Leo quickly went back to his dorm. He had to check if he got a letter telling him about the challenge. He walked back to his dorm ignoring the stares pointed his way.
When he got back to his room, he saw that there was a letter on the doorstep. He picked it up and went inside. He opened it up to see who it was from. When he saw that it was from the point shop, he knew what the letter was.
He opened it up to see what was written in it.
[Challenge Accepted]
[Your Challenge was accepted by Remus Eldridge. Your fight will be conducted on 17th September at 10 AM. Please be at the fight 1 hour before. If you are not at the fight at the starting time, you will be forfeiting your challenge and cannot challenge another person for 1 month.]
Three days later, a third of the school was crowding the arenas. All of them were roaring with excitement just to watch a single fight.
Their reasoning was very sound. All the first-year students there wanted to see someone in their year defeat someone on the ranking. The previous three times it happened, they had been there to see it happen.
The second-year students were there to hope that Remus would save their honor. Till now, four of the students in their year had already lost to the new students, and three of them were on the ranking too.
As for the third-year students, they didn't care about the outcome. They were just there for the interesting fight they could see. Any fight that was a challenge would be interesting and would attract a lot of viewers.
The viewers had got to their spot early in the morning even though the fight would only start a few hours later. They just sat down and trained until the time got closer to the fight.
They only stood up once they saw the first contender arrive. It was Remus who arrived first.
He gracefully jumped above the crowd and landed on one of the stages. He looked around and smiled. He waved his hand and attracted a lot of cheers from the second-year students.
Just as he was doing that, another person jumped onto the stage. It was Leo. He was also just as graceful with his jump. He didn't even need to wave - the entire crowd erupted when they saw him.
"Silence," a sound silenced the entire crowd. Everyone looked up and saw a mage standing in the air.
Leo didn't recognize this person. Since he wasn't in the mage division, he didn't know any of the mages other than the ones he had already encountered in the academy.
This mage was a young female in a light pink robe. She didn't look as displeased looking at Leo as the Baron who officiated his previous match.
"So, this is a challenge. The winner will take the 89th rank. If the defender loses, his rank will be pushed down by a single spot," she said. "Introduce yourselves."
"I am Remus Eldridge. 89th Rank, Student Ranking," he said.
"Leo, 4th Rank in the New Student Ranking," Leo said.
"Are both partied ready?" She asked.
Remus took out his staff while Leo stayed there without doing anything. Both of them nodded their heads.
"The fight will begin," she said.
Remus looked at Leo who didn't even have his weapon. He frowned at this.
"Are you too poor to afford a weapon? Or are you too complacent?" He asked.
As Remus was saying that, a black dagger that seemed very ethereal barely missed his head and flew past him.
"I don't need physical daggers," Leo said.
Remus slammed his staff onto the ground. "Radiant Burst!"
His staff released a concentrated burst of brilliant light across the entire stage that spread throughout the arena. All the students shielded their eyes in defense, as did Leo. Remus smiled at this and quickly cast another spell.
"Brilliant Lance!" Remus shouted. He conjured a spear of pure light and hurled it at Leo. Leo's eyes were blinded by the initial spell that Remus had cast and couldn't see where the next spell was coming from.
Yet he somehow moved out of the way right before the spear was going to hit him. The spear lodged itself into the ground of the stage and slowly faded away. By this time, Leo's eyes had recovered and he could open them.
Remus was very displeased that the fight hadn't ended instantly but didn't lose his calm.
"Prismatic Beam!"
A prism made out of light formed in front of Remus. Leo was mesmerized at the sight of the prism. He expected what was going to happen but watched it without moving because he wanted to see it so much.
Remus then pointed his staff at the prism, releasing a beam of light at it. The beam of light entered the prism before splitting up into 3 different beams. Each beam had a faint color that was distinct. All of the beams were approaching the direction where Leo was standing.
One of the beams was heading for him while the other two were attacking his surroundings which took out some of his escape routes.
"Shadow Barrier."
A dome-shaped barrier made out of shadows formed around him. The dome was so large that it was able to absorb two of the beams that Remus had launched. It was also clouding Remus' sight of where Leo was.
Remus waved his hand and the prism in the air tilted itself just a little bit. He released another beam and it split up once again. This time, all three of the beams that came from the prism hit the dome.
Even after 5 hits, the dome stood without showing any signs of breaking. But he didn't panic because of this. He was actually proud of himself for making Leo hole himself inside a shield.
The shield would force Leo to use too much Aura. By the time he realized that and came out, Remus would be ready with another onslaught of attacks. The difference in experience was apparent from the start when he pushed Leo to the defensive.
The surrounding audience also felt this difference. Some of the first-year students in the back were slowly going back to their dorms. They felt disappointed by the fight because they still hadn't seen Leo fight back.
Lyra, Marcus, and Madison were also watching the fight from a very close place. They had watched the fight up till then without missing anything. Both Lyra and Madison were starting to lose confidence that he had a chance of fighting back.
The second-year students were all excited and thought the fight was essentially over. They were cheering as the dome stayed still. Only Marcus and the third-year students showed no expressions. They didn't think that the fight was over.
A blade flew out from the dome. The blade had a weird aura to it like the one that almost hit Marcus before. It was leaving behind a trail of shadowy energy. The blade was launched into the prism. It shattered the light prism before flying off the stage.
All the cheers died down as the fight resumed itself.
