On the day of the tournament, Twin City was extremely excited. The academy even opened its doors so that some people could watch the fights.

  Although most of the audience for that tournament would be composed of important people like nobles, merchants, and relatives of students, the city's common population had access to the remaining seats.

  The Twin Combats Academy itself would broadcast and celebrate its tournament along with its city.

  The arena that would be used for the tournament was not a common arena. For this event, one of the academy's official event arenas would be used.

  This type of arena was much larger and more resistant than the one that was damaged by Alexander and Jason.

  "Ocean and I will be cheering for you, Alexander," said Diana as they were going to the tournament arena.

  "I’ll be counting on that," replied Alexander, smiling. "But it's just the start of the tournament. The fights won’t last long, so you won’t have time to cheer for long."

  Diana was surprised by Alexander's statement.

  Seeing that he wasn't joking, she felt a bit relieved and started observing the other students with their parents.

  They had joined the academy because of the fights.

  "Will your parents come too, Diana?" asked Alexander. "You said you're from another city, so it must have been a while since you've seen them."

  "Yes. It's been a while since I've seen them," confirmed Diana. "Since they work a lot and I'm not participating, they won't come to see you win."

  "..." Alexander.

  Diana's confidence in him left Alexander speechless. He himself didn't know if he would win with the restriction he had imposed.

  "The fights haven't even started and you're already declaring me the winner?" joked Alexander, laughing.

  "I doubt there's anyone stronger than you in our year," said Diana, completely confident.

  "That might even be true," said Alexander, not denying it. "But don't forget I won't use offensive spells… There's no way to tell if I'll win or not."

  After reflecting for a moment and changing the direction of the conversation a bit, Alexander went back to talking about her parents: "Have you ever thought about moving them from such a small town to a big city?"

  "They might feel out of place at first, but all big cities have the advantage of being considered safer," pointed out the young man after pondering a bit.

  "I really think about that," confessed Diana. "Even earning more—thanks to you—I still don’t have enough.”

  "And before you say you can give or lend me that money, let me say that I appreciate it, but I refuse," completed Diana. "I want to do this with my own effort. Please, let me do this on my own."

  "You really know me well, huh?" said Alexander, mocking his predictability. "Alright. Do as your heart desires."

  With a cheerful, slightly flushed smile, Diana slowly walked beside Alexander.

  He was deliberately trying to be a little late so he wouldn't attend the tournament opening and the other formalities.

  Upon arriving, already at the end of the ceremony, Alexander said goodbye to Diana and Ocean. They went to the bleachers; he went to the competitors' area.

  In the competition area, Alexander saw Lucas talking with two people who also seemed to be academy professors: a demi-human, who was clearly of the magical combat style; and a muscular woman in light metal armor, who sported an adventurer's plate made of platinum on her chest.

  Seeming to notice Alexander's gaze, specifically on her, the woman turned and gave him a smile that was not a smile at all.

  Alexander correctly assumed that those should be the ones in charge of the classes of the novice students who would compete. But he couldn't understand what he might have done for that woman to smile at him that way.

  Not wanting to worry about it, Alexander sat in a corner until the order of the matches was decided and the tournament began.

  Upon seeing the fight pairings, Alexander realized he would be the first to fight and that he didn't know his opponent.

  This meant that his opponent was not from the hybrid combat class.

  Alexander didn't care about his opponent, but he couldn't help but notice that the adventurer professor's smile grew and that Lucas tried to remain indifferent—even though he couldn't hide a smile that clearly said he wanted to see the world burn.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Upon climbing into the arena and wielding his spear, Alexander came face to face with a tall man—clearly of the martial style—who wielded a large and heavy sword.

  With the two in their positions, the demi-human professor, responsible for the magical combat style novices—therefore neutral in that fight—climbed onto the arena platform as a judge and started the novice tournament.

  "I'm happy it was you," said Alexander's opponent, clearly recognizing him. "I need to pay you back for taking such good care of my men."

  "Your men?" asked Alexander.

  "Those who were trying to recruit your support canine-girl," said the adversary.

  Immediately recognizing what that young man was talking about, Alexander stopped talking and became expressionless.

  His opponent didn't seem to care, but the Demi supervising the fight turned to Alexander.

  He began to emanate a large amount of hostility and malice.

  The moment the fight began, Alexander's opponent released his ki and attacked, bringing with him the visible power of a Tier II technique.

  Alexander quickly moved away so as not to be hit by the sword.

  Since his opponent was confident in his technique, he maintained the attack even as it headed to the ground.

  He intended to catch Alexander in the resulting explosion.

