Author's Note: Sorry for the late chapter. It took me a while to get feedback from my editors. It's longer than usual though ;)

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Next up was Ymil, he was about to face an opponent that seemed to have some prior combat experience. The girl in front of him wore tight clothing and had her pitch black hair tied in a ponytail. She was calmly observing the boy she had challenged. This girl had walked up to Ymil to ask him to be his sparring partner, hoping that defeating him would be her ticket into the Noble clique. She was proud of her fighting style and she was certain that this normal-looking boy would be no match for her.

Ymil, on the other hand, accepted her challenge for completely different reasons.

Both children stood in front of each other, both hands raised to their faces and their feet were jumping up and down. Neither one of them looked at the cloud of vapor that had appeared next to them, they were both fully focused on each other. The girl was somewhat surprised by the boy’s actions, it looked as though her opponent was imitating her movements. She just assumed he was mimicking her movements because he had no idea how to actually fight, it’d make the fight so much easier for her.

“Ymil Idagni vs Kyra Grothia, fight!”

The girl’s spiritual power surged towards her fists and a pair of bright red boxing gloves materialized around her hands, a light blue gem stuck to her right hand. She slammed the two gloves together and fiery sparks flew up from the impact. Her weapon was clearly imbued with the fire element.

But as she looked up she was surprised to see what her opponent had summoned. His hands were covered in thin white cloth and a pearl white gem was imbued on the back of his hand. Before she could realize that this boy was just like her, trained in the art of unarmed combat, her opponent had started to make his move.

Ymil came rushing forward with both his hands covering his face. Just like Ariel, his speed was incredible and in a matter of a second he’d closed the gap between the two. He immediately launched his first jab and thrust his left fist at the girl’s face.

She quickly ducked, her arms raised to defend herself from a downwards blow that was sure it follow, but Ymil did no such thing. His entire body flew past her and he spun his entire body around at a leisurely pace.

While spinning, Ymil dropped his defenses to preserve his momentum and the girl immediately reacted. It was a rooky mistake any martial artist would recognize, so she jabbed her right arm at Ymil’s unprotected hips. She put her weight behind the punch and shielded her eyes in preparation for the sparks that would fly up as a result of the impact.

The blow never landed though, she had reacted exactly as Ymil had anticipated. He’d left the opening with the intention of drawing her attack to his hips. The moment she jabbed in his direction he shifted his weight to the side and his body started to fall in a different direction. As the girl hit empty air, Ymil grabbed the extended arm and jumped away with all his might.

The girl flew up into the air as she was being pulled along by Ymil and her eyes shot wide open. She looked at her opponent and saw him holding onto her arm. She frantically tried to get loose but Ymil’s grip was just too tight.

As Ymil landed on the ground he used the girl’s arm to pivot her flailing body over him, slamming her into the ground.

*BANG*

The girl quickly recovered from this attack and got up as fast as she could. She immediately prepared for another incoming blow, but once again, it didn’t come. She stood up and looked around, only to find Ymil standing to the side with his hands raised to his head, his feet shuffling about.

The girl gave him an ugly look and she prepared to attack again. This boy was stronger than she’d anticipated.

5 minutes of fighting later

“That’s enough,” shouted teacher Michael. “Let’s call it a draw. Make way for the next combatants.” He quickly scribbled down a few notes and then motioned the next students to take their places.

“That’s not fair!” shouted Kyra angrily. “Those two have been going at it for at least 10 minutes.” She pointed at the place where Ragnar and Amalia were fighting. The fog still hadn’t lifted since it had been summoned.

“Stand down or I will have to expel you,” replied Teacher Michael. “Those two need to fight it out in order to assess their strength.” This was the truth to some extent, but that wasn’t the real reason. He’d seen how Ymil and Kyra had fought and he knew that it had been a one sided match.

Ymil had a few burn marks covering his face and there were holes burnt into his shirt. The girl, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be injured at all. Besides that initial attack, Ymil hadn’t landed a single punch on her.

“That was a good fight,” said Ymil as he stuck out his hand to shake her hand.

“Why did you hold back?” Kyra asked, refusing to take it.

Ymil looked at her and gave her the straightest face he could muster. “I think you’re mistaken, that was all I got.”

