running toward the middle. Villin was surprised to see the student in the dark blue robes stayed behind a pillar, he seemed to be drawing a magic array on the ground.

On the opposite side, the student in black had put a number of items on the ground, he seemed to be casting a spell toward them. “The student on the left is from Mafoli, they are best known for their summoning rituals.” Rein filled the group in quickly.

And indeed, half a minute later, just as the student in blue finished his magic array, the student in black also finished his cast. The materials on the ground came together and formed a portal in the air, a few moments later a small creature exited this portal. It was an icy white creature that was no bigger than a hand. After a moment of looking around, it spotted the student who summoned him. After talking to the creature for a few seconds, the little creature began flying into the air, looking for the opponent.

Said opponent was now making their way toward them, moving from pillar to pillar.

The student in black breathed in deeply for a moment before coming out of cover. Both of the students quickly began sending off their respective spells. But to Villin, they seemed incredibly weak. They weren’t moving about at all. Every spell was blocked by another spell, neither of the students dodged even once.

The student on the right was pushed back more and more, but to the audience, it was clear he was trying to lead his opponent to the magic array he set up. It was of no use though. The student in dark blue suddenly got bitten in the back of the neck by a small white creature, even though it wasn’t that painful, it was enough to get him to yelp.

Because of the yelp, he stopped his incantation midway and was unable to react to the other student’s cast. He was promptly thrown back, a few spells later, he was knocked down and a bell rang, letting everyone know the winner had been decided.

Villin found the fight painful to watch. The time needed to cast was too long, the spells were too weak. The lack of dodges or using the environment was horrible. If Villin had to choose an MVP of the fight it would be the little white creature. It was the only one who somewhat used the environment, hiding from his opponent, and then striking at the right time, in the middle of a defensive cast.

Sadly, this trend was one that continued. Other schools didn’t do much better at all. Overall there were a couple of times students dodged but not even close to enough, when he looked to the side Villin saw his companions also had pained looks on their faces. Rein who looked quite excited earlier looked constipated now.

After a little bit, it was time for Decorus to fight, at least the group believed they should be somewhat skilled. The arena was the same as the very first fight, with a multitude of pillars risen up. The Decorus student in green pointed his wand toward a pillar, part of the pillar began moving until finally two small humanoids about two foot tall squirmed themselves loose from the pillar.

The Decorus student looked exhausted and slumped down next to the pillar after making sure he had correctly cast his spell. The two small humanoids waited alongside this student for a while. The enemy student slowly made his way forward checking pillar after pillar for enemies, he looked very stressed.

But just as he was about to check behind another pillar, two little creatures jumped at him from behind it. One jumped onto his leg causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground, then the other one bit the student’s arm causing him to drop his wand. At the same moment, the wand dropped to the floor the bell rang out.

If someone looked at the quartet now they would see them all doing the exact same thing. They were all covering their eyes with pained expression. These were all supposed to be students who have studied magic for sixteen months, yet they were so incredibly weak.

This included the Decorus student, any one of them could’ve taken care of the golems. Even if, in some miracle, the first golem managed to jump onto their leg causing them to lose balance, they would certainly be able to shoot the second golem out of the air, there was no way they would be beaten by this kid.

The four of them were thinking this year’s batch must just have been horrible for Decorus but the excited conversations of people around them proved otherwise. They heard multiple mentions of this year’s batch from Decorus being quite skilled.

Rein also looked very awkward now, he didn’t recall the first grade students being this weak at all. But then again, when he came here last time he wasn’t a Magus and he was quite a bit younger, he probably didn’t quite understand these kinds of things yet.

Soon The Academy had its first match but, this too was quite anticlimactic. The student from The Academy dodged every now and then but other than that he was no bitter compared to the other student in the competition.

In reality, it wasn’t that these people were weak, it was just that the quartet didn’t quite realize their strength. Even back in The Academy, Villin needed to have a multitude of students attack him at the same time in the combat classes. He thought this was a somewhat normal occasion but he was wrong. Overall, the combat skills of the people in the first grade were all extremely similar, there weren’t many people here that were a lot stronger than their peers yet since everyone was still learning the basics.

The first-grade competition lasted for a good while, and in the end, it was as people expected. The Academy ended up losing against Decorus, who managed to get a small golem to sneak attack them from behind while they were engaged in combat.

After the first grade, it was time for the second-grade tournament, this time around the competition was a lot more watchable. First of all, it had to be said the competition was no longer a single student against a single other students, instead, it was two versus two. A couple of the competitors seemed to be quite strong and Villin felt that fighting them would be quite fun. The people of this grade had some fighting instinct, they dodged more and used an environmental spell every now and then instead of just sending out streaks of light that would be blocked. Villin and Amelia were also surprised to find that Aiden fought in the second-grade team.

Where in the first grade it was quite close, the Decorus students of the second grade managed to easily defeat all opposition. They had a few very familiar golems with them when she entered the arena. The golems flew over and managed to bite into the opponents’ arms, causing them to be unable to raise them.

When a student tried to take care of the golems first, they just left themselves open for attacks and so they were still defeated.

After the first two grades finished their tournaments it was time for the sporting bits. Cut and Crease went as everyone expected. Gualin was simply unrivaled in this bit. They defeated their opponents with ease. The competition was still very fun to watch though, everyone competing was in the fifth or sixth grade and the format was six versus six. Paper flew all over and the matches were very tense, being commentated by the presenter.

Next up was Mashry. If anything, Villin compared Mashry to robot fighting. Every school had a team of three that would compete. They had a core that had to be protected and a number of metal and wooden components they could attach to the core to make a ‘robot’, they would then use their magical energy to move some of the parts mid-fight to attack and defend their own core. The fights usually lasted for quite a bit and Villin didn’t find it all that entertaining, the ‘robots’ all moved very slow, and even the attacks would be easy to dodge, it seemed to have no appliance in actual combat.