On the second stage, the fighting had already finished. The elder was in front of twenty four competitors because Akane was in the infirmary.

"The names of whom I call are exempted from this selection as they have shown enough skill. Kuroshi Akane, Kuroshi Inejiro, and Kuroshi Sawaki."

There were twenty two left on the stage, two of them had already gone down the stage.

"There are only two rounds to this selection. You will all exhibit control of your mana then use your most ferocious move, there is a magic dummy here that will give the amount of force you've produced in numbers. Note that just because you have high force doesn't mean you'll get selected, mana control is very important for a mage."

The elder's eyes travelled along the twenty-two people and then stopped on one of them.

"Your mana has been exhausted, drink this."

The elder threw a bottle with blue liquid, it was a mana potion.

"T-thank you very much, elder!"

The man bowed down and then drank the potion, the color returned to his face as his missing mana was restored.

"Looks like that's it, you'll all form a line starting from you and it ends with you, I'll judge along with two other elders."

The elder pointed at the first one from the right and the last one to the left. Two elders wearing the same clothes stood beside him and waited for the first person.

"Remember, only eight of you will be chosen to participate in the final rounds; do not hold back."

The first person was a man, he looked to be fourteen or fifteen. Once he heard those words, a fire ignited in his eyes as he unleashed his mana with determination.

"Haaaa!"

A pale blue light formed itself around the man in a circular formation for a few seconds until it dispersed.

The man breathed out and then proceeded to the dummy.

He used a move similar to [Dark Beam] but it had a corrosive effect rather than a piercing effect. If a human or object were hit by that, they'd slowly corrode.

Three digits floated up the dummy, A hundred and twenty seven.

"Hooh."

The elder gave a nod of approval.

The twenty one other participants also did the same, in the end; the highest core was a hundred and fifty two, made by a woman who looked fifteen.

After that, the eight people were chosen. The man who had first come up was not selected as he had poor mana control; the woman who had the highest score was selected because she had excellent control and the highest force.

Not many of the crowd was impressed because there were already two girls who had reached the peak of F-class at merely eight. Akane displayed a better feat than Yoko but that was only because Yoko restricted her magic to body techniques.

Right now, Akane was a favorite of the crowd who they thought would win if she could recover from her injury to fight in the finals at full strength. There were also some who favored Yoko's victory because she managed to conquer someone with a C-class body though she didn't use a straightforward method.

Yoko was the lone exemption of the seventh stage and there were twenty four competitors who had to do the test.

Surprisingly, there was a stage that had not competed in the test, out of the twenty-five who won the round, fifteen dropped out which left ten standing among them. Naturally, this attracted the suspicion of the crowd but as long as they got to see a good fight and nobody was harmed, it didn't matter to them.

The final hundred was decided and the day was concluded. The competitors had the rest of the day to rest and prepare themselves for the second round which would only leave four of the hundred remaining. The rankings of the hundred will be decided by the order they were eliminated.

The only rules for the free for all was those that were part of ethics like no killing your opponent and no dealing damage that would cripple them for life. The competitors were allowed to form teams but only four may remain so teams would easily crumble, setting anything like traps before the match was prohibited but you could set them during the match.

The rules for the free for all were pretty lax seeing as there were over a hundred fighting at once. The rules for elimination were ring out or knockout. If someone was knocked out yet remain in the stage, they would be disqualified.

After the matches concluded, everyone in the competing area were instructed to go outside or go to the seats as they were about to alter the area for the final match. The Kuroshi Clan hired earth attribute mages to set up the stage; it was quite the large arena so there was more than enough space for a hundred people. If one were to walk from one side to the other, it would take a few minutes; it was larger than a football stadium from Earth.

Right now, Erina had met up with Yoko and Akane and they were back at the Kuroshi Clan. Yoko was training in the backyard of Kai's house and Erina was seated beside the injured Akane.

"You know, I was really surprised at that final move of yours. If it was me, I probably wouldn't have been able to tell where you were so fast when you're that close."

Akane and Yoko made a puzzled face.

"You mean you saw how fast she was moving from up there?"

Yoko asked Erina to which she tilted her head and nodded.

"Nn. That's right."

"Ehhhh?!"

Akane suddenly voiced out her confusion.

"W-what do you mean?! I was moving at sixteen times my speed you know?!"

"Nn. But, I've seen Kai go nearly as fast as you just from regular running."

