BXBX NOVEL Chapter 68 - Second Year's Division Conclusion
The second year\'s battle lasted until the afternoon and as expected, only the Mystic Gate\'s team gave a tough time against Leonhearts.
Ray Penber wasn\'t able to get another chance to use the Mirror of Trace as the other academies weren\'t that overwhelming and when he fought against Cloud of Skywalker Academy, he couldn\'t use it against the latter since he is a close combat mage. The artifact is only capable of deflecting projectile magic and Cloud\'s Radiant Sword is an enhanced weapon capable of destroying Mana Shells easily, provided the fact that he can close into his opponent.
The Skywalker Academy\'s strategy was to place Cloud as a vanguard to somehow guarantee their 1st win and if they reached the 4th match, he will partner with their team captain to defeat Shirley and Kite. Cloud knows himself that fighting alone with Shirley with that Ultrasonic Burst which can be used indefinitely would be difficult for him.
He doesn\'t know how Kyla defended against that attack and wasn\'t in any position to ask for help either. Thus, after Cloud won against Ray in their tough fight and lost the 2nd and 3rd match of the battle, they used their strategy against Shirley and Kite in an attempt to win the 4th match.
Unfortunately, even together with Cloud\'s partner, they couldn\'t defeat Shirley\'s offensive power. Kite was using 2 Mana Artifact made by Ross that has an Archon Series as a magic spell. Aside from this, the artifacts contain exclusive spells focusing on defensive capability.
After all, during the selection stage in the Artifact Forging segment were the mana technicians has to select their materials, Wallace was able to acquire all genuine materials they needed and the quality of those were reaching their peak as well.
Within the camp assigned to Leonhearts Academy, a festive atmosphere can be felt as another big accomplishment was achieved by the second-year participants.
"Good job, Shirley! Can you teach me now how to use that spell?"
Lina asked Shirley as she was extremely curious about this Ultrasonic Burst. During the month of preparation, she was only focused on mastering their planned mana artifact and combat strategy with Alphonse and doesn\'t have too much time to ask and study other\'s combat plans.
"No worries, although it was complicated, as long as you work hard, you can also use that spell. It took me a while to get used to that magic structure as well. Sigh.. it requires a high level of comprehension."
Shirley said and even took a deep breath as she remembered that during the month of preparation before the start of TMAC, she had almost used up its whole duration just to perfectly learn the spell usage. She had a tough time utilizing Wallace\'s original spell at first. Looking at the past, she was very glad that she endured the training and mastered Ultrasonic Burst.
"Ray, you can take a lot of hits. You performed better than the practice matches we did." Kite said to his classmate. He was impressed by Ray\'s improvement.
Being in the real competition put the participants a lot of pressure but Ray perfectly used it to his advantage and improved himself.
"That\'s right! You look cool in all your matches." This time, it was the first year Michael who praised him. As a fellow vanguard, he knows the pressure it takes when fighting the other academies.
"Haha. Did I? Let\'s all celebrate tonight! Bring out all the juice and buns." Ray said as he felt happy being praised by his juniors.
"Hey, don\'t forget. There\'s still our match for third year\'s division tomorrow." Vera reminded Ray as he was intoxicated with the praises he received this time.
At this moment, Instructor Eve within the camp caught everyone\'s attention.
"Everyone did a good job including our mana technicians who created perfect artifacts for our combat magicians. Good teamwork." Eve smiled and nodded before continuing.
"Let\'s all wait for tomorrow\'s competition and also hope to have better results."
Instructor Eve\'s words made the third year\'s students conscious about tomorrow\'s competition. After all, first-year and second-year participants this time made an amazing performance.
The third-year participants this year were all the same participants last year and weren\'t able to get good results previously. Although they have improved by a large margin this time, they still weren\'t confident to take the first place. What they are thinking instead is just to perform upon the best of their ability.
Wallace affirmed and also couldn\'t wait to see the third year\'s performance tomorrow. He was curious about some students and would like to see how they battle.
As everyone was celebrating, Wallace checked the results of 2nd year\'s division. The top mana technicians will be selected in accordance with the performance of their mana artifacts. He was wondering how the judges will grade his results. Depending on his rank, he\'ll get a different reward from the Pathfinder and he was even hoping to get the 2nd or 3rd prize.
Second Year\'s Battle Results
Leonhearts : 11 wins
Mystic Gate : 10 wins
Skywalker : 8 wins
Phoenix : 8 wins
Stoneheimer : 5 wins
Isolde : 5 wins
Abuxorth : 5 wins
Honeysuckle : 4 wins
Sacred Peak : 4 wins
Odrexelt : 3 wins
Neon : 3 wins
Eternal Fey : 2 wins
Eternal Fey Academy performed very poorly this year on their first and second-year batch compared to their previous years. But their academy was still hoping to get their 3rd-year magicians to show a good result.
***
The day had passed and Leonhearts Academy\'s dominating performance has ended.
Today is the battle of their third-year participants and although they did not poorly perform in their matches, some academies have very powerful combat magicians. With these kinds of magicians participating, your experiences and strategies may not necessarily work against these absolute powers.
It must be remembered that when Wallace used his Divine Sense during the opening ceremony, seven students managed to feel it\'s presence. The only 1st year who felt it was Hilda Calem from Leonhearts and the only 2nd year was Kyla Rogers.
The other 5 were all third-year students from other academies. First is Avery Marshall from Isolde Academy, her surprising dual Domain Magic made her almost unstoppable in third year\'s division. It was followed by Hector Newman from Stoneheimer, with his Earth Fire Blitz magic that could summon blue flame almost instantly in any part of its effective range, no one could defeat him in terms of offensive capability.
The others were Aria Scott and Vanessa White from Skywalker Academy. The duo could not be defeated. Their Fire and Water combination was reaching its perfection. Although they have a lower quality of mana artifacts, their amazing control in battle compensated for it.
One more remarkable third year was Nyla Lawson from Odrexelt Academy. Her teammates were performing very badly and almost couldn\'t win a single match. She was the only magician in their academy whose performance was on a higher level and had carried their team to win 8 battles. She only lost against Skywalker, Isolde, and Stoneheimer. She may have a better chance if she has competitive teammates but she did not have.
Wallace, who had watched the entire competition intently learned a lot as well about the standard of other academies magic spells. He even got inspired and had plans in his future mana artifact that would help him in the long run.