Intoxicating

Adrian closed his eyes in deep concentration.

It might seem like a precarious act to most people, but everyone here would not let down their guards simply because their opponents closed their eyes.

As magic users, they were more than capable of sensing everything within a certain radius with their spiritual sense. Thus, Kyle naturally did not think much of it either when Adrian did so against him.

Seeing him do so, everyone firmly believe that it was because Adrian's eyes could not keep up with Kyle's movements, that was why Adrian wanted to rely on his spiritual sense instead.

But contrary to what others were thinking, Adrian was actually not sending out his spiritual sense to probe the area around him at all.

It wasn't like Adrian had not tried earlier, so he knew for a fact that even his spiritual sense would be confused by Kyle's Shadow spell.

That should not have been the case under normal circumstances, but who knew what Kyle had done to actually make that work.

If Adrian had time, he would have slowly pondered over how it was possible to deceive his spiritual sense with mere afterimages, eventually coming up with a countermeasure to take down his opponent.

Unfortunately, time was not on his side.

With every moment that passed, Kyle drew nearer and nearer.

What could he make use of?

Adrian had no second doubts as he immediately probed deep into his own body with his spiritual sense, seeking to borrow the power of the one thing he possessed which contained power even beyond what he could fully comprehend.

He could definitely sense the tremendous power being emanated from the Lightning card within him, as though there was too much energy for the card to properly contain within.

But the question remained – how could he tap on this power?

Adrian racked his brain as he desperately tried to think of a way to draw out this tremendous power contained within the card.

During the past year spent at the academy, even after condensing mana and forming his own spiritual sense, he had been unable to directly tap on the Lightning card in any way.

All he benefited from it was the affinity towards Lightning class magic which he subtly inherited.

Or perhaps the magic affinity was not an effect of the card but inborn?

Adrian was not 100% certain, but it was more probable to be due to the Lightning card.

After all, he had been told that his level of magic affinity was off the charts, completely unprecedented not just in the history of the academy, but even in the entire history of the empire.

Even though he had not succeeded in tapping on the Lightning card till now, he knew very well that it was possible, and he just needed to find the correct way to do so.

This was apparent after the card had released large amounts of energy to resist the Affinity Orb during his enrolment ceremony.

Of course, it was more than a month after he condensed his first drop of mana when he finally realised that the card was the likely culprit for the strong backlash he suffered during the enrolment ceremony.

But it seemed that life truly seldom went the way you wanted it to.

No matter how hard Adrian tried to probe and tap on its power, the Lightning card remained dormant.

Fuck! What a useless piece of junk!

Adrian cursed in his heart as he finally gave up on his original plan.

It wasn't that he was impatient, but he no longer had time to keep trying.

Kyle's boot raced through the air as it headed straight for his chest once again.

Adrian was about 90% certain that if he blocked this kick like he did previously, his two arms would end up completely out of commission for the rest of the fight.

But he knew his opponent well. If he were to dodge this kick, Adrian was 100% certain that Kyle would immediately follow up with an attack that would only be just as strong, if not stronger.

At that time, Adrian would also be in an unstable stance after dodging, and thus would only suffer from a greater disadvantage.

So he had no choice but to face this attack head on.

Blocking it physically just like before was out of the question. Tapping on the power of the Lightning card was not feasible. Using his electric spells did nothing to mitigate the damage. So all he had left was his crude Spiritual Aura.

Fire it at point blank!

By the time Adrian made this decision, Kyle was less than a metre away from him.

It was a distance that could be covered in a fraction of second, and Adrian once again instinctively crossed his arms in front of his chest to block. But that was purely reflex.

Adrian's mind was completely isolated from his body right now, and was incapable of giving that command to block. Instead, it was fully focused on manipulating his Spiritual Aura, concentrating it in front of his chest and ready to erupt with full power!

He watched closely while Kyle's boot rapidly drew nearer and nearer.

Just a bit more!

Bang-!

Kyle's kick landed squarely on Adrian's cross-arm guard, the collision sounding out across the courtyard.

Adrian was knocked back once again, and he could feel his two arms go limp. Without his arms to break his fall, it took all he had just to make sure he landed on his back.

It would have looked extremely pathetic if he had landed on his face.

The professors were taken aback at this scene. With their spiritual senses all actively probing the fight, they could roughly surmise what each participant planned to do.

When they had sensed Adrian concentrating his Spiritual Aura in front of himself, they had thought that Adrian would use it to clash with Kyle's kick.

However, the Spiritual Aura actually did not materialise, simply allowing the kick to pass through and strike Adrian's arms.

"Did he lose control of his Spiritual Aura?" Professor Lenington brought his fingers up to his chin in contemplation.

"That would be one logical explanation," another professor replied with a frown, similarly uncertain.

"No, that's not it!" the professor from Sand Academy stood up from his seat in excitement.

"Hmm?"

Seeing how riled up the Sand Academy professor was, the other professors turned their attention back to the fighting platform, trying to find exactly what induced this surge of excitement.

"What's Professor Xen doing? Why isn't he ending the match?"

The audience started murmuring among themselves, many of them finding the scene in front of them incomprehensible.

After Adrian had been knocked back from the previous clash, he had simply remained on the floor with his eyes closed, not moving an inch.

