With my victory over Teto, the baton to defend their rank was thus passed to me.
I drank a mana potion but the recovery amount was only the average of your usual adventurer, about 3000 units, which was only enough for one magic shot.
My lightning strike magic could take down opponents like a red dragon which usually requires several capable individuals to subjugate.
B-rank adventurers wouldn't just end up with a slight injury if they received such magic with their bodies alone, even if they have enough ability to take on this A-rank promotion test. Any normal adventurer would be burnt to a crisp if I used «Thunderbolt» against them. So I decided to not use it in the upcoming matches.
Soon, number 9 一 a dwarf adventurer 一 appeared before me.
The dwarven adventurer came slashing at me just as I had erected a barrier and was thinking about taking a wait-and-see stance.
"Are you mocking me by not making a preemptive strike or dodging even though you're a magician!?"
"I'm not though."
He was using body strengthening with impressive precision. But my barrier was created to cope with the power of Teto, who could use «Body Hardening», in mind so the mana injected into it and its density was on a whole other level from the standard barrier strength known to others. So it easily stopped the ax in front of me.
The dwarven adventurer was surprised at the strength of the barrier and followed his attack up with a flurry of strikes. But after seeing that it wasn't showing any signs of breaking, he tried to put some distance between us, unfortunately一一
"Too late."
"Guh, Darn it...... I surrender."
A wall emerged from behind the escaping opponent and he was captured by the arms growing from that wall.
I already demonstrated the lethality of my attacks with «Thunderbolt» while barrier, flight, and healing magic showed that I could defend against or evade an opponent's offense.
This time I showed my ability to easily capture my opponents without any violence.
I've been delivering medicine, herbs, and materials to the guild for a while now so that aspect also has no problem.
Then number 10 adventurer showed up just as I was wondering what else I needed to display.
That person too seemed to be a magician like me. Their mana capacity wasn't bad either with their mana capacity already having crossed the 10,000 unit mark if I'm not wrong.
"To show my respect to you, who can easily use so much magic, I'll use my special move!"
A tempest of fireballs came flying at me from every possible direction.
I enclosed them in barriers one by one and pushed them down onto the ground to crush them inside. It was a method I had come up with to cope against assailants like the ones that attacked me years ago and with my ability to control huge amounts of mana precisely, I stopped the fireball tempest without any hiccups.
"一一I surrender."
Continuing on, number 11 was a spearman who looked for a brief opening using his swift speed and then poured his strength into the tip of his spear with body strengthening.
I saw a glimpse of «Body Hardening» in his magic and erected a multiplex barrier, and sure enough, I was surprised to see his unexpected strength that cut apart 3 barriers.
Though I captured him using earth magic right after.
Number 12 was an adventurer who seemed to have prepared countermeasures against magicians as they were carrying a magic sealing magic tool.
"Now you can forget about using mana for a while!"
"That's quite an unusual magic tool you have there."
The theory behind the magic seal was mana jamming. It made the constructed magic go haywire by introducing mana of different wavelengths that had been exposed to outside mana.
But since magic sealing abilities were based on that theory, the best they could do was slow down the activation of magic.
But from my perspective, since I have enormous mana capacity then I could just easily push on by conjuring up magic using huge amounts of mana. Though, this time, I一一
"I have taken countermeasures against such a situation you know."
"Whー, guh!"
I closed the distance between us instantly and bashed them with my wand. All I had to do was knock the opponent down by simply fighting them in close combat.
Magic seal could obstruct the magic constructed by the mana the magician emitted outside but it's ineffective against mana inside the magician's body.
So, while I'm not as good as Teto, I could fight in close combat with «Body Hardening».
On this note, magic seals aren't used to restrain criminal magicians; instead, they use another magic tool to absorb their mana, «Mana Drain». With that, the mana inside their body would be forcibly absorbed, and with their physical restraints strengthened, they could use neither magic nor body strengthening thus making it more difficult to break free.
I could understand the perplexed feeling of adventurers who didn't know how to attack me, who could fight with both magic and close combat skills.
Furthermore, I could see Teto proudly sticking her chest out and Selene being delighted as they watched me fight.
And so, the adventurers from numbers 12 to 16 tried various methods and fired their deadly strikes to break through my defense but to no avail.
With no one to fight anymore, the challenge tournament entered the second round一一
"No.2 is still riddled with injuries from their earlier battle so they have retired."
"I see......"
Healers had been dispatched to the guild but the adventurer must be gravely injured if they still couldn't be fully healed.
After that was Teto who was number 3 but she found the rematch boring so she declared her withdrawal from the tournament.
And afterwards, numbers 4 to 7, including Refrya-san, looked like they had already lost their fighting spirit.
In that case, the final opponent wasー一
"Don't act smart, you're just a brat who can use a bit of magic."
"I'm not playing smart though. Even if I look like this, I'm already over 20 so I'm not at the age of a brat or anything."
"There's no way a brat like you could be anyone powerful when I can't feel any mana from you."
I had suppressed my mana to not leak it outside needlessly.
Certainly, it was hard for others to judge my mana due to this. The reason why the other adventurers who were taking the promotion test didn't show any contempt was that they couldn't sense the bottom of my mana and so they fought me with all seriousness.
Because conversely, the fact that they couldn't sense my state meant that their mana perception abilities weren't enough to gauge me and they must have realized it too.
Well, he should have been able to judge my ability when he saw that I could use all sorts of magic like floating, lightning, barrier, and healing but I guess that's how much confidence he has in his strength...... No, I guess that's his arrogance due to having a unique skill.
"That's just my ability. But you sure are tough since you're still barking even after losing to Teto."
