Shields Up
Ah, she's charging in with the shield lol.
It had been a match Devil could have won.
No—it was a match he almost did win.
The moment Devil unleashed the Black Dragon's techniques, he surpassed Leo in every respect at once, and even landed a clean hit with a surprise attack.
On top of that, the damage Devil had taken earlier had partially recovered through Dark Regression, one of the Black Dragon's innate abilities.
Against anyone other than Leo, it would have been Devil's match to take.
So the gap really is insurmountable.
Because his opponent was Leo.
Talent didn't simply describe Leo—it poured out of her in floods. Even amid that desperate, blood-soaked exchange, she entered the state of Spirit Descent, becoming one with her light spirit.
The instant she turned into a spiritual being, her understanding and command of mana skyrocketed. For a brief moment she slipped free of her body's limits, and part of her wounds healed along with it.
Even so, she was still half-dead.
The Black Dragon's martial arts devour their wielder—but in exchange, they deal out just as much punishment to the enemy.
She had managed Spirit Descent, barely, but she had neither the strength left to forge a blade of light nor the mana to spare for one.
And yet Leo summoned enough power to cut down Devil—cloaked in the Black Dragon's might—in a single stroke.
How?
—It was impressive. Truly.
Beyond the one percent of power she was permitted, there was the weapon I had given her: the Divine Staff.
Leo reversed her grip on the staff and swung it like a sword, cleaving Devil down.
Unable to create light, she had used the sliver of divinity within the staff itself as her blade of light.
It was a realm that could only be called genius.
The viewers rejoiced even as confusion swept through them.
Leo, the tournament favorite—no, the one whose victory had been all but guaranteed—had very nearly been eliminated. And Devil, who should have dropped out in the quarterfinals or semifinals at best, had momentarily overpowered her completely.
From here on out, nobody could say for certain who would win.
If even Leo and Devil had been pushed this hard, then the remaining contenders had to be evenly matched through and through.
Fwooooosh...
White divinity settled over Leo as she collapsed, drained of strength, and her body healed with startling speed.
Before anyone realized it, her stamina restored, Leo sprang to her feet and blinked.
—Now, we will select the combatants for Round Two.
Round Two: Redberry versus Vlack.
This match followed much the same shape as the last.
Redberry was a fire mage with genuine talent and genuine skill—but a ranker hovering around the hundred mark all the same.
Vlack, by contrast, held the hidden class of Anti-Mage, with talent and skill that fell short of no one's, and sat at Rank 8—a high ranker.
Going purely by ranking, the gap between them was nearly identical to the gap between Leo and Devil.
67.3% versus 32.7%.
Unlike the last round, which had tipped to an extreme degree, a surprising number of people this time threw their points behind the underdog, Redberry.
A full 32.7% of them, no less.
Plenty still backed Vlack, of course—but after the shock of the previous round, there were those hedging their bets, thinking, Who's to say Redberry won't pull it off?
—Then please, take your positions.
"Understood."
"Got it."
Each raised their greatsword and staff and waited in place.
Just as before, white divinity descended to carry them away.
Crrrack.
"A grassland?"
"A grassland... it seems."
The two faced each other across a vast open plain under a bright sun.
A long-range mage against a mid-range greatsword fighter.
Both classes favored open ground over cluttered terrain, so neither of them had anything to complain about.
If it came down to it, what remained was nothing but pure, naked difference in skill.
—We will begin in five seconds.
Each took their stance and readied their techniques.
Redberry drew up a magic circle of flame.
Vlack poured black energy into his gleaming white blade.
At last, the five seconds elapsed.
"Bloo—"
"Rise."
Before Vlack could even take a step, flowers of fire wound themselves around him.
A baptism of flame, launched exactly as if it had been decided from the very start.
"?!"
Caught off guard by an assault far fiercer than he'd anticipated, Vlack swung his greatsword, severing the flaming stems.
FWOOSH!
But the fire didn't cut cleanly—it left an afterglow smoldering in his path, stalling his movement.
The baptism of flame did not miss that opening.
