41

''Then, start from the fourth year, I want to see the best first.'' Stephen turns to look at the people sitting opposite our side.

''I will go first, solo.'' A girl with pure black hair in a ponytail and black irises confidently walks to the platform.

''Daughter of Duke Camila, good. Let's see how strong our school's number one is.''

''Then, please take of me.'' The girl, still with her emotionless face, rivaling that of Emy's, pulls out two daggers and holds them in reverse.

''Come.''

Instantly after that, the girl seemingly disappears into thin air before reappearing behind Stephen, using one of the daggers to stab towards his neck.

But Stephen spins around with superhuman speed, catching her wrist with his right hand and pulls her entire body over to his side, destabilizing the girl. He then throws out a casual punch towards her stomach, but the girl disappears again and targets his neck behind him one more time.

''Old trick.'' Stephen commented.

He doesn't even turn around this time, just stomps lightly on the ground.

The air around him changes as mana fluctuate, then finally the atmosphere surrounding him explodes like an air bomb, pushing the girl back several meters.

''My turn.'' He said.

Stephen, much like the girl, pretty much instantaneously appears behind the girl, who is still a little bit dazed after the hit before, and throws a punch towards her side.

The girl hastily turns around to block the hit with the daggers, then she tries to get Stephen with a spin kick, to which Stephen just falls back a bit, narrowly dodging the passing kick.

Using the opening, Stephen this time casts several spells at the same time from all directions, two fireballs, two ice spears, three earth bullets, and throws all of them at the girl.

It looks like she's finally getting serious, the black gemstone on her necklace glows together with the two daggers. Then, dark spikes started to come out of the ground, deflecting all the spells.

The girl charges forwards again, slashing Stephen continuously, while the spikes are stabbing him from everywhere as well.

Stephen, still calm, dodging all the attacks very casually for a while, before he finally retaliates.

That's... space magic.

Pitch black portals, much like the entrance to my space bag, started to appear all over the platform. The spikes thrusting through the portals come out on ones near the girl's body, grazing all over her skin.

That is a very dangerous move. If Stephen wanted to, he could have open a portal connecting one of the spikes to the back of her head or something, then it would be game over in an instant. I get why he's so respected now.

The act of opening portals like this to attack is one of the most advance applications for space magic, dad can do it too. Actually, I should master space magic more, I think I have some ideas to cook with the guns here...

Anyway, back to the match. It's pretty obvious at this point, the girl can't even touch him, and her body is covered with her own blood already.

Stephen punches the girl, who is visibly tired, in the stomach, causing her to collapse, her hands holding her abdomen.

I mean, she was quite strong, maybe even stronger than Emy, around 4 star Advance? I don't know.

''Not bad.'' Stephen said. ''Get some healing.'' 

From the corner, a mage uses telekinesis to move the girl closer, then another woman dressed in a priest's robe started to use healing magic on her.

''Next.''

''Yes! We want to go next, team, please.'' A guy in the fourth year said.

''Sure.''

Their team is the perfect example of balance, one tanker, one mage, two damage dealers, one supporter.

The synergy is pretty good, too. The two swordmans are pretty flexible, they know how to connect their attacks, the tanker takes the hits very timely, the other two are decent as well.

But that's pretty meaningless against a master, they got absolutely destroyed after a while.

''Good teamwork, keep training.'' Stephen nods. ''Next.''

----- 

Just like that, he proceeded to destroy every single one of the students, including the third year ones. No one here can really deal with that annoying portal magic. I probably could, but haven't tried.

And don't even get started on the first year, they didn't even get Stephen to use his signature magic.

''Hmm, not bad, not bad at all.'' He commented, after beating the crap out of a freshman, poor guy.

''Now then, second year.'' He turns to us. ''Anyone?''

''You guys wanna go?'' I said to the girls.

''No, I have to duel Emilia.'' Christina refused.

''Mhmm.'' Emy nods as well.

