A child which had been found in the wilds?

Ludicrous. 

If that was the case, then they couldn’t have a Bond at all. The fact that Bran had a Bond was evidence that he had undergone the Awakening Ceremony, which meant his blood should have been on file.

Given that, his ancestry should have been a known factor, but it wasn’t. They said he was just a boy that Mehal found in the wilds.

Alexander’s family had known these things from the beginning, and they had made a few guesses as to the identity of this ‘Bran Silvana’. The most plausible one being that he was the son of the Half-Demon Typhus, as Mehal was known to be the Half-Demon’s student.

This theory seemed more likely than ever after the magic circle used in the Class Selection Ceremony caught fire. And the fact that the event didn’t trigger an Inquisition meant that not only did the boy have the backing of the Big Ten, the Church knew about it as well and weren’t about to pick a fight with them.

At the very least, the amount of mana the boy’s body gave off was simply not human.

“How disguising.” Alexander grumbled.

If there was one thing worse than a commoner that believed that they could stand among the Nobility, it was a Demon who thought so.

“...Okay.” Bran said, seeming a little put off by Alexander’s absentminded words. “So, before we start fighting…”

“You fail.” Alexander said.

“Excuse me?” Bran said, starting to get angry.

“You failed the exam. Go home.” Alexander said.

He had signed up to be an examiner because he had hoped to have the opportunity to teach his cousin a lesson in humility. To punish him for taking the Exalted Paladin Class and threatening his own claim to the throne by dividing their house between them.

After Edmar usurped the throne, each of the three old factions continued to rally behind the three Princes they had originally supported, each hoping to have one of their descendants take the throne in the future.

With Edmar’s filthy half breed children not inheriting the family’s blue hair, which had long been claimed to be proof the Royal Family were descended from the Gods themselves, and being unable to have Bonds of their own, they were widely considered to be unfit for being the next rulers of the Kingdom. 

Which meant that it would be one of the nephews or great nephews who would likely inherit the throne.

Alexander was to be the representative of the Old Noble Faction, and had been for years. So his younger cousin also achieving the Exalted Paladin Class was something of a thorn in his side.

Sadly, the man who he had paid to rig the drawings had been injured in a freak incident in the cafeteria involving Charles’ group. As a result, he missed his chance to cripple his cousin’s ego and was instead faced with this… thing.

“You can’t just fail me without even testing me!” Bran said angrily.

“Testing you would be a waste of energy. You do not belong here and should just go back to where you came from.” Alexander said, turning away from the boy.

He was wasting his time. If he wasn’t going to be matched against Lloyd, there was no point in even being there.

*BANG!*

Alexander stumbled ever so slightly as a mass of mana slammed into his back.

The sound caused by the mana burst that Bran shoot from his finger drew eyes from all around as Alexander turned back around to glare at the small boy.

“So, are you more in the mood to fight me now, or do you still want to run away like a little bitch?” Bran said as he kicked off his shoes to reveal a pair of bear and slender feet.

“...It would seem that I still need to teach you your place.” Alexander said, anger boiling up inside of him as he lifted up his massive tower shield in one hand and a claymore in the other. The size and weight of his weapons made a mockery of the tiny buckler and short sword that the boy was using. 

He planned on finishing the fight in a single blow, one that would echo on the monster’s body long after the damage was healed and act as a reminder of their place.

Alexander rushed forward and took a wide swing at Bran, only to be surprised when the boy actually had enough agility to react, moving close to Alexander’s body to avoid the swing and aiming a thrust at him.

The man’s shield quickly moved into place, stopping the strike, and the electric charge that shot through his shield from the boy’s [Elemental Weapon Arts] did not even phase him, though he was surprised at its presence. 

He counterattacked with a shield bash, forcing Bran to jump back, but his shield had stopped him from noticing an orb of light that the boy had left during his attack. 

The flash bomb went off, blinding Alexander, but he didn’t need his eyes to track his opponent, following the feel of his mana, his physical presence, and the sound of his low, rapid chanting.

He blocked the strike that was meant for his side and swung a wide swing with his massively long sword. The swing should have gotten the boy in the side, and even if he blocked it with the buckler, the weight behind the blow should have been too much for any Magic-type Class to withstand, even if he had been a Tier 4, instead of a Tier 1.

