Now that the winner was declared, Arianna got off the platform and left the arena, not without coldly glaring at Samuel Jolbaris which’s expression was that of someone that accidentally ate a fly.
“You were coward enough to not accept my challenge before, let’s see how you get off this time”, she said in a voice high enough so that the people in the stands near them could hear.
Needless to say, but a commotion raised as soon as Arianna left the scene.
“The first ranked only managed to keep his position because he used his right to decline a challenge once a month!”.
“The Jolbaris family surely talks big, but their “geniuses” have been throwing dirt at their reputation lately”.
“Yeah, I heard from a good friend of mine that the young master of the Jolbaris had a peculiar hobby…”.
“Shhh, don’t speak about that, his father might kill you in a moment of rage, his lineage might be stopping in this generation after all”.
Different conversations could be heard, and just like the previous guy stated, Arthur was boiling with rage, but no matter how angry he was, there was at least six half emperors ready to suppress him if needed, in fact he knew that some of them will do it just for fun, so he had no choice but to take a deep breath, swallow his complains and keep watching the tournament.
Back at the skybox of the elite class Daimon was both surprised and intrigued, surprised due to Arianna’s fight, the way she moved was quite amazing, especially considering that she just learned that crazy spell of Aura’s.
“If my calculations are okay then… she can fight at the same level as me, as long as I don’t use my battle aura, Narasha or core synchrony, not bad considering she is an early stage five star ranked mage while I’m a middle stage five-star knight”.
That being said, there was still one more aspect which he decided to ignore, his body was many times tougher than Arianna’s, her style based on short explosive impulses, so a battle of endurance was her weakness, and Daimon was sure that he could stand still all the day without moving and she would not be able to defeat him.
Because unlike that bear guy, his body was reinforced overall and not only externally, so the shockwaves produced by her attacks would be dissipated.
“By the time of the exploration, some will already be prepared to deal with that spell… but I don’t believe this was all her strength, lethal attacks were prohibited and she was chosen by Aura after all”, he concluded.
Daimon guessed that since Arianna wasn’t using her own equipment which was prepared specially for her, her battle prowess was way below her prime.
Lightning mages aren’t the fastest due to their element, as wind mages move really fast too, what makes them faster, is the fact that lightning mages have quicker reaction times.
Of course, there are other aspects which affect their speed, even if the elements are the same, the level of affinity differs from person to person, not to mention those whose lightnings have special properties, like Dana or Aura.
But ultimately what dictate the maximum speed a lightning mage can reach is its own reaction time, if the body moves at a speed in which the brain can’t process what’s happening then the result will be crushed bones.
While this problem was reduced thanks to the use of mana sense, there was a limit as to how much could that make up for the lack of thinking speed, and that’s what the adrenaline discharge was for, so surpass that limit.
,m To be honest Daimon wasn’t really interested in the rest of the matches, but since he had nothing else to do and Boris would have not let them go, he simply leaned against the back of the seat and enjoyed having Liz sitting on his lap while Aisha and Elaine hugged each one of his arms.
Also, he would have the opportunity to see their fighting styles and weaknesses, which would come in handy at the exploration, if Arianna could jump realms with her battle prowess, it was also possible for others to do it, so there wasn’t any harm in being cautious.
Meanwhile, after Arianna entered from the door that opened on the wall of the stadium, she walked with a calm expression all the way until she reached a door in which there was a plaque with her name.
With a little “click” she entered the room and closed the door, then without any warning her legs gave in making her body collapse on the ground.
“Haa~haa~haa”, Arianna’s chest moved up and down as she panted, she moved her fatigued body to the center of the room before letting herself fall backwards.
“Using both of the body and mind boosters at the same time is still a bit too much to handle”, she mumbled with a bitter smile as she took out a chronometer and pressed the start button.
With her eyes closed she slowly inhaled and exhaled, until her heart which was still a bit accelerated eventually returned to its normal rhythm, only then she let out a sigh of relief.
If she wanted to, Aura gave her some pills which would help her recover in a matter of minutes, but what would be the point of having become stronger if she could not use her own strength.
Besides the bottle of pills, she had only contained five of those, because they had to be personalized to work specifically with Arianna’s body, and she didn’t want to waste them.
Arianna clenched her teeth and controlled the trembling of her body; she got up and walked towards a bed which was at the other side of her resting room as she looked at the chronometer.
Her body nearly fell sidewards on the way, but she managed to regain her balance.
“Ten minutes to stop the aftermath contraction on the muscles, I can move again but… fighting in the immediate hour or so, is out of question”, she concluded.
The nail in her index finger changed to a claw as she scratched a small mark on the chronometer, there were another six or seven of those, but the distances between them wasn’t that big, until this one, the last mark she did covered about one quarter part of the chronometer.
Only after that she threw herself at the bed and fell asleep, Aura told her that the tournament was being filmed anyway and she didn’t want others to see her weakened current state.
Back at the arena, the magic formation which covered the whole stadium glowed and all the signs that a fierce battle took place here a few minutes ago disappeared, then the image of the screens focused on the referees once again as they repeated the selection process.
“Rank number 13, Wade Risha”.
“Rank number 9, Caleb Allier”.
After the participants were decided, the other students of the second year’s elite class returned to the bench, and the two selected went up the platform.
Wade Risha is a short but bulky guy, his hair is white a characteristic of the snow eagle clan of the Risha family, but unlike Liliana, his eye color isn’t that pretty ash-blue color, but a more common brown tone.
As for Caleb Allier, it’s a slim guy with long hair which combined with the lavender tone of his sclera, his skin was rather paled compared to other guys, the calm smiling expression on his face made a lot of the female spectators on the stand immediately go crazy as they saw him winking at them.
“Kyaaah, how handsome!”.
“As expected of someone from royal family from the Illusory silk worm race”.
As if he was used to getting attention from girls, to the disgust of the male students near them.
On the seats for honored guests, a peak Archknight from the Faresh family, huffed from his bull’s nose, as he snorted.
“Humph, just a silk pants from the Allier family, what does appearance account for, when your head is about to be separated from your neck”.
“Heh, saying that makes you look like a sore loser, supreme elder of the Faresh family, are you perhaps still angry because I stole your crush from you back then?”.
A strangely soft voice called out the bull-headed guy from the Faresh family, which made him grit his teeth as she turned to the direction from which it came.
There sitting with a smiling expression was a young-looking man which looked about eighty percent similar to Caleb, the only difference was that he was taller and he had a thin mustache which made it look older and his eyes were closed.
The bull-headed man felt a vein popping on his neck, but to everyone’s surprise controlling his short temper, a cunning smile appeared on the corner of his mouth as he shook his head.
“No, no, in the end she wasn’t anything mine, I’m more worried about you elder Trevor, having to see your own wife being banged by your older brother everyday is for sure a hard “duty”, you and your “son” have my support”.
An uncomfortable silence fell on the area, before a few mocking laughs sounded making the previously relaxed Trevor to explode, lavender colored mana leaked form his body making the area tremble but it was immediately contained by the surrounding Arch ranks, so that none of the students was affected by it.
Trevor slightly opened his eyes, unlike Caleb although his sclera had a lavender color, his pupils had a red tone instead of blue, he also opened his mouth revealing that his teeth weren’t flat but spiky giving him a threatening appearance.
But before things could get out of hand, a single word coming from the row where all the half emperors were sitting, stopped all the ruckus.
“Enough”, listening to the indifferent and authoritative voice of the field marshal from the army, all the peak Arch ranks behaved well and accommodated on their seats, as the next match was starting.
