The second part of the Evaluation is a duel against their fellow trainees.

This battle wouldn't take a very long time as it would be an elimination system…

​​

It would be a 1 vs 1 duel.

The first round would have 30 winners and the other 30 would be eliminated.

The defeated could only wait for their turn on the 3rd Evaluation to have another chance.

On the other hand, the 30 winners would then have another 1 vs 1 duel that would make the top 15 trainees…

If a trainee reached the top 15, they were almost guaranteed to stay within this Tower until the next year's evaluation. Of course, only a few would be satisfied with this…

Everyone here wants to have good benefits and guarantee their stay for a long time…

If possible, they want to become a red-robed member of the Tower.

"Lexi and Chrisome! Proceed to the 3rd Arena!"

As soon as the trainees heard their names, they quickly went to the arena assigned to them…

Apparently aside from the organizers, no one knows the matchup for this part of the evaluation…

Lexi is the Mace wielder and top 1 trainee for this batch while Chrisome is one of Rufu's friends in Crafting Classes…

Just looking at their specialties and current rank, everyone already knows who the winner is…

However, everyone was still drawn by their match because of Chrisome's unique battle style…

He only has a normal-rank Whip Arcana but he has various Magic Items that can aid him in his battle.

Right now, everyone was looking at his bulky metal backpack or something…

The crowd started whispering after seeing this…

"Hey, isn't that one of Rufus's inventions?"

"Ahh… So that's why it looks so familiar!"

"Whose invention? What does it do?"

"That's one of Rufus's signature inventions… I heard that it was called Poison Cloud Generator of something…"

"Wait? I heard that it didn't go well…"

"Right, I was told that it didn't pass in Ethics Evaluation…"

"No, I was told that it barely passed the standard level allowed for poisons… But there was another problem I'm not aware of."

"Urgh… Why did that kid bring a failed or prohibited Magic Weapon?"

The crowd started wandering as they got curious at Chrisome who was walking as slow as snail…

The metal backpack seemed to be quite heavy.

Lexi in the arena was already getting bored…

After all, if this man is moving like that, then there was no way he could avoid her attacks. He would be like a perfect shooting target…

Although she wields Mace as her Arcana, she possesses other Magic Weapons and even an Epic Rank Equipment Arcana that was bought by her family.

'Is he underestimating my long-range abilities?' Lexi thought for a moment.

She's famous for her close combat skills so she could understand why her opponent would bring armor or defensive equipment with them.

Unfortunately, she wasn't interested in Rufus or his creations so she has no idea about this metal backpack…

She can only guess that it was some type of defensive equipment that can perhaps create a barrier, armor, shield, or something similar…

Rufus and his other friends heard everyone's speculation.

They couldn't blame them for thinking that it is a poison cloud generator because he truly used a piece of similar-looking equipment to make one before…

However, this one is filled with content other than poison…

Rufus and the others remained silent and allowed Chrisome to just show it to everyone…

A female red-robed Arcanist suddenly appeared at the center of the arena like a ghost…

She glanced at both Lexi and Chrisome before she spoke loudly.

"I will be the referee in this match… You already know the rules but let me remind you again just in case. Anyone who surrendered can't be attacked or you might get disqualified. I can also decide whether you already lost even if you haven't surrendered yet… Other than that, you're not allowed to kill your opponent… Alright, have a good fight… Show your skills to the two 2nd-Class Arcanists up there…"

After the referee said her piece, she vanished without waiting for their reply… This also means that the battle has already started…

'Hmph!'

Chrisome quickly acted as he can't let Lexi come close to him…

On the other hand, Lexi felt that he is using some kind of melee-type weapon so she rapidly backed away…

This made him happy as he pulled out a hose from the metal backpack and aimed at the top 1 trainee…

As soon as she saw the hose attached to the backpack, she immediately felt regret about her decision… It seems that he's using a long-range weapon!

