The training hall fell silent as a tomb.
Everyone had thought the match would be decided in one or two exchanges.
But no one had expected Cain to be the victor of that exchange.
‘What on earth just happened?’
‘What did I just see?’
‘Bolio lost…? Really?’
Among them were disciples who had witnessed Cain’s magic demonstration before the family head yesterday.
The magic Cain had shown then was clean and without excess, but it hadn’t seemed particularly strong.
Yet now, Cain had used that same clean magic to perfectly pierce through Bolio’s magic, which boasted an overwhelming amount of mana.
‘Did Bolio not use his full strength? No, it didn’t look that way.’
‘The mana I felt from Bolio’s magic was definitely enormous.’
‘I could never have broken through it.’
‘How did he do it?’
They say you see as much as you know.
While the disciples were confused, instructor Rowen was observing Cain with interested eyes.
‘Indeed… There was a reason the family head sent him straight to the second floor.’
At least in that recent sparring match, the magic and combat sense Cain had displayed were nearly perfect.
‘First of all, the magic itself is incredibly refined.’
Not just Bolio, but most disciples focus on increasing size and firepower when training flame magic.
‘And that’s not necessarily wrong either.’
If someone with ordinary talent tried to train all magic under perfect control from the lower circles, their improvement speed would inevitably be very slow.
‘The insights gained through long struggle in the lower circles can often be obtained effortlessly after ascending to higher circles.’
This doesn’t apply only to magic.
No matter what you’re learning, once you can handle more difficult and advanced tasks, the simpler ones naturally become easier.
To quickly improve flame magic skills, the standard approach is to first increase firepower, then prune away unnecessary parts like trimming branches.
‘No, there are even people who don’t prune at all and just keep pushing forward with firepower alone to reach the 7th circle and are now looking toward the 8th circle.’
The current head of the Bederman family, Richter Bederman, who had supported the declining Sears family and helped maintain its lineage, was exactly such a case.
But Cain’s magic now had the completely opposite approach.
Despite being in the lower circles, it was without excess, and he had perfect control over his movements.
And what about his sense for actual combat?
‘Rather than pouring all his mana from the start to complete his magic and then clashing with full force against his opponent, he first observed the opponent’s magic with his eyes and optimized his own magic accordingly.’
Cain had waited without fully completing his spell technique, gathering only mana, until Bolio had finished forming his large fireball.
Then, after identifying the structure and weaknesses of the opponent’s magic, he completed his spell technique accordingly.
‘To twist the flow of mana inside the fireball in one go with the rotation of Fire Needle.’
And what about the Fire Arrow?
Bolio’s Fire Arrow had a plausible form, but critically, the power wasn’t properly concentrated at the arrowhead and was dispersed.
Cain used this to concentrate more mana at the arrowhead and completely split Bolio’s Fire Arrow head-on.
‘If the angle had been off even slightly, Cain’s Fire Arrow would have had its shaft caught up in the flames too.’
Because he cut straight through without even a hair’s breadth of error, he was able to minimize mana friction, cleanly split Bolio’s magic, and continue all the way through.
‘Really, if I hadn’t seen it directly, it would be hard to believe.’
To display this level of combat, one would need either heaven-sent talent or experience from countless battles – one of the two was necessary.
Since it couldn’t be the latter, in Cain’s case, it had to be that he was born with tremendous talent.
‘To think that with such talent, he hadn’t learned flame magic until now.’
How much had this talent been wasted all this time?
If Cain had learned flame magic from an even younger age…
‘…It’s a meaningless hypothesis.’
Judging from the conversation when he had visited the family head’s office before, Blake Sears probably knew that Cain originally had talent.
‘That’s why he could make that final ultimatum of a public declaration.’
Even so, the question remained as to why Cain had only now learned flame magic…
‘There must be a reason the family head won’t tell us.’
Anyway, rather than regretting what had happened until now, it would be better to think it fortunate that Cain had changed his mind and started learning flame magic now.
‘I’m not sure exactly when he formed his circle, but…’
If he’s already at this level, his future growth is bound to be promising.
‘And it seems the kids here have also been stimulated by watching Cain.’
Rowen scanned the expressions of the disciples surrounding the training hall.
