Jason was in a hurry to stuff his mouth with food, as he was notified to enter the combat ground.

Sighing, he stored the dishes away, not without finishing the chicken drumstick he was already begun to eat as he stood up in order to enter the combat arena, where a 1st Expert rank was already waiting for him.

His opponent's soul world amplification was not even large and prevented him from attaining a mana core size of a 2nd Expert rank, which caused Jason to smile lightly, while he also perceived an ice transmutation within his mana.

Comparing his mana affinity to his opponent's Jason estimated that his affinity's rank was either on par or a little bit stronger, and the desire to test it out was ignited within him.

As such, Jason didn't even bother to unsheath his dagger for the moment because he wanted to fully focus on attacking with ice attacks.

Seeing this, his opponent was confused for a quarter of a second before he unsheathed his longsword when the AI initiated the start of their fight.

Utilizing his ice affinity, he immediately attacked Jason with several ice icicles, as he charged towards him with his movement technique fully exerted.

Meanwhile, Jason who was fully focused on his ice affinity manifested several dozen fist-sized icicles around him, which he shot in bunches towards his opponent.

Aiming accurately, the icicles his opponent shot towards him were targeted by his own, and the icicles that clashed upon each other shattered while the remaining icicles flew towards the longsword-wielding youth.

'What?! He also has an ice affinity?!' The youth thought shocked, as he adjusted his broad longsword so that his vital points were protected before he continued his charge after noticing that the onslaught of icicles ended abruptly.

However, instead of being able to rush forward, the youth who couldn't see Jason for only two seconds was now looking straight into a firm ice wall that suddenly erected in front of him.

Not being able to figure out where Jason was, he could only release his mana to find out his rough position as he perceived several dozen icicles shooting towards him.

Trying to deflect them, the youth couldn't help but feel taken aback about Jason's proficiency with the ice affinity, as he couldn't maintain and shoot several dozen icicles at once, after erecting a thick ice wall as if it was nothing special.

Several seconds passed and the storm of icicles didn't seem to cease, while his body already began to hurt due to the several dozen shards that pierced strafed his hands and arms.

Gritting his teeth, he erected a large wall in front of him which would deflect the icicles, giving him a short moment to take a deep breath, as his whole body began to tremble involuntarily, as he felt something behind him.

Before he could even turn around or do anything, he felt something sharp faintly piercing into his back, as the AI announced.

[Victory, Jason Stella!] 

Firmly grasping the ice dagger Jason manifested in his hand, it shattered as he turned around to return to his seat.

Because he was always weaker than his former opponents several months ago, he had to figure out other ways to win his fights and one of them was tricking his opponent with illusions or misplaced information.

As he became stronger, Jason didn't bother about these tricks, others labeled as petty, but if he were to be honest, it was much better to use petty tricks than using too much of his precious mana.

For instance, if he were to fight a huge pack of beasts at the low evolved rank, Jason would either have to use his complete mana and exhaust himself beyond measure to survive or use tricks, which might allow him to regain some of his energy in order to advance or retreat if more opponents were to appear.

In the end, fighting with his head was not something petty but more like well-thought fights, where he used his mind to overwhelm his opponent.

Thanks to his passive mana gathering, he could easily replenish his mana consumption when he manifested several dozens of small icicles in a short interval, while the only large mana consumption was the ice wall he erected in order to confuse his opponent and led him to think, that Jason wanted to prevent him from fighting head-on because he didn't even unsheath his daggers as he did the fights before.

After that, shooting another large badge of icicles at the longsword wielder was the reason for him to be completely focused on defending, while Jason's existence had been forgotten for a short moment.

Once Jason noticed that his opponent also erected an ice wall, he could only smile, because Jason already stood behind him, barely a dozen meters away.

Exerting his weightless step technique to his limit, he manifested a sharp ice shard in his hand, that was enough to finish his opponent who took a deep breath.

In the end, his tactic was not even complex, yet his opponent couldn't handle it, which disappointed Jason a little bit because he had much more to experiment with.

However, if not more was required to finish off the first-year students, he could also just stop wasting his breath and wait until stronger opponents were to appear with which he might test the dozens of ideas in his mind.

Seated, Jason continued to think of multiple possible tactics in order to win fights where he might not have an innate advantage thanks to his large mana core seize and physique.

But thinking for some time, he could only shake his head, because it was unlikely to see many students with a mana core size or physique at the 4th Expert rank, even if there might be a handful of them.

Looking up, he averted his gaze towards the two strongest youths who also stared at him curiously, as he smiled lightly.

'Maybe they'll be more satisfying to fight?' Jason began to wonder, slightly excited, as he smiled at the two youths whose expression stiffed for a second before they forced a light smile on their lips.

Turning away, he started to absorb mana while continuing to practice his affinities, until the first day of the tournament was finally over.

Jason won all 10 fights without any serious issue and walking towards Greg, he noticed that his friend seemed to be overjoyed, yet he seemed to have sustained multiple bruises all over his body, which caused him to lift his eyebrows.

"How did it go?" He asked, to which Greg only answered.

"Good, but I need much more practice!" 

Saying so, Jason noticed that Greg's eyes glimmered brightly, and he could only smile when he heard his friend's answer.

'If he continues like this, Greg might even turn into a freak, huh?'

However, rather than feeling any pressure, Jason was glad to hear this, because he wanted to fight against Greg by using his whole strength as it might as well be their last spar, which was not unlikely.

Shane would bring him away from Astrix and it was unknown when they would meet each other again.

Thinking about this, Jason's mood plummeted slightly, as the two of them met up with Malia, who looked like she won most of her fights without any serious injury, while Gabriella and Mark showed a proud expression.

As such, everyone seemed to have made it quite far until now, without losing too many fights, which was definitely a good sign.

If the second and third day continued like this, Greg and Malia might as well enter the top 400, without any issue, while Jason was confident enough in his strength to reach the next round.

The only thing that caused him to hesitate lightly, was that the AI recorded every flight, and Jason felt somewhat unwell because of that, even if Shane told him that he would definitely bring him out of Astrix.

Arriving with the Fler's at home, they ate dinner, before Jason went into his room in order to refine his body.

He wanted to further improve his physique, even though he felt his body refining progress began to slow down, the stronger it became.

Furthermore, from what he noticed, humans seemed to be only capable of refining their physique according to their mana core rank, which means that Jason would only be able to refine his physique to the 6th Adept rank, which was the exact same rank his mana core was currently at.

He was not exactly sure why this was the case, but he thought that it might be because the foreign races didn't have soulbonds and couldn't bind them, which led them to ignore adjusting any body refining technique to humans.

Another reason might be that the soul world amplification every human received for their mana core size and physique were impossible to refine further because it was their soulbonds shared strength and not innately their own.

Thinking about these possibilities, Jason dived down into the warm basin to refine his body, fully focused on the process.