The atmosphere in Nathan's preparation room was a weird mix of boredom and anxiousness. Everyone tried to mentally prepare himself for the next round, but at the same time, not knowing when it would continue was draining their energy. As the time crawled forward, Nathan started to practice the circuit Thomas showed him. Having nothing to do himself, Thomas joined him and gave some hints regarding the finer details. Nathan was a bit disappointed when he learned that this spell only worked for objects made from rocks and stone, and not even for all of them. However, when he heard that there were similar spells for metals, wood, and other materials, his disappointment was gone immediately. Nathan stopped his practice after casting the spell a few times successfully. He had only a limited amount of mana storage tools with him and didn't want to end up having nothing left for the assessment. When they still got no message two hours later, Revar took out some playing cards and they spent the time distracting themselves with a game of Gumbal. Finally, it was already early afternoon, one of the second-year students, responsible for the preparation hall, entered their room and led them to the opposite end of the, now again clean and repaired, arena.

“You will be given a notice when the battle starts, so please don't move for the next three minutes or else you'll be considered eliminated.”

After having seen the three of them nod, the student left without saying another word.

“Now then, it would be nice to win without being crushed by a stone wall again,” Revar said. Nervous laughter escaped between his lips.

“We'll move according to plan. It should be fine this time.” Nathan answered.

“Yeah, probably.” Revar rubbed the back of his head.

They became silent again. Everyone was occupied with his own lingering thoughts until they got the signal, that the round started. Immediately all three of them rushed towards the center of the courtyard. Revar even applied an acceleration circuit on his clothes to catapult himself forward as fast as possible. When Nathan and Thomas arrived in the middle of the arena, Revar was already working on a rough carving of a macro acceleration circuit on a large rock using one of Thomas's tools, a small rod with a circuit at its tip that decomposed rocks. Nathan searched for a good hiding-place and took out the three tools that Thomas built for him to bury them in the close vicinity. Thomas went over to the surrounding rocks and pillars and started to weaken their strength, without completely destroying them. When they were done, Thomas came over to Nathan, while Revar hid behind the carved boulders. Then Revar took a small stone and threw it a few meters away. With a loud noise, the stone hit one of the stone pillars before he fell to the ground. Only a short time passed until they heard some footsteps coming towards them. Nathan peeked out from his hiding place and observed the direction of the sound, but couldn't see any of their opponents. Then the footsteps faded away. A few seconds later dense fog started to gush out between two of the pillars and flooded the battlefield. Immediately when the fog appeared, Revar used one of the prepared boulders. It shot into the fog with a high whistle, crashing against a pillar. The base shattered as if it was made from glass and it came rumbling down, burying everything in its vicinity.

“Damn, no ringing,” Nathan whispered.

A second boulder shot towards another pillar surrounded by fog. A high scream accompanied its destruction and a ringing sound filled the air. In fast succession, another three boulders were released into the mist, but besides causing it to churn, nothing else happened. The fog continued to engulf the battlefield and reached their hiding place. As it swashed around the rocks, Nathan's visibility decreased significantly. His mana vision wasn't impaired by the fog, so he tried to look-out for circuits used by their invisible enemies, but they seemed to be too far away. He could only see Revar preparing the circuits on his spheres, reading himself for combat. Just to be save, Nathan cast the spiral deflection spell on his body. But contrary to his expectation, they were not attacked. For minutes. When two minutes passed without any changes, Revar snuck back to Nathan and Thomas.

“What should we do? Maybe they fled after we got one of them?” he asked.

“I don't know. I can't even see my feet in this fog.” Nathan answered.

“Guys, don't ye think it's becomin' quite chillin'?”

Nathan was startled. He felt his hands becoming cold earlier, but he thought it was just his anxiousness. But when he wanted to move them now, they felt slow and frigid.

“We have to leave the foggy area,” he whispered to the other two.

They walked as fast as possible through the fog, without making any noises, towards their starting location. But they didn't come far. A few dozen meters behind them, an earth wall covered in ice stood erected, blocking their path.

“Do ye think those walls 're everywhere?” Thomas asked with a hushed voice.

“Likely. Should be useless to search for an opening.” Revar answered. He looked upwards, but the dense mist blocked his view.

“I'll try to jump across it,” he said.

Nathan saw how Revar channeled mana to create acceleration circuits on his boots before he flew into the air. A second later a loud ringing echoed through the fog and Revar's body slammed back into the ground. Before Revar could tell them what happened, one of the overseeing students appeared from the fog and brought him away.

“What the … “ Thomas cursed, “How did they know we're here?”

“Dunno.” Nathan also was confused, “Maybe they placed some traps on the wall.”

“Let's just destroy this crap,” Thomas said.

