My System Doesn't Give Power

The referee called the first match. "Zac Delencore, Class A, versus Kelly Carter, Class A."

Kelly’s fingers tightened around her sleeves as she walked toward the stage, with Zac beside her.

"Hey, isn’t she the girl who used that Mana Blast yesterday?" one of the research students asked from the stands.

"Yeah. Take notes. I want to see how she’s doing it."

Another student glanced toward Zac. "Who’s her opponent?"

"You don’t know? That’s the troublemaker among this year’s newcomers."

"Troublemaker? What did he do?"

"No idea. Half the stories about him are probably exaggerated anyway. Forget him. Watch the Mana Blast."

On the stage, Zac looked at Kelly. "Are you ready?"

"No." Kelly drew a breath. "But let’s do it anyway."

The referee dropped his hand.

"Begin!"

Kelly immediately retreated. Mana spread around her body while a curved shield formed in front of her, creating as much distance between herself and Zac as possible.

Zac took one step forward, and Kelly’s eyes sharpened. She knew exactly what would happen if a swordsman like him got within striking range.

She raised both of her hands.

"There!" one of the research students shouted.

Mana compressed between Kelly’s palms into a bright sphere before bursting forward in a concentrated beam.

Zac shifted aside, and the blast tore past him. He immediately advanced again.

Kelly changed direction and fired another beam from behind her shield.

Zac dodged it again, and she ran again. Every time Zac began closing the distance, another Mana Blast forced him to move aside.

[Why don’t you just go in and finish this.]

"Let her showcase what she has first. Eliminating her immediately will affect her overall evaluation."

Kelly continued circling the stage, firing again and again. Even though the strategy worked, it was costing her very dearly.

Each blast drained mana and piled more strain onto her body. She knew she couldn’t keep this up forever, yet she had no better option.

Two minutes passed. By then, she had fired well over a hundred blasts.

Even among mages, producing that much mana as a D-rank variant was no small feat. Kelly could only manage it because of her unusually large mana capacity.

But even that had limits. Her breathing turned ragged, and her legs started to tremble.

The shield in front of her flickered.

"She’s running dry," Shobin murmured.

Daniel nodded. "If Zac gets close now, it’s over."

Kelly fired one last weak beam.

Zac slipped past it, and the distance disappeared almost instantly.

"That’s it she is finished." A student from the audience stand said the others around him also nodded.

Kelly’s head hung low as Zac stepped into striking range.

[Idiot.]

Zac frowned. "What?"

Kelly suddenly lifted her head, with a small smile on her exhausted face. "Got you."

Zac’s eyes widened in surprise.

Mana erupted from her hands, but this time the beam was several times larger than anything she’d fired before.

Due to being too close, there was no room to dodge. Zac reinforced his hands and feet with mana while throwing up a dense shield in front of himself.

The blast struck, and a cloud of dust swallowed the stage. Kelly dropped onto the floor, breathing heavily.

"That had to get him," someone whispered from the stands.

But when the dust slowly cleared, Zac was still standing there with his sword in hand.

Kelly stared at him for a second, then sighed.

Zac lowered the blade. "I win, Kelly."

"Yeah. You did."

He offered her a hand. "That was a good strategy. If I’d been a little weaker, you would’ve gotten me."

Kelly took his hand and pulled herself up. "What’s the point? A loss is still a loss."

The referee raised his hand. "Winner, Zac Delencore!"

She sighed again and followed Zac toward the stands.

"Both of them are really good," Murphy remarked from the upper stands.

Matilda nodded. "Kelly has an unusually large mana capacity, which gives her great advantage as a mage. That’s also the reason why she never practiced physical fighting."

"She knew she couldn’t beat Zac in close combat, so she relied on her Mana Blast, which itself is unusual for someone at this stage of training."

Her gaze remained on the arena. "And her strategy was good. Unfortunately for her, her opponent happened to be a freak."

"That’s right." Murphy nodded. "In that brief moment, Zac circulated his mana through both arms, reinforced his footing by coating his legs, and formed a double-layered mana shield in front of himself."

"That doesn’t come from training alone. You need genuine battle sense and experience to react like that."

"Well, he was trained by that monster," Simon thought but kept it to himself.

"Let’s keep watching," Matilda said. "That was only the first match."

Murphy glanced toward the stage. "Well, I don’t think there’s much left to watch in the next one. It’s already over."

"What?" They looked down.

Sabrina stood calmly on the stage while her Class B opponent lay sprawled on the floor. After the medics briefly checked Zac and Kelly, both were allowed to return to the waiting area.

