83 Insurmountable?

Trying to stay calm, Greyson did his best to ignore the heated stares. Seemingly used to the situation, Elon smiled and bowed slightly towards Greyson. Slightly awkward, Greyson tried his best to imitate the motion without looking too tense. Both got into standard ready positions with Greyson drawing Genesis and Elon pulling out normal staff, each waiting for the other to start. Raising his brows, Greyson was a little unprepared to verse a non-combat magician.

Obviously, a bit excited, Elon made the first move. With a wave of his staff, thick vines grew from the ground and quickly approached Greyson while sharp water knives simultaneously formed and attacked at different angles. Getting serious, Greyson summoned a water wall with his left hand while his right slashed down with fire. His defensive spell was one of his favorites called Rubber Wall, it absorbed his opponent's attack's power before flinging the same attack back towards them. All the water knives bounced back in Elon's direction while the fire from Genesis burned down the vines. Smiling slightly, Elon hit his staff onto the ground and the water knives in front of him dissipated. Not too shocked, Greyson knew that unless he activated this spell from close-up, the opponent could usually deactivate their spell fast enough. Both of them were just trying to gauge their opponent's abilities.

This time, Greyson attacked first. Using a body lightening wind spell, he quickly burst out in a frontal charge while electricity arced on his blade. Elon was caught off guard by the sudden change in elements and only reacted in time to activate Earth Wall. Sneering, Greyson quickly blew apart the wall with his first swing before switching into another strong slash into Elon's body. Feeling his strike hit, Greyson showed some disappointment by his opponent's weakness. However, he soon was surprised to see his opponent's body completely turn into water and disappear. Scowling, he realized that he was tricked and quickly escaped into his shadow as he landed. Right as his back was disappearing into the ground, strong water bullets rained down on his exact spot. When he resurfaced, he winced in pain and could feel that some of the water spell had hit his back before he could completely escape. Looking around quickly, he saw that Elon was still on the opposite side of the stage from him. However, Elon's face was not as calm as before. Counting in his head, he realized that this young opponent in front of him had already revealed five different elements. Realizing that Elon looked distracted, Greyson took advantage of this pause as a golden glow grew around him and healed his surface injuries. Speechless, even Elon could not help but feel envy towards Greyson's multi-element abilities.

At the same time, through this series of attacks, Elon and other high-level magicians in the audience could feel that Greyson was still at the advanced level stage five. While still startled by his level and assumed age from his looks, slight disappointment filled their faces. Greyson was obviously highly talented, but it was not easy to surpass the stark difference between a magister level magician and those below. The result of this battle seemed to be already decided. However, Elon did not let up at this point and still treated his opponent seriously. Glancing at Greyson's sword, Elon smirked as a simple idea formed in his mind. Seeing Elon's expression, Greyson suddenly felt uneasy, but he could only continue healing his injuries. Whispering a chant under his breath, a large grey cloud formed above the stage. Dark rain soon poured down that held a shiny glint. Greyson stopped his healing light spell and instead formed the light into a shield around him. After the first impact began, his expression turned ugly and he realized that the rain held metal elements as well so each drop was heavy with hard impact that began to break apart his shield. After he finished casting this first spell, Elon switched to an earth spell summoning metal spike from the ground. Jumping around while keeping his shield up, Greyson could feel his mana stores depleting faster than he was comfortable with. Every time he tried to approach Elon, a new spell would block his approach and the consistent metal rain kept his concentration split. During this time, Greyson finally realized his biggest disadvantage in mana stores. Although Elon was continuously keeping up different spells simultaneously, his drain in mana was not as rapid as Greyson's. This advantage allowed him to continually cast spell to keep Greyson at a distance so that his close combat inability does not hinder him in this fight.

Furrowing his brows, Greyson knew he was just wasting mana at this point and kept still. Kneeling on the ground, he had a metal wall form around him so he could remove his attention from the rain. Putting away his sword, he instead pulled out his bow. Nocking two arrows immediately, he gathered his lightning and fire elements in the bottom one while he filled the top arrow with the light element. In just a matter of seconds, he released both. The top arrow blocked the rain and allowed the bottom arrow to smoothly speed towards Elon. Unprepared for such a sudden change in strategy, Elon tried to create a wall but his spell was too slow and the volatile lightning and fire exploded against his defense, blasting him backwards. Coughing blood, the injured Elon could no longer continue the spell in the sky causing it to slow down until the cloud dissipated. The crowd was thrown into disorder as everyone was taken aback by the new turn in events. They thought that it would end after Greyson either ran out of options or mana.

