"Begin!" Instructor Cross’s command cut through the cold air.
Roy didn’t waste a single second posturing. With a heavy roar, the stocky High-blood student gripped his iron-bound practice club with both hands and slammed it violently downward directly into the black sand.
BOOM!
The sand floor didn’t just scatter; it fractured. Activating his Grade C Combat talent, Crag Fist, a sudden wave of localized seismic mana ripped forward from the point of impact. The sand beneath Mina’s boots violently churned, liquefying before instantly hardening into jagged, stony ridges that locked around her ankles like iron shackles.
Mina let out a sharp gasp, her momentum completely halted as the sudden earth-shaking tremor trapped her feet in place.
"Got you, lesser trash!" Roy laughed brutally, winding his massive club back over his shoulder as he charged forward, kicking up a spray of dark sand.
But Mina didn’t panic. Remembering Thomas’s advice from the benches, she closed her eyes for a split second, fully unleashing her Scent Tracker talent. To the rest of the stadium, the air was just cold and dusty. But to Mina’s heightened perceptions, the raw mana flowing through Roy’s body carried a distinct, burning metallic scent.
As Roy lunged forward to deliver a crushing downward smash, Mina didn’t look at the incoming club. Instead, she tracked the shifting, heavy smell of his mana as it flooded into his right arm and heel. She could literally smell the trajectory of his strike a fraction of a second before he executed it.
With a desperate, agile twist of her upper body, she forcefully ripped her boots free from the crumbling stone ridges, diving flat across the sand just as the heavy iron club smashed into the exact spot where her head had been.
CRASH!
The shockwave blew a cloud of black dust into the air, but Mina rolled smoothly back to her feet, completely unharmed. She kept her distance, deliberately circling the outer rim of the arena block, forcing the heavy-set combatant to turn and chase her. Just as Thomas had predicted, Roy’s heavy, unrefined movements were draining his energy quickly, the metallic scent of his mana beginning to fragment and bottleneck around his lungs.
High up in the back row of the stands, Thomas watched the exchange intently, his posture perfectly still.
Eye of Khepri, expand scope, Thomas commanded mentally.
A chilling sensation flooded his right eye as the hidden crimson rune beneath his flesh hummed to life. His vision pierced through the dust cloud, zooming in across the forty-five meters of sand to analyze the unfolding duel.
[ EYE OF KHEPRI: SUB-ROUTINE TARGET SCANNING ]
* Target Entity: Roy (Class 1-D)
* Core Vulnerability Located: Left Knee Joint / Core Channel Leakage
* Analytical Data: Target’s [Crag Fist] requires a heavy recoil anchor through the left leg. Every time he slams his club, the defensive mana around his left knee drops to 0%.
[ NOTICE: Data transmission to Ally [Mina] available via tactical micro-cues. ]
Thomas’s eye tracked the exact moment Roy raised his club for a third, desperate strike. The glowing channels of earth mana were bright, but the network completely bypassed his left knee to feed the weapon. He was wide open for a low, decisive counter-strike.
Thomas leaned forward slightly, his eyes locking onto Mina as she zipped past the edge of the sand below their benches, ready to feed his ally the exact blueprint for victory.
Roy was growing completely desperate. His heavy-set frame was drenched in sweat, his breathing ragged and uneven. He had thrown three massive, earth-shaking swings, and every single one had hit nothing but air. The metallic scent of his mana was fragmenting rapidly, bottlenecking around his lungs just as Thomas had predicted.
"Stop running and fight me, you coward!" Roy roared, his face twisting into an ugly, furious scowl.
He gripped his iron-bound club with both hands, his knuckles turning white as he channeled every remaining ounce of his Crag Fist talent into the weapon. The heavy iron head began to glow with a volatile, muddy brown light. He wasn’t just trying to trap her feet anymore he was prepping a massive, dangerous mana overload that threatened to fracture the entire arena sector and crush Mina under a wave of stone.
Mina retreated to the edge of the sand right below the Class 1-A benches, her sharp hazel eyes narrowing as she smelled the sudden, overwhelming spike of volatile energy. She was running out of room to dodge.
High up in the back row, Thomas leaned over the stone railing. He didn’t use a magical transmission or do anything to draw suspicion. He simply raised his voice, shouting a seemingly casual piece of encouragement down to his classmate.
"Keep your distance, Mina! He’s too heavy on his left side anyway!"
To the thousands of cheering high-bloods in the stadium, it sounded like a generic, unrefined shout from a commoner farm boy who knew nothing about real martial arts. But to Mina, the specific cue hit like a lightning bolt. Her Scent Tracker instantly pivoted, her senses locking directly onto Roy’s left knee. Through the air, she could smell it clear as day the protective, earthen mana shielding his lower body had dropped to an absolute zero percent as he funneled everything into his weapon.
"Die!" Roy screamed, lifting the massive club high above his head to slam it down for the final, catastrophic strike.
Mina didn’t wait for the club to fall. Utilizing her agile, low-born movement, she shot forward like an arrow, sliding low across the black sand directly beneath the shadow of the incoming weapon. Before Roy could even realize she had closed the distance, Mina wound her leg back and delivered a sharp, localized kick straight into the lateral side of his unprotected left knee.
CRACK!
The structural recoil was instantaneous and brutal. Without his left leg anchoring the massive weight of the Crag Fist overload, Roy’s balance shattered entirely. The dense, volatile earth mana bottlenecked inside his own arms, detonating prematurely right in his grip.
BOOM!
A violent explosion of muddy sand and kinetic feedback blasted directly back into Roy’s chest cavity. His iron-bound club flew from his hands, clattering uselessly across the arena floor as the stocky High-blood let out a choked gasp, his eyes rolling into the back of his head from his own magical backdraft. He crashed heavily onto his side, completely unconscious.
A sudden cheer erupted from the back rows of the stadium as Ryan and Lina jumped to their feet, yelling in celebration.
Down on the platform, Instructor Cross raised his dark flag, his sharp grey eyes lingering on Thomas for a brief second before he barked the announcement. "Winner: Mina of Class 1-A!"
Mina stood in the sand, catching her breath as she looked up toward the back row. She caught Thomas’s eye and gave him a subtle, immensely grateful nod before walking off the field.
Thomas sat back down on his wooden bench, his right eye returning to normal under the system’s shroud. Julian, sitting far above in his premium booth, remained perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the sand below, his posture unreadable. The preliminary rounds were moving fast, and the chessboard of Class 1-A was already beginning to rewrite itself.
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