Lord of Charm

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"Wait, you said I'm going to win my bracket, but you are also 24. Are you going to let me win?"

"Of course not, I'm going to participate in the bracket of 36-45. I promised the prince I will marry him if he gets the best rank other than us. Since you're in another bracket, it makes it second rank. However, if I go there and meet him before the finals, it means he would lose his chance to get the second rank."

"So why did you even make that promise?"

Gale and Nina facepalmed at the same time at Lena's weird actions.

"It's fine, I wouldn't enjoy fighting in the other brackets anyway, I heard one of the other kingdoms has a genius that might advance to the fifth stage before the tournament. He might give me a little challenge."

Lena spoke with confidence about defeating someone above her level. While it was true he would be a newly advanced fifth-rank mage, it was still a higher stage.

"Don't look at me like that, the change between ranks within the same phase is mainly in quantity, not much change in quality. While it's a big quantity, it remains possible to surpass."

Nina nodded her head when hearing Lena's claim.

"She's right, her body is far stronger, faster, more durable, and more flexible than most fifth-stage mages, she was strengthened by 5 elements which only makes the gap increase with every rank."

"My connection to the mana should be equal to that of an Advanced Mage who advanced around age 90-100. Gale's should be the same I guess because he got weaker affinities but advanced younger."

They chatted and caught up, Lena was mainly training all those past few months, so she was acting as a listener for Gale and Nina. She wanted to know everything and Gale didn't find a reason to hide anything from her.

When they finished chatting, Gale felt it was time to train; he was all pumped up ever since his battle with Jay. He wanted to wield the same power and was determined to win the tournament.

"I'll go and train with Lady Shana, I must prepare for the upcoming tournament. See you later."

The three separated and went back to their training. during the next few months, Gale was trained in turns by Shana, Lena, and the other disciples.

-----

A few months later:

Gale and Jay stood in front of each other, prepared their spells, and waited for the signal to start.

"Go!"

Both dashed forward at the same time, and Gale summoned little bumps on the ground, trying to make Jay trip. In response, Jay summoned a circle of flame under her feet that burned everything to the ground and kept sprinting.

"GOOD LUCK GALE!"

The 2 other disciples, Violet Mirth and Dion Fortune, cheered for Gale. In those past few months, they became more and more obsessed with Gale as time passed; they were affected by both his good looks and talent.

Gale unsheathed his new sword, it had a beautiful black blade with purple shades and a bit of lightning running through it when he channeled his mana into it.

"Don't use a weapon, that's cheating!"

"Since when? It wasn't mentioned in the rules!"

Gale, however, complied and sheathed the sword back. He shot air blades endlessly, mixed with exploding fireballs among them; he learned how to multi-cast with different elements during his training.

Jay didn't intend to be passive, so she put the fire off with water spells and used fire to suck the air out of the blades. Gale then decided to use his new trump card which he worked on for the few past days.

He used his stone barrage spell, but this time all the stones were dense with mana, and each of them could be considered a weak fourth-rank spell as their speed increased and their course became unpredictable.

Jay used a wall of flame to burn them all, expecting to claim yet another win on Gale. However, without her noticing, one stone suddenly vanished into the shadows and appeared a few meters ahead, right beyond the fire wall; Gale could cast his shadow spell on his earth spell, something usually only Advanced Mages could do!

*POP*

3 balloon popped a few meters behind Jay and the screams of the cheerleaders increased by an octave.

"Haha, you lost!"

Gale laughed happily and looked at Jay expectantly.

They weren't really sparring this time; they just played a game of popping the opponent's balloon and took it to the extreme.

"Ugh, fine!"

Jay removed her pants, shirt, and bra, remaining only in her panties. The penalty of the game was removing one clothing article for each balloon lost in one round. Gale stood in front of her proudly, his shirt was already off and he had only pants and underpants on.

Shana and Lena looked at Gale and the girls with embarrassed looks, feeling like their brother/disciples were smearing their names. The girls were too enthusiastic about having Gale join the mansion, and although Shana enjoyed his presence too, she couldn't act promiscuously like Gale and the girls; she had a reputation to maintain!

"Hahaha, why are you two acting all embarrassed and shy? We young people like to enjoy our lives!"

Nina stepped into the training grounds for the first time after a few months of training on her own.

"Easy for you to say, it wouldn't feel so weird if he wasn't my brother you know."

Right after Lena replied, she suddenly noticed the change in the mana activity around Nina.

"Hey, congratulations! You finally got to the Mage Phase!"

"Hehe, that's right. And I'm only 28 years old this year, that's the youngest here except for you!"

Violet and Dion advanced to the Mage Phase at ages 32 and 33 respectively. One thing Nina wouldn't mention out loud was that she got a lot of inspiration from sensing the mana's behavior from Gale when he spent his time with Sol, which probably sped up her advancement by a year or two.