CHAPTER 173: DISCOVERED?

Unedited Chapter. It will be edited soon.

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Mark had a peculiar way of casting spells with elegant movements that seemed to carefully detail the element he was casting. His peculiar way of fighting, moving back and forth across the arena as if he were dancing, earned him a nickname that he hated, but that everyone knew.

The Dancing Prince.

Others called him The Elegant One, and there were those who considered him the greatest exponent of some kind of extinct magical art or something like that, as there are hieroglyphics found in runes that narrate a similar situation.

The thing is, Mark didn’t do it for that or anything like it; he simply understood his magic so well that he understood perfectly which movements benefited him most depending on the magic he wanted to use.

Many considered this to be a serious disadvantage because so many unnecessary movements would slow down his casting speed, but for those with power, it was very easy to see that this boy’s movements were so precise that his magic was neither delayed nor rushed.

It appeared and struck at just the right moment.

Now, the only disadvantage to this way of fighting was that Mark tended to be very close to his opponent.

When facing another mage, his advantage is brutal. His movements open up many windows of attack, making it difficult for a mage to counter, and many mages have to prepare exclusively to fight him, as he is not just any mage.

He does not take advantage of distance; on the contrary, he takes advantage of proximity.

Perhaps against an Armamentalist, he also has a great advantage.

But against those who use close-range attacks, the situation changes dramatically. If he wanted to fight one of them that way, he would have to be prepared to suffer, because his reaction speed is not the same as theirs, even though their stats are often the same.

But this time, he was fighting a mage, and his magical ability alone was enough to overwhelm him.

The opponent wasn’t bad. He had reached this top and made his efforts count. But despite that, having the bad luck of facing Mark in the first place was certainly a misfortune.

He was practically the worst opponent he could face. Not only was he a top-notch mage and one of the stars of the academy, he was also the Dancing Prince, who is the terror of mages like him.

Perhaps only those wizards with the ability to shake the earth could counter Mark’s power, but there were few of them, even among those who specialized in the element of Earth.

Unfortunately for him, this boy specialized in the element of fire. He was strong, but not strong enough.

His body gradually weakened, until Mark’s final spell took him out of the arena with style and precision.

Finally, the first battle was over.

"You’re going to have serious problems when it’s your turn to fight that guy," Louis said when he saw him finish.

Laura nodded. "Haha, yes. It’s impossible to use the rifle against him, so I’ll have to make do with the shotgun."

"I’ll wish you luck then. If you manage to hit him with a full magazine, you’ll surely win. But don’t kill him."

"I’ll try not to."

The rest of the fights began one after another. The fights involving the other two stars were in the 4th and 5th rounds, and they were interesting to watch. But it was also interesting to watch the fights involving the new hopefuls, especially those who knocked out several members of the former Top 10.

They were good and had been preparing for this for a long time.

Meanwhile, others... weren’t so good.

In fact, they only had a high level because they had spent a lot of time farming levels in the tower. They didn’t have very good combat awareness, nor a good level of magic. In the end, they fell out of the top 8 and probably couldn’t even make it into the top 10, because the truly talented ones were going to beat them in the fights for those spots.

Finally, it was Laura’s turn to fight.

The sixth fight.

"Let’s see if this one makes me use my true powers," she said, smiling slightly as she began to walk toward the designated arena.

All eyes in the arena were on her, although most did not know who she was.

The figure revealed by her tight-fitting clothes was spectacular, already placing her among the best-looking women in the entire academy, but the vast majority of them had never seen Laura’s figure before, even though she often walked around the academy.

This is because she tends to wear loose-fitting clothes and it is very difficult to see her features, so no one recognized her, but everyone knew she was someone who was hiding her true power.

The way she reached this rank was a bit peculiar. She played many tricks and moved around the arena while using weak magic, but from very close distances.

Although she appeared to be an inexperienced mage, the way she moved told the powerful ones that she was simply practicing movement arts.

That’s why even her opponent had to take her very seriously and be overly cautious with her.

Luckily for him, he was a mage, so he could take advantage of this to strike from a distance.

The moment the battle began, Laura’s rival created water magic from the other end with a previously prepared weave.

It was a long-range level 3 spell, befitting a third-level magician.

Laura had to jump to the side and strike forward to dodge the force of the magic.

"As expected of someone capable of entering this ranking. They are all dangerous," she thought and smiled.

He still didn’t believe he had to use his real power, so he simply started running at a shorter distance.

His opponent already understood his fighting style, so he wasn’t going to be intimidated. He ran to the side and launched several successive second-level water magic attacks.

Although Laura managed to close the distance and get in front of him to hit him with a strange spell at close range, he managed to dodge it just in time, jumping to the side and casting a third-level spell in succession.

All his spells were water-based, but this one was special.

The moment it touched Laura’s silhouette, it detached itself from her and created some strong chains on the ground, attached to her leg.

These chains were astonishingly hard, which even Laura had to praise.

As she tried to break free, her opponent managed to cast several spells that hit her squarely. Her body was thrown backwards and she rolled across the sand.

A fourth spell came from the front; if it hit her, she would be out of the fight.

She quickly got up and dodged it by jumping to the side, but another spell came from the front, so she had to jump again to the other side to dodge both attacks.

This guy was pretty dangerous, but she didn’t care.

She quickly lunged at her opponent, closing the distance as he tried to cast spells. He had used many at that moment to try to take her out, but he had greatly underestimated the girl’s defensive ability, so he was forced to slow down his casting speed due to the lack of suitable fabrics for the moment.

While he was undecided about what spell to cast, Laura managed to position herself in front of him and, with some exquisite footwork that she had been practicing for some time, she moved behind her opponent and hit him with a short-range spell.

He was sent flying forward, hitting the ground and rolling across it.

By the time he pulled back and finally chose a spell to cast, he aimed at her, but Laura managed to hit him before he could cast it, so he ended up canceling the activation.

His position was severely compromised at that moment, and Laura wasn’t going to miss such a precious opportunity. It was a golden opportunity, which she managed to quickly close the distance and lift him up with a kick.

At the same time, she managed to hit him in the chest with a powerful spell. But he had already raised his arm and aimed a level 3 spell at her.

This time it was fire, explosive fire.

It shot out from her fingers and hit her at the same time.

*BOOM*

They were both thrown in opposite directions.

Laura was very attentive to everything. The explosion didn’t blow her hat off because she managed to hold it in time, as she had done on previous occasions. Besides, this hat clung to her face, making it harder to knock off.

And it was because she was so attentive that she was able to stop just before falling off the sand.

Her opponent was not so lucky.

He was floating in the air when that magic hit him, his body unsupported on the ground. Although he tried a thousand ways, in the end he couldn’t overcome the force of gravity and ended up falling to the ground on the other side.

For Laura, it wasn’t all pretty. She felt her face burning and knew that part of her hood had been burned, as had her hat.

"White hair?" Although Laura was quick to put on a mask, for those in the VIP rooms, especially the Emperor’s, it was quite easy to see through what was briefly revealed.