For the second round, every match ups would be random, so anyone could be Shuri's next opponent, including her good friends. But she felt fortunate to see that all three of them got different opponents to face. Shuri would be fighting against a noble boy named Zenon Castoduo. He was the son of a viscount.

Rose's opponent was her longtime acquaintance, Gallelio Fragtisagna. She was ready to teach this guy a lesson who tried to pick a fight with her new friend. As for Colette, she would be facing a commoner girl called Noel. Noel was a user of rare curse type magic and she was one of the commoners who was not invited to the academy by Elena.

Rose was the first one to go on stage and she found a very arrogant Gallelio waiting for her on it. Today Gallelio was full of confidence as for the nobles to show a domineering performance he was given several valuable treasures to increase his fighting strength.

Rose was one of the people who was invited to join their little alliance. If she joined the alliance then she had to insult and humiliate the commoners they would face on the stage and in exchange she would be given rare and powerful treasures to increase her strength. But Rose declined their invitation and so he was also given a mission to show that she made a mistake by not joining them.

Gallelio was a dual wielder who wielded not two swords but two axes. He was born with a strong body and to capitalise on that he had always preferred heavy weapons. His axes were magic items that had the attached skill of "rendering" and "bleeding". So any wounds that the axe causes would be more severe and harder to heal than normal.

He was also wearing a full plate of armour with increased resistance against fire magic. As his speed was already quite low he didn't mind using a full plate armour which reduced it even more. On the other hand Rose looked like she wasn't wearing anything special. The only item that was giving off strong magic fluctuations was a staff that she was holding.

The match started just the way everyone expected. Rose was trying to keep her distance from Gallelio and was using long range fire magic spells to damage him. But her efforts were mostly unrewarded as Gallelio's armour had a very high resistance against fire. He was also trying his best to somehow close the distance between them. He was sure that if he could close the distance between them then he would definitely win.

As the battle went on Gallelio was gaining more momentum and Rose was on her backfoot. Soon Gallelio was only 5 meters away from her. She was trying to use a fire wall to block him but he was fully confident on his fire resistant armour and went straight to the fire wall to go through it.

That was the moment for which Rose was waiting for this whole time. As soon as he went inside the firewall she lost his senses completely. The wall of fire suddenly turned into a dome of fire trapping him inside. At this exact moment casted a spell on her right hand and her hand lit up in crimson blaze for a moment. But the glow also vanished very quickly.

The fire down was not able to trap Gallelio for long as he was able to come out from that in just a few seconds. Now he found Rose within the axe's range so with a very happy and predatory smile he swung his axes. But his slime froze as his all out attack was blocked by a fire shield. He put more force on the axe and the shield broke soon after. But before he could hit Rose he found that her right hand was touching his face which was not covered. As soon as she touched his face he found a burning sensation on his chick. Soon his whole face caught fire.

He screamed in pain and fell on his butt when his face suddenly caught fire. Not wasting this golden chance Rose went for the kill and created a flame sword and held that on Gallelio's throat. It was his loss. When he lost his sight Rose used that change to cast a spell on her right hand which made her hand a lethal weapon that would burn anything it touched next. If Gallelio was able to see the spell then he might become cautious so she only used this spell when he lost sight of her. And even tho the armour was protecting his whole body, his face was still unprotected so that was why she targeted his face.

Shuri and Colette both congratulated Rose and gave her lots of praise. The next one to battle was Shuri. Her opponent, the viscount's son xenon was also a pure magic caster and was holding an impressive looking staff. He was also wearing a blue robe which was also a magic item. As he was a member of the noble alliance, before the start of the battle he started showing his 'superiority' to Shuri.

"Fufu, poor girl. You were able to surprise everyone by taking the first place for the first phase. That was indeed impressive, but look at you. You don't even have a single magic item. That is the fate for you poor and dirty commoners."

Shuri was at a loss for words. But he still continued with his grad speech -

"But worry not as I'm impressed with your performance. So if you just declare your surrender and praise my greatness then I will be kind enough to add you in my little harem of 40 members. A great offer, even if I do say so myself. Umm, umm. So teacher, please declare my victory as you can see she is so awestruck by my generosity that she can't even speak."

The teachers didn't lend his ear to this fool's bullshit and gave the signal to start the battle. Before the boy could even lift his staff to do anything Shuri didn't waste any time and summoned Magestro from the very beginning. And Magestro was not someone to waste time and sent a white firebolt toward him. The same attack that allowed Shuri to score the highest in the first phase of the combat exam.

And Zenon was barely able to create a water wall to block the wall but that wall didn't last even a second and got destroyed. Then the firebolt hit him directly and his robe was only able to resist it for a single second or two before failing and he was sent outside the stage. So Shuri was declared the winner after just one exchange.

Colette's opponent was overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time. Noel's curses were really powerful and deadly. The audience was able to see that as sometimes she used petrification and sometimes decay. The teachers all gave their honest opinion that almost no students would be able to naturally resist her curses without the support of strong items.

But Colette covered her whole body in her special light magic and she became immune to all of her curses. She was like the perfect counter to Noel's ability. After failing to curse her even once the girl gave up and left the stage. But before she could go to a corner to sulk Elena appeared in front of her and said something. Soon a smile bloomed on the girl's face and she bowed to Elena once and went to the sitting area with happy steps .

...

As for two boys, Lucian faced off against a mage who thought that with her family heirloom item that allows her to create a high gravity area around herself, she would easily win. But Lucian was moving even inside the high gravity area like it was nothing and dodged all her spells. Then he just got close and easily defeated her.

Andric had an even easier time as just after the start of the match, his opponent lost sight of him. As after that he soon found a dagger touching his neck.

That's how the top 16 students were chosen. And now the battle for the top 8 was going to begin.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.