10)Naturally, Dio won

"????????"

Laurel wreath, a low-tier useful but relatively weak spell. Dio was aware of its limitations, nevertheless, he used it as a method of expressing his curiosity. The level of the other potential students had far exceeded his thoughts. There was a common misconception regarding those that are over-confident. It was assumed that they looked down on the others, but the truth was that Dio never cared for such a thing.

He was far to busy holding his head up, looking down on someone? That took far too much effort from him, his overconfidence came from his own ability and not from the weakness of others.

"Let's go with something simple," Dio thought as he watched John struggle, "there's no way I, Dio, would be willing to walk all the over there just to push him off…..hmmmm..meh, fireball works," he snapped his fingers and a sphere-like object engulfed in roaring flames materialized next to him, it was relatively smaller than the others, but that was done only out of concern for his opponent.

However, the very next second Dio decided against this, with the presence of dried leaves and branches, introducing fire anywhere near John could potentially harm him severely. There was no doubt that his life would be intact, but the injuries he could sustain made the spell far too risky.

"Wind sphere," he finally made up his mind, the spheres were blunt but they had enough power to blast him off the stage, initially he thought using two was an overkill but at the same time, he wanted to be sure.

'Fuck fuck fuck, what do I do?' John panicked as he tried wriggling out of the spell, it was only then did he notice that the more he moved the harder it got to move. The laurel only continued to grow tighter with every move he made.

'Calm down calm down...think think, using fire would hurt me, but it would burn the laurel away…how do I neutralize the damage that could be dealt to me…water makes sense,' it was pretty basic thinking, but at the moment he was far too overwhelmed to be thinking normally. Everything seemed to slow down, he had just begun burning away the laurel when a water ball formed right about him, Dio's wind spheres were already moving toward him, a second at max was all he had.

As soon as he was drenched in water, the fire died out and the laurel had weakened considerably, the spheres were right in front of him when his instinct kicked in and helped him roll aside, barely dodging the spell. Water droplets splashed around all around him, he put quite a lot of mana into the water ball, so much so that it looked like he took a dip in a pool whilst being fully clothed.

"Not bad, but that doesn't change too much," Dio commented as he made another thrusting like gesture with his hand, "Zephyr,"

A chill breeze overtook the entire stage, it wasn't unbearable, but for someone who was just drenched in water, the cold breeze was the worst feeling ever. John felt nice but at the same time uncomfortable, the wind literally sent shivers down his spine, and white marks slowly began appearing on his skin, it was only a little, but nevertheless, they were forming.

Alex watched quietly, she was aware of what Dio was capable of, this was barely his true strength, a sneak peek of what he could do. His arsenal of spells always fascinated her, his ability to remember everything he studied. It scared her to think about what he could do in the future.

She wasn't surprised when she saw the expression of the crowd, they were confused, it wasn't unnatural for someone to use such a variety of spells, especially when they were low tiered. However, the spells Dio was showing off weren't simple ones, Laurel Wreath and Zephyr, both were complex tier two spells, the runic structures were far more detailed, and they were definitely some of the harder magical skills to learn.

The instructors, on the other hand, were impressed by this fact, some of them even wanted to accept him into Hexora just for such a display, unfortunately, the rules were already set, and they existed for a reason.

The presence and existence of beings like Alex were exactly why they decided to allow every student to go through five different duels. They had an opportunity to express their strengths and weaknesses as they saw fit, and they had a lot of chances to properly do so.

"My body feels…stiff…." John whispered as he looked down at his arms. It was done, his loss was definite, the feeling of loss wasn't new to him, but he could never get used to it, he hated it, he hated being weak and powerless. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do.

Before he realized it, two new spheres of wind had already been launched into his chest, sending him flying out of the stage and into the crowd. The medical support team was already on the stand by, as soon as his body touched the ground, they moved towards him.

"Winner…Dio Aethereus!!"

"Naturally," Dio smiled to himself as he walked down the stage, he had displayed more spells than he initially thought he would. He moved the hair away from his face, revealing his charming and overly appealing eyes. There was no doubt that many students from the crowd were already impressed by him, some of them had even started to feel their cheeks become rosy and their heartbeat slowly increase.

"Urgh," Alex puked internally, she wasn't jealous but she found it stupid and moronic how much of a showman Dio could be sometimes.

John on the other hand was taken away, his body was carried away on a stretcher that floated, his consciousness slowly fading, his eyes fixed on Dio. A smile appeared on his face as Dio was no longer in his sight.

"Wait for me…."