After six days of sparring, the violet peak academy fights were finished and the five students with maximum wins were selected. Claudia had surprisingly placed third in the number of wins. She had lost two matches to students who used heavy two-handed weapon. It was clear that she still needed more practice with her sword skills. But it was only a matter of time before she forged herself into a fine warrior.Up next, the Ashenville academy fights were about to start and two people especially were looking forward to these fights. Max wanted to see, how the student who had gained acknowledgement from the entire magical beasts stable would be performing and Shi Meng was trying to identify his mystery girl, who disappeared.
Oblivious to all this, Eluraa, sitting silently in a corner row, was mentally preparing herself for her upcoming fights. She was once very gentle by nature and all that gentleness had completely disappeared in this life time. She was only calming herself to not let her murderous aura out in the open, once the battle starts.
With the two years of training, Eluraa had become very proficient in using swords and chose two light and short swords for her combat. She was extremely nimble and her soul strength added weight to each of her strikes. This made her a tough opponent in close combat scenarios.
But she was still nervous about fighting with the blood academy students. That is when the real trial would start. Each of them had an extremely high physical fitness and skill proficiency. They were on a completely different plane than her right from their birth. They had much more access and exposure than her.
Though she had her innate magical affinity and insurmountable amount of knowledge in using magical energy, this was still a battle of physical combat. And she really needed to be standing among the final five students.
Xenon bracelets are not easily obtainable. Those bracelets were made using an alloy from a meteor in the dwarfen territory. The dwarfs were able to forge legendary and epic weapons using those alloys. The Empire had to sacrifice ten experts just to get a meagre amount of the alloy. It"s importance in the technological advancement cannot be overstated.
If Eluraa tapped into her soul power and elemental connection, it would be an extremely easy task for her to knock out every single student here. But when it comes to pure physical training and raw combat strength, she was not sure if she could spar at level with blood academy students.
Soon it was going to be Eluraa"s turn. She walked past the row of blood academy students to reach the arena entrance. Shi Meng was lost in his thoughts and Jian Tan was happily chirping about something in the side. Reina who was sitting next to them, was trying really hard to get Shi Meng"s attention. She was commenting loudly about the fights and was trying to impress Shi Meng with her combat knowledge.
When Eluraa crossed them, Shi Meng vaguely felt something familiar about her and turned in her direction. Reina who noticed this small change in Shi Meng"s behavior, immediately tried to grab his attention, "ughh.. it took so long for the Violet peak"s students to finish up and now it"s the Ashenville. We are not even learning anything new from them. What is the point of all of this? The final five students are going to be from the blood academy anyways. Shi Meng do you want to practice sparring later?"
Eluraa silently muttered to herself and smirked, "I am going to try my best to not use that. But if it looks like I am losing, I should immediately use that move. It is not too flashy and n.o.body would doubt anything. I want to play fair but oh well, life is not fair. The sooner you learn that the better"
Eluraa"s first opponent was a shield user and he was particularly good at blocking attacks. However, Eluraa"s sword moves were too exquisite and she finished off the fight in almost an instant. The rest of her fights went smooth as well. They had sparred with each other several times in the academy, so this was no surprise.
Fatty chutput as expected immediately admitted defeat on seeing her. Eluraa glared at him and smiled sinisterly, "wait till we get out of the academy fatty, I am going to skin you alive and torture you for as long as I like".
"Wow! too bad her looks don"t suit me. She is indeed a pretty good swordsman." Jian Tan whispered to the attentively watching Shi Meng. His eyes were glued to the stage. The woman before him was extraordinary. She was nimble and fast and her moves were strong. She might even be able to match up to Jian Tan in combat prowess. " Jian if you don"t watch out, you might just lose your spot this year" Shi Meng tried to warn him.
"oh! This is the good egg you were talking to me about. She is indeed interesting. If I am not mistaken, she seems to have mastered the first stage of sword movements already, without any sword skills officially imparted or even a specialized teacher. She is a very good candidate for the xenon bracelet." Lingtian was praising Eluraa. Max however, had his eyes glued on Arisa and her healing magic, "She is an angel Lingtian". Head chief Lingtian could only sigh helplessly and continue watching.
Eluraa soon finished her matches and obtained the maximum number of wins in the Ashenville academy bracket. Surprisingly, fatty chutput came in the fifth place and was also going to partic.i.p.ate in the finals. He had only been practicing hard for self-defense purpose.
You see, often during different times every day, fatty would feel intense chills and killing aura directed at him. He would be shaking in fear and stand frozen for no apparent reason. He was not sure from who, but it was definitely there. He needed to protect himself. So, fatty out of fear for his life had trained day and night restlessly. He really wanted to defend himself against this impending danger.
Little did he know, if only he didn"t make that simple mistake on that fateful day, Eluraa might not have even noticed his existence and he could have lived a peaceful life on the academy.
With this fight, the Ashenville academy combats were wrapped up and everyone excitedly awaited the start of the blood academy students sparring with each other. Each fight would be extraordinary as the students were almost evenly matched and this was a heaven-sent opportunity for the other academy students to gain new insights.