Once the ring was finally repaired, Cecil and Lucia made their way back up there and stood about 30 meters away from each other. Since their match was the last match, the instructors decided to expand the ring, so their stage was about half the size of the stadium's large arena and the protective barrier that was used was the enhanced one used for the academy's yearly tournaments.

This enhanced barrier could withstand the power of tier-9 spells, so Cecil and Lucia could go all out without worrying about damaging anything outside of the ring. The headmaster specifically asked the instructors to do this because he wanted to see to what extent these two could go. After all, they were a certain person's 2 students, so he needed to see just how far ahead they were from the rest of the first years.

The instructors were still checking on a few things, so Cecil and Lucia were just staring each other down in the ring. Cecil sported his usual leisurely look while Lucia was completely focused and in the zone. She was glaring hard at him because she knew that despite how careless he appeared right now, once the battle started, he would immediately get serious.

"Alright, the last match for our assessment. Rank 1 Lucia vs. Rank 2 Cecil!"

A roaring cheer erupted in the arena, and there seemed to be one too many people in the arena now. It was unknown when the other upper year classmen came to spectate, but apparently, they were already there when the first match of S class had started. The first year students were just so entranced with watching their fellow S class classmates' matches that they too didn't notice that the audience had suddenly grew to an unbelievable size.

Cecil and Lucia had tuned out everything else and were only focused on each other and the battle ahead. The cheers of the audience was muffled out in their ears as they stared each other down.

Lucia finally opened her mouth after the long silence and said, "I'm taking you down, Cel..."

Cecil didn't say anything in return. He just smiled in response to her words.

Lucia slowly pulled out her katana, Shirayuki, and held it in front of her. She then reached for her Butterfly and held it in her other hand. She was dual wielding and this caused the audience to look at her peculiarly before turning to look at her weapons and exclaiming.

"!"

"Woah..."

Lucia's two weapons were not only unique, but they were also aesthetically pleasing and were the definition of beautiful. Fina, for one, was very surprised seeing Lucia's main weapon. The slender long blade was different than what she imagined. It wasn't a rapier, but a long, extremely thin and curved sword that only had one edge. It had a beautiful silver color with dark silver 'clouds' or 'waves' imprinted on the blade and there were also light azure colored runes flashing lightly on it. It was a beautiful weapon that had excellent and meticulous craftsmanship.

Fina spoke up and commented about her weapon, "That sword... it was different than what I thought."

"...I've never seen something like that before," Eli added.

"Yeah, judging by her sheath, I thought it was a rapier at first."

"Me too! But I have to say... that sword really is beautiful." Eli added wistfully.

"That small dagger too, it's like the smaller version of Lucia's sword."

The kodachi that Lucia held in her off-hand was designed just like her main weapon, the patterns were somewhat similar and so were the runes. The only difference was that the blade was not curved, but straight with one edge and it was entirely light green in color.

Ainz was observing the two in the ring, then he said to the girls beside him, "Hey look. Cecil's taking out his sword!"

When they turned to look at Cecil, he was in the motion of unsheathing his weapon. When he pulled out his weapon, the sword's sleek and sturdy, azure-tinted blade that had light gold runes running along it, shone brightly. The meticulous craftsmanship shone completely and although it only looked like a plain broadsword with runes on it, the sharpness and mana that exuded from the weapon caused everyone to acknowledge that it wasn't just any ordinary broadsword.

Lucia smiled seeing Cecil pull out his weapon right from the start and asked, "No warm up?"

"I already had my warm up earlier."

"...that's mean."

"Hehe, well–"

"Never mind, let's get this over with."

It was a good thing that no one could hear what they were saying because if Eli heard Cecil's nonchalant and insensitive comment, she would have stormed down onto the arena and started fighting him again. Her intense and serious fight that she put 100 percent of her effort into was only akin to a warm up for Cecil. There was no way she'd just calmly receive such an 'insult', even though Cecil obviously didn't mean harm when he said it.

"...I'm going full power from the start Lulu."

"So am I!"

"Good, then show me your progress." Cecil smiled and activated Mana Burst in full power.

