Cardinal: God Spell

Sora picked up Xu Ron's shield and inspected it to understand its effects better. It was a standard circular shield made of some dark silver metallic substance; it looked to be the shell of some sort of metal demon beast of sorts. Sora tried filling the shield itself with mana just for it to reject his mana altogether.

Sora then realised what the shield was and how it was made; there was only 1 known metallic demon beast of this colour whose skin could reject mana altogether; This shield was forged from the shed skin of a Hell drake, they were the most annoying type of demon beast that was always at least Captain class even in it's youth stage.

All Sora wondered now was how the hell Xu Ron got his hands on the shedding of a beast only a team of advanced mages could handle at the absolute weakest. Regardless though there was no point sticking around and messing about trying to figure it out as he wouldn't get answers here anyway. He needed to get a move on and hunt some of the weaker mages around him.

Sora wielded the shield on his right arm and walked out into the plains to be faced with a significantly more annoying situation than before; the fire that was slowly spreading had caught the attention of nearby mages and 3 of them stood before him. A 2nd-year student and two first years. He could tell from the colour coding the school gave to student badges; 1st years had white badges, 2nd years had blue badges, third years had purple badges and 4th-year students had black badges. There were then the elite students who had gold badges with outlines of the colour of their respective years.

Sora knew that both first years were basic mages with basic mages in their respective basic elements, he didn't know what said elements were but could live with that eventually. The problem was the fact that he had no clue how strong the non-top 5 elite 2nd-year students were; he was careless and it would likely bite him in the ass now. "Well well, looks like we found a decent new pet boy" " the female 2nd year said with an excited grin; While she was a late-stage  Basic mage herself she had reached the superior stage in whatever element she had awakened; the other two were low mid-stage Basic mages with advanced stage spells in their basic elements.

"This looks like the Sora kid big sister Fei was talking about before", the 1st year girl said with a semi-pondering look while the boy only seemed to care when this 'Sister Fei' was involved, "If that's the case then we should eliminate him cleanly so she doesn't waste her precious time and attention on this loser", The boy said as he began to channel his basic spell and drew the twin daggers sheathed at his lower back. the first-year male was a wind mage and had just cast an advanced wind path.

A tunnel of wind formed around the rather unimpressive young man and lifted him off the ground, The wind path closed in on Sora rapidly acting as the ultimate movement spell; The boy stabbed out at Sora's neck to eliminate him swiftly but Sora managed to back off just in time to raise Xu Ron's shield and Block the strike; furthermore, Sora grinned when he realised that the scales the shield was made out of 'rejected' the wind spell surrounding the two boys leaving the 1st year assailant stationery mid-air. Sora unhesitantly launched a basic fireball at the airborne boy, just for him to turn into mist right before Sora's eyes.

Sora blinked twice before turning and blocking the strike the 1st year assailant launched at his back with his advanced wind path still active. Sora tsked as he realised that the 1st year female mage was a poison mage and was using the basic spell advanced scent of confusion. He was already poisoned and would only be able to trust his senses less the longer the fight was dragged out. 

The 1st year male backed off and began circling Sora from a distance with his wind path, spreading the 1st year girl's scent of confusion more. Sora decided to ignore this idiot and shot a basic fireball out at the 1st year girl instead. This was when the second year cast the water element's basic spell at the 4th stage, superior water shield. She got in front of the 1st year poison mage in time and Blocked Sora's fireball.

It was even easier than normal since with the scent of confusion in effect, Sora's spells would be significantly weaker than normal, while to him they were to the 2nd year water mage she was still fighting Sora at full strength and the poison doesn't seem to be affecting him all that much just yet. Sora was beginning to get annoyed now as he was wasting time like this but couldn't do much else without revealing his lightning element.

Sora remained on the defensive as he barely fended off the 1st year wind mage's wave of attacks, getting cut quite a few times on his sides, arms and once on his face. The wind mage in question was wondering why the hell this guy wasn't dead, Not only was he effectively blocking most of his strikes despite being under the influence of the scent of confusion, but the limited hits he was landing were never on vital spots nor deep enough to do anything other than draw minuscule amounts of blood. He was beginning to use more mana than he was willing to for this fight and was looking more desperately for an opening to finish the guy off. 

Before the Wind mage could wind up his next attack he was suddenly blasted back multiple feet by a dark orange wall of fire that launched him well over 10 metres making him crash at the feet of his allies. Sora fired his precision basic fireball at the ground with his Orange flame of the supreme sun applied to maximise its power as much as possible. This was more than enough to knock the wind mage out, but not break his badge as the wind path protected him from most of the actual burns.

Luckily for Sora, his little gamble cleared up the remaining Scent of confusion around him, he wouldn't get any weaker than this, but he would need some time to meditate if he wished to clear the poison from his system. Sora didn't waste a second and fired another precision basic fireball with Dark orange flames directly at the 1st year poison mage. 

The second-year water mage got in the path of the spell and cast 2 superior water shields at the same time, constantly pouring her mana into both simultaneously. She blocked the spell with both but the elemental advantage water had on fire spells now meant nothing; The ember streak surrounding his fireball burnt through both layers of the water shield and struck the water mage directly sending her crashing into the 1st year poison mage before exploding full force on both girls and the boy passed out at their feet.

The flames engulfed the three of them and their badges broke, the magic circles within them activated a bit too slowly as the three mages got deep burns all over before they were sent away from the Arena. Sora seeing that the three were finally gone dropped to one knee wincing slightly. Who said wind magicians were weak and could only run away? those bastards were even more ruthless than the tyrannical lightning mages of today. 

Sora picked up both of the Wind mage's daggers wielding them with Xu Ron's shield strapped to his arm, he sat cross-legged on the scorched earth and began to meditate and clear the scent of confusion from his system. Sora remained to meditate for well over an hour before he was back to full capacity, and even then he almost didn't notice how his rank had risen from 196 to 164. He remembered that was the 2nd year water mage's rank and confirmed that you took the rank of higher ranked mages you beat.

The only two questions he had left were what would happen should you beat someone lower ranked than you and how would they even know who it was that defeated a given mage; especially in a group effort like the one from earlier. He didn't know how he should check but he couldn't afford to carry on much longer without a good understanding of the situation on ground. He was very tempted to use his lightning element in that fight of nobodies so he also needed to keep himself calm and not panic every time he was even remotely overwhelmed.

"Shit... I'm still too weak", Sora muttered with a frown, "I agree", a voice suddenly called from within the forest, Sora was going to turn and launch a fire spell but a path of Ice suddenly formed a circle around him and multiple spikes rose and stopped short of his throat. "I wouldn't be too hasty little boy... I won't spare anything like that again", the voice warned and Sora stopped casting. Not because of the warning per se but more because this was a suppressed and very well-controlled advanced spell not just any advanced spell but it was at the perfected stage as well. Sora was trapped in the final stage advanced ice spell; Perfect Land of Ice.