Unedited chapter. It will be edited soon.

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For a brief moment, the temperature of the sand dropped dramatically.

The tension felt cold, and Mark slowly moved to watch his opponent's intervention in the battle.

But Laura had the same intention, so they both looked at each other's faces, waiting for the slightest reaction to act.

In an instant, Mark moved quickly a few inches and two spells were created at an astonishing speed, just as Laura fired her first shot.

The magic activated very quickly, leaving Laura stunned. It was almost as if that guy had anticipated her attack. Both spells collided with the bullet, causing the three spells to disperse and the bullet's magical power to disappear.

Both ran quickly in opposite directions, in a circle, and stopped at exactly the same spot to shoot.

Laura managed to make her bullet travel further, quickly closing in on Mark, but he managed to stop it with a short-range spell. At the same time, two other spells that had been cast at an unknown moment above Laura forced her to jump back and protect herself so that the fire would not affect her.

Mark took advantage of this time to get even closer and attack her from another direction. In just two moves, Laura was already at a disadvantage, dodging spells, but her mastery of her weapon was astonishing.

While dodging and jumping over various fire spells, she managed to fire several shots at him, so he didn't have as much freedom as he would have liked.

Laura's magic was really powerful, and even though he managed to counter her bullets quickly, it wasn't easy. That power was absurd; she was practically on par with him, and her speed was such that on several occasions he had to jump aside to dodge her properly, because her magic dispersed in the air and hit him with wind pushing him back or the heat of the fire, distracting him.

Even so, he had the advantage. Laura was just keeping him at bay.

"I'll have to use level 4 magic," Laura thought as she ran across the sand. Her decision was made and executed in a matter of seconds.

She managed to dodge the spells by getting a little closer and immediately raised her sniper rifle and aimed it at him. The bullet was already reloaded, she just had to pull the trigger...

BANG*

A powerful bullet she hadn't fired before flew at high speed toward Mark...

But just then, Mark slammed his foot down, and Laura felt the entire sand tremble.

"Shit." She tried to get up, realizing she had fallen into a trap, but there was no time. Soon, a huge pillar of fire and air rose from the ground with a thunderous sound.

"Level 4 magic!" Many people exclaimed from the stands, amazed by both participants.

Both had used Level 4 magic, but...

Only one had been effective.

The bullet Laura had fired was an earth spell, and although it was powerful, it was quickly affected by the wind magic that had mixed into that pillar, so by the time it reached Mark, it had lost a significant part of its power, allowing him to stop it with a Level 3 spell.

Although Mark was still pushed back by the powerful impact between those two spells and ended up at the edge of the arena.

"He has become much stronger since then," he thought.

He had now reached Level 4 in Magic, and his magical power had increased several times over.

He looked across and noticed that Laura was also near the edge, only she was quite injured, leaning on the ground with her sniper rifle.

"I'm surprised, Miss Laura," he said, smiling a little. "You're really impressive. You've managed to close the distance so much."

Laura sighed. "It's still not enough."

"Really? Do you think that in actual combat, you couldn't beat me?" he asked, leaving her silent.

It was hard to say, but she was a specialist in killing from a distance. As long as she could see him before he could see her, then she could kill him for sure.

In a head-on fight... it wasn't certain. It's true that she specializes in that type of combat, but the person she was facing was Mark Neville. No one at the academy could say with certainty that they could beat him.

When Mark saw her hesitating, he smiled once more. "See?"

She blinked at him, confused.

"A year ago, you couldn't imagine beating me. A year later, you doubt whether you could. You've closed the gap too much, I'm sure you understand now," he said.

That's when Laura understood, but Mark had to interrupt her before she could understand more.

"But, unfortunately, the sand chains you, so I'll have to break them for you. Don't worry, I'll give that guy a good fight on your behalf." He smiled and struck his scepter into the sand.

Laura quickly raised her weapon, but suddenly, she saw Mark's mouth move rapidly.

"Arcane Rhythms? Damn it." She immediately fired and tried to start running, but suddenly there were a bunch of spells on her, targeting her.

"Time to show why I'm Number 1," Mark said... Laura's shot was stopped by a Level 4 spell, created with his own hand. Then, a bunch of spells began to fall on the arena.

It was an attack similar to the one Nova had done before. Laura had experience with this type of attack, but...

It was so different that Laura ended up getting nowhere as she ran between those spells. There was no way to cross, the spells just seemed to chase her very well.

She finally took a fireball to the chest and flew backwards from the impact, causing a bunch of spells to start falling on her in a chain reaction.

Her body flew out of the attack radius, which was perfectly measured at the edges of the sand. She soon fell rolling on the ground and the magic on the sand ceased.

Mark walked over to help her, but she got up on her own before he reached her.

"You've become strong, Young Lord Neville," Laura said.

Mark sighed. "I have no choice. If I ever have to fight your boyfriend, I have to be strong to do it," he joked.

Laura looked at him and laughed. "Well, go fight him. He's waiting for you in the final stretch."

Mark looked at her in shock. What was a joke... became a real statement. For a moment, he felt devastated. He had fallen in love with her from the first day he saw her, when they both enrolled in the academy.

Since then, he has been following her, showing off his talent, power, and even wealth to see if he could ever win her heart. But unfortunately, she had never looked at him.

She was talented, but many despised her for being an Armamentalist and did not believe she was capable of doing anything. Even so, he knew she would achieve great things in the future, so he even helped her financially to make her path easier.

But none of that worked. That woman was tough; she wasn't going to look at him just for material things.

Nothing he did convinced her that he was a good match, nothing convinced her to look at him.

But now... a newcomer had convinced her.

He felt hurt, but furious. Still, he knew that senseless rage would cause him to lose, so he calmed himself internally and responded with a smile.

"Then I'll have to fight him," he said and looked back. On the other side of the arena, Louis was watching them.

'Damn lucky guy,' he sighed inwardly.

"I hope to see the fight." After that, Laura returned to her seat.

Mark was given no further opportunity to rest.

He climbed into the arena as soon as he was instructed to and looked at Louis on the other side of the arena.

"If you want to rest, I can wait a while," Louis said as soon as he saw him arrive.

Mark frowned. "Don't underestimate me, Young Lord Habsburg," he said.

Louis raised an eyebrow at the annoyed tone in his voice. 'What's wrong with this guy? Is he crazy?' he thought, but shrugged.

"If you don't want to accept my goodwill, then I don't have much to say. I hope it's a good fight, I've been waiting for it for a long time."

Mark smiled. "You can't imagine how long I've been waiting for this fight," he declared, clutching his scepter.

"I don't think it's been more than three months, practically the same as me," thought Louis, shrugging his shoulders.

After all, he had arrived here about three months ago. And as soon as he arrived, he met those guys who attacked him... Who, by the way, he didn't see in the fight. Maybe they lost earlier?

Knowing that they were subordinates of some high-level idiot, he wanted to fight him from the start. If his wish had been granted back then, he would have lost miserably, but now he was sure that he wouldn't lose so badly, even if he did lose.

So they should both have waited the same amount of time.

Although, in reality, Mark had been waiting longer than him. Ever since he found out that Laura might leave with another guy, he thought that one day he would want to fight the guy she chose.

It couldn't be possible that she would trade him for some idiot who couldn't even compete with him, right? That woman could only be with someone worthy.

Like him, or someone better than him.

If it was someone worse, he would be disappointed.