Some disciples were simply surprised by Cain’s victory, but several were clenching their fists as if making some kind of resolution.
And they looked at Cain with challenging eyes.
‘Good.’
The corners of Rowen’s mouth turned up.
“…I lost.”
Bolio, who had been sitting with his eyes tightly shut, came to his senses, stood up, and walked to the center.
Then he extended his hand.
“And I apologize for my earlier rudeness. You’re more than qualified to be on the second floor. No, it’s ridiculous for me to even speak of your qualifications.”
Cain unexpectedly extended his hand readily in return.
“Good that you know.”
“……”
Bolio grasped Cain’s hand with a somewhat strange expression.
Soon after releasing his hand, Bolio turned and walked toward the edge of the field.
‘This makes it twice now. Being overtaken by a direct descendant.’
A bitter smile crossed his lips.
‘Maybe adopted disciples really can’t measure up to direct descendants after all.’
He had trained hard until now with the belief that even adopted disciples could surpass direct descendants and reach high levels through effort alone.
He had wanted to become an adopted disciple superior to the direct descendants who received various privileges and favoritism.
But it seemed he really couldn’t match those who inherited the blood and talent of direct descendants.
“Not bad.”
And then, at the voice heard from behind, Bolio turned his head.
Cain was looking straight at Bolio.
It was somehow different from his earlier sullen expression.
“Even if you reduce the number of fireballs slightly, focus on maintaining the overall flow of mana to the end. And for the Fire Arrow, pay attention to the mana density at the arrowhead, especially the tip.”
Cain spoke slowly and clearly.
“Since your strengths are distinct, if you focus on just a few things in your training, you’ll see good results.”
Having finished speaking, Cain didn’t wait for an answer and turned to leave the field.
Bolio watched his retreating figure blankly.
And muttered.
“…Thank you.”
‘He’s not a completely hopeless guy.’
That was his honest assessment of Bolio.
He had thought the guy would be terrible at fighting and would stubbornly refuse to acknowledge defeat, but this time his expectations were wrong.
‘The maximum amount of mana he can draw out and store is quite substantial, and even after consuming it, the circulation speed of drawing new mana from his core is fast.’
However, he was too focused on firepower, resulting in poor efficiency relative to his mana amount, and there were many gaps in the flow.
If those shortcomings were corrected, he would not only advance to the 3rd circle in the near future but also accelerate his growth.
‘It depends on what he does about it.’
Actually, the points Cain had made were observations anyone with good observational skills could make.
‘Going into more detailed teaching would be difficult. Unfortunately, I don’t have talent for teaching.’
Through this sparring match, if he experiences it firsthand and realizes what needs to be corrected, he’ll grow. If not, he’ll hit a wall.
Cain decided not to worry any more about problems that had left his hands.
“Cain, good sparring. You used mana very efficiently.”
At Rowen’s evaluation, Cain bowed his head.
“Thank you.”
“So, since you used it efficiently and probably have plenty of mana left, how about doing some more sparring?”
“…Excuse me?”
Rowen smiled and said.
“Just spar once each with the people here who want to have a practice match with you, only volunteers.”
“Do I really need to…”
“I’ll give you an additional 1 point per person for evaluation.”
“I’ll definitely do it.”
“Good.”
To advance to the next floor, one had to pass tests, but accumulated evaluation scores also needed to exceed a certain level.
For Cain, who had newly entered the second floor at an awkward time, having an opportunity to supplement his evaluation scores was welcome.
‘Rowen, was it? He’s thinking of using this opportunity to have me spar so the second-floor disciples can quickly gain experience.’
He was giving merit to Cain while providing other disciples with the opportunity to spar with Cain.
Soon, disciples wanting to challenge Cain came out one by one to stand on the field.
“Begin!”
The first opponent was Matthew, who had been next to Bolio.
His strength lay in simultaneously controlling multiple Fire Needles like limbs.
‘If I beat Cain here, I’ll be jumping over Bolio in one go. Plus I’ll score points with the instructor. Hehe.’
He confidently summoned the maximum number of Fire Needles he could handle.
“Fire Needle.”
“Fire Needle.”
But Cain summoned exactly one more Fire Needle than Matthew had summoned.
