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Professor Eisen furrowed her brow, her gaze narrowing sharply as she looked down at the stone floor of the Class A training hall where Kai and Kathlyn had just appeared seemingly out of thin air. One moment, there was open space. The next, two students were standing there, calm, composed, like they'd been there all along.
No flicker of mana. No displacement in the air. No sound, no presence. Not even June had noticed.
She floated a few feet above the arena, her robes lightly trailing with ambient mana, still staring at the place they'd materialized from.
"How…?" she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. "What kind of spell was that?"
She wasn't easily impressed. She'd fought in two continental campaigns, trained the top ten graduates in the past decade, and once neutralized an assassination attempt with a spoon. But this? This wasn't stealth it bordered on existence erasure.
Behind her, Professor Mallet stood with his arms folded behind his back, high on a balcony. His expression remained unreadable, though the faintest curve of interest touched the corners of his mouth.
"Each class has their peculiar students," he said, eyes focused on Kai. "Even among the average… there are outliers."
Eisen raised an eyebrow, still watching the two below. "Peculiar? That was a void-step. Or something damn close to it."
Mallet only replied with a cryptic: "Indeed."
The conversation ended there, because down below, the fighting ring had begun to fill. Students gathered in a loose circle around the main arena platform an elevated square of reinforced obsidian and stone, enchanted to withstand even the highest-impact magic.
The format was simple: continuous dueling. Winner stays on. Challengers rotate in.
No time limits. No breaks. Prestige came from streaks.
You win enough times? You walk out as the name people remember.
The first to step forward was Rose.
Her pace was unhurried, but the effect was immediate. Students who had been whispering went silent. Her combat uniform hugged her athletic frame like it had been tailored by a battlemage seamstress sleek, elegant, functional.
Her long black hair was tied back in a tight braid, and her violet eyes were cold and unreadable.
Everyone recognized her.
Everyone feared her.
No one volunteered to go first.
Until
Kai exhaled sharply through his nose. "Oh, hell."
Kathlyn tilted her head. "What?"
He pointed subtly.
There, stepping into the ring with unearned confidence, was Ren.
His first slave.
And flanking him? Two actual Class B students—both decent, at least on paper. One was a dagger-user who specialized in agility-based burst techniques. The other wielded a staff imbued with air-attribute spells, a mid-range fighter.
Ren stood behind them. His posture tried to be confident, but the nervous glances he kept throwing at Rose told the real story.
"Kai," Kathlyn said slowly, her voice flat, "wasn't that one of yours?"
Kai sighed. "Yes. Your senior brother, technically."
She squinted. "are you always like this?"
Down below, Professor Eisen raised her hand.
"Begin."
The dagger-user bolted forward.
Fast. Precise.
It looked clean textbook assassin footwork, blades glinting with condensed mana as he weaved through the air.
But he didn't even reach her.
Rose didn't move.
She tilted her head.
And the floor lit up.
Thin lines of lightning spread across the stone, crisscrossing in a web of ambient current. The dagger-user stepped on one.
ZAP.
The electric surge locked his leg in mid-air. His momentum shattered. His blade dropped. His entire body froze for half a second.
That was all she needed.
One smooth step forward
A spinning heel kick, fast as a whip, cracked directly against his temple.
He dropped like a sack of flour, limbs twitching, eyes rolled back.
"Next," she said, already turning her attention to the other Class B.
The staff-user froze for a split-second. Then he panicked.
Air spells fired in rapid succession compressed mana launched in waves, aiming to push her back, maybe even blast her off the stage.
But none of them landed.
Each gust warped bent unnaturally just before touching her.
Rose advanced through the barrage like she was wrapped in a magnetic shell.
"You're forcing it," she said casually. "Sloppy."
Then she clapped her hands together.
BOOM.
A shockwave rippled outward pure force, laced with lightning. The staff-user went flying across the platform, bounced once, then skidded into the barrier wall.
Down.
Two gone.
Only Ren remained.
He hesitated.
Then raised his hands halfway. "L-Let's not be aggressive
Rose smiled.
Just a little.
Then she began walking.
Not rushing.
Just walking.
Each step echoed.
Ren scrambled backward. "I'm serious can we just?"
A flicker of light flared in front of him. A shield spell. Weak. Unstable. Likely the first thing he'd learned.
Rose didn't even acknowledge it.
She reached out.
Tapped it.
Crack.
The entire thing shattered like glass.
Ren stumbled backward, tripped over his own boots, and fell hard onto the floor.
Rose crouched down next to him.
"Do something," she said softly.
Ren's mouth worked like a fish.
Then he threw a desperate bolt of burning hot mana. Unfocused. Panicked.
She caught it.
With one hand.
Then crushed it into sparks between her fingers.
"I—I sur—"
"Louder," she whispered.
"I SURRENDER!"
She let go of him.
Ren crumpled.
Professor Eisen's voice rang out, amused and sharp: "Winner: Rose."
There was a beat of silence before the crowd began to murmur then clap. Awkwardly. Quietly.
Everyone had just witnessed domination.
Not a duel.
A message.
No one stepped up next.
Not yet.
On the sidelines, Kai folded his arms and whispered under his breath.
"She's even scarier than I remember."
Professor Eisen hovered silently, arms crossed, expression unreadable as the dust settled in the arena. The three defeated students lay sprawled across the stage like discarded practice dummies. Lightning still hissed faintly along the edges of the dueling platform.
After a long pause, she let out a small breath through her nose.
"Well," she said, voice dry, "remind me to never make that girl angry."
She turned slightly toward Professor Mallet, who stood a few paces away with his usual unreadable expression. Unlike Eisen, he hadn't reacted at all during the fight no raised brow, no shift in posture.
"She didn't even use 10 percent of her her mana pool," Eisen added. "No chants. No incantations. Just pure control over her element
Mallet nodded once. "It's not about how much you use. It's about how much you don't need to."
Eisen gave him a sidelong glance. "You've been saving that line for years, haven't you?"
"It fits."
They both turned their eyes back to Rose, who stood calmly in the arena, adjusting her gloves like she'd just finished organizing a bookshelf not thrashing three Class B opponents in under two minutes.
Eisen crossed her arms again. "We might have to start her on suppression weights sooner than planned."
Mallet didn't answer immediately. He watched Rose for a moment longer before murmuring, "Or we find someone worth her time." outside of June