“Did anyone of you catch how the match-ups were decided?” Terran asked Nathan and Thomas.

“Nope, they don't say 'nything 'bout that.” Thomas responded, “But some second-years told me the first battle's decided randomly, and after that, there'll be two more battles set-up by the Magisters.”

“So it's not a KO system or something like that?” Nathan asked.

Thomas let out a short laugh. “It's not a tournament ye know?”

“Oh, ok. My bad.”

The three friends went through the main gate of the preparation hall. They were psyched to finally have their first battle after waiting for more than half an hour. When they entered the courtyard, they saw that the ground was littered with small hills and large, irregular rock formations which blocked the vision to the other end of the battlefield. In the small valleys between hills, some tiny ponds could be seen. A few traces of the battles of the previous four teams were still visible, but all major damages seemed to have been fixed up. The other team was led to the opposite side a few minutes earlier, so they had no clue who they would be fighting against.

After examining their surroundings, they carefully advanced through the rocky landscape. After a few minutes without encountering any opponents, they stopped behind one of the larger rocks.

“Mh, we should've already passed the middle, where are they?” Revar whispered.

“We probably just missed them, the courtyard is pretty broad,” Nathan answered.

Just as he was saying that, a large rock, a few meters to the left of them, exploded with a loud bang. Countless tiny fragments were hurling in their direction. Revar reacted immediately. He put his hand on a boulder right next to him and a split second later that bolder flew towards the incoming stones, crashed against them and blocked most of the attack. All around Nathan and his friend's small rocks smashed into the ground, blowing up dust and dirt.

When the dust settled slightly Nathan noticed a large Rock crashing in their direction.

“Careful!”

He concentrated on his vision, and sure enough, he saw two blurry spots with high densities of mana behind the rock.

“They are hiding behind that rock!” He yelled.

“Close yer eyes!” Thomas shouted and threw a magic tool high into the air. When it reached its highest point, it exploded with a blindingly bright light. While Nathan shut his eyes tightly, he still focused on the, now unmoving, spell circuits behind the rock. One of them vanished completely while the second one lost a lot of its brightness. Revar acted as soon as the effect of Thomas's magic tool weakened. A large spell circuit appeared on his back, and he catapulted diagonally into the air, just high enough to bypass the rock. Still in the air, he took one of his spheres, increased its weight with a gravity spell, and let it drop down behind the rock. A loud ringing could be heard. At the same time, a large rock wall grew in front of him. With just enough time to hold his arms in front of his face, he crashed into the wall.

“Fast!”

Nathan sprinted toward Revar's position. He could hear something crashing into the ground behind him followed by a high hissing, but didn't dare to turn around. He reached the rock, grabbed a corner with his left hand and flung around it. He came too late. Just when he raised his hand to use a sharp light ray, a second ringing could be heard. Nathans spell hit the back of the opponent who was bent over Revar and a third ringing echoed through the courtyard. Without catching his breath he turned around and looked toward their previous location. Thomas was crouching behind a slab of stone, holding his hands against it while scorching red pebbles bombarded his makeshift shield. Nathan slid back behind the rock. Thomas would probably be able to defend himself for a little longer, but it would be hard to retaliate. He peeked out from behind the boulder. The pebbles originated from the top of one of the larger rocks, a dozen meters away. Nathan tried to focus his vision, but he couldn't see any traces of mana, the distance was too large.

“Do somethin'!” Thomas shouted, “Ma stone is breakin'!”

Without further thinking, Nathan channeled mana in several spiral deflection circuits around his body and rushed towards the rock where their last opponent was hiding. Immediately some of the projectiles shot into his direction, hitting the ground a small distance beside him. When he got close to the rock, the bombardment stopped. Thomas used this chance to rush over to Nathan.

“Everything ok with you?” Nathan asked.

“Yes, everything is ok.”

Still huffing, Thomas examined the rock.

“If ye distract him for a while we'll win.”

“What are you planning?”

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“Structure manipulation. I'll decrease the strength of this rock till it comes crashin' down.”

“Ok, give me a sign when you're done.”

Nathan started to climb the rock but just when he reached the mid-point, a bolt of lightning came crashing down into his direction. Startled, he lost grip and slid down a meter, before he could grab a protrusion in the rock. Heavily breathing he pressed his body against the wall. He couldn't afford to be hit, lightning was the most dangerous magic after sharp light. He started to climb up again, this time carefully hiding behind some bulges in the rock. Then he felt water dropping down from above. Before he could react an electric shock rushed through his body. Screaming in pain, Nathan fell down the rock and hit his back hard on the ground. Stunned by the shock, Nathan failed to circulate mana through his armor, and another ringing announced his elimination. A Magister appeared beside him and carried his still paralyzed body from the battlefield. Before he left the courtyard, he could hear the loud rumbling of collapsing rocks and a fifth and last ring resounded.

