Before today, I would say my fight with that evaluator chick was the first time I'd gone at it without holding back. Although, I can't really say my head was entirely in thIt took a moment after the announcement to 'go' was given. Me and the girl just stared at each other for a few idled-grain seconds. After all, we were both just pushed together like this and then suddenly asked to play Halisar against each other out of the blue.

But, we were soon snapped out of it. It would not do to make these guys get impatient. They'd already proven they were a pretty grumpy bunch.

I was the first to make a move, pressing my earth mana against the territory she had claimed. Just an exploratory advance, more a good-natured wake up call for her than anything, warning her to get her head in the game as well.

She responded fast and began resisting as our mana clashed. Her claim was solid. One of the most solid I'd ever been up against. This seemed to confirm what I'd suspected. My raw strength with earth mana is most likely some kind of product of my strange double reincarnation than anything. The very moment I meet someone with the same circumstances, I find they have similar levels of power.

Well, no matter. I'd long since learned that my power was too great to have any kind of fair match. That's why I'd always applied all manner of handicaps to myself, holding myself back in a whole host of various ways. I'd begun using a technique for restricting my mana, and I'd employed it regularly so I could learn some actual tactics from my mentors rather than just brute forcing my way through everything.

Before today, I would say my fight with that evaluator chick was the first time I'd gone at it without holding back. Although, I can't really say my head was entirely in the game that time. This time, I'm going into it fully ready. Time to see if any of the tricks I'd learned while restricting my mana will be any good when applied at full force against an opponent who is my equal for strength.

The girl gets a focused and determined look in her eye, and I feel the quality of the mana under her feet begin to change. I identify immediately that she's building up for a mana thrust, similar to the one I used against that annoying guy who decided to mess with me like he was playing with a kitten just a short time ago.

Well, this would have to be responded to, but it wasn't that urgent. I'd built up quite the territory on my side of the field, and unless she greatly overwhelmed me in terms of raw power, a simple thrust like this would not be enough to cut through. Rather, this presented an opportunity. At the moment of her thrust, her defenses would be weakened. I would have to be ready for that.

I started building up my own mana, and even went so far as to thin out the mana in the leading edge of my territory to focus it more around my feet and my mountain. All the while, I carefully watched the girl's face.

A mere second later, her lips and eyes stiffened, and the mana she was moving started thrusting forward. In that moment, I remembered something. The image of the evaluator physically lunging at me during the examination played in my mind. With that as my reference, I mobilized a small amount of the thin mana at the farthest forward corner of my territory. The girl's mana pierced the thinned mana at front and center of my territory, but the mana I'd built up deeper in easily diverted her attack. I'd structured it at an angle, directing her attack to the side. This wound up sacrificing the entire front-right side of my territory to become part of her domain, but this was fine. It was all so I could take advantage of this moment.

A mere quarter second after her attack began rushing forward, I did the same and thrust heavily toward her right, my left, creating what seemed to be an equal exchange of lost territory for each of us. but, there were two crucial differences. One was the fact that I'd preemptively built up my defenses the moment before this attack. She'd claimed just as large a portion of my territory as I'd claimed of hers, but she would be advancing no farther. The second was that she just got smacked in the side of the face by a rock.

"Ow!" She yelped as the prepared earth spell I'd set up at the moment of her attack did it's job. I used her temporary state of distraction to continue pressing my attack and pushed all the way to her stone mountain.

She glared at me after she figured out what had happened. That was a huge mistake. She was still wasting time being annoyed at me and hadn't yet grasped the seriousness of the situation. By the time she'd noticed what was really going on, I'd already pressed my advantage and was advancing my claim into the foot of her stone mountain.

"Crap! You bastard!" She cursed and began to mobilize her mana to defend her claim. At that moment, I gave up on further progress and capitalized on everything I'd already taken, casting the earth spell to crumble about 15% of the foot of the left side of the mountain into dust, creating a very precarious looking over-hang as though it could easily collapse at any time.

She started fighting back against my claim into her former territory, and I used this moment, sacrificing my claim to instead push into other areas, fully reclaiming everything she'd taken from me and then more, pressing my claim fully into her side of the field. She managed to reclaim the area immediately around her mountain, but now I owned 75% of the field, making my mountain's barrier against attack a full 3 times thicker than hers, while she had her defensive buffer space cut in half.

