Soren's gaze then drifted to another ring where an Arcane Studies duel was starting, expecting the usual pattern of two mages standing at range and trading spells until someone's barrier cracked.
Instead, the first mage moved.
Not running wildly, not flailing, but moving with the same proper footwork he had just seen in Martial Studies, angling their body as they cast, hands steady despite the motion.
A spell circle bloomed at their palm, condensed, then a spear of water shot forward, compressed so tightly it looked like glass.
It punched into the stone wall behind the opponent with a crack that made several heads in the stands tilt slightly.
The opponent didn't panic.
They raised a barrier, but not a full bubble, not a wasteful dome, just a single angled plane positioned exactly where the projectile would hit.
The following water spear shattered into spray.
The opponent stepped through that spray like it was fog and countered immediately; lightning, but not the wild tearing kind, a thin bolt, straight and disciplined, aimed to punish timing.
The first mage didn't block.
They moved.
A twist of the torso, a step, and the bolt scraped past close enough to heat the air.
Soren's eyes narrowed further.
'They're not casting like they're glued to the floor.'
It seemed like a small thing, but it wasn't.
First-years treated casting like a state you entered, like once you started a spell, your body became irrelevant.
Second-years treated casting like breathing, something that happened while the rest of the fight continued, and their movement didn't look like desperation; it looked like habit.
A faint dizziness crept in, the kind he got when too many moving parts stacked on each other, not fear, just his brain trying to process too much at once while it was already exhausted.
Soren forced his breathing to slow.
He had [Concentration] and [Library of Memories]; he didn't need to stare blankly, he could watch properly, and he could keep what mattered.
So he did.
He started picking out patterns, not just techniques.
Barrier discipline, thin where it should be thin, thick where it should be thick.
Casting speed, no wasted gestures, no dramatic flare unless it was genuinely needed.
Mana enhancement usage, not a flex, not a panic button, a baseline.
And more than anything…
Decision-making.
They weren't guessing.
They weren't hoping.
They were making choices based on what the other person was showing them, and those choices came out immediately, like their bodies didn't need debate.
Soren exhaled through his nose, quiet enough that nobody nearby would hear.
"They're all monsters," he muttered.
His tone wasn't despairing; it was closer to disbelief, as if he still hadn't fully accepted that this level of clean combat could be normal.
Because it made what he had done today feel both impressive and meaningless at the same time.
He had overwhelmed first-years.
He had done it without relics.
He had found a path to victory and executed it cleanly enough that it looked unfair.
And yet here, that kind of win didn't look like a miracle.
It looked like something you were expected to be capable of.
Soren let his head rest back against the wall for a moment, eyelids heavy, exhaustion still sitting in his limbs like lead, and yet he couldn't leave.
He didn't know why at first.
Then it clicked.
Because this was useful.
This was like being handed a map of where the next wall actually was, a clean outline of what "strong" looked like when it wasn't just rumours and titles.
He didn't have to imagine it.
He could see it.
And seeing it didn't crush him the way it would have months ago.
It just clarified things.
'So that's the level,' he thought dryly, and the bitterness landed in his chest with familiar ease. 'Great. Fucking fantastic. I'm miles away.'
The follow-up came automatically, the one his survivor's guilt always liked to tack on, sharp and quiet.
'But at least I'm alive to be miles away.'
Soren's lips twitched, not quite a smile, not quite a grimace.
He hated that his brain still did that, hated that it still tried to turn everything into a jab, but the sting behind it was smaller now.
It wasn't self-hatred, not really.
Just habit.
A scar that spoke sometimes.
He kept watching.
And the more he watched, the more he realised the real difference wasn't that second-years had better equipment, or bigger spells, or louder power.
It was that they didn't waste anything.
Not time.
Not movement.
Not decisions.
A Martial Studies duel began in the ring closest to the stands.
One fighter used a bastard sword, broad and heavy, built for pressure.
