We ran into the smoke and as it cleared we were able to see who they were.

They were students just like us. They were shouting at each other and also throwing some fireballs also. The ground between them was scorched and there was a small crevasse between them.

“Take this you filthy commoner!” shouted someone from the left.

A fireball sailed through the air to be blocked by a fierce blowing wind.

“Is that all you got! A mere gentle wind made by a commoner takes down a menacing fireball. You nobles aren’t that strong!” shouted someone from the right.

From that exchange the left was a group of nobles fighting against a group of commoners on the right.

“Stop this!” said a voice behind me.

I turned around and saw Alice along with the rest of the Magus.

I nodded towards them acknowledging that they were here and went to one side and sat down. I intended to just watch and see what happens now that the campus police are here. Alex frowned but followed me and sat down.

Asher was sitting on his lap and Chronos was sitting right beside me. It was a peaceful sight seeing us with our summons out and sitting there without a care in the world, if only there was no smoke, ruined courtyard, and the constant spells exploding intermittently as well as the shouting.

Alice and the Magus started to talk to the two groups but they wouldn’t hear from them and also started flinging spells towards them.

Fireballs, Wind Blades, Earth Waves, and Water Blasts came towards the Magus group and towards us as well since we were behind them.

We were ready to assimilate with our summons so that we can escape when the Magus group stopped all of the spells with their own.

Lightning Dragons, a Nature magic spell, struck at the Water Blasts causing a mist to surround us. Resounding Earth, an Arcane magic spell, caused the ground to vibrate and stopped the Earth Waves from moving forward. The Fireballs grew smaller until it disappeared. It was difficult to tell, but I had a suspicion that a Spirit mage asked the fire spirits to get rid of the Fireballs. A small tornado surrounded the group, causing the Wind Blades to not deal any damage. It was difficult to tell the name of the spell that created that. It could have been from Wind magic, Light magic, or Dark magic.

The nobles and the commoners couldn’t believe their eyes and casted more and more spells.

The Magus group, getting more confident from being able to block the opponent’s spells, proceeded to get closer to their opponents to stop them.

When they were close enough, the commoners and the nobles ran as they used their spells, trying to stall for time so that they wouldn’t get caught.

The Magus group chased after them and soon they were all out of sight.

Alex and I got up from our spot, sad to see that the show was over and went back to our mansion to continue training.

That night was quiet as screams could be heard all through the night even until dawn of the next day.

Today was a Saturday, meaning no school for the next two days. We had planned with Sasha the day before on meeting by the school gates at 9am.

Alex and I wore clothes that we thought would be best to wear outside school grounds.

Alex wore a short sleeved red tunic and black pants with black boots. While I wore a white short sleeved tunic with yellow linings and blue pants with brown boots. Asher and Chronos were coming with us. Asher was sitting on Alex’s right shoulder while Chronos transformed into becoming the same height as us so that he could follow more closely.

We walked to the gates, passing by the ruined courtyard that was being repaired by the same group that caused yesterday’s incident. It didn’t seem like they were happy with being assigned work with the other group as I caught someone say, “Why do I have to take care of those commoner’s fault?”

When we got to the gates, we saw Sasha and another boy. He was the one Sasha was talking about. His name was Kaiser and he had blonde hair, brown skin, and blue eyes. Just by looking at him and having an older mind, I just knew that when he grows up he would be one of those players.

As it so happens, Kaiser looked like he was flirting with Sasha. Alex and I stopped walking when we saw that. Alex had an expression of fury while mine was just shock. I mean she was cute but I didn’t spend much time with her so I didn’t know whether I liked her like that or just as a friend.

Sasha spotted us and called us over.

When we stopped in front of her she said, “Guys, this is the guy I was telling you about. Kaiser, meet Prince Zed and Alex.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you your highness, Alex” he said nodding to us in turn.

“Just call me Zed,” I said.

“Alright I will,” he said.

“So you don’t think I’m strong?” I asked remembering why we were here in the first place.

“Nope and please don’t show me your stats. I find battle is the perfect way of finding out who’s more powerful.”

“Really,” I said raising an eyebrow, “are duels allowed?”

“Only at the proper place. Follow me, I’ll take you all there,” he said.

We followed him to a dome like building outside of the school. The school had buildings in four directions with the dome in the middle. Our section was the east side. When we graduate from here, we would go to the north side. When we graduate there, we go to the west side and finally we go to the south side for the rest of our school years.

The dome was used as the tournament area of the academy. This is also the place where they do the yearly tournaments. The dome itself had hundreds of duel areas and in the middle was a large duel platform used only for the yearly tournament.

We entered the dome after using our rings as identification and followed Kaiser inside.

Inside the dome were other students ranging from the age of 5 to the age of 10. Magic studies end when you are 10 for the Rigel Kingdom, after that you learn on your own out in the world. It was a way for the Kingdom to have capable mages to work for the military as well as making sure that they had a stable supply of capable people in all aspects of the nation.

As we were walking through the dome, I watched Kaiser flirt with all the girls we passed and they all blushed after talking with him. Alex beside me just kept on getting even more mad but he kept quiet since I wasn’t saying anything. I was just curious to know if he was doing this on purpose or not. If he wasn’t doing this on purpose then it would confirm my suspicion of seeing an enemy of women in front of my eyes before he became that person.

We also made small talk and gossiped about what happened at school. Sieg apparently was alright even after I gave him a beating but because they found out that he was bullying me, they stripped him of his Magus status and Alice became the leader.

Sieg locked himself in his room and hasn’t come out ever since. Nathaniel visits him every day and I thought that maybe because Sieg hasn’t returned to normal that Nathaniel hates me so much.

