Chapter 77 - Magic Assessment, Second Segment 3

Lucia narrowed her eyes after seeing her intruder's introduction.

"What do you want?" she said coldly.

"Oh? Feel like talking now?"

"..." Lucia's response was a dense array of magic circles encircling the golden haired boy.

"Calm down now, just let me finish speaking."

"..."

Seeing as how Lucia continued to remain silent while still having the magic circles threateningly hovering in the air; Zephyr could only shrug helplessly.

"I'm here on behalf of the student council, and we'd like for you to jo–"

"No thanks, get out."

"A clear-cut rejection huh."

"..."

Zephyr continued to prattle on about the benefits of joining the student council, but was only met with Lucia's silence to which he could only sigh at.

"Well, now that you know the benefits, don't you think it–"

"Don't care. Get out."

"..."

Lucia grew pissed at the president's lack of response to her requests and she strengthened the might of her spells.

The magic circles in the air began trembling and the air immediately grew hot.

Zephyr only smiled at this and said.

"You'll know the benefits of joining a faction soon enough. If you change your mind by then, come find me. The Student Council will gladly welcome you with open arms."

After saying his piece, Zephyr turned on his heel and sauntered out of the room.

Lucia lowered her arm and dispersed the magic circles. Her mood was ruined and she had no desire to continue training.

She meditated for a while before heading back to her dorm.

It was the next day and the first year classes had once again gathered inside the stadium.

After yesterday's session, there only 20 pairs of students left that haven't had their matches, 25 of them being from S class and the other 15 from the other classes.

At the instructor's behest the first 5 pairs quickly got up into the rings and immediately began their matches.

To Cecil's surprise, the first 5 pairs' fighting style and methods had a complete change from yesterday's slugfest.

In fact, this was a change that happened from yesterday when the rankings had gradually made its way up into the 50-60 range.

Cecil was impressed and began to seriously observe their combat methods.

It wasn't anything impressive and it was still crude, but at least the way they fought wasn't as blind as the previous fights.

Soon enough, the 5 ongoing matches had quickly wrapped up. The ones that used their brains and had a semblance of martial art mixed in with their actions were the ones that won.

3 out of the 5 matches had lower ranked students defeating their higher ranked counterpart. It wasn't that the higher ranked student was weaker; it was just that the combat prowess of the 3 pairs were so close to each other that in the end, the student who won was the student who prepared and sacrificed something in the fight.

If this was a round robin tournament instead of an assessment, then Cecil could say for certain that the 3 lower ranked winners wouldn't be able to continue with their matches and would have to forfeit in their next match.

He wasn't impressed with how they won since they had to sacrifice their bodies in order to mete out a close victory, but nevertheless, it just goes to show how tempting and how big of an offer it was for the students who got to enter the 3 floor of the academy's library.

Although he wasn't impressed, Cecil had to give props to the 3 winners since in the end they still won.

The next 5 pairs went up and the next pair had combat techniques that were much more refined than the previous five. It continued on until it was finally 10 o clock and finally, it was time for S class' students to strut their stuff.

The students in S class that were ranked 17-25 walked up to their rings, because of the odd number of students in their year being 209, the last ranked student in S class had to face against the ranked 26 student who was not part of S class.

Not long after the instructors announced the start, spells arrays of all colors and forms began blossoming on the 5 rings.

Each student from S class was magically and physically adept. Adrenaline inducing fights happened on all 5 rings, and the performances from all 5 pairs of students caused many of the instructors to nod their heads in approval while the students of all the other classes admitted that S class was in a league of their own.

The 26-ranked student faired pretty well against S class' ranked 25, but in the end it was the first match that was quickly settled.

Cecil smiled brightly looking at how awesome the techniques his fellow classmates were using. It wasn't just their magical techniques; even their combat techniques had him grinning in satisfaction.

Cecil glanced towards Eli who was his first opponent. He was anticipating what kind of battle this golden haired girl was going to give him.

Soon enough it was Ainz's turn and unlike usual, he was very silent when he made his way to the ring.

