“Yeah, we are fine. We can continue the battle.” I did not wish for our battle to end like this. This was not a true battle. All I did was overwhelm her when I wanted to have a true battle with her.

“Are you sure?” The Announcer asked as he looked at Runa with a questioning gaze.

“Yes! I want to keep fighting her! You can name her as the winner, but we want to keep going.” Runa said excitedly. “Although let’s tone it down a bit….”

I let out a laugh. I couldn’t help it. Runa was definitely a magic maniac. The Announcer looked at the two of us and sighed. “Alright, but keep the damage to a minimum. If you blow up the stage, fix it. I am sure you can do that, correct?”

The Announcer looked at me, which I answered with a nod of my head. ” Easy enough.” I mean, it was quite easy to modify the stage as needed. I had been doing it this entire time.

“Alright then. Battle stage seven hundred seventy seven, contestant number one thousand seventy two, Faith, winner!” The Announcer yelled out my win before hopping back up through the air towards his stage.-.

Once he was gone, I created a magic circle and began fixing the battle stage. After that, I took a deep breath and looked at Runa. “Are you sure you are okay?”“Hmm? Yep! Fine and dandy!” Runa said cheerfully, which made me let out a sigh of relief.

While she had acted all amazed by what happened, I still worried about whether or not she was okay. “Then shall we continue?”

“Yep!” Runa nodded and was already getting into a defensive position but paused and gave me a serious look. “I know I can not beat you normally, but I want to test my skills against someone of the same level as me. So would you mind matching my strength?”

“Sure.” I nodded and smiled as I jumped back to my side of the stage with a single leap. “You can start!”

“Then get ready!” Runa yelled out. At the same time, ten magic circles appeared, and this time it was not fireballs but streaks of lightning. They charged toward me so fast that I was almost caught off guard. My mana shield went up quickly. But even with it up, as the lightning hit the ground, I could feel the electricity surging through the ground and into my body. I think if it was not for my stats, I might have really been hurt by such an attack. But I made sure to take note of the fact that lighting would travel into the ground and penetrate my mana shield. Direct attacks like fireball can not do damage like that. While I could feel the heat, the flames would be more around my body and not directly touching me.

“It seems barrier might be a better option during times of area effect spells. But what if I changed the shape of the mana shield?” I mumbled to myself as many more lightning spells came flying at me. I quickly waved my hand, creating a barrier to block the spell before sending out ten streaks of lightning myself towards Runa. I wanted to see just how she would deal with it.

But to my amazement. Instead of using a normal barrier, she created a dome of water around her which made the lightning spread out over the water and dissipate. “Interesting.” I smiled before creating more magic circles. This time it was not lightning, but an earth spell called earth spike. It shaped large rocks from underground into spears that shot up through the earth. I hate to say it, but I was using Runa to learn proper combat with other mages. I just hoped she would not mind.

Normally such combat would be over in an instant. But since I was gunning to be a magic knight, it would be different. Battles would consist of both magic and sword. But going head to head with a mage that would not want to get close was a hard thing to do if they were competent. At least, this is my theory. While I may be able to overwhelm them, if I was attacked by surprise, I would need to be able to defend properly. Like mana shield and lightning are a no go. If I had not learned that just now, I would have been in a bad position if I had been ambushed by a few mages who tried to hit me with lightning. My little dragon butt would have been fried.

So this battle with Runa was very educational on many levels. Spell after spell was cast back and forth. I would switch up my attacks to try to fake Runa out, but she always seemed to have a proper method to block my attacks. I really have to say that Runa might just be peerless in her power range. Her knowledge and experience while battling other mages was very deep. I was kind of jealous. But then again, as an elf and a princess at that, she was probably trained in such combat since she was young. All my experience comes from what little training I had with my family. It was not much, but enough to survive against bandits.

While my current power was high, I lacked experience and knowledge. But I am in no hurry to learn it all right away. I will learn it all over time. It was just that right now was the best time to have a mock battle with the stage and all already set up for us.

We continued sending spells back and forth at each other until the Announcer announced that the third round was now over. “All contestants who have won will need to spend the night in the arena. Matches will begin before dawn.”I guess this was also normal for the tournament once the one versus one matches started. Now that I think about it, Annie and the other maids were all preparing a lot of food. Much more than normal, I guess this was the reason why. I scratched my head and looked over at Runa, walking over to me, and asked: “You staying as well?”

“Yep! I want to see how far you go. The next set of matches will be much shorter now that most of the weaker contestants are out. Looks like you won’t be fighting Sei and the others until the day after though.”

I looked up at the sky to see the new brackets. The numbers had already been whittled down to only a hundred people. It seemed there were quite a few double outs and contestants who gave up due to injuries. The name on the list for my first fight was no one I knew. “I guess I will need to wait until tomorrow to see who I will be fighting.”

“Hmmm? You don’t know? Fanmari is the girl with the big fan. I heard her name earlier due to her being close to my battle stage.” Runa explained, which made me frown slightly.

“Then tomorrow’s battle might be much harder than I expected.” I guess I can only hope to win. I let out a sigh as I looked up at the sky. “Let’s hope you are not one of the assassins.”

“Hmmm? Assassins?” Runa asked with a confused expression.

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s go eat. My Annie and the girls made a bunch of food earlier. We should get over there before Sei eats it all.” I did not want to go into details about what was going on around me. I did not want Runa to get involved, and all of a sudden, an international incident was happening due to some stupid nobles.

Before we arrived at the stadium, Annie told me to meet her by the entrance after my matches. But as I arrived with Runa, I heard a Sei whining. “Annie, why can’t I just have a sandwich now?”

“Miss Sei, I have told you many times already that you can not eat before the Young Miss. Only when the Young Miss is here and says you can eat can you eat. There is proper etiquette to everything.” Annie’s voice was stern as she scolded Sei, who hung her head in defeat.

Seeing the two going back and forth, I couldn’t help but chuckle. After all, while Sei looked my age at this moment, she was, in fact, much older than both Annie and I. So seeing Annie handle Sei so well made for a funny scene.

“Young Miss! Congratulations on continuing to the next round!” Annie saw me and perked right up as she walked over and bowed her head to me in greeting.

“Yeah, well… I kind of went overboard.” I said while scratching my head.

“No, you didn’t. I am the one to blame for what happened. I truly got in over my head. Someone who can cast two high tier magic spells in a row would definitely be able to pull off some crazy things. I was too overconfident.” Runa said as she cut in.

“Let’s just say it was both our faults. Let’s go eat. I am starving.” I could tell if I tried to say it was my fault again, then Runa would try to say it was hers. I did not feel like going back and forth like that, so It was easier to just say it was both our faults. At any rate, I am really starving, and Annie’s cooking is amazing.

“Finally, we can eat! Let’s go!” Sei yelled out while grabbing my hand and Annie’s hand and pulling us along. Today’s battles ended on a good note but I wonder what tomorrow will bring.