WOOOSSHH

The air around Cecil immediately changed after he activated Mana Burst in Full Power. A small shockwave was released from his body as a faint golden aura wrapped around his body. Lucia herself also activated an original body enhancing spell that she created in imitation of Cecil's Mana Burst. When she activated it, a similar shockwave was released, but instead of a golden aura, a faint dark red aura wrapped around her body.

Cecil smiled seeing this. He was feeling a little excited and asked, "So, you've perfected Elemental Burst?"

"Almost, but for a serious fight with you, Cel, I can't afford to not use it even if it's not yet perfect!"

"Oh? Then, come!"

Cecil got into his stance and waved a hand at Lucia, beckoning her to make her move. Immediately, the two fighters disappeared from their spots as a crack formed from where each of them had been standing.

CLANG!

They appeared an instant later in the middle of the arena, blades clashing. Right from the get-go, they were forced into a deadlock, but Lucia quickly disengaged as she twisted her body while swinging Butterfly at Cecil's head. Cecil naturally leaned back and dodged the attack, but now that he was in a passive position, Lucia quickly capitalized on it and started slashing, hacking, and stabbing at him.

Lucia was using the sword arts that Cecil had taught her from his own family's martial arts. Even though this should give Cecil an edge because he was familiar with the sword arts he taught to her, it really wasn't easy for him to just dodge and parry her attacks. Lucia was able to learn and make the Silvaria Family's sword arts her own, which let her use numerous transformations of the sword arts to attack Cecil. Thanks to this, Cecil wasn't able to accurately predict all of the moves she would send at him even though he had taught her everything she knew regarding the sword.

The fight had already started and everyone in the audience were amazed by what was happening down in the arena. At their current speed, the spectators only saw multiple flashes of light coming from Cecil and Lucia that were accompanied with the sounds of blades clashing. For a moment, the two kept on flashing around the ring at high speeds, trading blows with each other. However, neither of them was able to effectively hit their opponent.

Lucia was the first to break away. She waved her kodachi and summoned multiple scarlet magic formations around her. She kept them levitating in the air and flashed in front of Cecil again. She kept on slashing and stabbing with her katana, and then she began using her kodachi in coordination with her katana.

Cecil's brow raised a little in surprise as he thought, 'So she can dual wield more proficiently now.'

He was unintentionally smiling and this also caused Lucia to smirk as well. After he parried a blow from her, he was just about to begin his counter attack, but was then forced to duck after sensing a Lava Bolt heading for his head. He was already paying mind to the magic formations that were idling around in the air and was wary of when Lucia was going to fire them.

After parrying her attack earlier, Cecil planned to kick Lucia away before jumping back to get out of range from her spells' bombardment and then commence his attack after destroying her magic circles. However, Lucia had predicted his actions and fired off a single Lava Bullet at him to stop the plan he had hatched in his head.

Seeing him dodge, Lucia sent a sweeping kick his way while slashing her kodachi at his face and along with the slash was another few Lava Bolts as well.

"!"

'This girl! AHAHA!'

For the first time in a while, Cecil's expression had changed from his usual dull, leisure gaze to one of astonishment and genuine happiness. He quickly parried Lucia's Butterfly that was aimed at his face and twisted his body. He cut apart the 2 Lava Bolts that were aimed at his back and as his body rotated, he extended his arm to send a fist towards Lucia's face.

The strike couldn't connect, however, because he was forced to retract his hand when he saw, from the corner of his eye, another Lava Bolt already heading towards his own face.

"HAHA!" Cecil let out an excited laugh as he fired his own Mana Bolt at the incoming Lava Bolt. When the two projectiles collided, they canceled each other out and exploded in the air.

Lucia didn't let up and followed up with an underhand cut with her katana towards Cecil's body. The latter reacted quickly to this and quickly slapped his hand on Lucia's shoulder and used the momentum to push his body up and over her head. The slap on her shoulder caused Lucia to tilt her body a little which resulted in her missing her slash.

If she didn't falter earlier, then it would have at least resulted in Cecil's leg being cut. She clicked her tongue at how skillful he was able to get away from her combos and waved her Butterfly at him. Cecil was just about to turn around and slash at Lucia with his sword when his instincts told him to jump away. Without any hesitation, he jumped back, twisted his body, and somersaulted his way out of the bombardment.