After simultaneously controlling the Fire Needles to mark each one, he sent the remaining one toward Matthew’s forehead.
“Sparring over! Cain wins.”
“Damn it…!”
The next in line, Briar, had a specialty of summoning and launching fireballs from multiple angles.
“Hahaha! Behind you, Cain!”
The moment Briar shouted, certain of victory.
“Urgh!”
Briar groaned and collapsed as a fireball struck his back first.
“Sparring over. Cain wins.”
The order immediately moved to the next.
“Cain, I’ve figured you out by watching the previous sparring. You always watch your opponent’s magic to the end first, then prepare a counter. In that case, there’s a way. I absolutely won’t cast magic until you attack first…”
“Fire Arrow.”
“Urgh!”
“Sparring over. Cain wins.”
Rowen’s voice announcing Cain’s victory rang out without fail.
Several disciples came up as the order changed, but most couldn’t properly withstand even one exchange before falling.
“Sparring over. Cain wins!”
“Sparring over. Cain wins!”
“Instructor, I haven’t even started yet?”
“Ah, sorry. Begin!”
“Urgh!”
“……”
After sparring with all the volunteers, Cain was finally able to step down from the field.
“Good work, Cain. I’ll settle the points right away.”
“Thank you.”
With this, Cain had earned a decent amount of evaluation points, and there would be no more disputes about his direct entry to the second floor.
Anyone who might raise disputes had all been defeated by Cain in this sparring session.
“This concludes the morning sparring education. After lunch, we’ll have the theory education we couldn’t do this morning, so don’t be late.”
“Yes!”
“Yep!”
Lunch time.
Alice had packed a lunch box that was in the classroom.
As he was about to return to the classroom, he heard familiar voices.
“Cain!”
“Cain!!”
“You two are…”
It was the brothers Ed and Fon.
“I actually had something I wanted to ask you two.”
“Huh?”
“Wh-what do you want to ask?”
“Why did you gang up on me in the classroom?”
-Ugh, acting like you’re listening and not listening again? Tsk, live like that and you’ll really get expelled! You failure!
-We don’t know anymore!
“Didn’t you call me a failure last time and make nasty comments about expulsion?”
At those words, the twin brothers’ eyes widened.
“Hey, when did we ever!”
“A month ago.”
“No, that time was… We were trying to teach you magic, but you kept ignoring us, so we got angry…”
At those words, Cain tilted his head.
They were trying to teach him magic?
‘Since I don’t remember, maybe this was before I awakened to my past life.’
Seeing Cain’s lukewarm reaction, Ed and Fon hurriedly added.
“Expulsion… That wasn’t something we meant seriously! Really.”
“R-right. Please believe us.”
“I’ll believe you.”
“Really?”
Taking words at face value and misunderstanding was Cain’s specialty in his previous life too.
So when someone said it was a misunderstanding, he tended to accept it unless there seemed to be signs of lying.
Ed and Fon’s expressions brightened immediately when Cain believed them.
They hesitated a bit, then spoke as if they had made up their minds.
“Cain. Thanks for earlier. For stepping up and fighting for us.”
“Th-thanks.”
Cain answered honestly.
“If you two hadn’t stepped up, it would have ended lightly on the spot.”
“Gasp!”
“Was that it? Sorry!”
“Still, it was good intentions, and the result wasn’t bad either. I express my gratitude.”
Anyway, they had raised their voices with good intentions when Cain was facing unfair disputes.
Though it was unnecessary interference, it resulted in setting the atmosphere and earning quite a few evaluation points.
The twin brothers’ expressions brightened at Cain’s thanks.
“But why didn’t you two apply to spar with me?”
At those words, the twin brothers’ expressions changed to look sheepish.
“Th-that’s…”
“We can’t win anyway…”
“And we didn’t want to fight you.”
Cain sighed softly.
“Sparring isn’t fighting. If you want to improve your skills, it would be good not to avoid sparring in the future.”
“Okay…”
“Ah, I won’t avoid it…”
The twin brothers looked dejected as if they had been scolded.
But soon they spoke again with bright expressions.
“Cain, want to eat lunch?”
“I should eat.”
“Then let’s eat together!”
“What?”
Words he had never heard even once in the main building in his previous life came out of their mouths.
