Semi-Final

Cole went up against Brianna Talos, an alchemist who has surprisingly made it this far, yet she didn't challenge Cole's progress as he easily defeated her.

Hector Cole from Group G was met against a battle mage with a tough build named Max Crowell, yet his build matched neither his rank nor his capabilities as he was also met with a quick defeat.

Kyle was satisfied with his match today and with spectating the others. Victor Smith, his next opponent, was surprisingly a mid-tier 3-circle mage despite being the winner of Group N which made Kyle suspect him of being the bastard son of a higher nobility that was forced upon Baron Smith, especially with his impressive combat skills that surpassed all of the previous contestants.

After finishing spectating, he went back home to activate his mana breathing technique and replenish his mana in preparation for tomorrow's battle.

Once again, Kyle could barely activate the technique before deactivating it instantly, replenishing his mana in an instant.

Kyle fell asleep soundly that night, yet he dreamed of his family back home, how they were sitting at the dining table in the morning eating together, yet his mother suddenly went crazy screaming at him, scolding him for forgetting his promise, which made Kyle suddenly wake up covered in sweat.

'What a way to ruin a happy dream' scoffed Kyle as he woke up, took a bath, then got ready, and went straight to his semi-final fight against Victor Smith.

Kyle headed straight to the arena with his fight being once again the first fight of the day.

Upon entering the arena, the cheering could be heard even sharper than last time, with everyone that witnessed his previous matches already being his fans.

Kyle was thrilled, as he was going to fight a pretty skilled close combat battle mage, something he was waiting for. He figured that he could easily win simply by using one stance of the 'Thousand Movement Sword' technique, he decided to fight without it, testing what he could do without using any martial art.

The Professor announced the start with both Kyle and Victor taking their stances, Victor took a stance similar to how a four-legged animal takes its stance.

Although Victor feared Kyle after spectating his previous matches, he still didn't feel fear to the point of being overwhelmed as he had confidence in his martial techniques that his real father passed on to him.

Victor rushed to Kyle first to remove the tension that has built up. Victor's martial art was unique, it made him copy some animal characteristics. He was able to solidify his element and make claws come out of his fingertips, and so he did that, he solidified his Fotia element and made fire claws.

Kyle dodged his attack to the right and counterattacked with an elbow to his neck. Victor's body slammed to the ground, yet before Kyle could make another move, he instantly ran away.

"HAHAHAH, that really is an interesting martial technique, Victor!" said Kyle as he followed Victor around.

Victor was surprised, Kyle was clearly using neither a movement technique nor imbuing mana into his legs, yet he easily kept up with him.

Victor changes his tactics, he once again took his initial stance as he imbued mana into all four of his limbs and leapt into the sky.

Although Kyle could've easily followed him if he activated his movement technique, he decided not to as that was the restriction he put on himself for this match.

Victor summoned countless fireballs and fire missiles as he launched them towards Kyle like some kind of fire rain, he then summoned a fire shield, in mid-air and used it as a stepping stone to jump even further up.

Kyle was amused with such a fighting style as if one doesn't have a similar leaping technique, they wouldn't be able to follow him and have to receive a barrage of attacks from the sky.

Kyle equipped his water shield, as a way to block the Fotia element, as Nero beats Fotia, and easily blocked his attacks.

Kyle suddenly had a thought, 'Since I saw what he did to go up there, wouldn't I be able to do something similar?' and he took a similar stance to Victor as he leapt through the sky even higher.

Kyle's mana pool was way bigger than Victor's, not only was there a difference in ranks but also Kyle's mana purity was several times a normal person's.

Normally, in a breathing technique, the mage absorbs all mana in the atmosphere, the pure and impure, the mage casts out the impure mana and keeps the pure one. However, there is a pure mana that is mixed with impure mana that the mage doesn't cast out, as it takes too much time to keep all of the mana absorbed 100% pure. In simpler terms, we can say that in the atmosphere, there is 25% pure mana, 25% impure mana, and 50% pure mixed with impure. If a mage were to cast out even the mixed mana then their progress would diminish by 66.667%, meaning to get to the same level that a normal person gets to, they would need more than double the effort and double the time. However, this rewards them by making their foundation much stronger as their mana purity would be much higher, which makes them several times stronger than anyone in their realm.

This made Kyle jump several times higher than Victor did, he as well activated his fire shield and also used it as a stepping stone, overtaking Victor's height advantage, flipping the tables over, and using Victor's technique as his own.

Victor, being mid-air couldn't even block such a barrage, that was several times the amount and strength of his, and was forced to fall to the ground, unconscious.

Kyle followed him down by using fire shields as stepping stones, looking like he's walking down stairs, instead of falling to the ground from the sky.

The audience's voice peaked with people from even outside the arena hearing their cheers, chanting Kyle's name full of respect, as no one could've possibly expected Kyle to be able to copy Victor's technique from seeing it only once.

Obviously, Kyle didn't completely follow the steps for Victor's technique and didn't copy it perfectly, but it was still enough to be able to leap to such a height.