He was facing their 8th ranked student, Sor'ak Minur, a large red-skinned giant. He was a rare chaos giant, who was adept in fire and lightning magic. Although his combat rating was the same as Ainz, his unique lightning element was what placed him a rank ahead of Ainz.

Once he made his way on to the ring, he focused himself and glared at his opponent. This side of Ainz surprised Cecil, but before he could mentally improve his impression of Ainz–

"You should be honored to face me, Sor'ak!"

"..." The giant only tilted his head in confusion at Ainz's arrogant remark.

"Know that you will lose, but don't be ashamed. Since after all, you are facing the glorious ME!"

"..." Cecil who was in the stands could only facepalm while shaking his head. Lucia who was next to him had ended up laughing uproariously after Ainz's victory declaration.

Fina was embarrassed and started burying her face into her chest, but her red ears told everyone that she was ashamed to call that boastful lizardkin down there her friend.

Eli, to everyone's surprise had only nodded her head, seemingly agreeing with Ainz's statement.

"Less talk! More fight small man!" With an annoyed battle cry, Sor'ak's red muscular body began burning with orange flames. He dashed forward at an unbelievable speed contrary to his bulky size.

Ainz wasn't surprised. He calmly waved his wand and 8 magic circles of 4 different colors corresponding to their individual elements of earth, water, fire, and wind, quickly formed in the air in front of the charging giant.

Cecil was surprised since he didn't see Ainz chanting at all. He first thought that they were original spells, but when he took a closer look, he could see that Ainz's lips were trembling very quickly.

"...speed chanting?"

"Ah, you noticed Cecil? You're right about that, Ainz is speed chanting. He's still not at the level of creating original spells, but his family's technique "Hyper Chant" & "Parallel Incantation" helps with the speed of his spells activation." Eli explained after hearing Cecil mumble with uncertainty.

"Oh! So it's his clan's technique! I see...that sure looks interesting!"

"Of course, as a no– I mean, as someone who comes from the Bernstein clan this much at least is expected of him."

"Are they a clan known for their magicians?"

"Yes, they're renowned for their magicians all being able to use the 4 basic elements and being very adept at using them."

"Hoohh... I guess it wasn't just Ainz being arrogant in learning all 4 elements then."

"Of course, he has the skill the back up his arrogance! I can vouch for that since I'm his childhood friend!" Eli declared.

Cecil turned his focus back to his roommate's match.

Sure enough, Ainz did indeed have the skills to back up his arrogance. After delaying his opponent's charge with the 8 spells he conjured at the start of the match, he had already invoked a body enhancing spell that he used to move quickly around the battlefield.

If this was a game, then Ainz was using the 'kiting' strategy. While keeping his distance, Ainz had kept on firing spells of different elements at the large flaming giant.

Ainz had refrained from using too many wind spells and opted on using more water and earth spells while he occasionally fired off a fire spell.

Sor'ak wasn't stupid and seeing as Ainz was leading him by the nose around the ring, he stopped in place and quickly chanted a lightning element spell.

Ainz smirked seeing this, he casted multiple earth walls in front of him and began a long chant for an intermediate spell.

Sor'ak saw the earth walls rise up in front of Ainz and without stopping his incantation; he dashed towards the walls of earth and began crushing them with his fists and the large hammer in his hands.

When he finally crushed the last earth wall, his lightning spell's incantation had also finished, he raised his hands to target Ainz, but he couldn't see where his opponent was, he quickly looked around, but still couldn't find Ainz.

Just as he was about to take a step back, a large force had suddenly pushed against his back knocking him forwards.

The impact of the spell only caused him to grunt in pain so he was able to quickly turn around, but to his astonishment, he saw a large 4 colored magic array appear in his line of vision with his opponent calmly standing behind it.

"Rejoice! For you will now witness the grand technique of Bernstein family's Flaming Winds Torrential Mountain Magus!"

"RAHHHH!! Lightni–"

"Quadra Element Flash!"