As Lupos arrived by the gate, he found himself gritting his teeth as he stared at the griffon magical beasts harnessed to the carriage outside the gate. Although the griffons stood tall, if one paid attention they could easily identify the light whip marks as well as the burned flesh where a brand had been applied.

Calming his emotions Lupos looked round to see Lucio and a small boy hurrying in his direction towards the carriage. "Hello Gale" said Lucio as he approached. "Morning Lucio" said Lupos still eyeing Lucio's unknown companion "and who might this be?"

Lucio looked at the small boy next to him. "That's right I forgot you wouldn't have met before, he was the third place winner of the tournament who I defeated to face you." Lupos nodded to the boy "nice to meet you, I'm Gale." the small boy gave a smile "my name's Wing, nice to meet you too. By the way you don't have to worry about formalities, I'm a commoner like you."

Lupos smiled thinking about how out of all the humans he'd met this one seemed least stuck up. In fact, his demeanor reminded him greatly of the small squirrel magical beast, but he kept that to himself. "Oh yeah where's the headmaster? Wasn't he meant to be travelling with us?" asked Wing.

Just as Lucio was about to reply a messenger appeared. "Excuse me are you Lucio, Gale and Wing?" the boys nodded "I have a message from the headmaster, due to family issues the headmaster is going to be late and will meet you at the tournament so you are to board the carriage without him."

After saying this, the messenger hurried off leaving the boys to board the carriage on their own. Once the carriage had taken off Wing started to talk. "What do you think held the headmaster up?" Lucio immediately took up the conversation topic "probably something to do with his sister or niece, it may even be about me." boasted Lucio proudly.

Lupos looked at Lucio curiously "why would it be about you?" "Well," said Lucio looking smug "there's been discussion for some time about me getting engaged to the headmasters niece who is apparently quite the beauty. Of course I was meant to have the wolf girl as well but she escaped." Lucio's face darkened at the thought before quickly returning to normal.

On the inside Lupos was secretly laughing not only was the girl Mervyn's niece she was also Lucio's potential fiance! "So whats your magic Gale?" asked Wing, Lupos snapped himself out of it to answer Wing's question "I use earth magic mainly and I know Lucio uses fire so what about you?"

Wing grinned "I have variant magic, so I use sleep magic." Lupos stared at Wing in shock, variant magic was rare and undoubtedly useful, if this was true why did he lose to Lucio? seeing Lupos' questioning gaze Wing shrugged and then leaned over to whisper to Lupos so Lucio didn't hear.

"In truth my magic takes a couple seconds to activate so I could have defeated Lucio, but I didn't want to deal with the fallout of defeating a high ranking noble so I threw the match. I saw you do the same." Lupos looked at Wing cautiously, of course he'd never imagined the fact he threw the match would stay secret forever, but for Wing to pick up on this he must be quite sharp.

Lupos nodded in confirmation seeing no point in denying it. "It just wasn't worth the trouble." Wing smiled in agreement at this. Lucio started to pay attention to the conversation again "So what's our strategy for the first round, I was thinking you two should defend me seeing as I'm the best fighter we have and I can eliminate more people in the second round."

On the surface both Wing and Lupos nodded but inside both of then we're secretly scoffing at Lucio who was clearly the weakest of the three. They continued the rest of the journey in silence occasionally interrupting to point out the scenery, when they finally arrived at the competition grounds, which turned out to be a large arena.

Entering the arena Lupos looked around to find hundreds of other competitors and their teachers. Lupos turned round to look at Lucio and Wing, when out of the corner of his eye he noticed Mervyn approaching. Mervyn approached the boys and smiled "sorry I'm late boys I had to deal with some family business. Anyway I've already registered our team for the competition all that's left is to wait for the announcement of what the first round is."

If one was too look closely enough, one would see that Mervyn's eyes were bloodshot and his hands were shaking slightly in rage. Lupos smiled slightly upon seeing this, but just as he was about to ask something a loud voice echoed throughout the arena. "Attention competitors welcome to the 63rd annual inter school competition!" the announcer paused to accommodate the loud cheers that erupted from the stands filled with families and friends of competitors.

Once the cheering had died down the announcer continued. "If we could ask all teachers to leave the arena and enter the stands we will begin the first round." The announcer once again paused allowing the teachers time to move, "very good now that that's sorted, I can reveal our first round is an elimination round in our infamous labyrinth!"

This drew shocked gasps from most of the observers as well as the competitors. However, Lupos merely grinned, after all what better place to get away with secretly using dark magic than in a labyrinth?

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Sorry for the short chapter I promise the next one will be longer as the competition starts :) feel free to leave a comment or a review