“But without noise. If Revar encountered a trap I don't want to alert the enemies.”

“ 'course” Thomas answered.

He placed his hands on the ice and formed a heating circuit. Only seconds later water began to flow down and soon the bare earth became visible. When a hole, roughly the size of his upper body, was melted into the ice, he stopped and turned to Nathan.

“That's all I can do I think. Never learned a circuit to work with 'arth.”

“It's fine,” Nathan answered.

He used his finger to draw a basic macro-acceleration circuit on the wall. Shortly after, a small layer of dirt flew downwards, creating a small indentation. After repeating this several times, he managed to open a hole in the wall big enough to crawl through it. Nathan was the first to pass through the wall. When he reached the other side he quickly checked each direction, but couldn't see anybody. Only small amounts of fog floated through the air, not enough to restrict his vision, so if their opponents were present, they were hidden well. Nathan helped Thomas up after he followed him through the hole and together they stooped towards one of the big boulders, adjoined to the wall to hide.

“If I were our opponents, I'd circle the area to see if someone flees from the fog.” he whispered to Thomas, “We could lie in wait here to ambush them when they pass this spot.”

Thomas just nodded and started to carve some patterns in the boulder they were hiding behind. However, didn't have to wait for long and he couldn't finish the circuit before a tall girl entered their view.

“Ah, that's Zaira,” Thomas said.

“You know her?”

“Barely. Saw her with Revar a few times, same macro accel lectures I think.”

“Hm, ok.”

Nathan pointed his right index finger at her and took a few seconds to draw a complicated circuit in the air. A bright beam of light extended towards Zaira, directly hitting her head. A translucent shield around the girl emitted a weak, red light, and the ringing sound declared her elimination. She looked with a pouting expression towards the source of the sharp light spell when a man arrived in front of her and led her away.

“One down, one to-”

Nathan was interrupted when a column of burning steam crashed into their hiding place. He managed to roll away before being hit, but Thomas wasn't as lucky. His physique prevented him from evading in time and he also was eliminated. Nathan jumped up, ran a short zigzag and turned around towards the attacker. A short girl stood on top of a hill, the white palms of her small hands were pointing towards Nathan. She seemed to be mumbling something, but Nathan couldn't understand what. However, he saw the increasing density of mana around her hands. Combined with her stare and how she ignored the green hair that stuck to her face, he knew what was coming. A large, rotating ball of water formed in front of her figure, which looked distorted like the wall behind a fireplace. The rotation of the water-ball became faster and faster, then her palms closed and the water turned into a steam column blasting towards Nathan. He didn't manage to evade this time, but still, the steam only hit the earth beside him.

“How?!” The girl exclaimed, “I hit you!”

Nathan created the same basic acceleration patterns that Revar always used below his feet and bulleted towards his opponent. When she saw him closing their distance rapidly, she immediately stepped on a small stone on the ground. Nathan could barely see an acceleration pattern form when the stone already shot into his direction. Without caring for the stone, that missed him by an arm's length, Nathan channeled more mana into the acceleration circuits, increasing his speed even more.

“Are you a stupid ghost or what?”

She stepped on one stone after the other, which led to a barrage of stones flying towards Nathan. But they all passed him at the same distance as the first one. Now only a few meters away from her, Nathan pressed his open, left hand against his right fist and pointed his elbow towards her chest. He saw the confused look in her green eyes when she punched into empty air beside him. Then his elbow hit her left shoulder and the small body smashed into the ground. Nathan stumbled a few steps forward before he caught himself. He turned around and jumped on the girl before she could react. His right hand touched the armor on her shoulder and Nathan drew a weight increase circuit. When the last pattern was finished, the girl in her armor sunk a hand's widths into the earth. Nathan saw how she struggled to complete a spell, but soon the pressure on her chest was too much and she fell unconscious.

A supervising student dropped from the air, crouching down beside them to check her condition, before congratulating Nathan to his victory. Nathan answered with a faint smile, but he was too groggy to say anything. Keeping up the armor deflection circuits while casting several spells in quick succession greatly exhausted his mental capabilities. He was led to his room in the preparation hall, where he dropped on a bench, dead tired. Thomas and Revar were already present and looked at him impatiently, waiting for him to report the final results of the battle.

“We won guys, don't worry,” Nathan said with a weak voice.

“Great Job! Wow.” Revar jumped up in excitement and clapped his hands.

“Ye, yer the best!” Thomas held out his fist to Nathan who answered in kind.

“I'm really drained guys. I need some sleep. I'll tell you later how it went.” he said.

“No worries, take your time, we should have at least two hours,” Revar answered.

“I wouldn't mind four or five,” Nathan mumbled and closed his eyes.