  When the sword made contact with the ground, a thunderous noise and a wave of energy erupted as a result.

  Surprisingly, the arena only cracked.

  Spotting an opening, Alexander used |Mana Barrier| and his energy to withstand the shockwave.

  At the same time, he used |Asura|, boosting himself forward with |Magical Body Strengthening|, |Boost Agility|, and |Ascending Flow|.

  Seeing Alexander's scandalously fast approach, his opponent used skills that looked very much like |Boost Agility| and |Boost Dexterity| to swing his sword horizontally against him.

  Without even slowing down, Alexander lifted himself from the ground using his spear.

  He forced himself back, just barely staying out of the sword's reach.

  Less than 1 second after he managed to get out of range, the sword passed by Alexander, only hitting his spear, which he had even already let go of.

  Not caring about the fate of his spear, which was caught by Lucas before it threatened the audience, Alexander took advantage of the proximity and the opponent's open guard to kick him with all his strength in the chest.

  Alexander's kick, which would easily explode a normal person's chest, didn't cause as much damage to his opponent because of his energy.

  Furthermore, unlike Alexander, he was wearing full armor.

  However, the kick was still enough to make him lose his balance and stagger back.

  As if he had been waiting for that moment, Alexander's face distorted with cruelty and he swept his opponent’s legs.

  With his adversary still falling, Alexander used his body as leverage to reverse the fall and throw him with full force against the ground in front of him.

  Without losing his momentum, Alexander picked up the adversary again—who had bounced a bit due to the force with which he was thrown—and slammed him against the ground in the opposite direction.

  After beating his opponent from side to side on the ground until all his resistance was broken, Alexander threw him high into the air.

  Smiling with an extra touch of cruelty, he immediately jumped and grabbed the young man by the ankles, starting to spin him in loops that became faster and faster, accumulating kinetic and centrifugal energy.

  By choosing the adversary's head as the target and positioning it at the end, he shocked the entire audience with such cruelty.

  As soon as Alexander started to descend and gain speed, the judge could no longer just observe and intervened: "The match is over. Victory goes to Alexander due to referee intervention."

  Upon learning the fight had ended, Alexander reduced the rotation as much as possible, released the adversary, and prepared for the impact he would suffer upon reaching the ground.

  To his surprise, the impact was very soft.

  The judge created something like a cushion of mana and air beneath them to soften the fall.

  Knowing the fighters were relatively well and only suffered some injuries, the crowd in the streets exploded with enthusiasm over the narration of such a relentless first fight.

  Their excitement came from the descriptive intensity of each movement, and not purely from the violence itself.

  Unlike the crowds in the streets, most of the audience in the academy, which was mostly nobles, was dismayed by Alexander's victory—especially by the way it happened.

  Upon getting down from the arena with most of the audience in silence, Alexander went to Lucas to get his spear as if everything were normal.

  All the others there still seemed to want to understand what had happened—except Lucas, who went to the adventurer professor and, for some reason, extended his hand to receive what was due to him.

  Upon returning to the competitors' area, Alexander noticed that most people there looked at him in a slightly different way.

  But this didn't stop the fights from continuing.

  During the first fights, Alexander observed that the people he knew by name had also improved: Stella managed to be more restrained and dominate her opponents by controlling her spells well, and Hector improved his hybrid combat, which allowed them to advance with relative ease.

  However, the ones who stood out the most were Jason and Mark.

  Each of them, in their own way, simply defeated their opponents without giving them any chance.

  Jason advanced with his good sword mastery and overwhelming power, while Mark used his {Iron Will} and proficiency to suppress his opponents without suffering much damage.

  There were even several surprises and underdogs in the first rounds, but as the fights advanced the results became more and more evident.

  What most surprised the audience, and showed there must be some personal problem between the two, was that Alexander didn't act as firmly or cruelly against his next opponents.

  By the end of the day, most students had already been eliminated and the remaining fights were postponed until the next day, so that all competitors would be in good condition to fight.

  As soon as the day's fights ended, Alexander went to Diana and Ocean, but this ended up being problematic. Diana ended up walking a good part of the way, with her head lowered in shame.

  Everyone there seemed to be looking at them.

  "I'm sorry about that," said Alexander upon seeing Diana embarrassed.

  "It's alright," replied Diana, almost whispering. "Congratulations on the victories, Alexander. You were incredible."

  Diana even tried to calm down in the face of her shame. However, suddenly, she saw her friend, Xiao Yin, in the middle of the crowd and simply started to run away—dragging Alexander along as she blushed even more.