KWAAAAAAAH!!
And then it swallowed Vlack whole, burning him away completely.
"...There."
Completely—no chance of rising again.
—Good grief.
"I won!!"
KA-BOOM.
—Round Two: victory to Redberry.
Well. A win for the underdogs.
—Didn't I tell you? Your usual capabilities don't matter here.
I had said it again and again.
The physical abilities, blessings, powers, skills, equipment, and everything else they'd enjoyed until now—all of it was sealed. The sole exception, the one percent I'd unlocked, was each fighter's class ability.
Granted, through the deepened understanding of mana they'd gained in my lectures, they could unseal the rest on their own.
—But in the end, this is a fight where the one with deeper understanding wins.
Everyone stood on equal ground.
And on equal ground, even the rock-solid defenses the Anti-Mage prided himself on were worth nothing here.
He'd certainly be tougher than Redberry the mage, of course—the gap between classes was simply unavoidable.
But compared to the outside world, his body was as soft and yielding as fresh tofu.
By his very nature as a close-to-mid-range fighter, Vlack was all but guaranteed to be vulnerable to the classic mage combo: a Bind, followed immediately by a burst of concentrated damage.
Worse still, Vlack wasn't merely a warrior—he was an Anti-Mage, and his defenses were weaker than a standard warrior's or tank's.
—Vlack tends to fight by trading ground for ground, don't you think? Giving flesh to take bone?
Give up the small to gain the large.
It was one of Vlack's core fighting methods—a selfish kind of exchange, made possible by his many powerful abilities.
But not here.
Above all, Redberry's understanding of mana was overwhelmingly superior.
That was why he couldn't shatter her Bind in a single stroke.
Had his mana control been on par with hers, or above it, the outcome might have been different.
Talent, it seems, cannot be dismissed.
—Hmm...
Vlack hadn't really played that badly, though.
If I could raise a shield on his behalf: the difference between them was simply a difference in their understanding of mana—Vlack's responses themselves had been flawless. On equal specs, a hidden-class Anti-Mage had more than enough offense and raw strength to break a mage's Bind.
Watching his movements, I could reconstruct how it should have gone: he'd have broken the technique, then caught Redberry with a Blade Dance during the window of vulnerability right after her casting.
Redberry would have either retreated to set up her next spell, or taken it head-on and gone down.
Of course, the gap had been real, so he'd failed to break free and lost. That was that.
—It can't be helped. Please don't be too hard on Vlack. I told you, didn't I? This fight isn't decided by original abilities alone.
After all, even Leo hadn't beaten Devil until she was driven to the absolute extreme and all but awakened.
Had Leo's understanding of mana been lacking by even a hair, she might have lost exactly the way Vlack just did.
—I wouldn't call it gear-carrying. After all, without real skill, you can never climb the rankings no matter what, can you?
However extravagantly the wealthy threw their money around, the reason they could claw their way into the top thousand but never into the top hundred was simple.
Because they lacked the skill.
Stack on the best abilities, the best weapons, the best classes you like—without genuine skill, it all amounted to nothing at all.
—Setting that aside, Redberry did wonderfully too. She's grown since last time, I think.
Redberry beamed at my words.
Back at the third lecture, I'd merely noted that she had talent. Now, watching her, it looked like talent that genuinely sparkled.
At this rate, wouldn't her ranking climb before long?
—Let me say it once more: this, above all, is a contest of how well you've absorbed my lectures. Your original abilities don't matter—
"...Ahem. Um. Professor Lily?"
Vlack, who had returned at some point after receiving treatment, looked up toward the sky.
He seemed to have quite a lot he wanted to say.
"Look. In ranked matches, you win some and you lose some. So you really don't have to keep defending me like—"
—No. This is something I need to say.
Otherwise Vlack might sink into needless self-loathing.
Maybe because I'd watched so many students grow despondent after losing a match, it never felt like someone else's problem.
I'd been there myself, after all.
—The only reason Vlack lost is a matter of technique proficiency and understanding, nothing more. So please, don't belittle his actual skill or curse at him—
"......"