And with those words Ymil turned around and walked towards his friends on the side. He took a look at the large mist that had formed around the area Ragnar and Amalia were fighting.

“Hay Ragnar,” he shouted, “use the cold of your blade to condense the water around you!” And he then ran to the side to watch the rest of his friend’s fight, not once looking back at the girl he just fought. He gave Lance a quick high five as they passed each other, Lance was walking up to fight his own battle..

The girl just stood there as she saw Ymil walk away as if their fight meant nothing to him. It was true that she had landed a few punches on him, but she was certain those were not by accident. The mistakes Ymil had made were too easy, mistakes that even new trainees wouldn’t make. She was certain that this boy had gone easy on her and his nonchalant behavior afterwards proved it.

The thought of that irritated her so much that she couldn’t help but stare daggers into Ymil’s back. She was the best unarmed combatant of her generation. She was called the Northern Star of the Fist, the Grothia prodigy. Yet this boy had the audacity to go easy on her?

She was going to crush him to a pulp, she’d show him who the strongest was.

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Ragnar was blinded. He had no idea what to do because the mist blocked his vision completely. He cautiously took a few step forward and kept his eyes cast to the ground to look for any boundary marks, it’d really suck if he walked out of bounds right now. His mind was imagining the most horrible assaults that Amalia was planning. What if she could see in this mist? What if she were to attack him from behind?! The mist was enough to make him paranoid and wary of everything.

Amalia, on the otherhand, was casually sitting down a few steps away from where she’d been earlier. She was quietly chanting and summoned various orbs of fire and electricity around her. Using physical projectiles such as water and earth were out of the question because the ground was too soft and there was no water in sight. Fire and electricity were forms of energy that spiritual energy could be transformed into, but earth and water required the actual substance to be present. The water she’d used earlier was from the cup of water she’d brought with her onto the field with the foresight of using this mist technique.

So what was the point of this mist technique? To stall, off course. While Ragnar was panicking and walking around blinded, Amalia was carefully building up a lot of spells. She was already surrounded by two balls of fire and a spark of electricity and she was preparing the second. The mist would fade over time but she’d have enough orbs ready to blast Ragnar to smithereens by then.

“Hay Ragnar,” shouted a voice from the sidelines, “use the cold of your blade to condense the water around you!”

Ragnar’s eyes shot in the voice’s direction just to see the endless white fog he was still trapped in. He then looked at his blade, the ice cold claymore that he was so proud of and understood what the boy was saying. The reason dew formed in the morning was because the cold temperature condensed the water from the air. If he were to apply that to this mist, it should clear up in no time.

The sword extended in front of him, Ragnar closed his eyes and tried to channel all of his energy into it. It started to glow softly and the visibility around him became much clearer. He opened his eyes and saw that he could almost see 2 meters ahead and stopped channeling his energy. The instant he stopped the fog returned again and he was engulfed by the white world of fog.

‘White world….’ he thought and then an idea came to his mind.

“Pssh, Djinn,” he whispered to his bracelet. “Think you can remove this fog for me?”

“Only if we fuse,” answered the Djinn. “I’m powerless otherwise.”

“Then let’s fuse!”

The green bracelet started to glow faintly and a sparkling orb of green light started to hover in front of Ragnar’s eyes. He grabbed the light and pushed it into his stomach. His entire body started to glow an intense green light and energy started to flow through every vein. He could feel the connection to the world, to his surroundings, and he could feel the strength that his companion had given him.

Four minutes, right? he asked his Djinn.

That’s right, you got 4 minutes.

Ragnar readied his sword again, closed his eyes and tried to push all of energy into the sword. The entire blade glowed an intensely bright light and icicles started to form. The air around him turned frigid and the ground underneath him froze over instantly. The water vapor condensed immediately and the entire cloud of fog had turned into water droplets, making the entire field visible again.

He opened his eyes as the cold water fell onto his face and looked around. Amalia was sitting about eight meters away, visibly shocked at the sudden loss of the fog, entirely exposed.

Ragnar smiled. ‘I should have done this sooner,’ he thought and he rushed towards the defenseless girl.