But much to Alexander’s surprise, there was a burst of mana underneath the boy’s feet and he accelerated out of the way of the incoming slash.

It was a Class Skill, one focused on movement speed. But how was that possible? They were a Magic-user.

Bran used the skill more rapidly then, and Alexander found himself unable to keep up with the boy.

Despite the massive difference in their stats, Bran was carrying about 2 pounds of equipment and weighed only around 85 pounds himself. Meanwhile, Alexander was 6’ 3’’, weighed over 200 pounds and was carrying his 50 pound, 3-foot-by-5½-foot, 4 inch thick, mithril tower shield and a 10 pound practice claymore.

Bran was able to easily out speed him with his movement based Class Skill.

But even if he couldn’t catch up to him, Alexander was more than able to block any of his attacks, as the small boy’s bursts of speed weren’t enough to get all the way behind him. And in a battle of attrition, a tank-type like him would easily win. The skills that Bran was using to stay out of his reach would eventually drain him of all of his mana.

It would only be obnoxious.

...Only, he didn’t like how Bran never stopped chanting.

Soon after the fight started, Alexander realized that the small magic attacks which merely bounced off of his defenses were all [Invocationless Magic] and unrelated to his continuous chanting. 

If Bran used up all of his mana at once to cast a single spell, would that be enough to threaten him? Surely not. The Exalted Paladin Class was the apex of Defensive Classes. A wall strong enough to stop any attack from even other individuals of the 7th Tier. There was no way that any spell thrown by a child could break through it.

Even if he didn’t guard against them, the magic bolts that Bran threw would just bounce off of his body without leaving so much as a scratch.

...Bran should know this. He should know what Class that Alexander had and that his defenses could not be pierced. So what is he planning?

If he really was connected to that viper Typhus, he should be capable of just about anything. Despite it being against his nature as a Defensive Class, he needed to finish this before the spell was finished. 

And so, he did something that no one would have expected of him.

He discarded his massive shield, and took his sword in both hands.

---

Alexander realized that his shield was only a hindrance for him sooner than Scarlet would have hoped. She still had a few more seconds before the spell that would finish this fight would be complete.

The bulky shield hadn’t just slowed his movements by weighing him down, the shape and size of it had limited his stance and stopped him from charging forward.

It had made him the perfect opponent for Scarlet. A meat sack she could just play keep away from until she finished her spells. With skills focused around defense and close up attacks, rather than speed or range.

She hadn’t even expected to have to use her [Magic Step] Class skill in order to stay out of his reach, but it seemed she underestimated the speed of an Exalted Paladin compared to a Magic Knight. The speed scaling of the Magic Knight Class was unfortunately lower than the Spell Blade's Class had been, causing her to overestimate herself.

So when he discarded his shield, she knew the real test had begun. 

Scarlet attempted to use a few small balls of fire to dissuade his charge, but the brick shit house of a man just charged straight through them, not even caring as his shirt caught fire. His insanely high fortitude guaranteed that no ordinary flame would do anything against his thick skin. So his skin was unblemished as his shirt and pants were burned away to reveal his six pack abs.

‘Oh no! He’s hot!’

That was Scarlet’s final thought, before his massive sword took a swing at her, too quickly for her to evade.

[Magic Shield] cased a wall of blue light to manifest between her and the incoming slab of metal, tilted in order to cause it to glance slightly and lose its momentum enough for her to not be immediately clobbered when it met her shield, the [Shield Charge] stored within it erupting and pushing the two of them in opposite directions.

It was unfortunate to have to use the [Shield Charge] so earlier, since it took a good amount of time to charge up, but she couldn’t stop the attack with just the one [Magic Shield], and using multiples would cost a lot of mana, and mana in in tight supply at the moment, along with oxygen.

One really wasn’t meant to fight and cast spells at the same time, as her body cried out in outrage at the air her mouth was selfishly hogging.

It required her to use mana as a substitute for oxygen in keeping her limbs moving, and with that, her [Magic Step], the distractions, and preparing her spell, she was using more than her 60 mana per second regen could afford her, and had already drained half of her reserves.

But she only needed a little bit more time.

So she took a play out of Alexander’s book, and discarded some of her equipment.

Not her shield. God no. She needed that. She tossed the useless toothpick of a sword at him to disrupt his charge… which bought her about half a second as he lost a small amount of his forward momentum to dodge the attack.

