[Day 2 of the Tournament – Quarter-Finals]

[Location: The Arena Floor]

The low hum grew into a high-pitched whine.

The air around Elena's left hand was spinning at thousands of revolutions per minute.

It was a tight, controlled cylinder of rotation.

Elise watched, confused. The ice spear in her hand wavered.

"Spinning the air?" Elise scoffed, though her voice betrayed a hint of nervousness. "What will that do? My mist is heavy. You can't move it."

"Exactly," Elena said, her eyes locked on Elise's silhouette through the fog. "It is heavy. Which means it has mass."

Elena thrust her left palm forward.

She projected the rotation forward, creating a vortex that extended from her hand all the way to Elise.

[Wind Art: Centrifugal Tunnel.]

Physics took over.

In a centrifuge, heavier objects are pushed outward by the rotation, while lighter objects remain in the center.

Something she had learnt from Mozart

The "Heavy Water" droplets suspended in the mist were significantly denser than the air.

As the vortex spun, the droplets were violently flung outward, away from the center of the rotation.

VWOOM.

The result was instantaneous and spectacular.

A hole appeared in the white void.

It was a perfect, transparent cylinder of air, about the width of a dinner plate, cutting straight through fifty meters of dense fog. Inside the cylinder, the air was thin, almost a vacuum.

The mist had been forced out to the edges, creating a swirling wall of water that defined the tunnel.

Through the tunnel, Elise was perfectly visible.

She stood there, eyes wide, looking down the barrel of the wind tunnel. She wasn't hidden anymore. She was framed.

"No..." Elise gasped. "Impossible."

"Light travels in a straight line," Elena stated, raising her right hand.

She aligned her Photon Lens with the center of the vacuum tunnel. There were no droplets to scatter the beam. There was no air resistance to slow it down.

There was only a clear path.

"And you just gave me a target."

Elena tapped the monocle.

[Light Magic: Solar Lance.]

FLASH.

A beam of pure, concentrated sunlight fired from her palm.

It didn't scatter; instead, it travelled down the centre of the wind tunnel like a bullet through a gun barrel. It moved at the speed of light, silent and inevitable.

Elise tried to raise her wand. She tried to summon a wall of ice.

Unfortunately, she was too slow.

ZAP.

The beam hit the white coral wand in her hand.

CRACK.

The artifact exploded. The force of the impact, amplified by the vacuum, blew the fragments of coral backward.

Elise screamed as the shockwave lifted her off her feet and threw her ten feet back into the mist.

She landed hard, rolling across the stone floor.

The wind tunnel collapsed. The mist rushed back in to fill the void, but it was too late.

The hum of the wind died down. Elena lowered her hands. Smoke curled from the tip of her glove.

"My wand..." Elise's voice whimpered from the fog.

The mist began to fade. Without the wand to sustain the spell, the heavy water droplets fell to the ground like rain.

Pitter-patter.

The arena was clear.

Elena stood tall, her uniform bloodied but her posture unbroken. Elise lay on the wet ground, clutching her bruised wrist, staring at the shards of her precious family heirloom.

Elise looked up. She looked at the VIP box. She saw her father standing there, his face a mask of shock.

The shame hit her harder than the spell. She had the elemental advantage. She had the terrain advantage. And she had lost to a "disgraced" elf.

Elise slumped, burying her face in her hands.

"I forfeit," she sobbed.

"WINNER: ELENA OF CLASS F!"

…......

[Location: VIP Box]

CRASH.

Duke Vane's wine glass hit the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces. The red wine stained the expensive carpet, looking uncomfortably like blood.

"Wind..." The Duke whispered, gripping the railing until his knuckles turned white.

"She cleared a path through Heavy Water? That requires 3rd Order mana control! She is a First Year!"

He turned to Damien, his eyes wild with accusation.

"You knew! You knew she was a Dual Affinity mage and you hid it!"

Damien stood up slowly. He adjusted his cuffs.

"I didn't hide anything, Duke Vane," Damien said calmly.

"You simply assumed that because she was a Solari, she would only use Light. You assumed she was rigid."

Damien walked to the edge of the balcony, looking down at Elena, who was calmly cleaning her monocle.

Underneath his mask, although he didn't show it, but he was actually quite proud.

These students of his, were characters he had only seen before through the screen of his phone.

Now he was responsible for guiding them, changing their fates, and helping them grow

After spending so many years in this world, he had long since stopped seeing them as novel characters but rather as flesh and blood.

And because of that, he was more determined than ever to protect everything he currently had.

"However, if my guess is correct, then this tournament, just like the original one in the novel, is not going to end peacefully", he thought before taking another glance at the Duke

"My students are not rigid," Damien said, his voice cold.

"They adapt. They learn. And they understand that in this world, if you cannot find a path..."

He turned back to the Duke, the eyes of his mask gleaming.

"...you drill one."

The Duke sank into his chair, defeated. His daughter had lost. His money was gone. And his pride lay shattered on the arena floor.

Damien checked the scoreboard.

Lukas: WIN. Elena: WIN.

"Two down," Damien noted.

He looked at the West Gate. A massive shadow was moving in the tunnel. The ground vibrated slightly.

"And now... the main event."

"NEXT MATCH!" the Announcer yelled, trying to recover his hype.

"THE UNSTOPPABLE FORCE VS. THE IMMOVABLE OBJECT!"

"FROM CLASS A... THE STEEL JUGGERNAUT, JORAH!"

"AND FROM CLASS F... ALARIC THE TITAN!"

Damien smiled.

"Let's see if Class A can stop an avalanche."

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