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Lance’s fight was right after Ymil’s and when he walked onto the stage he was still enthralled by Ragnar and Amalia’s fight. They both fought entirely differently: Ragnar used his swordsmanship to gain the upper hand while Amalia employed various tactics with her magic. That last spell, the mist wall, was especially impressive and he couldn’t help but wonder how Ragnar was going to get out of it.

But Lance’d have to forget about that for now. In front of him stood the boy that he’d challenged for a fight. Being of ‘Noble’ lineage made it hard to find an opponent, and his shyness didn’t really help, but this opponent walked up to Lance as he saw how inarticulate the boy was. Lance’s opponent was tall for an 11 year old and had rough spiky hair. His eyes were dark brown and the clothes he wore were torn in a few places but were obviously of extremely high quality, a quality only a Noble could afford. He wasn’t a Noble though, he obtained it in a less conventional way.

“Lance Katharos vs. Luke Bellua, fight!”

Lance and Luke instantly summoned their souls. Lance’s shield took shape as the he poured his spiritual energy into his arms and he immediately assumed a defensive position. It was the golden shield he’d tried out earlier, he hadn’t had enough time to revert it back to its original state. Lance looked up to his opponent but he was surprised when he couldn’t see his opponent’s soul. The boy was skipping up and down with his bare hands covering his face but there was no visible weapon on him.

Luke Bellua was covered in black stripes and his eyes had started to glow golden. The nails on his hands had extended and his back was arched. A golden gem shone in the middle of his chest and that’s when Lance realized where Luke’s soul was. He’d shaped it into the form of an animal and fused with it.

It wasn’t a common practice in Halram Kingdom to fuse with animal spirits but it was possible. The person would gain the characteristics of the animal their soul was shaped as and fight accordingly. The reason most citizens of Halram were wary of such a manifestation was that it could corrode the mind, the animal instincts would become second nature to the human itself. Slowly but surely, the summoner would turn into a beast.

Luke immediately leapt at his opponent with full force. His entire body flew meters into the sky and he raised his right…paw up high. He landed next to Lance in mere moments and the clawed hand swatted down at the blond boy.

*THUD*

Lance, momentarily stunned by the strange soul manifestation, had recovered enough to block this single attack. The golden shield came between Lance and the paw and was able to repel the attack successfully.

That wasn’t enough though, Luke immediately followed up with a second strike with his left paw. Seeing the incoming hand, Lance ducked, causing the paw to barely miss his head. He quickly took a few steps away from his opponent as the striped boy seemed to be proficient in close quarter combat.

A bright blue light suddenly shone over the entire field and Lance couldn’t help but look at the source of it. His eyes ran towards the blue haired boy holding a magnificent glowing sword standing in the middle of a large field of ice. The entire field of mist had disappeared and Lance could see rain drops falling to the ground.

*slash*

Before Lance realized it, Luke had opened a cut on his cheek and was standing behind him. Luke was holding one of his clawed hands to Lance’s throat and it was clear that he was ready to slice it at any moment.

“Alright, I give,” said Lance as he raised both hands, unsummoning his shield.

Luke withdrew his claw and nodded. He then turned around and walked to the side, not saying a word.

Teacher Michael, of course, had seen the entire fight. One of the boys had used a fighting style he’d seen way too often to be a coincidence. He wrote down the observations of the fight into his little booklet and then returned his attention to the area where Ragnar and Amalia were fighting.

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Rena’s luck was much better than Lance. When she went out to find an opponent she found a friendly girl that approached Rena of her own volition. The girl told her she didn’t want to fight an actual battle but all her friends had already picked someone.

“Hay Lexi,” said Rena as she got ready, “we’re not going to fight for real, right?”

“Nah,” answered the girl, ” I wouldn’t dream of beating a Noble. What is that little fur ball anyways?” She nodded towards Gin, the creature Rena was always carrying on her shoulder.

“Ah, but I’m not a N…. Yeah, it’d be unfair.”

‘I’d tell her I’m not a Noble anymore,’ thought Rena, ‘but that could ruin everything. Nobles have it so easy around here…’

Rena picked up Gin and showed it to the girl. “This little guy is called Gin, he’s my companion. Here Gin, you should sit this one out.” She placed the creature to the side of the fighting field.

