<h4>Chapter 27: Battle of the Top Mages</h4>
Shye and Shirley quickly walked towards the area designated for spectators from other courses.
Fortunately, they had a better viewpared to the outsiders who wanted to watch the matches for fun.
As students from other courses, the academy reserved a good and uncrowded spot for those who wanted to scout for some potential party members from other courses.
They watched in anticipation as the sses of the top two students slowly walked up to the stage.
The top 1 and 2 students stared daggers at each other while standing in the middle of the stage. Meanwhile, their ssmates were assuming their battle positions.
Mage skirmishes are different from warrior skirmishes.
As mages, most of them had area-of-effect spells so the students could not stand close to each other or they might be taken out together.
Themon battle n for mage skirmishes is to stand as far apart as possible and target those who aren''t paying attention to the attacker.
As defenders, however, they had to watch their ssmates'' backs or their whole ss would be taken out one by one.
Mage ss matches are very chaotic so they were given thergest stage out of all the courses.
In addition to this, they had to wear protective gear so that they wouldn''t sustain any life-threatening damage.
But in exchange, once the gear has taken way too much damage, their consciousness will be shut down by the protective gear.
After a few minutes of preparation, the two sses were ready.
"Begin!"
The referee signaled the start of the match and as soon as the match started, fireballs, icicle spears, rock bullets, and other elemental spells flew all over the stage.
Shye and Shirley were stupefied, this was their first time watching mages fight each other so they were utterly shocked at how chaotic the match was.
"Hahahaha! I like your reaction...You''re Shye Crowley aren''t you?"
Shye snapped back to reality after hearing someone call him from behind. He turned his head to look at the guy but he couldn''t recognize him at all.
"Yes, I''m Shye Crowley and you are?"
"I''m Carlnus Magsen, 3rd-rank on the mage course, you can call me Carl. I saw your match earlier and I have to say that I was impressed by your strength."
"Howe you''re only ranked 16th?"
The guy named Carlnus introduced himself and immediately asked Shye a blunt question.
"Oh, yeah, I hid my strength during the entrance exam."
"Hmmm...I see."
Carl gave Shye a serious look and there was an awkward silence for around 10 seconds while the two of them stared at each other.
"MHM!"
Shirley cleared her throat and asked, "How may we help you?"
The awkward silence finally ended as Shye and Carl snapped back to reality.
"Oh, where are my manners? As I said, I watched Shye Crowley''s match earlier and saw him as a potential party member in the future so I came here to befriend you."
Carl said as he extended his hands towards Shye.
Shye briefly looked at the extended hand before smiling and extending his hand as well.
The two of them shook hands with smiles on their faces.
"I didn''t expect you to be so...approachable..."
"Hahahaha! Well that''s understandable, high-ranked students are mostly arrogant like those two over there..."
Carl said as he looked towards the direction of the stage. Shye immediately understood what Carl meant when he looked at the stage.
It seems that the top 1 and top 2 mage students were very arrogant.
Still, he wanted to see who was stronger between the two so he watched the match together with Carl and Shirley.
The skirmish on the stage was currently reaching its climax as more than half of the students from each ss were unconscious.
Only the stronger students from each ss remained standing on the stage.
"Why don''t you give up now? Your ssmates look like they will fall unconscious anytime now"
"Huh? What the hell are you saying? Aren''t your ssmates the same? How about you admit defeat now before you suffer a humiliating defeat again?"
The top two students kept on talking trash to each other as the match went on.
Finally, after a few more minutes, all of their ssmates fell unconscious and they were locked in a heated one-on-one battle.
The two kept firing projectiles at each other and it seemed that the projectiles fired by the 1st-rank mage David were slightly stronger than the projectiles of the 2nd-ranked mage, Harry.
However, just as everyone thought that Harry was about to be defeated, he did something crazy.
He dashed straight into David''s fireball while chanting his own fireball spell which confused David.
When he was about to get hit, he suddenly disappeared in front of the fireball.
Harry then reappeared in front of David and unloaded the fireball spell that he was chanting at almost point-nk range.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!!"
David screamed after getting hit cleanly by Harry''s fireball before falling unconscious.
"OHHHHH!!!"
The crowd, including Shye and Shirley, went wild after the intense battle ended.
They weren''t that familiar with mage spells since they were only freshmen students so the way the battle ended looked amazing to them.
Fortunately, Carl was there to exin what happened.
It seems that Harry was hiding a trump card skill called "blink" which was a very hard-to-learn skill with attributes of space maniption.
Carl was also amazed that Harry was able to learn the spell at such a young age, truly unbelievable.
"It seems that they''re tied up again in terms of wins and losses..."
Earlier, Shye found out from Carl that these top two students had been rivals since childhood and that they were always tied up in wins and losses.
It was just unlucky for Harry that he was the one who lost on the entrance exam day and so, he got the title of number two.
But everyone from the mage ss knew that Harry was on the same level as David.
Still, Shye didn''t want anything to do with these two arrogant students. In his opinion, partying up with Carl in the future was way better.
Shye looked at the time and realized that they had to go back.
Their second match was starting soon!