"Time's almost up! 21, 20, 19..."
President Brandon's old but wickedly mischievous voice echoed across the empty training grounds like a series of death knells.
Move, brain! Use that damn peerless wisdom of yours!
While Leon dodged through the flame storm like he was performing a frantic tap dance, he desperately searched his memory for low-level skills.
Technically, there were ten thousand ways for him to use a 【Pyroblast】 to blow the head off this muscle-bound barbarian named Kevin—a man with a round, stubbly face and a truly appalling taste in white socks.
However, if he had to choose a method that would win, look completely ordinary, and match his supposed level of strength...
That was honestly harder than just casting a forbidden spell!
Finally, after spinning its wheels for ages, Leon's peerless wisdom gave him a helpless answer: he would just have to use peerless force.
You're really going to force my hand, aren't you?
Leon took a deep breath and skidded to a halt. He stopped running, and his lazy aura vanished instantly.
Fine!
This young master will give you something big!
Sizzle—!
Leon simply stopped pretending.
He snapped his hands up, preparing to strike from both sides!
An earthy yellow light as heavy as a mountain glowed in his left hand, while a sinister, snake-like icy blue light flickered in his right.
Double casting!
He traced two completely different magic circles in the air simultaneously.
In his left hand, Leon sketched a sturdy, cubic structure—the standard 【Stone Prison】.
In his right, he formed an extremely bizarre spell with a structure never seen in mainstream magic systems—【Frigid Echo】.
Though he’d said he was done pretending, Leon still intentionally held back a great deal to avoid standing out too much and causing unnecessary trouble.
He performatively chanted a few lines for spells that could have been instantaneous, and he forced his hand speed—which could have been a blur of afterimages—to slow down by half.
But even so—
"Double... casting?!"
The onlookers gasped in unison.
"I didn't expect this kid... he really was faking it before!"
"That fluidity—even if it's a bit rough, it's definitely not something an ordinary crowned-rank can achieve!"
"Why was he playing weak? What's the point? Is he a wanted criminal?" someone whispered.
"If he were a criminal, they would have caught him during the identity verification earlier."
"Could it be that... 'playing the pig to eat the tiger' trope that's been popular in bard novels lately?"
Master Brandon stroked his beard, his eyes sparkling even brighter. "Ah, I really am getting old; I can't keep up with the way young people think. As expected, if I didn't push him, I wouldn't get to see such a great show!"
Back in the arena.
Facing this pressure directly, Kevin's pupils shrank.
"What? This guy!"
Kevin stared at the two forming magic circles, a surge of humiliated rage rising in his heart as if he were being toyed with.
"He really was hiding his strength! It really was because of my status! You didn't want to fight me?! Do you look down on me?!"
Arrogant as he was, Kevin was no fool who couldn't recognize talent.
To pull off double casting at this age... this guy's mana control was terrifying!
"But... that's all it is!"
After the brief shock, the fire of anger in Kevin's eyes burned even hotter.
"This guy! He hid his strength from the proctor, and now he's doing it in front of me! What a hateful and disgusting way to act!"
He quickly scanned the two spells Leon was constructing.
The one on the left... is it 【Stone Prison】?
A disdainful sneer curled Kevin's lip.
Naive!
Did he think he could trap the great Kevin with a trashy heroic-rank spell used for catching wild boars?
As for the other one...?
Kevin's gaze fell on the magic circle in Leon's right hand. It emitted a chilling aura, but its circuits were extremely simple, and the structure was one he'd never seen or heard of.
However, sensing that the energy fluctuations weren't particularly strong and seeing the 'disordered' flow of mana—which looked like a haphazardly patched-together mess from a rogue mage—the experienced Kevin immediately reached a conclusion.
It looks like some kind of debuff skill?
The energy level is at the crowned-rank at most.
"A self-created debuff? And the mana flow is so clunky, the circuit construction is shoddy... there's even a low-level efficiency overflow..."
"Heh, I suppose that’s expected of a rogue mage. You can't even produce a decent, orthodox spell; you can only resort to these side-door tricks!"
Kevin stopped waiting. Since the opponent wanted to humiliate him with such garbage magic, he didn't need to be polite either!
"You... I hate the way you fight!"
While gathering mana, Kevin glared coldly at Leon—who reached the crowned-rank five or six years younger than himself—with a tone of sincere loathing.
"Your talent is indeed decent. Having the skill for double casting is truly rare among commoners. However..."
"A fighting style that worries about the opponent's feelings is simply hideous!"
"You have no right to wield magic! You disgust me!"
Faced with Kevin's impassioned 'talk-no-jutsu.'
"Is that so?"
Leon rolled his eyes while maintaining the construction of the magic circles.
He didn't know what kind of childhood trauma this second young master had suffered to make him ramble on and on with all this nonsense while fighting. If Leon didn't know better, he'd think he was on the set of some third-rate battle shounen anime.
But he had to admit, while these words left him speechless, they also stirred a tiny spark of his long-dormant chuunibyou soul.
Recalling the 'backstory' this guy had just blurted out...
Was he some guy exiled by his family for a small mistake, living in frustration?
Or perhaps a pathetic loser who had been utterly crushed by a true genius and became psychologically twisted, only able to find confidence by bullying newbies in a small place like this?
This really is the standard setup for a trashy, third-rate anime...
Author, if you're out of ideas, why don't you bite a lighter to entertain everyone? Wouldn't that be better than this?
But...
Since you love lecturing people so much, let this young master give you a lesson!
Thus, Leon scavenged his memory for lines he'd seen back on Blue Star and activated his own 'talk-no-jutsu mode.'
"Disgusting?"
Leon let out a scoff, his gaze mirroring how he'd looked at Lucrezia Sylvania when they first met.
"Betting your entire life on magic like you do is simply absurd!"
Leon thrust his hands forward, his eyes becoming as cold as ice.
"I'm afraid I can't understand. A guy like you is the one who's truly disgusting!"
Before his voice even faded, both spells were released simultaneously!
【Stone Prison】
【Frigid Echo】
"You—!!"
Kevin's composure shattered at those words, his face turning beet-red with rage.
Boom!
Hum—
First, several massive stone walls erupted from the ground, instantly closing around Kevin to form a crude rock cage that continuously squeezed his living space.
Immediately after, an inconspicuous, ghostly blue light sank into Kevin's body with lightning speed.
"So fast?!"
Rate on N.U.
