Alexia's Talent

"I thought you hated Alexia," Arlo exclaimed in surprise.

"Hate is a strong word. But yeah, I dislike her." Jeanne replied.

"Then why are you interested in her?" Arlo questioned.

Instead of responding immediately, Jeanne took a second to think. "Do you know what rank Alexia got for her potential?"

"No... she never told me. I always thought it was B or something similar." 

"Well, I suspected that." Jeanne sighed. "There were actually three students given the S+ ranking this year. Along with these two boys, Alexia is the third."

"Huh?" Arlo's bewilderment was obvious. Ryan was similarly astonished and Fiona gasped in surprise. Even Tobias raised an eyebrow.

"But Alexia said she was a late bloomer," Arlo interjected, his tone laced with scepticism. "It said that the older you were when you awakened your gift, the less talented you were." 

"That's true." Jeanne agreed. "But Alexia is an anomaly. In terms of talent, she definitely deserves that S+ ranking. There's no doubt in my mind."

"But why was she given that ranking? In my eyes, she wasn't special. Her mana capacity and control are below average." Tobias who was silent the entire time, spoke up. His tone was still as arrogant and obnoxious as before, but he reduced it to a bearable level.

"She was given the ranking at the Annual Terrano Junior Tournament after her first participation," Jeanne explained. "If I remember correctly, she awakened somewhere around August or September. The following January she participated in the tournament.

Within 3 months of training, she mastered all of the family's sword arts, had amazing mana control and created a new swordsmanship style based on our family's arts that was suited to her.

In that competition, she won. It wasn't even close. She solely used swordsmanship to win without even using her gift."

Jeanne then gave a recount of what had occurred in the tournament.

***

(Flashback)

Jeanne couldn't wait. It was her first junior tournament she'd be able to participate in. She had been training for years for this. With her trusty glaive, she was confident in winning. After all, she was considered one of the most talented of her generation and also inherited the precious gift of the Terrano family.

As the participants arrived in the room, she noticed her cousin, Alexia Terrano-Wix in the corner, with her katana at her side looking extremely confident. She wore a small smile on her face.

Jeanne hadn't seen Alexia since her 12th birthday in June. Jeanne had heard Alexia had awakened a gift and had been training these past few months.

After 10 minutes, when everyone arrived, the head of the family, Natasha Terrano announced the rules. In the stands, a lot of the Terrano family was watching, as well as personnel from the military and some government workers.

Alexia was called up first to face a person named Richard Terrano. Richard didn't have a gift and didn't show any particular talents.

Everyone watched the match closely as they wanted to evaluate the second 12-year-old gift user who had awakened. Alexia had only been training for a couple of months and was an extremely late bloomer, so they had tempered expectations.

But all those expectations were immediately surpassed within a split second. As soon as the match started, Alexia rushed forward, at a speed that Richard couldn't even see and slashed him.

With the damage conversion barrier, Richard took no damage, but that single slash was all it took. He immediately lost.

"Aww, that's it?" Alexia muttered sadly as she was announced the winner.

The other matches of the first round occurred, with Jeanne also trouncing her opponent. Alexia let her opponent move first during her next match and adjusted her enhancement to match their speed.

Even so, the match only lasted 30 seconds. Despite their similar speeds and strength, Alexia's sword techniques overwhelmed her opponent and she was able to land a fatal blow easily.

As the matches continued, Alexia's smile had slowly vanished. Replacing it was a bored expression, a face that showed she didn't want to be here. Alexia had continuously weakened her enhancements, but they didn't affect the result of the match. She was too strong for everyone.

The final match came quickly, with it being Alexia and Jeanne. Jeanne was nervous about Alexia's strength, but she believed she could beat Alexia.

As soon as the bell rang, Jeanne jumped back and started imbuing the ground with her mana. A split second later, the earth beneath her shifted, with spikes coming off the ground.

Alexia, who was rushing toward Jeanne, avoided the spikes, putting some distance between the two girls. The spikes appeared with no incantation or magic and were a result of Jeanne's gift: Terraformer.

Terraformer was the inherited gift of the Terrano and at high levels could cause massive earthquakes. It allowed the user to manipulate the terrain around them at will.

Jeanne knew she couldn't beat Alexia in close combat. So her best chance to win was to use her gift from afar.

Jeanne constantly expended mana, shaking the ground and creating rock pillars to hinder Alexia's movement.

But Alexia was able to move without much difficulty. She moved through the battleground like she was like a dancing fairy.

None of Jeanne's attacks were working. Jeanne tried to escape by running away, but Alexia was closing on her.

Jeanne realised that Alexia would eventually force a close-quarters combat situation, so she went on the offence.

Jeanne created pillars of earth and launched them at Alexia at high speeds. But none of them even grazed her.

Alexia dodged them easily and cut the ones she couldn't dodge like butter.

As Alexia was going to slice Jeanne with her blade, Jeanne blocked the katana with her glaive.

Jeanne tried to win the close-combat encounter, but it was futile. Alexia was so overwhelmingly dominant that with a few blows, the match ended in her victory.

 During that entire match, Alexia's face never changed from that bored expression. Alexia was soon declared to have a talent rank of S+ and the entire Terrano family cheered.

As Alexia was leaving, Jeanne called out to her. "Alexia! I'm going to win next time. You better train hard."

"Uh... sure?" Alexia replied disinterestedly.

Jeanne believed the reason she lost was because she didn't train hard enough. Her current training wasn't sufficient.

Jeanne trained extremely hard throughout the entire year, hoping to win the rematch the next year.

But she was left thoroughly disappointed. Alexia never appeared the next year. Or the year after that. Jeanne was told that Alexia had stopped training and wouldn't participate in any more competitions.

***

"I considered Alexia to be my first rival," Jeanne explained after retelling her history with Alexia. "She shone so blindingly bright, that I wanted to reach her. I sometimes blamed myself that I was too weak back then. She might've continued training if I had been stronger and presented a bigger challenge to her.

But even then, as a mage, I hate her for giving up her duties. She has so much talent, yet she is letting go to waste."

After her rant, everyone fell silent. Arlo realised how much of a waste of talent Alexia was. She was able to overwhelm those with years of training with just a couple of months of training.

"As a Terrano, shouldn't she have obligations to fill?" Tobias spoke again. "It's what is expected of a noble."

"Alexia is only partly Terrano. Her mother didn't want to compete within the family and married a non-noble. He was a pretty famous general, so she was able to marry him with much pushback." Jeanne clarified.

"But as a result, Alexia doesn't have any obligations to the family. Strictly speaking, she is not from the main family anymore. Their obligations to the Terrano nobles have been fulfilled by her older brothers who all have graduated and have decently high positions in the military.

Alexia doesn't have any obligations placed on her. In return for not receiving benefits from the family, she doesn't have to support them."

Fiona didn't get noble politics but understood that Alexia didn't have much tying her to Terranos besides the name. As someone who idolised mages from a young age, Fiona had formed a negative opinion of Alexia. Though she had talent, it wasn't worth much without hard work.

"To be able to keep up with the 300s speaks of her talent. Having only trained 3 months is impressive." Ryan praised her. "But as you said, it's just a waste. It's unfortunate."

As everyone got up from their break, they all came to a consensus. They all disliked Alexia Terrano-Wix.

Tobias who looked down on her for shirking her noble duties, Fiona who idolised mages, Ryan and Arlo's sense of justice and Jeanne's loss of a rival.