Seeing him come out unscathed from the array of Lava Bolts caused the audience the gasp in awe and cheer loudly. Just when he landed and balanced himself, Cecil was surprised to see Lucia's Shirayuki already slashing down at his face. He quickly raised his sword and blocked the katana, but suddenly felt an impact on his stomach.

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Lucia had followed up her slash with a kick to his stomach and launched him away. Without waiting for a breath, she immediately fired more Lava Bolts at him. There was a smile on Cecil's face as he was sent flying away by Lucia's kick. He was really proud of her. All the training they did had paid off and she was now able to confidently fight him toe-to-toe.

Before the Lava Bolts struck him, Cecil twisted his body in the air and began cutting up the projectiles flying towards him. After destroying all of the Lava Bolts, he quickly landed back on his feet and raised a hand towards Lucia. Seeing that she was already dashing towards him, Cecil jumped back and sent a Mana Volley at her.

"HYAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" With a spirited cry Lucia copied Cecil and started to quickly cut up all the bolts of mana flying towards her as she didn't let up with her charge. She knew that they had a homing function, so it was useless to evade. The best move that she could do was to continue charging towards him while cutting the bolts down, so that she wouldn't lose the initiative as well as her momentum.

With her katana in one hand, her kodachi in the other, along with the array of magic spells that were floating behind her, Lucia struck down every mana bolt that came flying at her from Cecil's Mana Volley. Her coordination of spells and attacks she had successfully nullified Cecil's Mana Volley, but right when she was about to dash towards him again, she found that Cecil was no longer in the distance ahead of her.

Instead, he was already in front of her. He had used Shukuchi to quickly close the distance between and was already right in her face as his sword slashed towards her flank. Lucia smirked seeing this and raised her tails in front of her.

CLANG!

"WHAT?!" Cecil exclaimed, but that was all he could do, he couldn't do a follow up attack since Lucia used the momentum from his attack to back off. He couldn't pursue her and had to evade since the Lava Bolts surrounding Lucia were already heading his way.

"Tsk"

"BLOOM!"

With Lucia's shout a crimson magic formation formed under Cecil's feet and immediately, a lotus-shaped flame blossomed into existence. It was another one of Lucia's original magic spells, Erupting Lotus.

The audience was already on the edge of their seats seeing this high-end fight. The Headmaster was also smiling brightly seeing the fight. From the blossoming lotus he tried to look for the silhouette that was supposed to be enduring the searing flames, but then he looked towards the air a couple of meters above the blossoming flower of flames.

"LAVA STORM!"

In the air above the flaming lotus, another large magic formation had formed and then waves and waves of Lava Bolts began raining down towards the ground. Lucia had predicted that Cecil would dodge upwards and had prepared a Lava Storm just above her Erupting Lotus to cut off his retreat. Sure enough, she saw him jumping upwards and was now stuck in between her two spells.

"TAKE THIS!"

Lucia had tossed her katana behind her and caught it with her tail as she brought both her hands forward and began manipulating her two spells to move closer together and sandwich Cecil in between. This required an extremely delicate control of mana and spell manipulation. This was her first time doing it in battle, but Lucia had already gotten a feel for it since she had been training how to do it for a while now.

She finally managed to accomplish it late last night in the academy's training grounds, except that she used the combination of Geyser and Erupting Lotus instead of Lava Storm and Erupting Lotus. It was harder with Lava Storm since it was a channeling spell, but she still made it work.

Unfortunately, it still wasn't enough because with a loud shout, Cecil further increased the output of his Mana Burst and he used the sudden eruption of mana to disperse and push back the two spells away from him. Lucia immediately felt her spells lose control, so she quickly retracted her mana from them and just let them explode.

Cecil was still being protected by the eruption of mana that he had released from his body which acted like a pseudo-shield, so this protected him from Lucia's last ditch effort to injure him with her spells.

Without waiting for him to catch a break, Lucia kicked off the ground and sent her body flying into the air towards Cecil. She waved her Butterfly and multi-cast another 4 Lave Storms and surrounded him with them and quickly activated them together. This time around, the Lava Bolts that came out acted a little differently. Previously, when she cast her Lava Storm, the Lava Bolts would just shoot out from the magic circle indiscriminately in the direction it was facing. This time, the Lava Bolts that came out of the magic circles all chased after Cecil even when he tried dodging away.

