Steven continued to stay at a distance, letting the man come at him, who seemed confused about his behaviour.
’’I thought you Brights were only good in close combat? So why are you staying so distant? Do you people not learn how to fight anymore?’’ The man laughed, probably thinking he got the advantage.
’’Who told you we can’t fight at a distance?’’ He answered as, with a swing of his hand, he pulled the particles of water from the air, letting a small water shield hover in front of him.
’’What is this small amount of water going to do? Drown me to death?’’ Lumiel spoke while summoning a giant fireball above his head.
"Let me show you some real magic." As the man swung his arms wild around, the fire began to split up into multiple smaller fire tornados.
"Sapphire-level magic, not bad." As he sidesteps, the first firestorm comes towards him, but due to the wild movement of the spell, he was forced to jump even further away.
But the attacks didn’t stop while in the year another storm came towards him, giving him barely enough time to move his water shield up, blocking the attack, but it was vaporised in exchange completely.
"Was it that already?" Lumiel yelled at him and cast the same spell once more.
But Steven could only smile, and with the movement of his hand, pushed the boiled air forward towards the young man.
Who reacted late as his skin began to blister under the heat. Amateur mistake, not always having the base barrier active at all times. In exchange for some firepower.
Finally cancelling his spell, Lumiel activated his barrier, shielding him from the hot air. "Bastard, do you think some air will beat me?"
But before he could even recover, Steven had already pulled new water from the air, this time freezing it in his hand and throwing it towards Lumiel.
The young man didn’t even have time to react before the ice shard pierced his barrier, barely missing his leg.
As Lumiel became more desperate each second, trying to gain more distance but only nearly falling over the fence behind him.
As two more ice shards flew towards him, one shattered at his torso barrier, but the other pierced through, hitting his arm.
But Steven still didn’t have enough; once somebody has stopped holding the mana around him stable, everyone can use magic all around him.
As the sand below Lumiel’s feet changed, hardening around them. As more and more sand slowly crawled up his body, Steven watched him panic even further, losing full control of any mana.
If he wanted, he could even suffocate him from the inside at this point. But he didn’t; instead, he finally moved close, not letting Lumiel get free.
Standing just a metre away, Lumiel was already mostly covered in sand. "You’re good; you’re just missing some precision and knowledge of a real fight."
"You only used Jade class spells. How did you do this??" Lumiel spoke while falling to the ground after Steven finally cancelled his spell.
"I simply hindered you from using any spell at all, and then even a Jade level spell can become a deadly weapon."
Even though he could’ve easily used a higher-level spell for his mission, it was better that way.
This small test had been a small disappointment for him. Even if Lumiel’s magical power had exceeded his prediction, it just wasn’t a challenge after the first few exchanges.
As he watched Lumiel slowly rise from the ground, Steven could feel somebody watching them, a familiar mana which he just couldn’t sort.
It couldn’t be Lucy; she wouldn’t leave such a trace, and he would recognise her from this distance.
But Steven didn’t act; instead, he just helped Lumiel up, who didn’t seem to notice anything wrong in his current state of mind.
"Thank you, Steven... You showed me something I have never realised before..." He spoke, and just in the second, Steven set his focus on Lumiel; the presence disappeared.
Cursing under his breath, Steven slowly moved away from Lumiel, picking up his gift from June and speaking one last time. "Train a bit, and we might meet again."
As he stepped through the gate, already debating what he could do next with an already ruined vacation day.
Until a sudden idea hit him like a brick, the village should have turned alive by now. Which means he could spend some of his hard-earned money and set even more on the principal’s card.
Already laughing at his plans, he hadn’t realised he was walking past a young professor who just stared at him silently, judging, quickly closing his mouth; it had already been too late.
As he walked through the streets, which seemed to become more lively the farther he went away from his place. With multiple students walking through the streets shopping and even selling.
It was only logical; only the sapphire students or higher get all the necessities completely covered, so any commoner from lower classes would have to work.
But everywhere he walked, any student began to stare at him, either in amazement or jealousy, but some even with hatred, especially those close to the Frostes family.
Thinking about the Frostes, he finally remembered what he was carrying around the whole time.
So he simply entered a shop of a magical engineer, as a Topaz class, probably second- or third-year, sat across the room, and his gaze was distant.
"Shopkeeper, I have something you can look at." As the softly thrown the clock towards him on the table, finally getting the man’s attention, he picked it up greedily.
"Woah, this is an amazing craft for such a simple device. This level of craftmanship is usually used for weapons or even city designing." His voice was filled with amazement as he inspected it very closely; each part seemed to be more interesting than before.
Steven stared at the man confused; he himself didn’t know anything about magical engineering, only how to use it as weapons.
"How much do you want for it??" The man asked.
But Steven only shook his head.
It seemed like this June girl was much more interesting than she looked.
Which meant she was in even greater danger than he had already thought