"Damn it!" She cursed again, just before I felt her push mana into one area of no-man's land both of us had ignored up until this point. The walls and ceiling. Areas outside the floor were always a gamble to go for. if you could claim them while maintaining your advantage on the floor, you would gain the ability to flank your opponent. However, this would also mean spreading yourself thin, and increasing the number of things you had to concentrate on.

It was a harsh calculation of pros and cons, a big risk, almost a hail-Mary one could say, and in this situation where the mana in the stone is more dense than in the training area I'm used to, it's really more cons than pros. But right now, it seemed like an obvious choice for her. She made a rush for it. Her mana spread into the entrance-side wall, the right side of the field from my perspective, and since it was uncontested she began advancing very fast. But, at that moment, I simply pressed the attack at her mountain again, and at the same time tossed another rock at her. This time, from the right side of the arena at an angle where she could clearly see it coming.

She panicked and raised a wall of stone to protect herself. The moment her vision was obscured, I started fast-walking in her direction, making as rapid progress as I could while keeping one foot in contact with the ground at all times so I could continue my mana related tactics. I heard a sound from the wall, and then something hit the ground behind me, right where I used to be standing. She's trying her hand at it now, huh? Well, it's too little too late.

Her mana now covered the entire entrance-side wall, as well as part of the rear wall on my side of the field, and was now advancing inward to attack my mountain. meanwhile, as she was only just starting to reach the foot of my mountain, I'd already infused my mana into around 20% of what remained of hers, and soon I'd have the entire base of it claimed.

"Shit! Shit! Shit! You bastard!" She was swearing up a storm, which seemed pretty out of place for someone in the body of a three year old. In a strange way, it actually seemed kina adorable.

She seemed to realize that if it came to both of us staying on the offensive as we were now, she would definitely loose. She desperately switched to defense. This time, I chose to simply clash my mana against hers and try to continue pressing my claim.

We struggled over the claim on the mountain, but this distracted her from the fact that I was now just on the other side of the stone wall she'd erected. I stepped around it and immediately grabbed her by the shirt collar.

"What?!" She yelped as I dragged her to the ground. This broke her focus on her mana, and I was instantly able to overwhelm her claim, advancing to dominate 50% of the mountain as a whole and 100% of the base by the time she'd gotten her bearings. By then, it was already too late. She was no longer in connection with the mana she'd infused into the top of the mountain and unable to defend against my further advance.

The light of determination left her eyes as she gave up, and mere seconds later her entire mountain crumbled.

"Get off me!" The girl growled, swatting at my hand that was still holding her shirt collar. I obediently let go and stepped away, turning my back to go stand in front of the apparently high-ranking gnomes who ran this place.

[Hmm... I was hoping for a little more, but I suppose it was a good enough performance to show us everything we needed to know,] one of the high rankers off to the side commented in a tone of voice that says nothing he and this girl just did is a big deal to them in any way.

[In terms of raw mana and power, they seem about equal, but the boy possesses far superior technique. The girl was just flailing about like a whlid animal the whole time,] another one commented.

[I cannot say this was unexpected after what the evaluators reported. The initial reports on the boy had suggested he was likely far weaker than her, but after this I think I can see what was really going on. He'd been intentionally reducing the density of the mana he uses against those rejects in order to learn some proper tactics, while she'd just grown used to overwhelming opponents with raw power. The difference in the respective drives to learn and improve certainly shows in the boy, based on what we can see from this.]

[It looks like the boy was also influenced by the match he had with the evaluator. The report given stated he was unable to respond to physical attacks mid match, but this time he used the very tactics that had once been turned on him. He will grow quickly.]

[Very well, I am convinced. I vote we should put them both through the standard initiation procedures. The boy should do fine in the pit. For the girl, maybe it will teach her some humility, especially as the two of them will be together down there.]

[Agreed.]

[Yeah.]

The bunch of seemingly important gnomes arrived a t a decision among themselves, meanwhile the girl who seemed to be a fellow former Earthling scraped herself off the ground and was glaring between them and me. I'd love to hear more about her side of things here, but that would have to wait for another time. It seemed we were about to both get tossed into this "pit" they keep talking about, so I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to catch up. For now, I'll just stay quiet until I know what's going on.

The warning my mother gave me last night still rings in my mind. I'm not even sure if this magic to rob gnomes of their free will is even real, but this is clearly a world filled with magic. I have no reason not to believe it at this point, and I'd really rather not risk it. I just hope it's not already too late for this girl with how things have been going.