“Puu puuu!” The round fluffy creature understood and jumped up and down energetically. He was going to watch the scene in front of him with his big purple eyes, probably not understanding most of what was happening.

While the girls were chatting, Teacher Michael started their fight:

“Rena Deuteri vs Lexi Pseftis, fight!”

Rena poured all her spiritual energy into her hands and her soul manifested with a bright green flash. In her hands appeared a coiled whip made of light brown leather with five different strands attached to the end. The whip could snap a tree, albeit a very thin one, from five meters away and it was obviously a powerful tool. A lime colored gem was stuck to the handle of the whip, a color that matched her hair quite nicely.

Her opponent had another type of weapon. In Lexi’s hand rested a light brown bow with no impressive features. The frame of the weapon was fairly small and it didn’t seem to have much range but if it was handled well it could have an incredibly destructive force.

“By the way,” said Lexi as she pulled back the string, an arrow appearing as it is being strung. “I lied.” She released the arrow and with a swishing sound it rapidly approached the green haired girl.

‘Really?’ thought Rena, ‘you’re a like one of those bullies my dad warned me about.’ She’d been trained for this kind of attack by her father, this seemed like child’s play to her. Rena released three coils of her whip and started to spin them violently. The incoming arrow crashed against the spinning whip and disintegrated into nothingness.

Lexi didn’t give up though, she immediately fired another arrow, and another. She started to fire as many arrows as she could, using spiritual energy for every arrow she sent out. None of them hit though, they were all being blocked by the spinning whip in front of Rena. She couldn’t keep this up for long though, and she knew it. She would soon be depleted of energy and then she’d have to forfeit. She was only hoping that Rena was using much more energy to block her attacks to she was using to create them.

Rena had no problems with energy management though. Her defensive move consisted entirely of the physical presence of her whip and nothing more. Sure, it was hard to continuously spin her whip to block the entire barrage, but it wasn’t something she hadn’t done before. Her dad had used every trick in his book to train her, he wanted her to become the best fighter there ever was. Arrows, spells and even bombs, he’d thrown them all at her, ridiculed her whenever she made the slightest mistake. Compared to her father’s attack, the incoming arrows were mere mosquito bites.

The bow wielding girl’s face slowly turned pale as she ran out of energy, the rate at which she was firing arrows decreased as the fight dragged on, only to stop entirely at the end. She didn’t want to stop, she knew that if she gave Rena the chance to attack, she’d be done for, but she just couldn’t hold it any more. She stopped attacking and dropped to the ground, arms by her side in defeat.

“That was it?” said Rena, slightly annoyed by this girl’s lie. “Then it’s my turn to attack.”

Rena looked at the whip in her hand and thought, ‘I think 5 coils should be enough. I don’t want to kill her, but she definitely needs to learn a lesson.’ She released another 2 coils from her whip and poured spiritual energy into it. The lime green gem started to shine brightly and Rena pulled the unleashed whip to her back, the five strands lying loosely on the floor. She then snapped the entire cord forward with an incredibly fast motion of the arms making the whip move at a speed invisible to the untrained eye.

*KACHOW*

The five ends of Rena’s whip made loud snapping noises as they broke through the sound barrier at the end of its reach.

“RAAAAAAAH!”

Lexi hands reached for her left eye and she started to sprawl on the floor. Of the five strands on Rena’s whip, only one had actually made contact.

“My eye! I lost my freaking eye, I think I can’t see!”

Rena hurriedly walked up to the injured girl. She’d aimed for the left arm, hoping to cut it slightly and scare her off. Seeing the girl in so much pain she started to feel an immense amount of guilt, her mind starting to scream in empathic agony.

“Someone!” shouted Rena, “Help me get her to the infirmary!”

A nearby boy came walking onto the field and helped lift Lexi from the ground. Rena and the boy both supported one of Lexi’s shoulders and slowly walked away from the fighting area.

Teacher Michael didn’t say much, he just wrote down what he’d observed. The girl called Lexi had shown some promise with the bow but would not be able to fight well with only a single eye. That other girl, Rena Deuteri, was definitely the daughter of Sir Ehren Deuteri, the Noble that was defeated by the love of his life. She definitely had the qualities of becoming a great fighter.

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Seeing Ragnar approach, Amalia used her spear to try and get up as fast as possible.

