Mor smiled, it had worked! He got through the armor and hit with their enhanced blow, now just finish it up with some other magic, while he had the armor penetrated. Mor gathered energy for a fire spell, not as powerful as anything else in his repertoire but with Orth stuck in the armor, it would be much more effective.

Suddenly everything went black as pain flooded his body, flowing from his fist from hitting the stone and radiating from his guts. With a silent curse, Mor fell unconscious. It seems to him, that Clare´s healing had been not enough and the strain on his body may have undone the healing and brought the pain back, even the human let out a gasp.

Orth pulled his fist back, after punching into Mors' gut with a lot of power, letting the unconscious boy carefully glide down to the Arena floor, while his Armor slowly peeled off his body. He looked down at where Mor's fist had struck his Armored form and could see a bit of a charred spot on his robe.

"You almost got me, just as expected from you. Too bad your energy reservoir is not nearly big enough to beat me while I´m serious." Orth said to the prone Mor and smiled.

"That was much fun, I want to repeat that sometime." With a big smile, Orth left the Arena, after Mor was recovered by the teachers and brought to the healing adept.

°You alright?° A voice brought Mor back from the darkness.

°Yes, we lost, haven´t we?° He stated, °So much for our arrogance. We thought that only because we could use some new tricks, we could surprise everyone until we won it all. We´re pathetic.° Mor was close to tears.

°Don´t! We did our best!° The human interrupted Mors´ dark thoughts and went on °This only means, we need to work harder, get stronger, and make a comeback!°

°Yes I understand, but still it is infuriating!° Mor answered.

°Yes, yes it is, but you saw the power of Ranbor, we struggled through each round, while he just blasted through. I´m sure we will get another chance at this, and then we will be ready. Now rest, we need to recover our strength if we want to resume training as fast as possible.° The human said and Mor drifted into a restorative sleep.

For Mor, almost no time has passed as another voice roused him from his dreams, which vanished like fog in the morning sun.

"They got you good, boy." And felt his hair getting ruffled then a powerful warmth flowed into him restoring his strength and helping his magic energy recover. Mor slowly opened his eyes to the view of the healing adept Miss Amber.

"Hello Miss Amber," He said weakly and got shushed from her.

"Keep still and rest, I will take care of you. I´m already used to it anyway." She joked.

°Yeah, listen to her, we at least broke something. This Orth did not hold back at all, the headmaster's protective magics probably saved our lives. Back to sleep, it is!° And once again Mor surrendered to the Adept and his partner and closed his eyes.

While he slept he was moved back to the infirmary and later the Adept told him of the results from the tournament. The finale was between Ranbor and Orth, and even the Headmaster, at least she was told that, was impressed by the power of both of them, still, the victory was a close one in favor of Ranbor.

°Great now he will be even more insufferable, good that we are save from him...° The human said and Mor agreed.

°I´m more worried, that he might amass more flunkies from all of that. At least we also got some friends from this tournament.° Mor said and this time the human had to agree.

After a much shorter stay in the infirmary than last time and this time with company, who told him what happened in his last fight, Mor left while waving the Adept goodbye. Feeling hungry from the whole ordeal, Mor decided to get some food and as he entered the mess hall, there he was met with a surprising amount of people, soon detecting the reason for it. Ranbor, sitting there like a king at feast, surrounded by lots of students who wanted to congratulate him on his victory or gather some favor by kissing up to him.

Mor just ignored all that silliness in favor of food and decided to take his lunch back to his room.

"Look at that buffoon, like he saved the whole world." A suddenly appearing Orth said next to Mor, who looked up in surprise.

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"Yes, just let him. I don´t want to have any part in that." Mor said and Orth chuckled.

"I wanted to congratulate you on a good fight, it was really fun. If you ever want to have another go, tell me." He offered

"I heard of your fight with Ranbor, did you have that much power left?" Mor asked, and Orth looked a bit bashful before answering.

"Yes, sorry but you can be proud of yourself, that you made me use that much energy. If you want, I would like to offer you a position as a Military adviser and trainer, after we graduate. Your adaptability and creative thinking are very inspiring but don´t decide yet. We still have a few more years, but my father always said, get good talent early before someone else notices it. The only thing I´m sad about is, that it seems you were blessed with a strong body, and not overly strong magic. If all of your physical power would have been magical I might even had the chance to convince my father for you to be my right-hand man, even without being a noble."

Mor nodded at that and smiled.