"...Seriously?"

Akane made a blank face before asking.

"Curses!"

She flipped over and kept knocking down on the floor like she was throwing a tantrum.

"Akane, don't move your legs so much. You won't be able to rest enough for tomorrow. Even if they give you a healing potion, the damage done to your legs was quite a lot."

"Ah, that reminds me."

Erina put her finger to her mouth.

"You used Akane's movement technique didn't you?"

"Geh..."

Yoko suddenly twitched and Akane suddenly stopped moving and looked at Yoko.

"...Yoko?"

Yoko's eyes were swimming around the area.

"W-what is it, Akane?"

"Did you copy my technique?"

"...No..."

Yoko weakly replied.

Akane's gaze narrowed as she looked at Yoko, she was bad at telling lies.

Akane then sighed afterwards and once more placed her head on the floor.

"I don't really mind but don't tell father. He created that technique with his efforts, if you were to just up and copy it so easily then it would mean his life's work was nothing. I never actually thought you could have copied it."

"Well... I was already in progress of making a technique similar to it. I finally succeeded and realized that it was actually the same as your technique. I decided to keep the name and accept that I am only a secondary owner."

"I see."

Akane replied with a blank tone. Erina tilted her head because of the mood, it didn't seem like it was going on because of the technique.

"Is it because Kai was stronger than you two imagined?"

"Yes..."

Yoko replied to her; at some point, she had stopped training and sat down beside Akane.

"Didn't he already defeat you during the tournament? Just by seeing that, you should know that he'd be stronger now."

"True... I've trained for weeks for the tournament but he only started training when we were introduced to training by the elder."

Akane replied while Erina faced Yoko.

"It's the same for me but I've been trained about basic combat since I could walk and talk. Though I've only ever really trained a few weeks before the actual tournament."

"Well... to tell you the truth, Kai has a C-class body and last I saw him, he was at F-class, fourth step."

Akane and Yoko flinched and remained silent.

"Last you saw him was... spring?"

"That's right."

Akane and Yoko both sighed.

"Looks like his body is already levels ahead of us. By the pace he went, his magic should be E-class by now?"

"I think so, but I'm sure he just entered E-class."

"Huh?"

Yoko got confused, would Kai really take that long?

"Well, he was actually gaining knowledge instead of training when I saw him. ...Although I think he actually planned to go to the inner circle or at least get near it..."

Erina slightly hesitated before she gave off that piece of information. The two beside her cherished Kai so much that they would actually not hesitate in the face of danger, especially Akane.

Akane sat up and Yoko stood up. Their faces both had knit brows and grave expressions.

"Ah, don't worry! That was only my speculation! But you see, it felt like he was planning to go to the inner circle for his real training."

It was actually Reo, Kai had no idea.

Akane and Yoko breathed sighs of relief but couldn't hide the worry in their eyes.

"How strong are you really?"

Akane asked Erina to which she just brushed off.

"Secret."

"So stingy!"

"Still, he has two beauties fawning over him. I'm sure that when you all grow up, he'd be in for a treat."

Erina nodded multiple times as an exaggeration.

"...You're one to talk, practically every youth in the arena instantly fell head over heels for you when you waved at us."

"Hahaha..."

Erina gave a dry laugh in response to that. Yoko put her hand to her chin and glanced at Erina, Akane, and herself respectively.

"If I were to honestly score ourselves, I'd give Akane an eight, I'd give myself a nine, and I'd give you an eleven."

"...Over?"

"Ten."

Erina sighed.

"You don't have to worry; I'm not going after Kai."

"Wait, why am I an eight?!"

Akane was ignored.

I don't have any interest in kids anyway, but...

Erina remembered the time that they were about to run, they had both made the same pose. That running pose didn't exist in this world, or nobody actually did it. What if he was the one who was reincarnated with her?

He did talk like an adult... Reo also told me that he felt like Kai already felt major depression at his age, what if he actually is?

Erina stared into space which made Yoko and Akane narrow their gazes.

"Why'd you suddenly blank out after you said that you weren't going after him?"

"That's right, Erina?"

"No, that's for a different reason!"

Erina suddenly stood up and waved her hands furiously, these two beside her were tigers that would pounce on their prey at any given moment.

Erina sighed and listened to the two's complaints.

First loves, huh? Children sure are innocent...