The perpetrators of yesterday apparently started their fight when one of the commoners was bullying a noble out in the open. This caused the nearby nobles to attack the poor kid who then ran and found his friends and brought them to avenge him. Which then turned into the nobles finding their friends to avenge them as well. It became an unending cycle in which nearly the entire school was fighting amongst itself.

Of course there were some that just stayed away or just watched like I did but more than half the students were involved and they all had to stay and fix the damage they did.

The school apparently was also going to tell the children’s parents but was stopped by the Magus group saying that this was still under their jurisdiction and that the faculty has no say just yet.

The school and Alice pretty much debated the whole issue until the school relented. Alice then became known throughout the entire school as the ‘Silver Tongue’.

Of course, all of these were just rumors and I have no idea if they are true or not but Sasha thinks they are.

Soon enough, we all entered through a doorway that led to a room with chairs facing a window that showed another room.

“Sasha, Alex, watch us from here. Zed and I will go to the other room and begin our duel.”

We did as he told us and I followed him to the room shown by the window. There was a door to the left of it and we entered through there.

The room was empty of anything and looked like the size of a gymnasium. We stood a part from each other leaving about twenty feet between us.

“I’m a holy mage and you are a summoner. Since I only have enhancement spell let’s fight with only our fists.”

I nodded.

“We’ll begin,” he said nodding to the window.

I saw Sasha do something and I heard a voice say, “Duel will now commence in 10… 9… 8…”

The voice started counting down and I saw that Kaiser was already using his spells. I started doing mine and assimilated with Chronos. My assimilation with Chronos was very different than with Malakir.

StatusName:Zed RigelRank:AdeptAge:5Level:5Race:HumanGender:MaleTitles3rd Prince of Rigel KingdomHealth:1500 / 1500 (750)Health Regen:7.5 (5.0)/ SecMana:6000 / 8000 (0)Mana Regen:12.5 (0.0) / SecStamina:2500 / 2500 (1550)Stamina Regen:15.5 (10.0)/ SecStrength:100 (50)Agility:150 (50)Vitality:150 (75)Willpower:250 (0)Intelligence:350 (0)Wisdom:350 (0)Leadership:50 (0)Luck:15 (0)

AffectsRavenex BracerCancels all magic interference AssimilateSummon:ChronosDuration:1 hourMergeSummon:ChronosDuration:1 hourGrants the following skills:ShiftEfficiencyTime ManaArmor of TimeAllows to consciously slow a target’s movements for 2 secondsReduces cost of spells and skills by 10%Allows the use and regeneration of pure time manaMakes bodily deficiencies to take twice as long to take effect

My stats were more warrior oriented with Chronos while Malakir was more for magic.

When the count was zero, we both ran towards each other aiming to punch the other’s face.

He moved faster than Nathaniel but his punches didn’t hurt much. Sadly, he was able to dodge my punch but just barely.

I then proceeded to do an uppercut with my left and just before he was about to jump backwards I used ‘Shift’ on him and he slowed down enough for me to do some damage.

“You broke the rules!” he shouted laying on the ground.

“I didn’t, this is just an enhancement that I got from assimilating with my summon,” I said using sophistry on him.

Kaiser seemed to just accept it and ran to me. I was expecting a punch but he surprised me by dropping down and sweeping me off my feet.

This is exactly what I used on Nathaniel! I thought.

I landed hard on the ground, but since the duel was still on, I rolled over and away from him and stood back up.

He grinned and motioned his hand as if he was egging me to just run up to him.

I did just that but before he could do anything to me, I used ‘Shift’ again and within that two seconds I put everything that I had on my punches.

He fell down and I pummeled him some more. Satisfied, I got up and saw what I had done. I barely had time to examine it when a voice said, “The winner is decided. Healing of participants will begin now.”

I was suddenly surrounded by a flash of light and all of my wounds were healed. Kaiser, who was almost unrecognizable earlier, looked exactly the way he was when I first met him this morning.

He opened his eyes, stood up and said, “You are strong. Stronger than me.”

He stared at me intently and said, “One day. One day I’ll be stronger than you.”

He left after that and I followed him to where Sasha and Alex were waiting. He said goodbye to them and went out on his own. Sasha looked worried so I told her to go see if Kaiser needs any help. She looked happy when I suggested that and she went chasing after him leaving me with Alex.

“Zed, she’s your fiancée are you sure about this?” he asked.

“I don’t really like her or anything. She is cute and probably will be very beautiful in the future but if I don’t see her as someone I would be able to live my life with.”

“If you say so,” said Alex and I thought I saw him smile but it might have been my imagination as it was gone the next second.

Alex and I got out of the room and went to eat lunch at the Dome. Since the Dome was still a part of the school, we were given our food for free. We decided to watch some of the matches going on in the Dome while we ate, so we had the food be delivered to the royal box as we watched all of the fights.

There was one fight in which both were magic knights as they were using swords as well as magic. It seemed they enhanced themselves and were very knowledgeable about using a sword as I saw some very interesting sword techniques.

In the end, a boy with a short sword won the match and helped his opponent up.

That was the only match where we saw magic knights as the rest were all mages. The Fire mages were the ones that won the most battles but they were also the ones who lost the most. It was also interesting to see a fight between a Form and Void mage.

The Form mage made various weapons to strike at the Void mage, but the Void mage just turned them all into dust and shot swords he created from the ground.

The Form mage was vastly superior in creating things but when a Form and Void mage were fighting, the Void mage would win because he would just turn to dust anything that got in his way.

Before long, we even ate our dinner at the dome so we proceeded to go back to our mansion.

We continued our training and nothing of note happened through the night.

Sunday came and went by peacefully and we trained ourselves in our mansion the whole day.

None of us were prepared at the changes that next day. Who would have known that the events of the weekend would bring about that decision?

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