After coming out of the alleyway Ariel decided to ask a passerby about where is the restaurant Erna has mentioned before. The person he questioned gave simple instructions and he found out it was actually quite close to his current location.

He walked down the street for a couple of minutes and soon saw the Naurance restaurant. From a single look you could guess that it was high classed one.

Walking in Ariel saw that it had a quiet and relaxing atmosphere about it. The interior was well designed and pleasing to the eyes making Ariel rate it highly in his mind, before he started his search.

Looking around he notice Sarah and Erna sitting at a four people table near the window, absorbed in their personal talk. He unhurriedly walked up to them and spoke. “Hi, I am sorry for the delay.”

The girls were spooked by his unexpected voice and quickly turned around to look at him. After recognizing that it was Ariel they both smiled at him and Sarah responded. “Don’t worry, you didn’t spend that much time away and we already ordered some food for you by the way.” Being friends with him for many years she already knew his eating habits quite well. She didn’t even need to ask what he would eat.

Ariel felt grateful for it and thanked her. “I appreciate it.” As he spoke he took his seat besides Sarah since he was much closer with her. Although that did garner him some conflicting looks from Erna, but he decided to ignore them.

Sarah seemed pleased with it and instantly engaged him in a conversation. “So where did you go?” Her question was quite understandable, but he didn’t want to tell them the truth so he responded in an ambiguous way. “It was nothing important you don’t have to worry about it.” The girls seemed quite unsatisfied by his answer. However they clearly understood that he didn’t want to share it with them, for one reason or another since he didn’t tell them directly so they didn’t pursue the matter.

Forgetting about it the girls decide to start up a simple conversation to pass the time until their food arrives.

After about and hour of waiting the dishes were finally presented to them. Erna seemed to have picked a lot of more healthy food, most likely something drilled into her by her teacher. Sarah chose a lot of extravagant food full of unique meant and fruits making her almost look like a gourmet. Ariel, well, most of it was quite sweet substances he didn’t know why, but he always had an extreme sweet tooth.

Seeing his food which was comprised mostly of desserts like ice cream and cakes, Erna seemed to frown a bit before speaking. “You really need to eat something healthier. All this is bad for your body.” Ariel looked up at her as he replied. “I always ate like this so I think it would be hard to change my diet. Also I don’t really want to, more so considering that with my weak body I need a lot of immediate energy” After responding he went back to enjoying his food while Erna just let out a sigh of frustration and continued eating.

The dinner ended quickly leaving each of them satisfied. After finishing eating Erna accidently cast her gaze on Ariel and became lost in thought. Seeing this Ariel curiously asked her. “Is something wrong with me for you to look so seriously at my face lie this?” Being snapped out of her daze, she turned red from embarrassment and turned her eyes away from his face before responding. “Don’t say stupid things! I was just worrying about the duel you arranged yesterday.”

Her bashful response made him amused, but Erna’s words ignited a response from Sarah. “I’m also worried about it. If it becomes dangerous, please give up even if it hurts your pride. Your life is much more important than it.” As she spoke Sarah was looking towards him with teary eyes filled with worry making him unable to reject her request.

He nodded his head as he tried consoling the two. “Was there a time when I acted without thinking it through? Don’t worry I am not stupid and I care for my well being.” Sarah could only agree with his words and closed up this topic.

They spent some more time chatting about other things until it got dark and Ariel finally lead them back to the dormitories. Saying their good byes they headed back to rest after this long day.

________________________________________________________________________________

Three weeks have passed since their trip to the city, combined with the first week from before Ariel has already spent a whole month at The Academy.

Since one month passed from the start of the school year it meant that today was the day that the newcomer dueling competition will be happening at the stadium which is located at the back of The Academy.

Leaving his dormitory which was already empty he walked down the path towards the Arena while recalling his entry number. The numbers were meant for the seats during the competition. Brendon has managed to get some quite good ones and Ariel will the only one there at the moment since all three of their matches will be almost at the very start, while his one will be near the end.