''...I'm feeling a little bit under the weather today, so...'' Anastasia said.

''You wanna go?'' Liana asked me.

''Hmm...'' Do I try or not.

Fuck it, let's just go.

So I raise my hand. ''Me, solo.''

''Hoh~ This is finally getting interesting.'' Stephen exclaimed.

I then fly my way onto the platform. ''Right, let's try not to go too far.'' 

''You're right.'' Stephen chuckles.

I could feel everyone, excluding Christina and my girlfriends, looking at us with question marks on their faces. 

Well, if we go all out here, they really could get swept up in the fight, so.

''Let's get started, then.'' I said.

***** 

Standing 15m across from each other, Sylvia and Stephen each takes a deep breath.

Stephen, unlike the calm and casual look before, seems to be concentrating, clearly taking this fight very seriously. This confuses the students, who the hell is this short girl for the headmaster to be that serious??

But regardless, the fight starts.

Sylvia immediately draws out mana from the gems on her earrings and choker, her already brilliant blue eyes seem to shine even more brightly.

On the air, 25 ice spears the size of a human simultaneously formed, Sylvia then sends them flying with terrifying speed towards Stephen with a simple motion of her finger.

Stephen, just like his opponent, draws out mana from his two diamond rings, opening an uncomfortably big number of portals, each around 1 meter in diameter, and there's over 100 of them floating all over the platform.

The ice spears fly towards the portals, everyone expected the battlefield is going to be a mess with ice all over the place after they get through the portals, but what they didn't expect, was the ice spears piercing through all the portals like glass, continuing to fly towards Stephen, who is totally dumbfounded.

Sylvia used a technique called 'hijacking', a highly advanced skill on the mana control category. Because people use mana by controlling the flow of energy outside of their body, magic can technically be hijacked. The only problem was, it's really hard. You need to have much better mana control than your opponent, and you need a lot of concentration, at that point, just casting a counter magic of your own is probably more efficient.

But, Sylvia is known for her absurd mana control capability, and against such annoying magic like portals, it was the right solution.

Against the rapidly approaching barrage of ice spears from all directions, Stephen has no choice but to deactivate the remaining portals and form a barrier around him to block them.

All 25 spears collide with the barrier continuously for a few seconds, but they only managed to put a few scratches on the sturdy barrier of an Archmage.

''That's hard.'' Sylvia commented, finishing up the next barrage of magic.

This time, it's her most powerful elemental magic, earth.

Close to 40 metal spikes coated in mana started to emerge from the ground, their tips pointing towards Stephen.

Inside the barrier, Stephen has already completed his next magic. If she can hijack the portals and destroy them, then he just need to cast spells beforehand and then have them fly through the portals the moment they formed.

Surely she can't hijack the portals before his magic goes through.

By the time all the metal spikes were flying towards Stephen with a speed comparable to a bullet, a bunch of portals opened behind Sylvia. From them, all kinds of magic came out continuously, fire bolts, lighting bolts, ice blast, mana missiles... 

Sylvia hastily put a barrier around her as well.

On one side of the platform, Stephen is pouring his magic to the barrier to defend against the barrage of metal spears while attacking through the portals.

On the other side, Sylvia is also enforcing her barrier, while putting even more force into the spikes by controlling them with her most proficient magic - Telekinesis.

That proved to be a good decision, because Stephen's barrier began to crack, bit by bit. However, Sylvia herself could not hold on for much longer, the hijack before was a half bluff, it took a pretty heavy toll on her brain. Now she has to use telekinesis while defending against such intense stream of spells like this.

She would win very easily here if she can teleport. But unfortunately, applying space magic on a living organism is vastly more difficult than normal objects. This also applies to Stephen.

So now, it's a fight of endurance, whosever barrier breaks first, it'll be game over. And both of them know it.

The students have been staring wide-eyed at the colorful scene for a while now, the sheer mana radiating from the platform was enough to make some of them feel nausea and headache.