'Tsk… Fighting against Crafting Specialist is truly annoying…'

Lexi thought after realizing her mistake. Any Arcanist who specializes in making Magic Items are truly difficult to handle since no one knows what type of equipment they have…

They are very flexible when it comes to this type of thing, unlike the Arcanists who solely depend on their strong and Awakened Arcana…

After all, once everyone knows your Arcana, these people who make various things can prepare and create something to fight against it.

"Hmph! Bring it on!"

Lexi shouted as she raised her Mace and readied her Epic-Rank ring…

Chrisome no longer hesitated as he's facing the top 1 in their batch.

"Take this!"

As soon as he said this, the device on his back started making noise…

Whoozzssh!

A fire started gushing out of the hose as it tried to burn Lexi…

Everyone was surprised but none of them worried about the young lady. After all, a fire at this level wouldn't be able to penetrate her enhanced Shell Protection.

On the other hand, Reiji was impressed by this performance…

'Hey, Rufus… Did you have a hand on this?' Reiji asked curiously.

'Yes, Master… Due to the problems I had in making a Poison Cloud Generator, I decided to reuse my equipment for a new type of Generator… I'm calling this Flame Cloud Generator!'

Rufus proudly said but his master has a different idea…

'Flame Cloud? Isn't that a flamethrower?' Reiji muttered without thinking.

The young man heard this word and he suddenly felt that the name has a good ring in it…

'Flame Thrower?! Master! You have a good naming sense! Yes, let's call it Flame Thrower instead!'

Rufus excitedly said after getting his master name one of his creations… There are Arcana that can produce fireballs but not something like this that could continuously pour fire.

'Urgh… I think Flame Cloud Generator is already good… Anyway, why is he using one of your creations?'

'Well, it's not a good weapon. Just look at how he's struggling to walk. That is just a prototype and I asked him to do some improvements to it. However, nothing much was changed since then.'

Rufus wasn't proud of this thing since it has a lot of weak points and can easily be countered.

Of course, there are still good points on this item. It can be used for demolishing various enemies like the wave of Forest Rats or perhaps, it can even be used to create forest fires.

Reiji looked at the flame thrower at the third arena…

The sentient Arcana was truly impressed. After all, almost five minutes have already passed and the fire was still gushing out of that thing like there was no end to it…

Even the referee who disappeared a while ago can now be seen at the edge of the arena fanning herself due to heat…

'Tsk… It can't continue like this…'

"Misdirection…"

Lexi who's at the receiving end of the attack could no longer wait until the magic item's Energy runs out. She decided to make her move.

She used her Epic-Rank Ring Arcana to direct the fire somewhere else as she threw her Mace to buy her some more time…

She used a couple of her Arcana to get out of her predicament and to reach Chrisome quickly…

'Tsk… I used up my Misdirection. I can no longer use it for six hours.'

Lexi grumbled after remembering this… She used Misdirection to defend against the evil beast with Petrification Ability a while ago…

Now that she used it again, she had to wait for the long six hours cooldown to reuse it. She was planning to save it for later but her plans had to change.

"Haste… Chain Lightning…" Lexi muttered as she pulled out another weapon to fight against her opponent…`

The Mace that she threw also created sparks of thick electricity which scared Chrisome…

"Ahhh! I give up!"

The young man immediately surrendered after seeing that Lexi decided to use her precious skills to finish him off.

***

The duels continued as Nika was paired with Lexi's friend, Myla… She's the Lance user and she's quite happy being matched against the Revolver wielder.

It appears that she's been longing to find out the strength of this gun-type weapon…

Unfortunately, Nika only shot her twice before the referee decided to end the match and sent Myla to the medic…

What happened was that she failed to set up her defense in time…

As soon as the referee announced the start of the battle, Myla wanted to say something to Nika Daime but the latter ignored her and just pulled a trigger…

Reiji sighed at this and felt that it was quite funny.

Luckily, the lady wasn't fatally hit and was still quickly healed by various healing potions.