When they both agreed and put their hands, a green circle appeared and disappeared in a second on their wrists. Papers were gone too. That indicated the contract was successful. Liam walked away to put some distance between them before they began.

‘This is a good chance to observe why someone like Jay chose them.’

Cassandra thought to herself. She was one of the five SS-rank adventurers at the academy. Idarin and Cassandra casually stood next to Jay and began to watch.

“Why are you here?”

Jay asked.

“I came here to see if Elius was here. I was going to give him some pointers. But this is even better.”

He smiled like the two kids who were about to fight.

“Ohh, so he is a mage? More importantly, a mage you are willing to teach.”

Cassandra said while playing with her hair. But Idarin didn’t answer.

‘Liam is a berserker, a race that was near extinction, by its wild nature, they were ostracized from society and forced to live apart. They developed their tribe by accepting everyone who was excluded like them, sold into slavery, or had no place to go, regardless of race. He is one of this year’s promising students.’

Then he glanced at the training ground.

‘Ohh, actually, almost everyone here is in my follow list.’

He looked at the boy with blonde hair and earrings, who was watching the commotion curiously with a smile.

‘Allen, son of a duke, he is almost at the level of a genius, but he lacks experience.’

Then he saw the spear user girl with dark purple hair.

‘Cathy, her father was an A-rank adventurer. He must have trained her well. She works hard and can analyze the situation quickly. Well, as far as I know at least.’

Then he continued to look around and saw a dark-skinned, yellow-eyed boy.

‘Was his name Eldron? I almost don’t have any information on him. All I know is his parents work as farmers. Oh, Emma and Lucas are here too. If Elius wasn’t here, I might have chosen Emma as my student, hmm, or maybe not. But she definitely has room to grow as a powerful witch.’

Then he saw the weapon in Lucas’ hands. He was an elf, and he was using sickles with chains.

‘What was that called again? Kusarigama? Man, kids are weird these days.’

*THUD*

While observing the kids, he came to his sense with a loud sound. Liam was holding a black greatsword.

“Pfft, can you even swing that around? I can punch you ten times until you can swing it once.”

Elius said while getting in a battle stance.

“Are you thinking of fighting with me bare-handed?”

Elius didn’t answer. Instead, he gestured with his hand to come.

‘Is he underestimating me? Whatever, I’ll finish this quickly.’

Liam stomped on the ground hard. With the stomp, four big rock pieces emerged from the ground and began to spin around him. Then, without wasting any more time, he ran towards Elius. He was pretty fast for his size.

With his every step, needle-like stone pieces flew towards Elius, but they all bounced back by an invisible barrier. The needle-like stones were using the four big rocks around Liam as a source. Two of them had already disappeared, and midway through, the number of the rock pieces around him decreased to one; hence the needle shower stopped, and Liam slowed down.

With the momentum he gained from running, he spun around, hit the remaining rock by using his greatsword like a baseball bat and then jumped into the air. The shape of the rock turned into an arrowhead and flew towards Elius with great force. Elius felt like something was wrong and tilted his head just in time.

The arrowhead-shaped rock pierced the barrier as if it were going through a paper and grazed his cheek. That made Elius lose balance for a second, and he had no time to recover because when he raised his head, Liam was already falling from above with his greatsword over his head. With a smile, Elius raised his arms to block the blow.

‘What kind of wizard tries to block with his hands.’

Cassandra thought to himself. She disappointedly looked at jay with the corner of her eyes.

‘Seriously, what is wrong with you?’

But things didn’t go as she thought. Liam swung his sword from above with all his might. Elius’ hands met with the sword, but the force was too great. His feet were buried into the ground with the impact, and his arms were shaking.

‘What?! How?’

That wasn’t just Cassandra’s reaction. Nobody was expecting him to stop that sword bare-handed. Especially Liam. He quickly kicked Elius while his hands were still busy and made him fly back a few meters. Liam didn’t waste any time and began to move again. As soon as Elius’ feet touched the ground, a wall grew in front of Liam

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‘You think this will stop me?’

Liam was like an unstoppable wild beast right now, and he broke through the wall easily, but when he broke through, Elius was already on the other side of the wall in a punching motion. And not just that, two fireballs were flying to Liam from the sides. Instead of blocking the punch, Liam tried to stop fireballs and let Elius punch him in the abdomen.

‘He can cover himself with the earth element and strengthen his defense, fantastic!’

Idarin was full of pleasure. Elius was expecting to send him flying with a punch, but Liam only took a step back

‘What the hell? I can taste my blood. How hard can this bastard hit?’

He didn’t show his pain and tried to grab Elius with his free hand, but he was slower now due to pain. So Elius turned around, caught his arm instead, and tried to throw Liam over his shoulder, but Liam didn’t even budge.