Slowly, more cracks started to appear on both of their barriers, they gradually grow longer ang bigger, growing like a spider web, and with the onlookers staring at the battle between two masters with bated breaths-

Both of their barriers break at the same time.

'''' ... ''''

Canceling all of their magic, they both shrug at the same time.

''Well, that was pretty good.'' Sylvia said nonchalantly.

''Yes, I think it was enough.'' Stephen said, dusting off his clothing.

Although the two of them could have continued, they decided that it was enough for a quick evaluation.

***** 

'''' ... ''''

Coming back to my seat, I could feel all the stares from everybody present. If you could feels the stares physically, I would be long dead, pierced by them now.

I sit down on my seat like nothing has happened. ''The headmaster, he's pretty good.'' I said.

''Y-You... are you really not 100 years old??'' A certain cat girl asked me.

''Cmon, I'm not so shameless, lying about my age like that.''

''Ah! Maybe, you... the Saint?!'' Anastasia exclaimed.

''Well, what do you think?''

The cat girl excitedly jumps to my face, putting her hands on my shoulders, eyes sparkling.

''Really?! Are you really the new Saint?!''

...I forgot just how enthusiastic this girl is when it comes to religion. ''No, of course not, I'm just a pretty decent mage...'' I said, pushing her away.

''Eh~'' Her face crumbles in real time, almost as if she just ate a raw lemon.

I can't do a grand reveal just yet, sorry.

Afterward, one cat girl dejectedly walked back to her seat, her adorable cat ears drooping, it seemed like she really wanted to meet the Saint, which is, well, me.

She probably doesn't need to wait for much longer though, if we look at the general state of politic here and really boil it down, the emperor and the crown prince are on the side of war, while the second prince is not. Christina is obviously out of the equation.

There's a total of five Dukes, three of them are busy fighting demons at the border already, so they are neutral. Of the remaining two, Duke Spencer is on the second prince's faction, and then there's Duke Forbes, who's on the crown prince's side.

Oh, and did I mention that Duke Forbes is in the six feet gang? Well, six feet underground that is, cause he's super dead now. I shot him in the head the other day.

But anyway, I'm getting sidetracked here. The point is, we just need to put the second prince as the heir to the throne, and then somehow keep his loved ones hostage or something, then the war should definitely end, and we can start preparing to fight the demons. Especially now that the crown prince's most powerful ally is dead, it's going to be easier.

Now we need to convert and/or convince the nobles to support the second prince, and then start to pressure the emperor to either stop the war, or abdicate the throne altogether.

Worst case, if he's still stubborn, we'll have to assassinate him, I would feel sorry for Christina, but we don't have infinite time here.

Either way, it seems like the students here got out of their daydreams already, I could hear a lot of murmurs. Well, I guess it's not that surprising.

''You did well.'' I could feel a hand stroking my head.

It's Liana. ''Mhmm, well, if we kept going, I would have lost there.'' I said.

It's not false, I felt like he still had more cards to play, it's the previous Saint after all, I would need to train a lot more to catch up to him.

''Don't worry, with your absurd talent, you'll surpass him in no time.'' She said, moving her arm to hug my waist sideway.

''I'm not concerned, though. Thanks anyway.'' I replied, leaning on her shoulder.

When did this girl become so gentle? She was so cheeky before, is it because she just passed puberty? Or it is because we're lovers now?

Doesn't matter, I guess.

''Well, then, is there anyone else?'' Stephen, still on the platform, said.

''Me! Solo, please!'' A guy from our class said loudly.

Ah, it's the protagonist. Well, let's see what would happen.

----- 

*yawn*

Mhmm, it's not very interesting.

I mean, the only one here that could somewhat face against Stephen except me is probably Liana, but she's busy groping my butt right now, I doubt she wants to go up there.

Do I just sleep for now? I doubt there would be anything else anyway.

''Wake me up when it's over.'' I said to the girls, who each gives me a nod.