"..." Cecil quietly dodged and observed the determined girl that was flying towards him. Her katana was already blossoming in flames and she was directing a slash towards him who was still busy dodging her spells in the air. He smiled gently at her, thoroughly pleased with all of her progress.

This was the first time that Lucia was truly going all out in a fight with him and this made Cecil extremely happy and shocked at the same time. He was surprised at how fast Lucia's battle sense and combat prowess was improving. She had only started training in his family's martial arts for half a year, but she was already this good.

Cecil could confidently say that Lucia was a genius, not only in magic, but also in martial arts and combat. He chuckled softly and directed a sharp gaze at Lucia who was flying towards him and mumbled, "Come at me, Lulu."

Lucia was flying towards Cecil in the air with her flame-enchanted katana. She was determined to take down Cecil and it was the first time that she had pulled out all stops when fighting him. Of course, like Cecil suggested, she still kept a couple of techniques a secret such as her Core Release and her other higher-tiered spells, but just the things that they showed was enough to keep the audience entranced with their fight.

There was no cheering right now from the spectators. Everyone was just watching with bated breath and taking in everything they were seeing from this incredible fight. No one could believe that this was a fight between 2 freshman students. Instead, they wanted to believe that this was a fight between two official high-ranked mages.

"TAKE THIS!!!" Lucia roared as she finally arrived in front of Cecil.

She slashed her katana at him and continued to direct the Lava Storm to continue firing homing Lava Bolts at him. Unfortunately, her version of the homing function wasn't as refined as Cecil's so not all of the Lava Bullets from the Lava Storm followed her intention. Some of them went astray and flew wildly in the air, even striking her, but Lucia had already cast a Glacial Armor on her body because she had expected something like that to happen.

Thanks to her armor, the Lava Bolts that struck her didn't even do any damage, but the ones flying at Cecil that she put her entire focus on were able to occasionally connect when they flew from his blind spot.

Along with her Glacial Armor, she also conjured an ice field spell around Cecil and herself, this way she could cool down the Lava Bolts and turn them into sharp rock spikes. If Cecil wasn't careful, he'd run the risk of getting himself stabbed and injured instead of just getting some minor burns to his body. Cecil had sensed the abrupt drop in temperature and smirked.

He stopped dodging all of Lucia's attacks and once more abruptly increased the output of his Mana Burst.

"HA!" With a shout, a dense wave of mana was emitted from his body in all directions. The mana wave pushed back Lucia and caused all the Lava Bolts and earth spikes coming at him to crumble. He completely obliterated all of Lucia's attacks in just one move, but this move drained quite a bit of his mana away so he didn't want to use it too much.

So far, he had already used it twice and it left him with only half of his mana left. Abruptly increasing his Mana Bursts' output and releasing the excess mana into his surroundings to act like a short, temporary barrier, was not a really economic move to make, but since it also acted as an offensive measure as well as a defensive one, he thought that the cost was worth it.

After being knocked away by Cecil's technique, Lucia fell straight to the ground with a loud bang. The mana wave had struck her senseless, so she couldn't even do anything to adjust herself in midair to land properly on the ground. However, even though it hurt, she quickly got up and glared up at Cecil who was still in the air. Her eyes sharpened and became more determined than ever.

She quickly sheathed her Butterfly and gripped her Shirayuki with both hands. A flame engulfed the blade once more and Lucia continued to inject more mana into her katana. If all she did was inject her mana mindlessly into the sword, it would only cause the flame to grow bigger and wilder. This kind of flame could even potentially hurt her, but Lucia didn't do that.

She controlled her flames and had them wrap tighter and tighter around her katana, trying to condense them into a single point because right at that moment, she just felt that this was how to do it. She didn't know what compelled her to do this, but she just had a gut feeling that if she wanted to launch an effective attack at Cecil, this was the only way.

The flames around her katana burned ever brighter but as if it had reached a tipping point, the flames condensed and formed into a stable red aura that wrapped around her katana's blade as a faint red mana storm began circling around her weapon. The flaming mana storm rotating around her katana that could only be seen by Cecil thanks to his Mana Eyes greatly astonished him.

'No way, Sword Aura? But she's only been training for–'

Before Cecil could complete his thought, Lucia took a step forward and swung her blade as she cried out, "TAKE THIS!!"

'Dammit!'