In response, Kyle seemed to have fallen to his knees in exhaustion after the fight, panting heavily as he tried to regain stable breathing.

This was not the incomprehensible part.

What was incomprehensible to the audience was Professor Xen's action, or inaction, in this case.

The scene before them pointed to a single undeniable fact – Kyle had won the fight.

Yet why had Professor Xen still not announced the victor and stop the fight? Did he forget to do so because this was the first match where he took over as referee?

"Shouldn't someone go remind the professor?" one of the senior apprentices whispered as he fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Do you want to do that?" the one he spoke to whispered back. "It's not like you don't know how prideful our professors are!"

"He's right. Professor Xen might just blacklist you for exposing him in front of all the freshmen, not to mention the fact that Sand Academy is here as well!" another agreed instantly.

They tried to keep their voice soft, but how could Professor Xen, with far superior spiritual sense, fail to pick up on that?

His felt his breathing slightly quicken in rage as he silenced the trio with a death stare, then turned his attention back to the fighting platform.

However, a slight worry started to bloom within him.

What if the other apprentices thought the same as those three idiots? Wouldn't his reputation be ruined if everyone thought that he was zoning out?

With that, he cleared his throat and bellowed with his usual powerful voice.

"The fight is not yet over!"

As expected, many apprentices seated among the audience frowned upon hearing that. They truly did not see how this situation was different from all the others that they had been seeing all day.

In fact, some even started to think that Professor Xen was being a little too openly biased towards Adrian. However, all they could do was watch on.

It did not take long before everyone realised that something was wrong indeed.

Instead of seeing Kyle get pissed by Professor Xen's announcement, Kyle actually fell to the ground, barely using his elbows to prop himself up.

The excited grin on Professor Xen's face could not get any wider as it stretched to the ends of his face.

"What…is this…?" Kyle finally managed to mutter out in between his heavy gasps for air.

He felt as though the air itself was crushing him from all angles. It was as though he was hundreds or thousands of metres underwater, experiencing the heavy pressure from being at the depths of the ocean.

His body was extremely well trained, but this weight was far beyond what he could bear!

He was completely helpless.

All he could do was to prostrate before this power, unable to do anything else.

It took everything from him just to prop his upper body up by using his elbows as support, but even that resulted in his arms being strained to the point of trembling.

He had never experienced such magic before, not even when sparring with some of the seniors.

With his prestigious background, Kyle had definitely come into contact with magic users who were able to control their Spiritual Aura in this manner.

However, at no point had he been subjected to such a treatment by these accomplished magic users, and thus he had never experienced this before.

Panic was slowly starting to overcome him.

That kick should have sealed his victory over Adrian, but what was going on now?

He struggled to look forward at his opponent who was splayed out on the ground, seeming completely defenceless.

He had not won even with his opponent in that state?

No! Something was wrong!

Kyle realised in horror as he saw the figure lying in front of him start to move.

It was not that his opponent was defenceless! It was that his opponent did not see the need to move!

Adrian struggled to sit up after he finally felt that he had stabilised his control over his Spiritual Aura. It was not an easy feat, considering how he no longer had any strength left in his arms.

However, he managed in the end. It would be too embarrassing otherwise.

As he sat up, he finally opened his eyes to take in the sight before him, at the same time taking a deep breath to calm down.

This was a completely surprising outcome that Adrian had not expected at all.

He had previously planned to fire his Spiritual Aura burst at point blank in order to match Kyle's attack.

However, Adrian missed his timing.

It was only by a fraction of a second, but by the time he wanted to release the Spiritual Aura burst, Kyle's kick had already landed on his guard.

At that very moment, Adrian thought he no longer had any chances of winning, and wanted to at least fire the Spiritual Aura burst in an attempt to force it into a draw.

In order to fire his Spiritual Aura burst, he had to materialise his Spiritual Aura and compress it towards the direction of his target, at the same time applying an opposite force to hold it back until it could no longer be contained, forcibly bursting out towards his target.

Who knew that with Kyle's boot having passed through the concentrated Spiritual Aura, an attempt to materialise his Spiritual Aura yielded a different effect, with his Spiritual Aura encompassing Kyle in a semi materialised form instead.

Even though he was surprised when that happened, Adrian immediately remembered the previous feeling of being subjected to complete suppression, and attempted to emulate that same experience for Kyle even as he was being sent flying backwards.

It was a complete success, even though he could not move for the few moments after being knocked back due to his complete focus on manipulating his Spiritual Aura.

However, Kyle was pressurised enough to not be able to make any moves against his defenceless self anyway.

It was all due to a stroke of luck, but the result was what mattered.

So this is how it feels? Maybe I can kind of understand why that crazy asshole from the military resorted to strength for no reason. This power of dominance is truly intoxicating.

Adrian thought to himself as he recalled being the victim to this very attack just a few months ago.

This was the power that one could wield when there was absolute control over Spiritual Aura. An opponent who had not formed his own Spiritual Aura was completely helpless against it.

"Yield," Adrian couldn't help but let out a gleeful grin as he found himself talking down to the famed number one freshman in Gryphon Academy.

Kyle grinded his teeth in reluctance before giving it one last push, but he still failed to lift himself off the ground against this overwhelming pressure.

"I yield."

With that, Kyle finally lowered his gaze to the ground, defeated.