"Yeah, thanks for the offer, I will think about it." Now it was Orth´s turn to smile

"Great! Then see you around, if some other noble ever wants to pull Rank on you, just tell me. I will drop them a peg or two, we´re all students at this academy." leaving Mor without waiting for a reply.

°Shit! Missed our chance to ask about the black knight again.° The human said.

°Yes, but right now, food is more important.° Mor said and they went to get something, leaving Ranbor to his victory celebration.

Ranbor saw the peasant from the corner of his eyes, but right now he was in too good a mood to let himself be disturbed by Mor. Even as he watched Orth talk to the peasant, it was not enough to get him in a bad mood, the weak flock together that´s how it always went, and if Orth wanted to get the peasant into his entourage he was welcome to, he would pick the best of his new admirers to bolster his influence. That´s the difference between the first son of a noble house and the later born, as the firstborn he will be the next family head, while Orth, only the third son of the Obsidians, will probably end in some dead-end administrative position.

After every hurt student was released from the clutches of Miss Amber, and the lessons could resume they were told that an oral exam was going to be done, starting with the winner of the tournament and working its way down to the first dropouts, questioning about their perceived performance and knowledge.

As Mor was called to the reserved classroom, he noticed that not only the headmaster himself, but a somehow pissy Rosana was in the room, and suddenly got nervous.

"Greetings, Headmaster, Miss Amethyne." He greeted them.

"I thought, this examination was done by the normal teachers?" Mor asked further, and Rosanas face grew more sour, while the headmaster pointed to a chair before speaking himself.

"Yes, but my granddaughter insisted, that she would like to do yours, and I took this opportunity to tag along."

"You´re in trouble, Mor." Rosana began, but the headmaster interrupted her.

"Rosana! Be quiet, don´t throw accusations around."

Mor flinched at this outburst and asked. "Did I do something?"

The Headmaster gave him a warm smile. "Well Mister Agaton, might you want to explain what you did in your fight with Mister Obsidian? Your final gambit got my granddaughter to throw a little tantrum."

"Grandfather!" Rosana complained and instantly got silenced again.

Mor looked between them unsure what to say.

°Seems, like they argued about you. Just do what the Headmaster tells you for now.° The human unhelpfully added.

Mor cleared his throat and started to talk.

"With my remaining magic power, I couldn´t get through Orth´s armor, so I had to improvise, and the best thing I could come up with was to use body enhancement and break it that way, then..."

"I told, you! We are no barbarians!" Rosana interrupted him and got a stern look from her grandfather in turn.

"Quiet girl! Let him finish."

Mor was even more cowed, but continued, this time with a slightly shaky voice. "then I wanted to use the last of my energy, for a fire spell, which should have been more effective, as the enclosed armor would have contained the heat."

The headmaster nodded at that and opened his mouth to speak, but Rosana was faster again. "Why would you even punch him? Why didn´t you just cut off the Airflow in his vicinity!"

This was seemingly the extent of the headmaster's patience as he sternly talked to Rosana "So you know he could use that spell? Did you teach him that?"

This time Rosana shrunk back, whispering a quiet "No." but the Headmaster thundered on.

"Then you know that someone else thought Mister Agaton that spell?"

and she again answered with a quiet "No", then he took on a somewhat softer tone.

"Mister Agaton, do you know a spell like that?" he asked and Mor shook his head.

The headmaster focused his look back on his granddaughter "See girl, it was a desperate gamble because he didn´t know any better, in addition not everyone is as blessed with magic energy as you are. In this case, body enhancement was a good choice as his body is unusually strong. Now Mister Agaton please continue."

°Headmaster one, teach zero!° The human said, and Mor continued his tale.

"In retrospect, that gambit was stupid, because I could feel the armor getting a hold of my wrist fixing me in place, as well as stopping my strike. Then as I fell unconscious, I thought the injury from the round before knocked me out by overexertion of my body. But if I can trust the tale from the other students, Orth did hit me with a strike of his own and knocked me out that way."

The Headmaster nodded, "Yes he did, but you were already pretty low on energy, so no wonder you lost. Still, I´m proud of you, you showed ingenuity and even got some of the other students to think and not just stand there, trading blows. Miss Celestyne being one of them, she showed great promise with your "hiding" tactic. I´m glad, this whole tournament turned so well." with this, Mor was excused back to the lessons.

°Seems, like the lady teach, wanted to rip you a new one. For punching someone, but luckily the headmaster intervened.° The human said, to which Mor could only agree.