The other carried a single-handed axe and a buckler that looked almost identical to the one Soren had used earlier, and Soren's eyes sharpened immediately, because he wanted to see how a second-year handled it when they weren't improvising.
The overseer called start.
The bastard sword user stepped in with heavy swings meant to crush guards and force mistakes, each strike carrying intent, not showmanship, and the buckler user didn't try to "block" those swings the way first-years did when they thought defence meant absorbing force.
They redirected.
Tiny angles, tiny movements, the buckler catching just enough of the blade to guide it past rather than stop it, turning impact into slide.
It was subtle, clean, and it made Soren feel slightly stupid, because he had known the concept, he had even thought he was doing it, but watching it done correctly made the difference obvious.
A buckler wasn't a shield.
It wasn't meant to take force head-on.
Every time the bastard sword came down, the buckler turned it just enough for the blade to miss, then the buckler user hit back in those slivers of time: short, clean cuts aimed at the forearm, wrist, and shoulder, not killing strikes, just accumulating penalties and proving control.
The bastard sword user adjusted and shifted into a technique.
Their blade glowed, and the strike came down with a [Guard Breaker] that flashed a memory of Dunlem in Soren's mind, heavy and committed.
The buckler user didn't get pinned.
They stepped back before the force landed fully, letting the technique hit air and stone instead of their arm, then punished the overcommit with a thrust that stopped at the bastard sword user's ribs.
It was over.
Soren stared, then exhaled slowly.
'So the difference isn't the equipment,' he thought, irritation and relief mixing in equal measure. 'It's the timing.'
It was annoying because it meant his buckler hadn't been "bad," he just wasn't good enough yet.
Yet it was relieving because it meant he didn't need a mythical item to bridge the gap.
He needed practice.
And he needed time.
Time was the most irritating part, but it was also the only honest part.
His gaze drifted to the stands, and even the audience felt different.
First-years watched like they wanted excitement.
Second-years watched like they were studying.
Heads tilted at footwork, eyes narrowed at casting choices, murmurs trading back and forth about mana efficiency, spacing, mistakes so small Soren wasn't sure most first-years would even notice them.
And then there were the staff.
In the first-year arena, staff intervened the moment anything looked remotely dangerous.
Here, they let duels become uncomfortable before stepping in, not because they didn't care, but because second-years could handle discomfort, and they were being trained to.
Soren watched a mage take a shallow cut across the shoulder, blood spraying out in a brief arc, and the fighter didn't react as if it was shocking.
They tightened their stance, adjusted their barrier angle, and kept going, only relaxing when the overseer called stop.
A healer stepped in, fixed it in seconds, and the fighter went right back to normal.
No drama.
No flinching.
No trembling hands.
Soren swallowed.
He had bled today, too, and he had handled it, but he still remembered what it felt like to bleed in a fight and think it was the end of the world.
That memory wasn't ancient.
'They're not fearless,' he realised, watching the way people moved with calm after pain. 'They're just… used to it.'
Used to pain.
Used to pressure.
Used to fights not going their way.
That familiarity, more than anything, was what made them look strong.
Not perfection or talent, but familiarity.
His eyes tracked another duel, and this time his head actually hurt, because an Arcane Studies student layered spells in a way that felt like someone stacking logic puzzles on top of each other.
Not three intermediate spells.
Three basic ones.
A flash of [Ignition] to steal vision.
A thin sheet of ice under the back foot.
A wind burst timed to shove the opponent's balance the exact moment they tried to adjust.
Then lightning, not screamed out, not dramatised, just delivered at the precise moment the opponent's barrier was weakest because they were mid-step and mid-panic.
It was simple, not flashy, and yet it made the opponent look stupid.
Soren exhaled slowly, the air leaving him with something between respect and irritation.
'So this is what control actually looks like.'
He had always thought he was good at control because he forced people into his pace, forced them to react to him, and ended fights quickly before his weaknesses were exposed.
But his control was born from desperation.
Second-year control wasn't desperate.
