The audience of the martial arts tournament exploded into commotion after Nicola's move. Everyone started discussing excitedly.

"Wow, I knew I was right about you - Nicola the Mighty Cheater with Overpowered Hacks and Godly Skills! I almost slipped up in my excitement though..."

Although Cyra didn't understand what happened, that didn't stop her from showering praises on Nicola. Almost went overboard in her passion though.

"So do you still want to fight me?"

Nicola squatted down and smiled at Ayshu who had been frozen in shock on the ground.

"Even if I lower my power, my attacks could still cause more than a new hairdo. You might lose an arm next time! What do you think?"

"I..."

Ayshu touched his head nervously after hearing that. He visibly shuddered.

Clearly, he was not willing, but after considering it for a while, he still chose to admit defeat.

"I lost..."

It was the wisest choice. Although Nicola's swordsmanship was inferior and her abilities were lower, her hacks gave her an unfair advantage!

No need to say more, just randomly firing Wind Slashs, it was impossible to block them with the standard tournament weapons.

"Nicola, are you sure that slashing isn't magic?"

The head judge who had been stunned finally recovered her senses and asked in disbelief. After all, this was a martial arts competition, and using magic would lead to disqualification.

"Are you sure such a light-based spell exists in this world?"

Nicola retorted confidently. Initially, everyone thought she would lose, who could have predicted such an easy win?

"..."

The head judge was rendered speechless. She could only suggest discussing it with the other judges.

"Let's confer on this..."

Following the head judge's request, the four side judges flew up and gathered around her. After much discussion, they finally concluded.

"Nicola wins!"

"How did you do it? That Wind Whatever Slash isn't magic right?"

Aetina couldn't help asking when Nicola returned victoriously.

"It's a new martial arts technique I developed. You can see it as a way to project sword qi outwards."

Nicola explained proudly. At first, everyone assumed she would lose, who could have predicted such an easy win?

"Sword qi?"

Aetina frowned when she heard the unfamiliar term.

"You mean it's not battle qi?"

"Uh..."

Nicola hesitated, seemingly unaware that such a thing as "battle qi" existed in this world. She quickly corrected herself.

"More or less the same, you can just treat it as battle qi."

"But something feels off..."

Aetina was unconvinced, but she couldn't put her finger on the discrepancy despite racking her brains.

"Come to think of it, it does bear some similarities to the weaker wind spells I've seen before. But there are also many differences, especially in power..."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"You noticed it too?"

I was surprised she suspected wind magic so quickly, theoretically ordinary angels shouldn't be able to sense wind elements.

"Don't tell me Feliciana you feel the same way?"

She immediately looked to me, as if finding a kindred spirit.

"I guessed it from the name Nicola picked...isn't it obvious?"

I scratched my head embarrassedly, then quickly turned to Nicola for confirmation.

"Come clean, you abused your wind powers to cheat again right?"

"How is that cheating? And why did you say 'again'?"

Nicola pretended to be grievously wronged and defended herself.

"I shouldn't have named it Hurrican Slash! Don't get the wrong idea, it's not magic! As you all know I don't study magic at all. I came up with this from practising air separation these days."

"So you can control wind directly?"

Aetina was shocked. In her eyes, angels could skip incantations and directly control only light elements. It was nearly impossible for other elements.

"We only discovered recently that Nicola has quite strong wind powers..."

I didn't hide it and admitted matter-of-factly. It was normal she didn't know since we never mentioned it. Even Elara likely wasn't very clear about this.

"I only heard Feliciana may have water element affinity. I didn't expect Nicola to have something similar too."

Aetina gave a wry smile, still finding it unbelievable.

"Don't worry, she's purely a monster. You'll get used to it soon!"

Cyra consoled lightly. For her, the issue wasn't why Nicola was cheating anymore, but how many cheats she had and what effects they would produce next.

"Dare to call me a monster, looks like your feathers grew back huh?"

Nicola glared fiercely at her. Cyra immediately shut up like a deflated balloon.

I was suddenly very curious about how many feathers she lost...

One, two, three...

Alright (╯‵□′)╯(┻━┻! Couldn't even count clearly. Luckily angel feathers regrow quickly, otherwise, her wings would be at least half bald by now.

"But if it's wind element, it does make some sense..."

Aetina pondered briefly then said,

"Although I've never seen such wind magic, magic is essentially just the incantation phase. If you skip the magic and directly create a way to control elements, it still makes sense - that's the principle behind source magic. What Nicola created is just 'source magic' of the wind element type."

"Then does source magic count as magic according to the rules? If it's magic then doesn't that mean Nicola cheated?"

I couldn't help asking. For someone who never studies magic to accidentally create source magic, while I beg others daily to teach me to no avail...

"Of course not."

I heaved a sigh of relief at her answer.

"From the perspective of modern magical theory, source magic does not contain incantations or chants. So it can't be considered true magic, at most a way to utilize elemental attacks. The competition rules don't explicitly prohibit this, so the judges were right to rule Nicola's victory. At most, she exploited a loophole in the rules."

"Tch, you make it sound like I won dishonourably..."

Nicola pouted, seemingly unhappy.

"Come on, don't pretend to be nice when you already took advantage!"

I rolled my eyes at her as a reminder.

"Don't forget, you only won this time purely by luck. No guarantee you'll be so lucky next time."

"That's right, luckily your opponent was a light elf."

Aetina immediately chimed in agreement.

"Although light elves also have light element affinity, they don't have the immunity angels do. That's why your Slash could threaten Ayshu. If your opponent was an angel instead, you couldn't have caused much damage at all. The match result might have been different then."

"No way?"

Nicola was dumbfounded when she heard this and anxiously asked,

"Didn't you just say my new killer move isn't magic? If it's not magic, should it still be immune?"

"This is why I said you should attend magic classes. You don't even know such basic knowledge, it's easy to be disadvantaged..."

Attina held her forehead and sighed as she emphasized again,

"The essence of magic is an indirect way to control elements, namely the incantation phase. Angel immunity on the other hand targets the elements themselves, possibly even more... It's said human battle qi doesn't belong to any elemental type but is similarly within the immunity range."

"Then won't the upcoming matches become very troublesome?"

Nicola was dumbfounded by this new variable. Her surefire victory now had an uncertain element she was too late to solve.

"Congrats, your overpowered hack got nerfed right after appearing."

Cyra couldn't help gloating, but unfortunately, she poked the hornet's nest this time...

And so everyone happily watched another round of the familiar chasing game with feathers flying.

"Maybe Nicola still has a chance..."

Aetina frowned watching the feathers and gave us a preview of the next round as the temporary judge.

"I got important news as the temp judge - the martial arts tournament should finish the first round this afternoon. The second round will change the rules, it has been decided to make it a full battle royale - the first-round victors will fight to the death on this field and compete for the top three positions."

"Huh? The second round is changed to this...Nicola got lucky!"

To be honest, I felt slightly disappointed hearing this. I don't like battle royales.

Although battle royales look more exciting on the surface compared to one-on-one matches, actual placements depend more on luck. The strongest could get ganged up on, and the weakest sneak to the end, not showing true strength at all.

"No choice, although there are only around a hundred participants, angels can fight tirelessly in Edenmere so each match takes too long. And the 'no sleep order' was just lifted, so the organizers want to end sooner."

Aetina gave a smile. She also revealed another piece of news related to me.

"The magic competition battle royale seems to be at the same time as the martial arts one, in another clearing in the forest. So you probably won't get to watch Nicola's finals."