Reborn With a Magic System

"Begin!" Professor Moretti shouted after his countdown.

Without a moment's hesitation, Damion threw himself at two of his opponents, both of whom had Fire affinities. Elicia had made sure he knew what to expect from each of his eight opponents, though she probably did not believe he would want to fight all eight of them at once.

Three had Water affinities, two Fire, two Wind and one Earth. Damion considered the two with Fire affinities his greatest threat since his experience with the fire attack glyph on his sword.

Each of his opponents wore armor and surprisingly also carried a weapon. He guessed that since they had low Rank affinities or talent, they spent a great deal of time training to be knights. Damion considered pulling out his sword, which was in the Magic System Inventory, but in the end he was confident he would not need it. That, and he was not sure he wanted to risk having to explain where he took it from. Most would assume he had a spatial artifact, but that would create its own problem.

Damion moved towards the Fire affinity students, they began to move back while at the same time the two Wind affinity students moved to intercept him. Knowing he would not be able to catch the two Fire affinities before the Wind affinity students blocked his path, Damion raised his palm and cast several quick Ice Shards in their direction.

One of the Fire affinity students was able to dodge the Ice Shard directed at him, but the other took the spell in the shoulder and cried in pain as he fell to the stone floor of the stage. The wounded student quickly pulled the ice crystal from his shoulder, but he was bleeding quite a bit and Damion did not think the injured student would be much of a threat.

There were many shocked gasps erupting from the crowd and even from Damion's challengers when his attack hit the Fire affinity student. The school uniforms were meant to protect the students from any serious harm. The only way an attack would be able to pierce through their uniforms would be if the attack was stronger than the enchantments and materials of the uniform itself. This meant Damion could actually do serious harm in this match if he was not careful.

Satisfied with the damage he dealt to the Fire affinities, Damion turned to face the two Wind affinity students that were almost on him. He cast Ice Breath just as they were about to strike him with their weapons. Ice Breath at such close range sent both students to their knees. Damion's magic overwhelmed them and they lost consciousness after only a few seconds of exposure, forcing Professor Moretti to use an artifact to pull them out of the fighting area.

The three Water affinity students had not been idle and when the Wind students fell, the Water students cast multiple spells at him. Since they were not talented enough to silent cast like Damion, he received a split-second warning when he heard the three of them shout "Water Bullet."

Damion raised his left arm, casting Ice Shield in time to intercept the Water users' spells. As the water spells splashed harmlessly against his Ice Shield, he felt something hard hit his shoulder from behind.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The impact caused Damion to stumble forward slightly but had not significantly hurt him. He had long since channeled mana into his school uniform to activate the protective enchantments and given that he was a C Rank mage and the uniforms were C Rank artifacts, he could make full use of their capabilities.

Damion took a few steps forward to regain his footing before angling himself so that he could once again see all his opponents. He grinned as he saw them all keeping their distance, evidently seeing the two Wind mages fall unconscious from his Ice Breath made them wary.

Slowly, he started to back up towards a corner of the stage. His Ice Shield held in front him warding off the occasional Earth Shard and Water Bullet. Once Damion was positioned close enough to the corner that no one could get behind him, he waited.

The six remaining students would quickly run out of mana if they continued casting spells. That meant they would have to charge in and with the limited angle of attack, Damion was sure he could take them all out with a single Ice Breath.

Unfortunately for him, these were all final year students, and they knew exactly what Damion's strategy was. Since they could not penetrate his defense and could not approach, they focused on recovering their spent mana. They all moved to the far side of the stage from Damion and waited. At a distance of almost thirty meters, they were confident they could dodge his Ice Shards.

When Damion saw his opponents stop casting spells and move away from him he realized they were not going to fall for his trap and decided to change his plan. He started casting Ice Shard repeatedly. His goal was twofold, one was to keep them from being able to relax and focus on their mana recovery and the second was to make them think he was expending all his mana. If they believed he was running out of mana he hoped they would try to rush him.

As Damion continued casting spells, he slowly began to cast slower with longer pauses in between his casts. Just as he hoped, the crowd started wondering if Damion was running out of mana and why he did not focus on recovering instead of casting Ice Shards that did not come close to hitting their targets.

Damion's challengers were a little harder to convince, but when he started breathing heavily, they came to a consensus and charged towards him.

Knowing he was only going to be able to use this trick once, Damion kept casting Ice Shards as his opponents crossed the distance. When they were halfway across the stage, he intentionally failed to cast a spell giving them the confidence to keep up their attack.

As they approached Damion took in a deep breath and as soon as his opponents were withing the range of his Ice Breath he exhaled his spell, catching them all off guard. The Water affinity students were first in line and took the brunt of the attack, ending up with ice forming on their uniforms. The two Fire affinity students were next and did not fare any better, both falling unconscious and collapsing on the Water mages.

The Earth mage had been the most cautious and had been at the back of the formation. He was able to stop himself before getting within range of Damion's attack. But now he was faced with a one on one as Damion stepped around his fallen comrades.

"I give up!" the Earth affinity student shouted as Damion was raising his palm to cast a spell.

"Winner, Mage Wells!" Professor Moretti announced.

As soon as Damion was announced the winner several people in staff uniforms rushed onto the stage to tend to the fallen students. Damion had not done any major physical damage, but if left unchecked their inhaling of his Ice Breath could become serious.

Damion quickly located Elicia at the edge of the stage and moved towards her and together they quickly left the challenge area. He did not want to stick around, despite a number of students clamoring to get his attention.