Chapter 19: Zenith Magic Test (5/6) Mock Battles

"Another Bestowed Rank!!!"

There was a massive commotion as only one bestowed rank was recorded publicly in the Grandis Magic Academy, but now two appeared! And one of them could even contend to the person registered as the first bestowed rank who was in the black category, as he is in that category as well!

After a while, the commotion died down while Lilia crossed her arms from the noise. As the crowd went silent, Lilia then shouted aloud, "Well, we now have two Bestowed Ranks students! Glory for the Grandis Magic Academy!"

"Glory for the Grandis Magic Academy!!!" The students chanted.

Seeing them follow, Lilia smiled as she never thought students would be this cooperative compared to five years ago. With a nod, Lilia said, "Good! Let's waste no more time and head to the final test! Battle Prowess!

"What use are your magic powers and physical abilities if you don't even know how to use them in a fight? Do you expect to be protected for all your lives? That is not the reality, and in Grandis Magic Academy, the most important quality a student can have is battle prowess!"

"Even if you have amazing amounts of talent in magic, or your physical capabilities are well, it doesn't matter in the eyes of a master of combat! Even if you overpower them by sheer magic power and physical strength, they have tricks to keep you in bay and defeat you!"

"There will be two parts to this test: First is a mock battle amongst the students of your level, and a mock battle against our battle instructor, me! So be prepared, and don't hold back!" Lilia proudly stood, and some of the students couldn't but shiver from the thought of going against a professor.

"Professor Chikafuji, please make separate stages for all the pairs that we have calculated to go against each other." Lilia looked at Professor Chikafuji, and he nodded lightly while clasping his hands together.

The students' platform started to shake while pairs of students were raised and placed on another smaller platform. After that, the ground shook endlessly until all the students were in pairs on a platform.

The pairs of Ryu's group were the following:

Ryu against Yuki, Nila against Kasumi, Emma against Elina, Anna against Toshiro, Aoi against Mizuki, and Hina against Kenji.

"Well then, Professor Hironaka, restore their mana and stamina," Lilia said lightly.

Chiyo nodded as she stretched out her arms upward and spoke in a faint voice, "Restore."

An enormous magic circle appeared in the sky as it rained down what seemed like mana particles which can completely restore mana and stamina the longer it comes in contact with you. However, if you contact the particles for far too long, you might just get Mana Poisoning.

"Well then, commence the mock battles!" Lilia shouted, and everybody aside from Ryu readied their stances. Lilia then continued to speak, "And make sure to not injure your opponents severely. Don't kill them! Even though we had made various magical advancements in the six years that had passed, we're not Gods, we still can't ressurect people."

Ryu started looking around who his group was fighting, and his eyes were wide at why Hina was going up against Kenji. 'Why the fuck is Hina against Kenji… isn't this bullying? *Sigh* let's just hope my cute little sister doesn't get hurt.'

Ryu then sighed one more time as he turned to look at Yuki's cold eyes. Then, with a sad smile as he met Yuki's eyes, he spoke, "Yuki, don't you recognize me?"

Yuki's eyes went even colder as she spoke in her beautiful yet stern voice. "What? Don't tell me you thought that I would recognize you just because you look more handsome than average. This is why I hate people like you… Let's just start with the battle, don't hold back."

She condensed her mana, and dozens of magic circles appeared behind her as cold air swept through. Ryu's smile became a lot awkward as he thought, 'Well, that was an awry conversation. I just wanted to tell you who I am slowly, but you're already trying to barrage me with attacks… I guess I'll just spit it all out later.'

"*Sigh* never thought you would change that much."

"What?"

"Nothing, let's start."

Ryu's irises glowed golden as he flicked his fingers. He wasn't planning on using his space magic on her, just the standard types of magic. A gust of wind blew as Yuki, who had already charged up her attack, barraged Ryu with dozens of ice shards.

Ryu simply redirected the shards' direction with wind magic and dodged the others. This caused a slight fluctuation in Yuki's demeanor. 'He's skilled; he's simply dodging and redirecting my ice shards while even the geniuses I face can barely react to it.'

With a simple thought, Ryu buffed himself with wind magic to be even faster than before, causing the shards to be unable to hit him. He then clasped his palm into a fist, and when he opened it, a dark ball of flame appeared.

'He had already used three elements! So he's not only skilled, but he's also talented. The fact that he probably got the top score for every test just shows how strong he is!' Yuki's eyes turned even more serious while Ryu was just solemnly thinking of a way to tell Yuki the truth about his identity.

Ryu then threw the dark ball of flame, which was enhanced with wind magic, towards Yuki. Yuki saw the attack and reacted immediately and stopped casting her ice spells, and focused on using wind spells to dodge the attack.

Ryu then slightly smirked as he pointed at Yuki, wherein the ball of flame followed. Yuki's eyes widened as she didn't think that Ryu was controlling it via wind magic. Yuki gritted her teeth, stopped in her tracks, and immediately cast an ice barrier the moment the ball of flame was a few inches against her,

The ball of flame then hit the ice barrier, engulfed it completely, and melted it. It even evaporated the water before it touched the ground.

Yuki couldn't spare any time as she noticed Ryu dashing towards her. She had to react fast as she shouted, "Ice Kingdom!"

Cold air swept, and the entire platform was covered in ice. It was like a kingdom of ice as shards of ice formed a wall and some kind of castle. Ryu's eyes turned alert as he knew this spell. 'This spell increases the attack power of an ice spell and basically buff's the user… Yuki can hide anywhere in the vicinity of the ice with this spell, but….'

'Not from me!'

"Fire God's Flame!" Ryu spoke as flames engulfed him completely. The surrounding ice started to melt from the heat, and Yuki, who was planning to sneak up on Ryu, halted as she felt that the flames engulfing Ryu were incredibly dangerous.

