One fight after another unfurled upon the sand. Unlike the exam duels, most of these featured some sort of magical gear, several scrolls, or straight up doping.
However, although Oliver watched each one, he was surprisingly uninterested. Every now and then, he’d exchange a word with his father, but regardless of how crazy some duels got, neither Hunt seemed particularly thrilled.
“Next match, Ana Taylor vs. Cora Bennett!”
Excited for her first fight, the girl got up and started stretching. Ethan was giving her pointers in a hushed tone, while Arthur watched from the side.
“Ana, finish her off quickly, so we can get to the noble’s matches.” said Oliver while holding in a yawn.
“Yes.” approved his father. “There’re healers all around, so don’t worry about killing her.” The middle aged man gave a thumbs-up, at which point, his wife socked him upside the head.
Ana nodded awkwardly but didn’t return the gesture. After a pat on the back from her friend, she made her way down towards the sand.
“Ooh…” mumbled Ethan upon noticing the flight of stairs connecting their area directly with the arena. It finally dawned on him that jumping through the stands and smearing more than 40 people with Kai’s blood could’ve easily been avoided.
“The past is in the past,” he murmured sagely before turning his gaze towards the fight.
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Cora Bennett wore little armor except for a pair of boots which seemed to be some sort of an artifact. Other than this, she didn’t have a dimensional pocket and not even a sword.
“Ready?” the host’s flamboyant voice was heard.
“Is this all you’ve brought into battle?” asked Cora upon seeing her opponent dressed in casual clothes. In response, Ana could only shrug at the irony.
“Fight!”
The gong rang, and a second later, Cora disappeared from sight. She flew so high up the host had to scram out of her way.
“Is that what those boots are for!?” shouted a pleasantly surprised Ana.
“Precisely!” answered the girl before shooting a barrage of wind blades towards her.
Due to the long distance, Ana dodged easily while going through her options.
‘Can’t use tattoos, since it would alert the Wilsons, and the mana cores are best kept for an emergency. Guess my options are rather limited, huh?’
Noticing her barrage was having little effect, Cora had no choice but to get closer to the ground. However, as soon as she dropped below 70 feet, Ana shot half a dozen earth spears towards her.
They were so fast that the girl couldn’t dodge. Cora's solution was to cover herself in a ball of wind blades which ripped the spears apart. However, due to the high mana consumption and more spears coming her way, she had no choice but to fly back up to safety.
“I can’t hit you, and you can’t hit me!” shouted Ana. “Should we just wait until your boots run out of energy?”
Though over 40 rows separated the girl from her friends, Ana could still see the twitch in Oliver and Simon’s eyebrows.
‘Oh, well.’ Since her failsafe would likely cause more confusion than actually give away her skill, she decided to just go ahead and use it.
The smile Ana displayed until now faded as she clasped both hands in front of her chest and focused on the spell. Intense concentration was necessary as unspoken forces joined to form her creation.
Moments later, in the eyes of the audience, a somewhat strange golem rose up from the ground. Not even the high ranked mages among them could see it as anything different. However, in the Hunt family’s area, the nervous expression of a certain boy suggested otherwise.