Ragnar was much faster though. He swatted the side of his blade upwards at the red-haired girl as he reached her side before she had time to get up.

*THUD*

The blade was met with Amalia’s spear but it was not enough to block the attack entirely. Unlike before, Amalia’s body was sent up into the air, meters above the ground. The impact of the blow was significantly higher than Ragnar had used before.

Once the girl was in the air, Ragnar jumped after girl, sword raised high above his head. He was going to finish this with a single blow.

But Amalia wasn’t unarmed, the orbs of fire and electricity were still floating around her flying body. She’d stockpiles 4 fire orbs and 2 sparks, all ready to be released. She looked at the incoming threat but did not panic.

“Fièrum Fotia!”

The four flames that surrounded her flew together and fused into a single entity. A fireball larger than the one she cast before formed and flew at Ragnar.

Ragnar hadn’t anticipated this. He knew fairly little of magic use and didn’t know she could still cast magic even when she was completely off balance. He looked at the fireball rush towards him but it was too late. He’d created a huge opening in his defenses the moment he jumped into the air with his sword raised.

*BOOM*

The fireball exploded as it hit Ragnar in the stomach. A large cloud of fiery destruction formed engulfed Ragnar’s entire body and the heat of the blast tore of the rest of his shirt. The explosion cause Ragnar to be shot back to the ground at an incredible speed.

Amalia looked at the explosion. ‘That must have hurt him, at least a little,’ she thought. She felt a pang of guilt wash over her, as this was the most destructive spell she could muster. The cloud of fire blocked her view but she was certain Ragnar was hurt.

*Swoosh*

Before the fiery cloud could even dissipate, the blue silhouette of Ragnar shot at her once again, his sword extended in front of him to ward off another attack.

‘That’s impossible!’ she thought.

“Fièrum Astrapi! Fièrum Astrapi! Fièrum Astrapi!”

She launched the three sparks in quick succession at the incoming boy. Small orbs of sparkling electricity shot out at incredible rates, a speed that most people could not match.

But Ragnar had no problem with them. He simply swatted the orbs away with his blade.

‘Why aren’t they having any effect?’ she thought. ‘That sword is clearly metal, he should…’

Before Amalia could finish her thought, Ragnar was already by her side. He didn’t use his sword to hit her, he simply grabbed her from behind.

“Let go!” yelled Amalia, struggling against Ragnar’s lock.

“Nope, not unless you admit defeat,” replied Ragnar with smile.

“Never, you blue haired monkey ape!”

“Wow, aren’t we articulate, Miss Tomato. I’m sorry missy, but I want to win this one.”

And with those words Ragnar threw Amalia as far as he could.

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“That was lame,” said Amalia as she walked back to the ring. She was covered in mud, her entire outfit was drenched and her fiery red hair was decorated with twigs and dirt.

“How so? Wasn’t that how you planned to win in the first place?” Ragnar laughed as he saw Amalia’s angry face.

“Throwing your opponent out of the field is a valid strategy.”

“Throwing me out of bounds in one thing, throwing me in a mud pool in something entirely different.”

Ragnar laughed even harder. “I swear that wasn’t on purpose. No need to look so sour.”

“I can look any way I want, thank you very much….” Amalia grabbed the front of her shirt and tried to wrench it dry. Small droplets fell to the ground and the shirt got all wrinkly.

“Don’t let it bother you too much. You’ll get another chance next semester.”

“Oh ho ho, you’re enjoying this aren’t you?” Amalia dusted some dirt from her pants.

“Oh definitely. I just won myself a personal servant.” Ragnar’s face was covered with a grin going from ear to ear.

“Yeah yeah… As long as it isn’t anything indecent, I’ll do it…” Amalia was too proud to pretend the bet never happened. She believed Nobility always came through on their promises, so she did. She never expected to lose this bet though, she’d been trained in the art of combat since she was 5 years old.

“So what is it that you, oh great blueberry of boys-ville, want me to do for you?”

Ragnar didn’t have to think about that for a moment. He’d already thought of his first command the moment they made that bet.

“That’s easy. I, Ragnar Forgeron, hereby command you: You will be my girlfriend.”

Edited by: Wesley Au (Paradox), 1Jayds