"Found you," a soft voice whispered behind Yuki, sending a shiver down her spine. She couldn't help but instinctively jump out of the way while Ryu just smirked lightly. Though, Ryu was thinking of something else, 'I didn't think she'd actually use a high-scale spell this quickly… I guess Yuki had never faced anyone stronger than her, huh…. Goddamn, it's freezing cold.'

Ryu then retracted the fire spell he used earlier and just smiled lightly. This caused Yuki, who was paying close attention to what Ryu was doing, to be confused, and it annoyed her a bit as well; she knew she was no match, but her mouth couldn't help but open, "Are you underestimating me?"

Ryu simply smiled and shook his arm while whispering, "Ice Kingdom."

Yuki, who heard what he said, was taken aback as she felt another coldness aside from her ice spells swoop over both of them.

Ryu's eyes glowed like a dragon in the night sky while shaking his arm, causing an ice shard to appear in his hand. He held unto it as it took the form of a chain dart while he said, "Yuki, let me show you how to properly utilize the Ice Kingdom spell. Ice Dragon's Tail."

Ryu disappeared from his spot and reappeared by Yuki. He simply touched her shoulder and whispered, "After using this large-scale spell, unless you're severely injured, just barrage and attack with every ice spell that you got."

The ice chain dart that Ryu held onto instantly rushed forth and tried to wrap over Yuki, but good thing that even though Yuki doesn't have that much experience in combat, her battle instincts were top-notch as she dodged the attack.

"How are you able to overlap my Ice Kingdom with your own?!" Yuki shouted as she summoned her mana to engulf her entire body as she seemed to transform into another being. "Transformation: Ice Fairy!"

Ryu's eyes couldn't help but widen a bit as he said, "Isn't this girl using ultimate spells over ultimate spells? When did she become so hotheaded?"

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Lilia, who watched over every student carefully, noticed something happening within the platform they put Ryu in. "That's a lot of scattered mana… They're using ultimate spells multiple times?!"

Chiyo, who clearly heard what Lilia said, immediately turned her head as well. Seeing what was going on, she couldn't help but laugh as she said, "Bestowed Ranks are still the same, hahaha. Isn't that right, Lilia?"

"*Sigh* My Ryu is a combat master; However, Yuki Yoshimura isn't. She's wasting too much mana and is rushing things by a lot." Lilia calculated as she observed them from afar. Chiyo, who was beside her, just crossed her arms as she agreed.

"Although, I've seen Yuki Yoshimura fight, and she was pretty good at combat. It seems that she's inexperienced in fighting someone a lot stronger than her. But why the fuck did you call him 'My Ryu' you bitch. I mean who fucks their discple?" Chiyo added unto what Lilia said.

Lilia couldn't help but laugh while saying, "Me? Well, based on Ryu's personality, he should be giving her pointers by now. And the fact that she's someone he knows personally, he's probably taking care of her well. Though, I doubt she'd recognize him since she hates handsome guys."

"Wait, he knows her?" Chiyo couldn't help but ask.

"Yea, she's his best friend."

"Huh… why did they separate though?"

"I don't know."

"What?!"

"Information about Ryu's life six years ago … It's as if it's been erased from history."

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'Ahh! She's just barraging me with ultimate spells!' Ryu was a bit annoyed by this as he didn't want to injure her with his attacks. 'Hah, guess I'll just have to get a bit serious. Though, it should be fun to give her pointers.'

With a grin, Ryu then rushed to Yuki. Yuki, who saw him coming, instantly brandished the ice wings that were on her back and flew up. Seeing this, Ryu simply smiled while saying, "Yuki! Look up!"

He had already cast a massive ice spell above her which should rain ice shards. As soon as Yuki looked up, she was dumbstruck as she should've been able to notice a large amount of mana coming out of the magic circle.

"You didn't notice it because you were too focused on me! Be aware of your surroundings and watch your enemies movements carefully!" Ryu said while whipping the chain dart to Yuki. Though, as soon as she turned to dodge it, she was hit by it.

"Prediction and movement analysis! It's essential to have those senses in a battle!" Ryu once more shouted some more advice. Yuki was a bit… happy? She's actually learning new things!

She took Ryu's advice, shouted at her to heart, and instantly implemented it. She immediately saw a massive difference in how she was fighting earlier than now.

"Good! But there's more! Never show an opening!" Ryu once more shouted as he instantly came close to Yuki. The moment that she had a realization that her performance was increasing, that slight dumbstruck moment, it was a clear and open weakness in her perception.

Yuki tried to avoid it, but she failed as Ryu was able to hit her and pummeled her from the sky to the ground. Ryu then whipped his chain dart towards Yuki, but she instantly stood up as she conjured an ice saber into her hand to parry the attack.

"Great! That's good! But we should wrap this up as the others are probably finished." Ryu said, and his eyes glowed golden once more. He instantly disappeared from his position and reappeared in another spot, completely shocking Yuki, causing her to think, 'That's not speed… that's teleportation!'

"Advanced Space Magic!?" The professors on the higher platform couldn't help but exclaim as very few could use advanced space magic such as teleportation.

Ryu's arm then turned icy blue as he sent out an attack using the ice chain dart with a slight whisper, 'Ice Dragon's Tail, Whiplash…!"

Yuki knew that she couldn't dodge this, so she tried her best to conjure multiple-layered barriers, using all of the elements she could use: Earth, Water, Ice, Wind, and Light. But despite having a five-layered shield, the attack pierced through them.

The barriers all collapsed, and the attack soon hit Yuki; a huge bang echoed throughout the entire place, causing all of the people who were fighting, resting, and just observing to turn around.

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