‘Okay, that was a stupid idea.’

Elius admitted to himself while Liam lifted him like a feather and threw away. The smile on Liam’s face disappeared.

‘Isn’t he a mage? He could’ve thrown me if I was careless.’

Liam knew if he let the distance between them remain for a few seconds, Elius could slow him down with spells, so he always closed the distance quickly. This time he swung his sword horizontally. It was an angle that was hard for Elius to block with his hands this time.

‘Ohh, Elius might be strong, but Liam has more real-life experience.’

Idarin was still observing silently.

‘But why isn’t he using more spells?’

Indeed, he was expecting Elius to bombard him with spells, but he always chose close combat, unlike Idarin’s expectations. Which was another thing he wondered—an inner fighter mage. It was definitely weird. Next to Idarin, Cassandra seemed less interested in the fight since it looked like Liam was dominating. She was about to question Jay again, but then she heard a sound.

*CLANG!*

Liam’s sword unexpectedly bounced back and caused him to lose balance. That wasn’t a defense spell. He felt like his sword bounced back off something like metal. Liam quickly recovered and saw a black staff in Elius’ hands.

“Okay, I got the gist of your capabilities now.”

He was smiling, which irritated Liam even more.

‘What the hell is that?’

Liam didn’t understand what kind of weapon Elius had and prepared to attack again.

‘Oho, that is new. Little brat, he didn’t use it when fighting with me.’

The more Idarin observed them, the more he was getting curious. Liam and Elius began to exchange blows, but instead of deflecting or blocking this time, Elius was directing Liam’s attacks, like he was reading his flow. Finally, when he decided to attack, the situation instantly changed, and Elius began to push back Liam.

His attacks became faster and heavier whenever he spun and struck with his staff. Liam was barely defending himself against the attacks, but eventually, Elius successfully landed a blow under his chin, and that was just the beginning. After that, Elius spun his staff like crazy and unleashed a series of unstoppable attacks. Whenever Liam thought he could block, the trajectory of Elius’ attacks changed and hit him from a different angle.

‘Maybe I might be able to pull off since he is big?’

Elius was thinking of trying something he learned from the book. For a second, he stopped attacking. Liam immediately took this opportunity and raised his sword. He was already in incredible pain because the strikes were unexpectedly heavy.

‘He took the bait.’

The staff shrunk and disappeared. Elius quickly went under the arm Liam raised. Liam understood something was wrong and panicked. He quickly tried to retreat, but it was too late.

‘Let’s see. I guess it was something like this.’

With his two fingers, index and middle, Elius hit the different locations of Liam’s arm repeatedly.

‘What the hell?’

Liam felt a stinging pain in his arm, but the pain disappeared in just a second.

‘No, wait, I-I can’t control my arm.’

Not just the pain, but also the feeling of his arm disappeared. Liam quickly took a step back, and his sword fell to the ground. He tried to raise his arm, but it wasn’t working.

‘Hey! It works.’

Elius was joyful and didn’t let Liam catch a breath. Liam was in shock. He desperately tried to defend himself with his working arm, but he felt the same stingy feeling again. Not just him, almost everyone watching, except Ian, was in shock.

Elius quickly got behind him and kicked the back of Liam’s knee to make him fall onto one knee. Liam wasn’t thinking straight right now. He never knew something like that was possible, so he didn’t even try to use any spell to protect himself.

“Do you know what is happening when you compress the air and fire together?”

The lines of Elius’ bandages began to glow red.

“Nothing happens, actually. The thing happens when you release it.”

He clenched his fist and aimed at Liam’s chest.

“Let me give you a hint. Boom!”

Elius said, and he punched Liam. All Liam could do was watch him while getting punched.

*BOOM!*

When Elius punched him, an explosion occurred with a loud sound and made Liam fly to the wall across the training ground.

“Whew.”

Elius felt good after beating his opponent like he always does. He was about to turn back, but he felt a movement under the debris. Liam was still conscious and trying to get up, but he was having a hard time due to his non-working arms.

“I guess this is enough.”

Idarin said with a smile.

“Liam, do you accept defeat?”

Then he asked him but got the answer he wasn’t expecting.

“Like hell.”

‘Damn, that punch wasn’t enough?’

A smile formed again on Elius’ face, and he turned back to Liam. After a few steps, he jumped in the air just like Liam did. It was something he had always done. Whenever his father made him hunt in the forest, he always imitated his opponent’s moves. That was his way of saying, ‘I can do anything you can.’ He clenched his fists and shouted to Liam while in the air.

“Your evaluation is over!”

Then he fell onto him like a meteor.

*BOOM!*