Because of this he will get a chance to enjoy the few first matches before anybody else will be joining him.

Walking up to the entrance there stood a young teacher, who was in charge of checking the tickets and the competitors. Walking up to him, Ariel stretched out his ticket to be appraised. After making sure that the ticket wasn’t a fake one he let out a smile and spoke. “Everything is fine so you may go in. Please enjoy the show.”

Giving a polite bow as thanks, Ariel continued into the stadium. Exiting into the outer area he was amazed by the amount of people that were there was at least several thousand, most of them were in groups talking among themselves about the freshmen who will be fighting.

It didn’t take long for him to reawaken from his shock and gain back his composure, and then go look for his seat. As he walked a lot of people sent admiring look at him thanks to his looks, but he has long since learned to just ignore them. He spent some time looking for the seats under the gazes of the audience until he finally found them, and Brendon was truly correct, the seats were almost perfect, you could see the whole arena from them yet they weren’t far enough for the spectators to not see the fine details of the fights.

Ariel admired Brendon’s choice as he sat down and made himself comfortable, waiting for the duels to start.

Only a small amount of passed until the announcer declared the start of the event. You could see all of the powerful and important people sitting at the VIP seats already waiting for the entertainment to start.

Several first fights were nothing impressive, only battles between minor characters. Although soon the first battle Ariel actually cared about, began. It was Brendon against an unknown well built warrior.

From what he knows, Brendon and Sarah at the late Disciple rank. This is considered being a genius, but if it will be enough to win the duel? That is hard to say.

As Brendon started circulating Mana an aura of calming water seemed to form around him. This happens when a mage enters the Disciple rank and shows itself whenever a person starts using a large amount of Mana.

When the duel began Brendon instantly cast a spell creating a wall of water in front of him, cutting him off from the opponent. After this he started quickly bombarding him with simple water balls as the warrior charged, trying to get around the wall of water.

The match quickly got into a stalemate, Brendon might be the only one able to attack, but he always has to keep up the pressure and has to cast another water wall when needed which wastes a lot of Mana.

Both warriors and mages use up their energy while fighting, but mages tend to use it up quicker than warriors and are more like glass cannons. Thankfully Brendon seemed to be of higher level than his opponent, or he might be in a much more difficult spot, especially since he always likes the battle of attrition approach. He usually makes use of his defense and healing spells to tire out his opponents and win like that. This time he seemed to be also doing the same.

Of course Brendon still held some advantage because it is his opponent who was under more pressure and couldn’t do anything at all. If a single bullet would hit him, it could turn the battle, completely one sided.

As they continued their fight, the warrior seemed to be getting impatient which was noticed by Brendon who decided to turn the battle to his favor by showing a fake opening and leading his opponent into a trap. The warrior seeing the small chance of victory took the bait and charged in at full speed bypassing Brendon’s defenses, trying to finish it in a single strike.

Unfortunately for him, his carelessness made him walk straight into Brendon’s trap. When he passed through the water wall he saw the spell Brendon was busy chanting, the grand water cannon magic.

This was a powerful wide ranged water magic which could easily knock him unconscious if it made contact. However he hadn’t thought that he would use it since if he missed, he’d have no Mana left. The only reason he did actually use it was because Brendon’s opponent forgot to be cautious and got to close to him under unfavorable circumstances.

When the warrior, finally notice that he was tricked, it was already too late as Brendon released his spell, blasting him away and knocking him out.

As soon as the referee declared that Brendon was the winner, the whole stadium shook form the applause. This was the first match that had some excitement so this result was obvious.

Brendon let out a joyous smile and turning around, headed back to the waiting hall, most probably to get ready and come here.

Satisfied with the match Ariel relaxed into his chair in a happy mood and started waiting for Brendon.

________________________________________________________________________________

If you want to read further, visit https://verathragna.wordpress.com/ I will always have an extra chapter there