It was patient.
It was like watching someone tighten a net, one knot at a time, calm enough that you didn't realise you were trapped until you already were.
Soren let his gaze drop for a few seconds, giving his eyes a break, because his neck ached from the angle, and sleep kept tugging at the edges of his mind.
Then something shifted.
Not dramatically.
Just a subtle change in the arena's rhythm.
He noticed it because he had gotten good at noticing atmosphere, good at catching the moments before things went wrong, or right.
The overseers' voices changed tone slightly, not louder, just more attentive.
A few people in the stands stopped talking mid-sentence.
Several students who had been relaxed sat straighter, like their bodies responded before their brains did.
Soren's gaze lifted toward the central ring.
It had been used earlier, but not often.
The rings at the edges were easier for multiple matches, easier to cycle through duels.
The central ring was where you put something you wanted everyone to see.
Staff moved, not hurried, but deliberate.
A healer stepped away from the edge, making space.
An overseer adjusted their stance.
Soren frowned faintly.
'Is something special about to happen?'
He didn't know, but his tiredness faded a little under the weight of that quiet curiosity, the kind that always sharpened him no matter how exhausted he was.
Then he saw her.
Not clearly at first, just a shape among shapes, but the moment his eyes caught it, they didn't slide away.
Tall.
Long-limbed.
Standing with the kind of relaxed posture that still looked balanced, like even idle was trained.
Platinum-blonde hair that caught the light like metal, not gold, and a long braid that hung neatly down her back.
Pointed ears.
An elf.
Soren stared longer than was polite, but nobody noticed him, and nobody cared about a first-year student leaning against a wall near the entrance.
Everyone's attention was drifting the same way, pulled toward the central ring as if the entire arena had turned its head at once.
The elf wasn't radiating anything dramatic.
No pressure that made knees weaken.
No aura screaming superiority.
She looked… normal.
And that was what made it unsettling.
Normal didn't fit someone who stood that composed among second-years who were already far beyond first-years.
It wasn't godhood, it was professionalism, like watching a veteran knight stand among trainees, not because the trainees were weak, but because the veteran had less unnecessary movement, less noise, less emotion on the surface.
Soren's throat felt dry.
Not fear.
Distance.
That involuntary awareness of scale.
The overseer's voice rang out, clear enough to cut through every whisper.
[Rank 1 of Arcane Studies and 1 of Martial Studies, please come down to the arena.]
The stands didn't erupt into screams, but attention hit like a wave anyway, sharp and immediate.
People leaned forward, conversations died, the air itself felt tighter, as if everyone had decided at the same time that this mattered.
Soren pushed off the wall before he even realised he was moving.
He wasn't trying to get a better seat.
He wasn't trying to get closer like an excited child.
He just… didn't want to miss this.
His boots carried him down the steps in slow, steady strides, each one controlled, each one measured, and he could hear them, could hear his own breathing, could hear the quiet shift of bodies in the stands.
Exhaustion still weighed on his limbs, but now it was threaded with alertness, a calm focus that settled in whenever something important stood in front of him.
At the lower level, he saw the elf properly.
Up close, the difference became obvious.
She wasn't divine, but refined, like looking at a blade that had been sharpened so many times it didn't need to glitter to feel dangerous.
Her platinum hair fell neatly, braid swaying gently with each step, and her expression stayed calm, controlled.
Her eyes, tired yet sharp, didn't dart around or search for threats, because they didn't need to.
Soren caught his breath despite himself.
A slow inhale.
A slow exhale.
Then another.
Because it wasn't fear that stole the air from his lungs.
It was clarity.
This wasn't a "monster" in the way first-years called anyone who hit hard.
This was someone who had already done the work, someone who had already climbed the first mountain and was standing on the next one, looking bored.
His steps stayed slow and steady as the elf walked down toward the arena, and Soren watched her with his breath held for a moment too long, as if his body had forgotten how to do something as simple as inhale.
————「❤︎」————