Was more effective than swinging it at him had been up until now, but she still needed a little bit more time.

His next slash required three layers of [Magic Shield] order to slow it down to the point where she could jump out of the way, but without a way to top his forward momentum, his next swing game just moments later. 

Her mana was going fast until she finally had to give up on the [Magic Shield] and take the swing directly with her buckler, sending her flying backwards as the bones in her arm broke. 

Having connected a blow, Alexander thought that he had won and paused to smirk in victory… only for Scarlet’s spell to finally finish and the man to suddenly sink three feet down into the ground below his feet, which had just been turned into mud. 

Cries of confusion came from all of the people who had gathered a little too close to watch their fight and who got caught in the edge of Scarlet’s spell, as a large chunk of the field around Scarlet had been turned into a mud pit.

“What is this!?” Alexander shouted, struggling to free himself from the thick, murky sand that now entrapped him, only causing him to sink further and further down, until his feet were touching the stone bottom and Scarlet had left there so that they wouldn’t drown. 

“It’s quicksand… sort of. It sinks a lot better than a natural quicksand pit, but it is thicker and harder to move in. I think you’ll find that you are quite trapped.” Scarlet said, unable to hide her own smirk of victory, not minding her broken arm or the angle it was currently twisted in. She stood proudly on top of the liquidus sand, not sinking in at all due to her [Water Walking] skill.

A skill she never thought she would actually have a use for, but was glad to have been proven wrong.

She’d been disappointed when she tried to make her first quicksand pit using magic, only to find that real quicksand was too dense and things didn’t sink beyond the equilibrium point for buoyancy. And while getting stuck up to your waist was perfectly functional for slowing an enemy down, she really wanted it to be a bit deeper. It had taken some serious magical engineering to make really quick quicksand.

“You… Release me!” Alexander shouted angrily, but he could hardly even lift his sword in the muck that surrounded him.

Still pissed about his attitude from earlier, Scarlet wasn’t about to release him that easily. She had half a mind to solidify the sand around him and trap him in rock. But the fight was over, and she wasn’t sure she could get away with it.

Though she did jump forward, landing on top of his head and pushing him under for a moment as she vaulted out of the magic quagmire she had created around him. Several people around the edge were trying to figure out how to save their master from drowning in quicksand, while those caught in the edge of the attack were more easily pulled out of the shallower quicksand.

“Bran! Hey!” Sidney shouted as he and the rest of Scarlet’s friends ran over to her.

“Hey guys. It looks like this was my win.” Scarlet said proudly.

“It would seem so. You looked good out there.” Charles said.

“Why are you two so calm!? His arm is broken!” Professor Hamlie shouted in horror as he saw the condition his young genius was in.

“Oh, right.” Scarlet said, holding up the injured arm. “Mind setting this for me while I heal it?”

“Sure.” Charles replied, gingerly touching Scarlet’s arm and moving the bones into place.

A very small shiver went through her spine, which had nothing to do with the pain, but her hours spent practicing physical contact with Caesia allowed her to keep her cool, and she started to cast.

Thirty seconds later, her arm was back to normal.

“That’s better.” Scarlet said, rolling her arm and getting the tension out of it. “So. What do you guys want to do now that the exams are done?” 

“I would like to explore the campus a bit? See what kind of facilities there are. Maybe check the library for maps of the Labyrinth’s lower floors.” Charles suggested.

“I’m game for that.” Scarlet quickly agreed. 

“Shouldn’t you clean up your mess first?” Nico said, looking over the hundred foot wide quicksand pit.

“I don’t see why I…” Scarlet started before realizing something was wrong. She looked around before finding the magic signature she was looking for. “Ah man, my shoes are in there.”

...She couldn’t just leave them in there. She only had two other pairs of magic shoes, and those where her most comfortable ones.

Sigh miserably, she started the incantation that would turn the quicksand pit into just normal sand so that she could safely retrieve her footwear. 

They then left as the freshly dug out Alexander gave a scream of rage, realizing his own shield was now lost in the sea of sand. And it was apparently NOT a piece of borrowed practice equipment.

...Not her problem he couldn't find it with [Mana Sense]. He should really have trained better. But if he didn't end up getting it before nightfall, it would make for some good materials.