Pecking Order

Gloria's answer left not only Olivia, but also the other noble children completely baffled. Sure, there was nothing said against the use of alchemy or any use of anything outside of killing your opponent, but they had only thought that these were duels. They had inadvertently missed the entire point of these matches, something that through the story his father had told him regarding his mother, Jien had been able to sus out. These weren't duels, these were meant to be battles, battles meant to be to near death if needed, and everything that you can get your hands on is usable in a battle of this style.

Jien looked at each of the other children with a calm that seemed beyond his years. He wasn't much of a fighter to begin with, hence why he had made so many mistakes so early, but that did not mean that he wasn't resourceful. As a bookworm by nature and having the backing of the mindscape, though not packed with everything he wished to include, he had more than enough to help him through a few predicaments. It was now just a question of whether his opponents would let him have the chance after knowing the answer.

His advantage had been in his understanding of the parameters of the event. Now that everyone was on the same page, he was not so dure how the remaining matches would go. That being said he was not helpless. He had not yet shown the Vine Guard and his control of it, nor had he done anything with the use of formations and on top of that his use of magic in general had been in fairly broad strokes rather than with finite control. The question now was whether he had the mana capacity to handle the last two matches.

This last match had not been terribly long, but he had purposely avoided using magic, instead focusing on his use of alchemical concoctions to clench the victory he needed. This meant that as he was facing Olivia, he was passively accumulating more mana, though the pace at which it gathered was slow he still made progress. His hope was that by the time that his next match had arrived he would have enough to take on his next opponent with at least a modicum of the prowess that had been trained into him by Mark and Emily.

He sat down with the other children as the next two stepped forward to take on their opponent. The training field had been cleared of any of Jien's concoctions to ensure that the pair who had just taken their positions wouldn't unfairly use his work for themselves. This included the use of strong wind magic to scatter the remains of the Gel Fog and Sweet Slumber as well as using earth magic to remove the remainder of the Gel Fog that had been sprinkled by Jien as a backup plan.

The children had watched the removal of Jien's alchemical concoctions with a seriousness that they had lacked before. This last match had proven to them that this matter wasn't meant to be as simple as a way to test each other out and get to know one another. This was meant to decide the pecking order, and though Jien had lost to Lesley the others now knew that he wasn't going to be an easy opponent. In terms who was leader material, just the fact that the adults felt impressed by him, and his last strategy made them feel that he had one upped them all. The only other competitor in that arena so far appeared to be Bernard.

Rosalind, though a bit more serious than before after the recent revelation still seemed pretty laid back. She smiled and looked at the training grounds in front of them where Bernard was facing a rather severe looking Lesley. Bernard had won all his matches so far besides the one with Barret, showing the chivalry of a knight and the understanding of how to handle a vast variety of different situations.

After Jien's last victory he had taken things even more seriously and was no using his control of mana to use earth spells to erect thin pillars of stone to black arrows. He was using a combination of mana manipulation and strange green glow coming from the horse on his steel breastplate to gain a speed greater than he had previously shown. Lesley was doing his best to continue to keep distance and loose one arrow after another, but nothing seemed to be going his way.

Olivia, though now a little solemn regarding her previous loss was watching her neighbor and rival struggling while a slight smile graced her lips. From what she knew none of them had prepared anything extra like Jien had so while things still resembled a simple duel they all knew that they would give their all for it from here on out. That being said she was almost positive that she would not make the cut to be in the lead. Barret had yet to lose any of his matches, his stealth and calm fighting style leading him to be an extremely difficult opponent. On top of that everyone was positive that he wasn't showing half of what he knew. He was a part of the Romero family, there was no way that his training was so simple.

Bernard felt that he was leader material, having been trained as such from the days he could walk on his own and form his first words. That being said he felt that both Jien and Barret were wild cards. Barret while not seeming like leader material was from a branch of the royal family. His education would likely be superb and it was obvious that he wasn't showing his everything. Jien on the other hand seemed to pull tricks out of his hat and odd choices left and right. Even his loss to Lesley showed that he had an interesting thought by creating a smokescreen while relocating himself temporarily.

Lesley like Olivia felt that he had little chance to be a leader and to be honest he didn't even want that responsibility. Lastly Barret's thoughts were a mystery to everyone as his ever-stoic expression masked his intents, and his grey eyes watched the current match with what appeared to be little interest.

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Thank you all for putting up with the intermittent chapters these past few days. I came down with COVID and was not wanting to write poorly written or thought out chapters.

I am on the mend now so things should be getting back to normal going forward barring extraordinary circumstances.

If you want to keep better track of news regarding the story you can see them on the Discord:

https://discord.gg/yPUeTy27