Kelly stopped when she saw Sabrina already there. "Didn’t you have the next match?"

"I did."

Kelly blinked. "Then why are you here?"

"The match is over; I already won."

From the side, Shobin nodded. "Her opponent got lucky making it this far. He wasn’t much of a challenge for her."

Suddenly a familiar voice came from the back. "Great job out there, Kelly."

Kelly instinctively replied, "Thank you, Marty."

Then she froze. Her head snapped around and saw Marty standing there. "What? Marty?! What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be resting?"

Marty scratched his head. "Well, I can’t exactly miss the tournament, can I? Besides, I’m already healed. Just a few bruises and some pain here and there. I can at least walk around."

"You still shouldn’t have come," Daniel said.

Marty gave him a look. "Says the guy who beat me around the stage."

"Hey, that’s not..."

"Fine, fine. I didn’t mean it like that." Marty turned back to Kelly. "Anyway, that was a really good strategy. Though I’d have been much happier if you’d beaten the hell out of this guy."

He pointed at Zac.

Zac stared at him. "And here I thought you were my best friend."

Marty looked around. "So, two matches are done. What are the others?"

"See for yourself." Shobin held out his VSB.

Marty read through the remaining matchups. The moment he reached the last one, he turned toward Adrian and burst out laughing.

"Hahahaha! I can’t wait to see you crawling around the floor, begging her to stop cursing you. God, that’s going to be beautiful."

Adrian’s face darkened. "Oh, shut up, you lowly mortal." "I can’t believe I actually missed this idiot’s teasing."

Shobin’s match came next, and unlike his previous fights, this one was tough.

His opponent wielded a saber and was just as skilled with mana coating as Shobin. The two remained evenly matched throughout the fight, keeping both the students and the audience on the edge of their seats until the very end.

Then, when no one expected it, Shobin suddenly spun around and landed a clean roundhouse kick across his opponent’s head.

The blow knocked him unconscious. "Winner, Shobin Shoji!" And with that, only the final match remained.

The one almost everyone had been waiting for. The academy’s most annoying narcissistic noble versus the Hexed Rose.

Adrian Von Ainsworth versus Ravena Voss.

Ravena climbed onto the stage and stopped opposite Adrian without a word, looking as though she couldn’t care less about the match.

Adrian, on the other hand, regarded her with an expression of almost tragic pity. "So this is the famous Ravena Voss. The cursed girl of Class B. A lonely shadow wrapped in black mana. How cruel!"

He placed a hand over his chest, his eyes practically glowing with self-imposed radiance. "A beauty of this caliber, feared by the common masses simply because they cannot comprehend your nature."

Ravena let out a long, exhausted breath. "Did you rehearse that crap in front of a mirror this morning?"

Several students in the stands immediately choked back laughter.

Even Adrian’s expression faltered for a moment, though he quickly recovered his noble posture. "I was merely offering an introduction worthy of our match."

"Worthless introduction for a worthless match." Ravena rolled her eyes and stepped forward. "You nobles really do smell your own scent and think it’s heavenly, don’t you?"

Marty slapped a hand over his mouth.

Kelly’s eyes widened. "Marty, don’t laugh."

"I’m... not... really trying not to laugh here."

On the stage, Adrian raised his chin. "I see. A thorned tongue to match the dark rose."

Ravena’s face twisted. "Call me a rose again, and I’ll shove that poetic garbage so far down your throat you’ll start coughing petals."

"This is what you deserved for irritating me for the last few matches." The referee thought, but still he coughed into his fist. "Contestants, maintain some decorum."

Ravena shot him a look. "Tell the peacock boy to shut up first."

Adrian stared at her, visibly baffled. "Peacock boy?"

That was it. Marty completely lost control.

His laughter burst across the arena, loud enough that several spectators joined in, and within seconds, laughter spread through the stands.

Adrian merely smiled at the mockery as mana began coating his arms and legs. "Don’t worry, gloomy maiden. Though fate has placed you before me, I shall not treat you with unnecessary cruelty."

Ravena pulled out her twin daggers. "Save the pity. I’ve scraped more threatening shit off the bottom of my boots."

Adrian’s smile barely wavered. "I understand my radiance may seem overwhelming to one accustomed to shadow."

Ravena rolled one dagger between her fingers before lowering into a fighting stance. "Radiance? Shove it up your ass. I’ve seen gutter lamps with less ego than you."

Marty leaned forward, already grinning. "This is gonna be entertaining."

[For once, the loudmouth is absolutely right.]

The referee raised his hand.

"Begin!"

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