It was already the next day – the fifth day of the tournament for the hand of the daughter of Victureo family – and Zoemi was standing up in the arena, casually dishing a disrespect towards the brown-haired young woman from the Auequas family, in what was the closing duel for that day of competing.

”Lord Zoemi Benevi Banemor will face lady Arreta Auequas!”

One of the judges announced and the audience focused on the two opponents, knowing that their fight should be very interesting as proven by their previous encounter…

”Hmph! As if I get baited into useless chatter!”

Arreta scoffed and took a battle stance but waited for the judge to actually announce the start of the duel to activate her enchantments.

”Ah, of course – you are apparently good at that too. A real master baiter, I suppose – You must have been doing it a lot since your grandmother was pushing so hard for your marriage with the tragically deceased heir of the Derizno family…”

Zoemi made a sad expression and nodded his head with understanding.

”While we’re on the subject… was… was he always supposed to be your option? Did your families seriously just one day say – hey let’s engage this twelve years old girl to this newborn boy, it will work out great! I admit I did say some extremely mean things, even just now, but if you need help to get away from those people – Banemor territory is open for you, you do have combat skills that put you above many other magicians… your short temper though…”

Zoemi said nad his expression softened, going as far as to become worried and one could even say full of compassion…

”SHUT UP, YOU FOUNDLING!”

…but the brown-haired young woman certainly was already too angry – and embarrassed over getting called out as a master of baiting in front of so many other nobles to actually realize that the black-haired boy was serious in his last offer.

”…yeah, that’s wat I’m talking about…”

Zoemi sighed and shrugged off the insult without even batting an eye.

”BEGIN!”

”STALAGMITE!”

*WHAM*

The judge put an end to the word-jousting and started the duel, and Arreta made the first move stomping her foot and causing a pillar-shaped rock to erupt from the arena right by Zoemi’s left foot and hit him in the side, launching him high into the air.

”HA!”

The brown-haired young woman called out triumphantly and sprinted after the airborne boy using the full power of their enchantments.

”STONE MISSILE!”

As she positioned herself underneath the boy, she raised her hand commandingly and unleashed a spell that used the pieces of the arena as ammunition, launching cabinet-sized pieces of rock at the seemingly helpless victim…

”THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR UNDERESTIMATING YOUR OPPONENT! STONE EX-!”

”Dragon breath!”

As Arreta was in the middle of a monologue, Zoemi called out, using the spell he saw Grazio using the day before.

*WHOOOSH*

As he shouted the incantation, a slim cone of fire erupted from the palm of his hand – but instead of erasing the projectiles coming his way, the black-haired boy used the massive blowback of the jet-like stream of flames and propelled himself out of the way.

”N-no! Stone explosion!”

The brown-haired woman’s eyes widened and she gasped, deciding to detonate the missiles without adjusting their trajectory just to get the black-haired boy while he was the most vulnerable.

The thing was – she made the wrong choice.

”Dragon breath!”

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

The power of the one-third of the arena worth of rocks exploding was indeed something to behold – but only got used as the bonus properly for the same spell that Zoemi cast using his other hands, pushing himself out of the danger zone while the debris hit the water shield created by the team of the water magician protecting the audience.

”Grrrrr! As if I let you land like this! STALGMITE’S OCEAN!”

Arreta scoffed furiously and waved her hand dramatically.

*RUMBLE*

Within a single heartbeat, the whole arena trembled, and razor-sharp spear-like rocks turned every possible landing spot onto a death trap for anyone other than the caster herself.

”…eh…?”

But only a few seconds later Arreta was faced with a big surprise.

The truth was, Zoemi never stopped using the dragon breath spells – and both of his hands were lanching a massive amount of murky-black flames that…

…kept him in the air with only a few adjustments necessary…

——

”Whoa! Miri! Look! That’s just like a fire version of a levitation spell! Ahaha! I will try to do the same thing later!”

”Hmph~! As expected of MY Zoemi – he can use fire spells even better than a fire sage!”

Back in the audience, in the VIP section, Ehmi and Miriette watched and commented on the duel together, while Grazio was sitting a few seats lower than them, completely speechless.

——-

”What the…! That’s unfair! It’s cheating!”

Seeing the black-haired boy keeping himself in the air tanks to the magic equivalent of miniature jet engines, Arreta had the nerve to complain in the middle of the duel where opponents were SUPPOSED to push their skills to the limits in order to win.

That wasn’t some exhibition match – it wasn’t illegal to use the spells in an unconventional way.

”Get on the ground! RIGHT NOW!”

”Pfffft…!”

The brown-haired girl had even the gull to actually shout commandingly at the black-haired boy, but that only resulted in a mocking scoff.

”Stone barrage!”

That certainly did not sit well with her, so Arreta screamed furiously and the ens upon hundreds of stalagmites she created all ended up breaking off from the ground and shooting out into the air – not at the same time because since they had a single target, most of them would end up colliding with one another – but like a concentrated volley fire of machinegun fire.

There was simply no way to dodge that many projectiles – not when Zoemi was stubbornly using just the fire spells to keep himself afloat.

”Flame cloak!”

But truth be told, Zoemi had no intention of doing so much free mana coming his way.

Instead of the previously seen murky black demonic armor, this time the black-haired boy was engulfed in a torrent of murky grayish flames that formed into a spending cloak.

It wasn’t merely a fashion statement either- every stone spear – or the stalagmite, whatever someone wanted to call them – get close to Zoemi, they all melted away into a sizzling mess that got swallowed into the darkness covering the boy’s body with a protective, fireproof, layer.

”Good, good! Keep them coming!”

Zoemi laughed as none of the missiles reached got even remotely close to wounding him – even when it came t giving him a scratch.

”Tsk!”

Arreta clicked her tongue and stopped the barrage, as it did not make sense to waste her mana on tens of small attacks that all amounted to nothing.

The only thing they were kind of good at was wasting the boy’s mana – at least that was what the young lady of the Auequas family thought then.

She was correct – and she most certainly did make the correct decision of stopping the attack.

The mana getting wasted wasn’t just Zoemi’s after all – but her’s too!