"Ahh!? So a brat like you is also ridiculing this lord!? Do you know who I am, you brat?! I'm the great Lock-sama who has a magic sword, Severing Fleshhhhh!!!"
He released his mana in an attempt to pressure me but that much was like a breeze to me.
Even the battle with the long worm I had defeated not too long ago in the dungeon felt more dangerous to me.
"Very well. I killed my opponent last year because he greatly annoyed me and was disqualified so I won't kill this year! But I'll make sure that you won't be able to live a proper life!"
".....so boorish."
He swung down his big sword at my barrier as he charged at me.
Excluding Teto, he was probably the one with the highest offensive ability among all the adventurers I have fought so far. Though, the barrier didn't show any signs of breaking.
(He has a rough and sturdy body. I guess he will continue to get up no matter what if I choose a half-hearted method.)
Just as I was pondering on what method I should use to take him down, the hulk-like adventurer probably misunderstood seeing as I was neither moving my hands nor legs, and taunted me.
"Is that all you have, brat?! So you can't even move your limbs before Lock-sama!"
"Let's see...... I should use that. 一一«Freeze Water»!"
I conjured my magic. Countless floating water globes appeared and struck the hulk-like man.
"Hmph, so all you can come up with is this shoddy magi一! Cold!?"
Some water globes were split apart by the swing of his big sword and spread around the man's feet but the ones that struck him instantly froze.
"It's just a simple magic to steal the temperature of the opponent. What will you do now?"
Water globes that were being produced one after another were a fixed 0°C water formed with supercooling.
Water globes retained their shape until they hit the opponent since they're made with magic but the moment they hit, they instantly transform into ice and become a huge block of ice.
"Shiitttttt!!!"
But the opponent was an experienced adventurer.
He tried to melt the ice by forcibly raising the temperature of his body using «Body Strengthening» but一一
"一一«Breeze»."
The wind blew away the melting parts of the ice and further lowered the temperature with vaporization. His temperature then continued to rapidly go down when a supercooled water globe hit his body again.
His teeth clattered, and since his hands that were swinging his sword had stiffened, he couldn't even move his sword skillfully anymore.
The people around were again surprised.
«Will such a type of fighting really work? Does she not have pride as an adventurer?»
«Is this the battle of an upcoming A-rank adventurer? I really can't see the bottom.»
«It's said that magic is influenced by the amount of one's knowledge, I thought it would end with lightning great magic but it's so terrifying to see that a B-rank adventurer could be manhandled so easily with low-rank magic.»
«That's for sure. Look at how Lock, whose essence and offense are equivalent to an A-rank, is being handled.»
I tried to ask my opponent if he was going to surrender as I heard such voices.
"Aren't you going to surrender? You know you will die at this rate."
"You bastard! What did you do?! This Lock-sama has...... magic resistance!"
"It's a simple physical phenomenon. Even if you can defend yourself against magic attacks with skills, you can't win against the transformation of great nature itself."
He tried to swing his hands to muster up fighting spirit but his movement was dull from the blood running in his veins turning cold and there was no strength in his attack.
Hypothermia could be dangerous to one's life so I began to break down his fighting spirit.
"Surrender."
"Like hell...... I will!"
"I see...... Then I will say it once again. Surrender!"
I pressured him with the enormous amount of mana I had been restraining up 'til now.
I had used around half of my mana in the battle against Teto but it was still enough to match the mana of top-class magicians among court mages and so I slammed him with everything I had.
The hulk-like man's body began to tremble, perhaps because of the pressure from my mana 一一 whose density I had raised inside my body by applying the same principle behind «Body Hardening» since there was a limit to how much mana I could use to pressure someone at once 一一 may have awoken his instinctual fear different from the cold inside him.
Though other people couldn't feel it since I'm directing it only towards him.
But just before I could once again ask him to surrender, the eyes of the hulk-like adventurer rolled back. Apparently, his instincts decided to make him faint.
"That's the end huh? Quickly send someone for relief."
I once again restrained my mana and tried to warm him up by raising his temperature and sprinkling a potion on the areas where he got frostbitten. I just hope he understood the difference between our abilities with this.
In this way, the baton to challenge me was once again passed to Teto but一一
"Teto doesn't want to fight with Majou-sama anymore, so Teto surrenders-nanodesu."
Good grief, what a sloppy way to surrender.
Afterwards, there was also a battle against numbers 4 through 7, including Refrya-san, but almost everyone surrendered seeing my battles so far with only Refrya-san standing up to challenge me.
"Takeeeeee iiiiiiiit!"
Just like in the battle with Teto, she began her rapid fire with her bow and arrows enchanted with spirit magic which came swooping down towards my barrier. What's more, it wasn't an omnidirectional attack like before but she was concentrating her attacks on one point and I could see a fissure running across the barrier.
And so, the barrier began to break apart one by one, her attacks might rival Teto's stone throw attack with «Body Hardening». Also, my mana was running low because of the repeated battle earlier, so maintaining the barrier was getting harder.
"My remaining amount of mana is pretty low now so I surrender."
"Huh, no way, I...... won? I mean, that's not it, you should be able to use mana from a magic crystal, no?"
Refrya-san had once seen me refilling my mana using «Mana Crystals» when I created the sword of Alsace-san with «Creation Magic» and that's what she was asking but...
"I have already consumed them. Not only that, but I'm also shocked to see cracks running down my barrier."
My barrier had never faced such a situation except when facing Teto's attacks so I simply wasn't in a state to fight anymore with that mental shock.
Besides, the ground was giving out because we had used too much magic.
I had constantly continued to empty my mana to fill up the «Empty Wilderness» even if it was just a drop in the ocean but that and using my mana for magic were completely different things so I just wanted to rest now.
In this way, my and Teto's A-rank promotion test came to an end.
