Everyone was about to erupt with surprise but the Baron Mopart's presence stopped them. No one thought that the boy was one of the strongest Aura Knights all of the entire first-year students. The people with the biggest expressions were the three people nearest to the stage.
Roland's mouth was open with shock. He had only gone to Leo as a last resort since he didn't know him that well. He thought that Leo was going to just find a classmate to do the fighting.
He was surprised that Leo had even agreed in the first place. But now he was finding out that his roommate was this powerful. But he was still skeptical. Leo was facing a 2nd Year mage who was definitely a 2nd Circle Mage.
Meanwhile, both sisters were surprised that the boy was ranked 4th. Victoria was shocked because she was only ranked 76th while the person she had picked a fight with somehow knew the 4th Ranked person.
As for Melissa, she was now starting to get serious. She thought that it would be easy to win since the boy her sister picked a fight with would only find a subpar student or fight himself.
If it was her own batch, the 4th rank would still be a 1st Circle Aura Knight, but she heard that the new students had more than 10 2nd Circle Aura Knights. She was an Early-Stage 2nd Circle Mage herself, so she would need to be very serious in her fight or she would lose.
"Start the fight," the Baron Mopart said.
Leo immediately pulled out his dagger and closed the gap between him and Melissa. She hurriedly hurled a fireball at him. He didn't bother dodging the fireball and just sliced through it with his aura.
When the students saw this, they were awestruck. As Aura Knights, they were used to being told that mages were superior to them. But they were seeing an Aura Knight face a chance to a Mage older than him.
Melissa saw how he dealt with the spell and frowned. She was going back to increase the gap between them while preparing another spell. The stage was a 30-meter square, and Leo had already covered 10 of those meters. There was only 15 meters between the two of them.
She quickly cast another spell that made half of the arena blaze with flames. It cut off the path for Leo to reach her.
When Roland saw the flames, his worry increased. At this point, he was starting to feel regret for asking Leo. There was a chance that he would get hurt and that was all his fault. Madison was also worried for Leo, but Lyra and Marcus both watched without any signs of panic. They both knew that Leo would be fine.
Melissa was able to create space between her and Leo. As he was trying to close the space, she counterattacked. She flung a Magic Bullet at him.
The bullet flew past Leo, missing him by an inch. She frowned and threw a couple more bullets but none of them made contact with him. This was even though his vision was being obstructed by the blazing flames.
She was confused. How was she missing her bullets? There was no way he was dodging them. She decided to try attacking him with spells that wouldn't miss. She was about to cast the same spell that engulfed half the arena with flames - an Inferno. But she noticed that Leo wasn't in the same place anymore.
He had already found a gap in the flames that shielded her from him. She hurriedly stopped her spell and cast a flame wall instead. The wall started to encircle her and rose to a tall 5 meters. She prepared a barrage of Fireballs to fling at him since he couldn't reach her.
However, to her surprise, Leo jumped when he got near the flame wall. He jumped so high that he was able to completely jumped over the wall. As he was landing, she panicked and released a string of fireballs at him.
He coated his dagger with aura and sliced through each fireball with ease and finally got near her.
"So, are you done running?" He asked her.
In the entire fight, Leo clearly had the upper hand. The reason was that Leo had more than just his aura. If it was just him as an Aura Knight versus Melissa, it would be a very even fight. Both of them were in the Early Stage of the 2nd Circle.
But Leo had the perception of a 3rd Star Mage. He was able to see what his opponent was doing before it even had an effect. He was able to detect the changes in magic and see that a spell was being cast his way.
This made it impossible for any of her attacks to harm him. He easily got close to her and got ready to finish the fight. She also knew that if he got close enough to her, she would lose her fight. But as a 2nd Year student, she could not afford to lose to her junior.
She would also lose the land that her sister put on the line for the fight. All of these thoughts swirled through her head. She opened her dimensional ring and took out a box.
Leo saw the box and frowned. It looked a lot like a pill box. He looked up at the sky where he saw the Baron. He was also observing this development and had a frown on his face. However, he didn't act. Even though he didn't like how she was trying to win, he supported her intentions.
He didn't want to see a 2nd Year Noble student lose to a commoner 1st Year. Especially if the year had just started. So he chose not to do anything even though it was wrong.
Melissa opened the box and took out a pill. Leo realized what she was trying to do. She was trying to take a pill that could enhance her abilities. He quickly ran forward to stop her, but she had already taken the pill.
He sliced at her with his dagger and was about to make contact with her, but an explosion blew him away.
Everyone was watching with suspense as they waited for the smoke to clear up. After a few seconds, the smoke started to fade away and they could see what had happened.
Leo had gotten up pretty quickly even after the explosion. He had sensed it beforehand and was barely able to cover himself with aura to protect himself. He still felt the impact on his body.
On the other side of the arena was Melissa. She had her staff in her hands and was preparing a huge spell. She cast it the minute the smoke cleared.
The spell she was trying to cast was the same spell she had cast the first time to create space between her and Leo. However, the spell seemed a lot different this time. Leo knew there was a difference in power.
He prepared himself as she cast the spell. A huge explosion covered the entire stage in flames.
