Chaos Cycle: The Eye of Genesis

"Nothing better than a winning streak," Elior said with a smile as he came back to the dressing room finishing his match.

"And that too using no weapon or armour," Shin said jokingly. "Brother, I have trouble keeping the girls away from you, please lose your next match."

Elior snickered. "Unfortunately, I am done for today," Elior said, resting his but on the bench. He unzipped his leather jacket, sitting comfortably. He looked around and found Ileana had not returned yet. She even missed one of her matches before, what kinds of last-minute preparation she was doing with Aanya. "But, I am really bored with all the winnings."

"It's Ileana's match again," Lara said. Her mood had gotten a lot better in the meantime. Well, what else could she do? Sulk all day in misery just because she lost to the strongest upperclassman? No, Lara was not like that. Yes, she was discluded a little, but her mindset strengthened more.

"Where is that girl now? Is she giving up on the tournament now?" Elior thought out loud. "I better check."

Saying that he brought out his cell phone,  and left it on the other way of the dressing room that leads to the academic faculties. He called Ileana first and like before, got no reply. He got out in the open and looked around where she could be now. In her room? Possibly. The training hall? He was not sure.

Then he called Aanya who brought Ileana away. The call rang like it had with Ileana and nobody answered there as well. Then he saw two females coming out of a teleportation gate just before the entrance of the dressing room. It was none other than the duo of Ileana and Aanya. Currently, the short girl was seething in sweat—whatever last-minute preparation she did, appeared as she had been through hell.

Aanya was in her usual state as well, though she was not in the volunteer's dress. She was the one to notice him first, and Ileana rushed into the dressing room to get to her match.

"Senior," Elior called and watched her coming towards him. "Where did you go?"

"Not that far," Aanya said mysteriously with her smile. "Are you not going to watch her match?"

"Yes." He nodded as he would like to see what kind of difference the last minute preparation makes.

"Let's go to the stadium then? It is very lively there," Aanya proposed. "Your match probably ended right?"

Elior nodded and the two of them moved the other way towards the stadium. They moved to the familiar stadium again where his parents were. His mother gave him another hug just the moment she noticed his smell.

"My little boy, I was so worried then you know," His mother said, keeping him in her embrace. "For a second you are winning and then you fall so abruptly." She was talking about the glitch.

"Well, mom, you can let me go now. Look I am alright," Elior muttered. "Others are watching."

Even the reporters were watching. What if in the next, it was revealed the infamous masked vigilante, the Reaper, was such a mama's boy?

His mother finally let him out as they heard the match starting. "By the way, your teacher is here."

Elior knitted his eyebrow and saw there was a tall man at the end of his prime, sitting next to his father, watching the match together.

"You performed quite a show there," Head professor Aleister said. "I hope you can go like that tomorrow."

He could, but here he only nodded.

Aleister looked at the white-haired maiden next to him. "Where were you girl?" he scowled at her. "The match schedule was all ruined just for you."

"I will speak to you after this match, uncle," Aanya said smilingly. Ileana would have missed more than one match if not for her. She had called the head professor before the time to reschedule Ileana's match.

Back in the duelling ground. This time Ileana's opponent was a spellcaster like herself. A Mage named Naeli, perhaps reached the second order, but more importantly, combat was her speciality.

Without bothering with her opponent, Ileana ran her boast on herself, bringing about 12% more in mana application and mana recovery. As the match started, her opponent shot weaves of sharp wind blade at her from long range. It was sharp, forceful and dangerous, almost twice more powerful than her own.

Ileana erected a transfluent shield in front of her, but it broke only from the second blade, but in the meantime, Ileana got to safety. Safety for a couple more seconds that was.

Magic circles formed on both ends of the contestant, one was an air spell, while the other was of earth.

Ileana formed a dozen fist-sized balls of earth and shot towards Naeli. The upper-class man got the better of half of them just with the wind she created and the wind formed into a tornado then, swirling in the middle of the duelling ground. It was about to rush towards Ileana when something unforeseen happened.

The mudball Ileana shot the first burst in the middle of the tornado and even the ones that were not close to the tornado burst. The burst of the mudball was not enough to do a thing to the tornado, but Ileana never wanted to do a thing to the tornado. What the dozens of mudballs did was create dust all over the duelling ground, and the tornado even helped in its path. The dust moved along the wind and it turned so thick that even watching the match turned difficult.

Naeli felt something was wrong and tried to clear out the dust with her winds, though her tornado still went after Ileana threateningly.

A smirk appeared on Ileana's lips, she created a magic seal as something moved under the earth towards her opponent. She heard a shriek.

The dust cleared as Naeli had wanted, but it had not gone her way as she wanted. Currently, the poor girl was waist-deep into the earth and she felt something was pulling her even further. She created a couple of wind blades but dissolved them quickly as she might get hurt if she attacked the earth surrounding her. Even without the attack, she was having trouble breathing.

The pulling never stopped and she could feel it was not any mud spell or the quicksand spell. She ground her teeth and saw the short freshmen girl grinning at her. She cursed under the breath and tried to find a way out of that. She tried to lift her body with a levitation spell, but barely helped, only leaving her at the same spot. Was this girl trying to bury her here?

Ileana fidgeted her finger skilfully and created some other seal.

Seal of command? Naeli thought, but she hardly had time to think as when the seal was broken. The pulling stopped, but she felt the earth was trying to press far too heavily. She felt like she was crushing against a hydraulic press.

In the end, a mage's far inferior compared with a close combatant. She could only concede from there even when she had four-fifths of the mana left. she did not even get to show her other skills--it's all for her blind confidence. Like she has never seen any upperclassmen getting thrashed today.

"Good match," Ileana said finally sighing in relief. She created another seal and Naeli came out of the earth, dirt all over her body.

The upper-class girl snorted. This was an utter disgrace from her. If only she started with the Levitation from the beginning. But what's done is done. It was her last match, and didn't matter much as she was already in the second round.

The crowd was cheering for Ileana recently, not understanding what happened in the match. They have seen Naeli defeating her opponent before, and currently getting her first defeat was a great feast to their eyes. Moreover, it was from a freshman.

But not all in the audience held the expression of dumbfoundedness in the match.

"You got Ileana an Earth Spirit?" Elior asked, raising his eyebrow at the silver-haired girl. And it was not only him that was frowning, even the head professor was looking at her with evidently startled eyes. But not the others, they clearly have no clue what happened in the match, much less about earth spirit.

All Ileana's mother saw was her daughter, not getting another trauma and that was it.

"You are surprised?" Aanya giggled, watching the smiling face of Ileana in the match. "I thought Ileana deserved to have some fun, after all, she been through a lot in her match against Kat."

"Still a spirit?" Aleister scowled at her. "Are you not ruining her too much so early?"

"Ileana is a smart girl, she knows how to train herself, and you need not worry, uncle."

"I am lost," Ileana's mother asked in the middle after making sure her baby was alright. "What's an earth Spirit? How much does it cost?

Aanya looked at Elior and then at the head professor. With the exchange of noddings, they decided it is not best to talk to their parents. 

___________________________

I added an epigraph in the first chapter. Check it out if you can. 

There is not much tension in these few months as I have to explain a few things. And I can only say only two of the following match will be exciting. 

Keep in mind that It's all for the preparation of the trial. 

Thanks for the stones and golden tickets.