Wiping the blood from his lips, Elon's expression turned grave. As good-natured as he normally was, of course he held pride towards his own level and ability. Knowing his opponent was a level below and also younger, he could not allow Greyson to defeat him especially in front of his family members. Taking a deep breath, his eyes showed his determination. His chest lit up as a crocodile-like creature appeared. Hesitating slightly, Greyson finally summoned Zephyr. He was reluctant since his partner was hurt not long ago. However, he could feel Zephyr's anxious desire to fight when it felt Elon's partner beast come out. A loud roar echoed across the stage as a silver dragon also appeared on the stage and Greyson jumped onto his back. Though slight, one could tell that Elon's beast looked more corporeal and radiated more strength. There was another large qualitative change in a magician's partner beast each time they reached a new level.

Making a signal, Elon gave his beast an order as Greyson watched carefully. With shocking speed, Elon's partner burrowed into the ground. Elon cast an ice spell this time that sent sharp shards of ice flying towards Greyson. Swiftly avoiding the attack, Zephyr moved to the side only to suddenly hear a bang to the side it dodged towards. Glancing sideways, Greyson saw Elon's beast come up from the ground and send hard earth boulders towards Zephyr. Responding quickly, Greyson was able to block the attack but the force still pushed Zephyr back. In this instant of confusion, Elon also followed up with another water attack. Unable to respond in time, Greyson could only allow the water bullets to hit hard. Letting out a roar of pain, Zephyr flew high in the sky to avoid more attacks. Gripping his chest, Greyson could feel that he and Zephyr both were injured from that attack. Another large drain occurred in his mana stores as Zephyr absorbed it to continue fighting. Inwardly, Greyson could only admit his inferiority in experience to his opponent. Elon obviously challenged a lot of people and fought many times. He took control of most parts of this battle. Seeing Elon's great coordination with his beast, Greyson realized his own inadequacy at working in sync with Zephyr.

Feeling his partner's gloom, Zephyr quickly roared in defiance. Greyson could feel his meaning. Apparently, there was an innate ability that Zephyr had not used before, but he wanted to try it now. Although he was worried, Greyson decided to trust in his partner. However, his face grew pale when he felt the mana leaving his body at an exponential rate. Zephyr opened his jaw and a multi-colored ball formed in front. Amazingly, this ball contained four elements: wind, water, fire, and earth. Right before he reached his limit, Zephyr finally stopped absorbing mana. The ball then shot out towards Elon who had cast a defense spell in coordination with his partner beast. In front of this attack, all the walls of defense were blown apart and Elon was sent flying out of the stage. Before he could slam into the ground, his father acted and caught Elon before digging his feet into the ground to slow his son's momentum. Even he could not believe the force behind his son's body as he was continually pushed back.

Greyson was not in much better shape. Zephyr had almost overdrawn his mana and he could barely stand in his state. Zephyr also could no longer stay present and disappeared back into Greyson's body. Falling to the ground, Greyson forced himself to land properly only to stagger afterwards. Pulling at Genesis, he stabbed it into the ground to balance himself and try to stand. Elon's father stood holding up his son who could only lean on him to stay up due to serious injuries. Elon looked up showing an unwillingness in his eyes. That attack was definitely powerful after combining four elements, but somehow, he felt that he did not lose in terms of ability, but talent. This discovery left him feeling slightly disheartened since he could change anything.

"You've won this match." Allowing himself a wry smile, Elon still humbly admitted defeat. Distressed by his son's injuries, the head just nodded towards Greyson before quickly taking his son away for healing. The audience was eerily silent as all of them still could not quite believe that result. Seeing that the match was over, Greyson could no longer hold himself up and fell onto the ground. Feeling weak all over, he decided to just start meditating on the stage to recover his mana. For the first time in a while, he felt completely void of any mana. His hair reverted back to the platinum silver, but no one was paying enough attention. They all quickly ran out to spread the news of the battle result. In next to no time, Greyson was the only one left in the arena. Until the sun set and night set it, Greyson continued meditating and recovering. Finally recovered enough, he got up and walked back the way he remembered to the guest housing. Exhausted, he passed out onto his bed.