In the ring.
Two students had just finished fighting; it was a fight between two third-year students, and the fight had been very intense. Both of them were stronger than some of the competitors that Alex had seen so far, although they were still far from Laura’s level. Alex believed that these two would have no problem facing most of his classmates.
Sadly, they had gone up against each other, and one of them had been eliminated.
Alex felt that it was a pity, both of them had high chances of making it into the top five had they not met each other or Laura.
After the two students left the ring, the next fight was announced, and it was Alex’s turn.
He stood up and walked down to the ring, and the field immediately started to buzz as the students started to discuss.
Getting to the stage, Alex’s opponent was already waiting for him. His opponent was a boy around the same age as him and had a dark green cloak around his shoulders, signifying that he was a class four student with the plant element.
Alex recognised this boy even without his uniform; he was Alex’s classmate after all, and the two of them had some bad history.
"Look, look, Alex’s opponent is Fabio!"
"Sheesh, Alex is gone for sure. Fabio is second only to goddess Laura, his only weakness is that the plant element can’t compare to the fire element."
"I guess this is where Alex gets eliminated."
"Hahaha, were you scared that you would really need to swallow your textbook?"
"Hey, knock it out!"
The students chatted loudly upon seeing who Alex was going up against. The boy named Fabio had a tall, straight figure with a handsome face and smooth green hair that matched his element. A crooked smile hung on his lips as he stared at Alex with mocking eyes.
"Who would have thought my old buddy would make it this far? I only ignored you for a bit, and you’re already doing too much." The boy named Fabio clicked his tongue and said in a low tone.
Alex’s face remained indifferent as he stared back at the other party. From the memories of the old Alex, he learned that Alex and this Fabio kid had been on good terms after they both entered the academy in their first year.
But things quickly changed after Alex turned out to be trash and didn’t make any progress even after the first few months of learning. Fabio had stopped talking to him and started moving with other kids, and it even got worse after a year, and he started to bully Alex with his friends.
They would sometimes drag Alex to a quiet corner and mess him up or hide his things, they even went as far as taking his belongings for themselves.
’Another grudge to settle.’ Alex thought to himself, his eyes were cold, but the other party probably didn’t think much of him.
"Eh? What’s with that face? You look kinda scary, do you want to hit me back?" Fabio said teasingly.
"Begin!"
The teacher’s voice sounded at this moment, signifying for the match to begin.
Even after the voice of the teacher fell, both Alex and Fabio remained still; neither of them made a move immediately.
Seeing this, the spectators were confused.
Fabio was also surprised to see Alex just standing there instead of taking advantage to summon his stars first.
"Ehh? You really got too confident after an easy win, standing there instead of attacking. Since you didn’t cherish the chance I gave you, don’t expect me to be kind." Fabio smirked.
Boom!
Mana exploded from his body and caused his cloak and hair to flutter widely, dazzling green stars began to appear behind him, and the next moment, they started to connect.
Two seconds later, a large green star pattern had formed behind Fabio, bathing him in green light.
"Still not summoning your stars? You asked for it!" Fabio shouted when he saw Alex still standing there and looking at him like a statue; he felt that Alex was being too arrogant and needed to be taught a lesson!
"Vine call!" Fabio shouted as he stretched his hands toward Alex.
Immediately after he called the name of the spell, the green star pattern behind him rose higher into the air and also grew larger in size.
The next moment.
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
Two large green vines that were as thick as a human’s body shot out from the star pattern and headed for Alex like angry snakes. Their speed was so fast as they landed on the ground and wriggled toward Alex, ordinary Adept mages would have been frightened by the two vines and found it difficult to react.
But for Alex, who was already an Expert mage, these vines were nothing.
Under Fabio’s control, the vines reached Alex in a matter of seconds and lashed at him. Alex slowly moved his feet and shifted his body slightly, allowing the vine to pass right in front of his body and slam into the ground.
Bam!
A loud noise rang out as the vine hit the ground hard in front of Alex. His face was expressionless as he looked at the vine in front of his legs, but he didn’t stay long.
Taking a step back and rotating his body at a 90-degree angle, Alex performed just enough movements to dodge the second vine that had stabbed at him from the side.
Woosh!
The vine tore through the air after it missed Alex and flew for some meters before it came to a stop.
Everyone "..."
All of the students who were watching, including Fabio and the teachers, were shocked by what they just saw, and they all looked at Alex in disbelief.
"Fabio...missed? Not once, but twice?!"
"How is this even possible? How is he moving so fast?!"
Some students shouted after they came back to their senses.
For some time, the situation in the ring was at a standstill as neither Fabio, Alex, nor the teachers did anything.
Fabio was shocked, the speed of his vines was not slow and was even faster than the speed of most spells from the other elements; even he was not confident that he could do what Alex just did.
The teachers were also surprised. They had been prepared to step in and save Alex at the last moment, but were left speechless after they saw him dodge the first vine. He hadn’t made any big movement when dodging the vine and had made it look easy.
Fabio soon came back to his senses, he started to control the vines again.
"Show off! I wasn’t serious just now, don’t get full of yourself." He snarled before waving his hands.
The two vines instantly moved and swiped at Alex together from both sides, not giving him anywhere to escape to.
Everyone watched with anticipation as the vines moved toward Alex like the tails of huge snakes; it looked like they were going to land on him.
But just when the vines got close to Alex, he suddenly tapped his feet on the ground and flipped his body into the air.
Swoosh!
The two vines passed under him, missing him again.
Wow!
The entire field was in a wave of exclamation. Alex’s style was too flashy!
Fabio "..."