Chapter 24

At the training field, a big circle had been cleared in the middle for a battle arena. A lot of students had made their way to this circle, as it was quite crowded there. At least 300 students stood around and waited for the battle.

Einar was standing in the middle of this circle, in front of the student that had challenged him. The student in front of Einar had a gloomy air around him, which was made more visible by the grey and gloomy weather.

A teacher had come to be the judge. It was an older man in mages robes. He had long white hair with a long white beard. He looked like a wise old man, with more experience than most.

He looked at Einar, then at the other student, before he started to talk.

"My name is Garwin, and I am a mage, and an alchemist in this academy!" The old man announced as he stood in the middle of the circle, between Einar and the mage student.

"We have all gathered here to witness a duel initiated by the mage Walter Bradford, against the swordsman Noah!" The Garwin started to yell out. "I have been invited to oversee this duel as the judge!" He continued.

"This fight is a normal duel, with only one rule! You can not kill your opponent! The punishment for an attack with fatal strength is to be crippled and banished from the academy!" Garwin yelled as he explained the only rule.

Einar heard this, and he was a little sour. In all honesty, he did not have many skills, and the one attacking skill he had, almost always had a fatal strength. This meant that he had to hold back quite a lot.

"I have nothing more to say! So ... Einar, Walter, Are you two ready to fight?!" Garwin looked at them slowly and asked.

"Yes!!" Walter answered with fury.

"Sure ..." Einar answered with indifference.

"Then, let your battle begin!" Garwin said as he stepped outside the ring.

As soon as Walter heard these words, tens of fireballs appeared around him. The heat coming from them as they appeared was scorching on Einars skin.

Einar did not mind this though, as he was amazed by this spell. This was his first time seeing something this amazing.

The crowd looking at this duel was shocked to see this. Not many mages could do something like this.

"DIE!" Walter yelled, as the fireballs shot at Einar one by one.

'Hey, hey ... calm down' Einar thought to himself. He had no plans of dying since this was only a duel.

He started using his mana to help him move fast around, avoiding the different fireballs coming toward him. He did not use the spell of swiftness, as it was not necessary at this point. He had done so much training with the two spells he knew, that he could move faster than most just using one of them.

To the crowd and to Walter, it looked like Einar was disappearing and reappearing every time the fireballs were about to hit him.

Garwin was different though, he was an experienced fighter, and his eyes had seen many things faster than Einar. He could see that Einar was moving extremely fast, by using the mana around him.

He was also shocked by this, as this meant that Einar had an extreme degree of control over the mana flow. Not many talents at Einars age could do such a feat.

At the moment, Einar was up against one of the strongest students of the second year. Someone that had the backing of the higher-ups of the school, and some of the best talent in his year. This student Walter though did not have such a degree of mana control.

To Einar, all of the fireballs that were flying toward him were basically flying in slow motion. He had no problem at all evading these fireballs. If he wanted, he would not have any trouble getting in close to Walter either, but he was seeing this as some kind of practice now.

He would do all he could to evade or block all the skills there were, as this would be great practice for the mage tournament he would have to battle in a week.

After having fired the fireballs for around five minutes, Walter was getting annoyed by not hitting Einar.

"You coward!! Stop dodging, and fight me!" Walter tried to provoke Einar into fighting him.

"So, you want me to fight?" Einar smiled, he still wanted to practice, but he might as well end it now, as it was too easy.

He release his 'Aura' and released all the pressure he could. All the students around started breathing heavily and had to move a few steps back. They felt that it was one of the teachers standing in front of them now, as they had never seen a student with this much 'Aura.'

Even teacher Garwin was a little affected by Einars pressure, but he was a teacher, so he was still stronger concerning pressure and power. He was very shocked though, as he had never been pressured by a student his age before.

Walter also felt the pressure instantly, and as he was closer to Einar, the pressure on him was many times stronger. If he were any weaker than he was, he would have collapsed by now.

Einar saw that he was still standing, which did not surprise him, as Walter was a second-year student after all.

Einar now used both mana manipulation and the spell of swiftness at the same time. He disappeared from his spot and appeared right in front of Walter.

He had done the same thing before when the fireballs flew toward him, but that was only small distances of 2 meters. This time he appeared 10 meters away from where he disappeared. This was a considerable distance, which shocked everyone there.

Walter's face twisted with fear now, he had underestimated Einar a lot. He did not want to give up though, as he tried to back away from Einar.

Einar reacted to this by reaching out and grabbing Walter's neck, and lifting him up off the ground. As he was in the air, Einar had a bright smile while looking at him. If anyone saw this smile, they would think that Einar was a charming man with a beautiful smile.

To Walter though, this smile was quite scary, as it was the smile of his enemy.

"Well Walter, just give up!" Einars smile grew wider, as his grip became tighter. He might have taken this nicely, and as a training experience, but he did not like people who were rude without reason.

"I-I-I ... I GIVE UP!" He was choking, but he managed to yell out his surrender. As soon as the words left his mouth, Einar released him with a beautiful smile.

"Good! It was a great spar Walter, let us do it again some time!" He said this still smiling as he went toward Garwin.

Everyone was looking at Einar in shock. Einar had shown some serious power and had utterly defeated Walter. There was no question as to who the winner was, and nobody was looking at Einar the same way again.

Garwin was wondering what Einar wanted from him when he saw Einar approaching.

"You were the alchemist teacher, right?" Einar stood in front of Garwin with a respectful smile and cupped hands.

"I am indeed!" Garwin answered with a slight smile. He liked that Einar was not disrespectful to him, and he was even respectful.

"Good, I want to sign up for your class!" He smiled at Garwin. "But as I was trying earlier, Walter thought that I was disrespecting, so we ended up here ...!" Einar said with a wry smile.

"I would be glad to let you join our class Einar! I saw how you used mana manipulation earlier! I was truly impressed!" Garwin said as he complimented Einar. "I will send the schedule to your room, I am looking forward to seeing you at my lectures!" Garwin said as he went to the middle of the circle.

"Well, I think we can all agree that Einar was the winner of this duel!" Garwin shouted out. "So you can all go back to what you were doing before!" He said these words before he left again.

Einar had now achieved one of his goals today, now he only needed to get the book from within the library's first floor. He could not help but smile like a little child who just candy, as he was very excited about what he would find.