----- 

After the class ended, we remained in the sparring area to watch Christina and Emy duel. And I forgot to ask the headmaster to teach me portal magic, maybe I'll do that later. According to the goddess, this guy should be trustworthy, so I guess I can ask for the Saint experience or something.

Anyway, I'm now sitting on Liana's lap, it's pretty rare that I get a back hug from Liana like this, usually she would just go for a front hug, then sneaks her hands down to touch my butt at the same time.

Anastasia is also here, sitting besides us, to provide healing if needed.

On the platform, Christina and Emy are fighting quite fiercely, sword and spear clashing against each other.

Ultimately though, Emy still won both of the two matches, now she's making a V sign while smiling very slightly.

Ah, I think I need to console Christina again, she seems down.

So after Anastasia treated both of their injuries, I hug Christina's head into my chest again. This time around, she instantly puts her arms around my waist to hug me tighter, almost as if she had expected this.

...Cunning girl.

Anyway, it's almost lunch time now. I need to fill my stomach.

''Are you guys free now? Wanna go grab lunch together?'' I asked, with Christina still burying her head in my chest.

''Mhmm.'' Christina grumbles in approval.

''Sure.'' Anastasia said.

----- 

We're now in a restaurant inside the academy's ground, the menu here is not that much different from a normal restaurant's one, the quality is pretty decent as well, except they serve almost instantly, probably to save the student's time.

Though, I'm not sure if I got infected with a rich kid's palate disease since I've come here or not, and my 'decent' is actually top tier food or something. But in my defense, I'm a princess, so.

Picking up another piece of sausage, I open the newspaper I just got outside.

Hmm, it looks like the news is not out yet, whatever.

''This salmon here is pretty good, Sylvia, do you want to try a bit?'' Suddenly Christina asked me.

''Sure.'' I said.

''Say ah~'' She stabs a sizable piece of salmon and brings it towards me.

Oh, I've never gotten Christina to feed me before.

''Ah~''

(๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑)

It is good indeed, the meat is perfectly cooked, with minimal seasoning to add a bit of flavor on top of the delicious salmon.

''Eat this too.'' Emy said, bringing a piece of pancake towards my mouth.

''Ah~''

''Then try the chicken too.'' Liana does the same as well.

''Ah~''

Having beautiful girls feed me like this, what a life.

----- 

Because all of us don't really have any schedule for today, we all decided to go play outside in the afternoon.

Currently we're watching a play, in the same theatre the three of us visited before, on the exact same couch. Although I did use water magic to clean the couch several times that day, it still is somewhat embarrassing... I kinda squirted a lot on this couch, so...

The play this time is different from the last one, the female lead has a fiancé, which is probably the male lead, who is cheating on her with a commoner girl because the female lead is too 'basic'. Worse, the male lead is a whopping crown prince.

The female lead then broke the engagement and suddenly decided to make a business out of nowhere while her family was still doing absolutely fine, but the said business still somehow succeeded tremendously in the span of like, three weeks.

Oh, and she also found a cute boy who is actually the third prince disguised as a commoner for some reason, and is absolutely smitten with her. But she is the female lead, so she didn't realize a thing anyway.

Aaaand she got together with the scumbag prince in the end. Bruh.

I'm starting to suspect that whoever wrote these scripts is a Saint who read too much Otome Isekai manhwa in their past life. There's no way else, this is uncannily similar to that stuff.

''The nobles here are actually similar to that?'' Anastasia asked Christina curiously.

''No, absolutely not, no prince of ours is going to abandon his fiancé because she is too 'boring', like he said. That prince is going to die real fast.'' Christina replied.

''That makes sense, but I guess like this is more entertaining.''

''Yeah.''

----- 

After that, we went on the streets following the Sweetmaster Emy, and we ate a lot of delicious stuff. Emy is truly a blessing, must protect. 

We only split up when it was 6 P.M, after going through a theme park and visiting the colosseum. It was a lot of fun.

I hope we can hang out like this more in the future.