The competition did not immediately begin. Instead, Instructor Seiya waited for Ms. Luna's return before proceeding. Then, the two took everybody to a part of the training hall that Zane had no idea existed: a huge colosseum-like stadium.
"This place can probably hold more than 100,000 people," Zane thought as he looked at this circular stadium built of white marble, with four pillars in the four cardinal directions, each bearing the Gremorian characters for: survive, fight, conquer, and sublimate. For a moment, he imagined what it would be like if the stadium were filled with spectators, and Zane immediately felt lucky that wasn't the case; otherwise, he didn't think he could handle so many people watching him.
His eyes shifted to the enormous battle arena with white and black tiles and a pattern reminiscent of a chessboard. Zane sensed an immense energy fluctuation emanating from it, which shocked him silly. Since he started his magical journey, he had never sensed such immense power. Maybe some of the Grand Mages contained such an immense amount of mana, but he couldn't detect it.
"This place should contain a potent ward," Zane thought, and his theory was soon proven correct. Instructor Seiya — after a brief conversation with Ms. Luna — addressed the students; he explained that this place contained a protective ward that would release a defensive barrier when a student was in danger. With this safety measure in place, Instructor Seiya granted the students permission to go all out.
There were 125 students in Group A, divided into 12 groups of 10 students, with 5 groups containing an additional student. The rules were simple: each student would fight ten matches, and the winner would receive 1 point. The two students with the most points will move on to the next round.
"Alright, let's get started," Instructor Seiya swiftly announced after explaining the rules and assigning the students to their groups and numbers. Ms. Luna began chanting an incantation, and soon afterward, a complex barrier appeared on the arena, dividing it into 12 sections, each labeled from A to L.
Zane looked at Section C, and to his surprise, it showed his number — 7 — and the number 10. Without wasting time, he rushed to his arena and slowly walked up the stairs that suddenly materialized in every section. His opponent was a woman who appeared to be of Latin descent. By Zane's standards, she wasn't quite on the level of beautiful, but his eyes still darted to the leggings she wore, which perfectly accentuated her curves.
He quickly regained his bearing while thinking, "It's been a while." The last woman he was with was Isabella, and that was months ago. Since then, he's been focusing on building his career, leaving little to no time for dating. Reigning in his thoughts, Zane focused on the battle at hand.
A holographic countdown from ten floated between Zane and his opponent, so he used this time to strategize, "She's a fire mage, which means explosive power. So, what should my first move be? Protect myself with a defensive spell? Or go on the offensive?" Without knowing how fast his opponent could cast, the best approach is to defend himself. So, as soon as the countdown ended, Zane moved his hand, weaving the Mana Shield spell diagram with great speed and efficiency.
"Mana, protect and bless me," Zane chanted. Even without access to his wand, Zane can still cast his spell under four seconds, so he finished relatively quickly. Now that he was protected, Zane felt more at ease observing his opponent. At a glance, he recognized two of the runes she was engraving: a fire-evocation rune and an Elemental Transformation Rune.
In that moment, numerous 0-ring spells flashed in Zane's mind, including Fireball and Fire Arrow. However, the truth did not matter. What mattered was that his opponent's casting speed was slow. For his next move, he didn't even cast another spell. Instead, he used a trick he had learned from moving the corpse of the wind tiger; with a thought, the magic shield rushed forward, blasting the woman off the stage.
Zane waited for the ward's protective system to activate, but to his surprise, the semi-invisible shield struck the participant, sending her flying out of the arena. He stood in his section, mouth agape, for a few seconds before regaining his senses. Wasn't there supposed to be a shield protecting her? However, just as he was about to apologize, she calmly stood and asked, "Don't you know how to take it easy on a woman?"
"My bad."
She glanced at him before snorting and walking away, cursing in Spanish as she went. Unfortunately, besides the word "puta" and two others, Zane did not understand what she was saying. "That force should have been enough to break a few bones, or at least sprain a few muscles, but she's completely fine. It seems the arena's ward reduced most of the power."
For a moment, he hoped the Warding Class would come sooner. The ability to enchant wide areas would be immensely beneficial to his magical path. If possible, Zane wants to build a meditation ward at home since the school's one won't always be available, and he doesn't want to pay the plaza's high price.
The number in his section changed, which was Zane's sign that he had overstayed his welcome. With swift haste, he rushed out of the arena, awaiting his next battle. Meanwhile, the two instructors were observing his fight and communicating with each other.
"It seems he has calculated the optimal route for his spell engraving," Ms. Luna commented.
"His skills are indeed impressive for someone who has only been training for over two weeks. More importantly, his application of magic is not rigid and can even be called creative," Instructor Seiya nodded.
"I thought you would say he was stupidly wasting mana," Ms. Luna uttered.
"I won't penalize him for his ignorance," Instructor Seiya replied. Was Zane's move a display of how his mind works? Yes. Was it also a pointless approach? Also yes. Defensive Magic drains a lot of mana; his simple action of using the defensive shield as a battering ram costs as much mana as his Magic Bullet Spell. And that's only because he defeated his opponent with one attack; had he continued fighting, the cost would have been higher than that of any other spell.
"At this rate, he might be ready to learn [Chantless Casting] before the end of the year," Ms. Luna added.
"We'll see." These two did not stay too long in Zane's section since there were other students with high potential to observe and others who could be considered potential seeds. After all, the High Potential List is updated after every shift. Some of the people on the list will be downgraded because of their performance or because they die.
After his battle, Zane walked to one of the pillars, away from the crowd and noise, to meditate and replenish his mana. Over five minutes later, he returned to the arena to watch the other battles, hoping to learn something. However, he was quite disappointed. While most of these students could cast a spell, their speed was too slow; most were even above the average casting time for whatever spell they were using.
"Besides one or two of them, no one has calculated the optimal engraving method of their spells," Zane thought while shaking his head. As he was preparing to observe only the few threatening students, he suddenly thought of something, "Wait, doesn't that mean my program is valuable?"
Zane remembered the program he had designed to help him calculate the optimal path of his spell diagram. After seeing how terrible most of these students were, he realized he may be able to profit from it. "Creating a subscription system for the program is useless since it's easy to copy." The program itself wasn't that challenging to make; even a decent college student could do it. Zane understood that if he tried to commercialize it, a free copy would be available online within two days or less.
"That also leaves out selling it for a high price," Zane contemplated. "In that case, the best use is to patent it and make it open source." Kwame Dynamics' website is about to launch, and using this program to generate traffic was not a bad idea. The only issue is time.
After 24 days of class, the website and everything will be ready, but only a day will have passed on Earth, which is not nearly enough time for Alisha to acquire the business license. If someone else has the same idea, everything will be in vain. Even worse, someone might get the patent before him.
"The patent is another issue," Zane thought; the process will take too long unless he has a connection. There is the option of using the dark web to accelerate the process, but such services are more easily traceable. So, the best approach is to file the patent — to cover all the bases — while also releasing the program on the website.