Revar, Nathan, and Thomas met a few minutes later In their preparation room. Thomas had a large smirk on his face, while Nathan and Revar were massaging their sore bodies.

“Damn good battle guys. I'm feelin' great!”

“Easy for the one to say who got no thrashing,” Revar answered with a pained smile.

“Nah, ye don't have to feel bad 'bout it. Ye should've seen the others.”

“Who were we fighting against? I couldn't see anyone of them from the front.” Nathan asked.

“It was Einrich and the Uger brothers, Einrich was the last one, who grilled you with lightning,” Revar answered.

“Oh, no wonder then.” Their conversation was interrupted by a second-year student that entered the room.

“Congratulations on your victory, it was an exciting fight.” He gave each of them a friendly smile. “You can rest for a while now. Probably two or three hours, until the last fights of the first round, are over. I'll notify you when your next opponents are decided. Please stay in your room till then.”

Thomas stopped him before he could leave the room.

“What 'bout the tools we used?”

“We will deliver them to you in a few minutes, don't worry. You will also receive the materials to fix them. However, you are not allowed to build new ones.”

“Ok, thanks mate.”

After the student left, Revar lay down on a bench.

“Guess I'll get some sleep then, wake me when we're called.” He turned around, face towards the wall, and ignored Thomas and Nathan.

“Well, guess I'll be waitin' for my tools and fix them.” Thomas shrugged.

“What patterns were you using to destroy the rock?”

“The rock? Well, as I told ye, patterns from structure manipulation.”

“Yes, but what exactly? I thought about destroying materials by accelerating their particles in different directions, but what you did seems easier.”

Thomas sighed. Nathan saw it and felt a bit sorry. He knew that his curiosity was sometimes taxing on his friends, but he couldn't help it.

“In short, I decreased the material strength of the rock's base until it couldn't bear its own weight 'nymore.”

“Could you show me the circuit?”

“Sure, sure.” Thomas drew the circuit on a piece of paper and gave it to Nathan, before moving into a corner with the excuse that he had to check his magic tools. Nathan didn't mind it. He took the paper and traced the circuit with his fingers. He knew from the physics lectures, that materials had properties like strength, hardness, stiffness, etc. But he never saw a pattern that influenced it. Even the books he read only glanced over that topic quickly.

“Three aren't enough,” he murmured, “It should be ok if I hear one or two more lectures.”

Inspired by the battle he found his knowledge far too lacking to take on the mysterious airship. At this pace, even if he finished the basic education after two years, he would still feel like a complete beginner going up against a master. Lost in his thoughts, Nathan was completely oblivious to his surroundings, until a chain of blasts and explosions rocked the hall. Freaked out he nearly fell from his chair. Revar and Thomas were already rushing to the door to see what happened. A few seconds later several second-year students in white robes were running through the preparation hall with two stretchers between them. Nathan could see some dark figures lying on the stretchers, but he was too far away to recognize anyone.

A jumble of voices echoed through the hall. Some students even tried to run past the second-years to see who was being carried away. However, the white-robed students blocked their efforts and soon left the hall through a door in the back. A few of the second-years that stayed behind gathered all students in the middle of the hall. One of them raised his hand and started to speak.

“There is no reason to worry. One of the students activated a particularly powerful magic tool, which resulted in some damages on the courtyard. The following battles will be delayed by a few hours...”

While the student was speaking, Nathan searched for his friends in the crowd but couldn't see them. He pushed through the other students and became increasingly anxious with every minute that passed without finding them. When he reached the other end of the hall, he was relieved to finally see Terran, Alina, and Devan. They stood in a corner, whispering to each other. He waved at them until they also saw him and joined them.

“Heya Nathan.” Terran greeted him. “Did you already fight?”

“Yeah, we were the fourth team. Close victory!” He grinned.

Alina mustered him.” Yeah, you really look like it was a close fight. How are the others?”

“Thomas is uninjured, Revar got hit on the head. Nothing serious. And you?”

“They couldn't penetrate Alina's ice wall and Devan just annihilated them with some light rays.” Terran boasted with the performance of his teammates.

“Do you know what happened outside?” Nathan asked.

Devan nodded. “Someone crafted a large tool, that could turn rock into magma. They tried to create a trap with it. Unexpectedly their circuit also built up a lot of pressure inside the rock, so it exploded before they triggered it and injured them heavily.”

“Wow, didn't their armor protect them?”

“It did. But they still lost consciousness due to the explosion and then the shield turned off and the magma burnt them.”

“Ouch. Anyone we know?”

“Dunno, that's all information Gabria told me... Oh, seems like we should go back to our preparation rooms.”

The second-year student was finished with his short speech and the students responsible for the preparation hall started to lead all participants of the combat assessment back to their rooms. However, the first-year students were too agitated and ignored many of their orders, which led to a few disputes between them. Nathan hurried back to his team and informed them of what exactly had happened while they went back into their preparation room.