Black Fireball

--- The next day ---

Again we were in the same arena as the first day, but this time there were no golens or anything like that.

It was clear that no one had slept due to their tired eyes, everyone just stood up through the night decorating the book, but the schematics about the fireball spell were easy and Gremory had finished in just two hours.

'Conjuration is simpler than I expected, mana is normally used as energy, but it is a matter like any other but in a different state than usual, as well as physical, solid, gaseous, and plasma, mana is the fifth state of matter. A mage can manifest mana in its purest form, but the energy consumption is very ineffective, so mages usually use spells that were created with the conversion of matter in mind to optimize the use of mana.'

But unlike mana manipulation, when casting a spell, the mage only needs to be able to control his flow of mana and have an understanding of the processes involved, both in the chemical and physical parts for the spell to be successful, and of course, to have the power to do the entire process. The use of mana varies tremendously from one spell to another, but fireball is just the concentrated form of mana generated by a fire mage using this conversion of matter to concentrate energy at one point, thereby improving the accuracy, range, and radius of the explosion while decreases the use of mana compared to the simple release of fire by the hands as Xander had done in previous battles.

'But the spell involves the mage being able to manifest the element of fire, what the hell was Vendryt thinking when he gave me that book? It should already be obvious to everyone that I am not a fire mage. '

Again today there were the people of the house watching our training from above us, but this time a much larger crowd than before. According to Vendryt, the strength of a mage's flames starts to be manifested from the moment he gains control over his mana flow, so they are here to see the color of our flames.

They all want to see the result of this, after all, during the history of the house, very few mages managed to succeed in making their flame stronger. Even the Grand Master failed to strengthen his daughter's flame.

Vendryt was more serious than usual today, even the breakfast meal we were given was extremely reinforced.

"Pay close attention everyone, today is a very important day but just act as if it were any other day. I believe that a mage's strength is not pre-defined before he even becomes proficient in something, so to demonstrate it to everyone, your target will be each other. " He spoke while activating the great rune inscribed in the arena and raised the bridge. "It has no use if you to have power and the pressure of combat makes you too nervous to perform perfectly so think of today as training that can save your lives in the future."

Everyone was shocked but not surprised, the pain of being burned alive was great, but at the end of the day, the rune would bring them back as if nothing had happened.

"Master, I want my training target to be Gremory." Xander spoke quickly while showing a sign of respect as a result of his incredible discipline.

"Very well, but remember that he will attack back. The other pairs will be Yuno and Kiel, Mary and Luther, now get started!" Vendryt replied promptly.

'Xander is starting to get annoying.'

Gremory and Xander start to distance themselves from each other without positioning themselves in the line of fire of the other pairs. They prepare to attack each other, but Xander decides to just stand and watch.

'Although I don't think it will have the same effect, I can at least try, right?'

Gremory begins to focus on his mana flow while employing all the concepts read in the book, the dust on the floor starts to move slightly but nothing happens even after a full minute.

In the meantime, Kiel is seen flying through the air while Mary and Luther are in the same situation as Gremory.

Xander was becoming confident after seeing that Gremory was not succeeding in using the spell.

"Just like I expected, now take this." Xander said while a fireball formed in his hands, but the color of the flames even made Vendryt fall from his chair when he saw it.

A purple fireball was launched against Gremory.

'Oh, fu **.'

Gremory's luck could not be worse after all, although a mage's flames could be superior to that of his lineage, this was now so rare that it had not happened in the last half-century.

Unconsciously Gremory was amazed at the strength and concentration of mana in front of him, it was simply a work of art.

But this piece of art was coming to kill him, so he used shadow impulse 3 times to the side as soon as he woke up from his stupor.

Having avoided, the fireball followed its trajectory for a while until it exploded in the air.

Meanwhile, the audience above was getting agitated, despite being people from the upper class, this show of strength was enough for many of them to forget the rules of etiquette.

"How about we fight then?" I spoke while summoning Stickyt into my hands.

Vendryt seeing this, started yelling at me.

"GREMORY, YOU CAN ONLY USE FIREBALL, NOTHING OTHER THAN THAT." He said.

"Tsk ..."

Gremory then threw his short-sword away to show that he understood.

'I'm not able to use that spell, but they won't know the difference as long as it explodes in the end, right?'

In the past few days, Gremory's manipulation over mana had improved immensely while he studied Tier 2 runes, and since the concepts were the same for shadow manipulation, at the same time it also provided him with an enormous understanding of the use of shadows.

Xander created another fireball and launched it towards Gremory, who avoided it again. The process was repeated several times and in all times Gremory avoided using Shadow Evasion until Xander ran out of all his mana.

"My time now!" Gremory said while a black aura formed around him, the black energy covered his whole body and was concentrating in his hands until the energy there became so dense that the light started to twist around him, like a distortion in spacetime.

And then he launched in the direction of Xander who tried to run, but it was too late.

However, there was no explosion.

Gremory had no control over her trajectory, but he was able to detonate it from a distance when he was close enough to Xander.

The dense mass of black energy began to become even denser, decreasing its size and attracting everything around it until it simply disappeared and in the next instant it reappeared, rapidly expanding and destroying everything in its path.

Xander was the first to be swallowed by the explosion, followed by the rest of the group who tried to run to the edge of the arena since their only exit was the bridge.

Yet the explosion enveloped the entire arena, destroying the entire platform and rune.

The black energy destroyed everything in its path except for Gremory, the black energy passed through him as if he were just an illusion.