The Arena was silent, everyone seemed to have stopped talking as she focused inwardly a her mana flow across her body, the crazy old man had at some point walked to the bad of the arena and just stared at her.

  "Breath in...Breath out..." She whispered while she grew the amount of mana c through her body.

  She o use every drop of mana for what she had pnned, her mental model from before depended entirely oing her shadows do their thing. They mostly worked as indepe actors that fulfilled her whims.

  Be it uhe trol of Beato or Nyx...She wasn't sure.

  But she didn't have either, not anymore. Nyx was sleeping in the depths of her [Soulscape] ao...Well, it was still a flip if she would ever be able to summon her again.

  So now? Now she o do her part, and so she worked on the formu herself.

  'Calcute the area of effect...' First, she desighe whole arena as her area of effect. She could probably work it by segmenting the area and doing it more effitly.

  But that would require her to desigargets and focus her mana on trolling who they affected and who they didn't...

  She didn't o do that, nht now. The arena held mostly curious onlookers and teachers anyway, non actual civilians were around, so if they wao peek at her. They would get a good taste of peeking.

  'Desighe as to take...' After making sure the whole arena would be under her spell she would o decide what the spell would do.

  In this case...She wao incapacitate, so she settled for building s of shadows that would entangle anyone uhe area of effect, her shadow s would try to restrain those uheir effects.

  They weren't solid s and didn't require a stant stream to stay solid, uhose of earth, metal, or wind. They were closer to water s but uer... Hers would reform easily enough and wouldn't disperse uporu.

  Hers would stick to their target like tar ao reform arain them after they tried to destroy them. Her spell would seek to use the least amount of mana and mostly fed from ambient mana after she kickstarted the spell.

  'Afterwards...Syphora mana from what they do to escape to increase the gravity of restraining.' She wasn't sure how plex the dummies were...But she was sure those students and teachers would try to escape from her spell.

  So she would use their mana as fuel to increase the effectiveness of the spell by taking it and using it for the whole thing, nothing overly plex or harmful. Just an increase of gravity on all the shadow s using the mana from everyone uheir effect.

  It would use the mana of the heavy hitters (Aka the crazy old man) to restrain the lesser ones...And use the mana of the lesser oo try arain the heavy hitters...Also if the dummy retaliated they would help.

  That made her smile, "Whenever you are ready..." The crazy old man said, she turo look at him and he was indeed within the arena, some people stayed ioo...Pretending to practiething here and there.

  Agatha was among the most notorious ones who didn't stay in the arena, but she seemed focused on speaking with other teachers while batting away something with her left hand.

  [Mother] did seem to send her plenty of messages it seems.

  "Okay, fair warning everyone..." Elizabeth said raising her voice, "My [Spell] will be an indiscriminate area of effect restraining [Spell], it has no offensive qualities so please do not fight it back, the more you do the heavier the restri will bee."

  No one seemed to take her warning to heart, "If you remain within the [Arena] I 't guarantee you will not be affected." Elizabeth added, still. No o, she couldn't help herself but smirk at that.

  Well, they would regret it ter " [Shadow Domain Expand] " she intoned, feeling her mana drain as her shadow suddenly expao cover the whole arena.

  Some people here and there jumped back as the shadows expanded, but when they didn't do anything they seemed to rex, that however was a mistake.

  "[Magic Circle] +[Range] + [Web] + [Restrain] + [Syphon] + [Gravity] = [Shadow Web of s], " And after fusing those spells intic circle made of shadows the inky substan the arena floor turned into an intricate spider web.

  That made people uand their precarious situation a little more, "Gyaah, the shadows are growing!" A panicked...Male voice said.

  "HEL...!" A girlish voice seemed to want to scream before being silenced as the shadow s seemed to have goo her open mouth, preventing her from speaking further.

  ...Yikes, that may leave a trauma.

  "Humph!" The crazy old man only said as much as he seemed to ighe restraining from the shadow s, "...These are....passable." He said, unlike everyone else, he wasn't rolling on the floor beiangled further by the shadows.

  He was, however, leaving a steady stream of mana as he was fighting against the spell and as such feeding the [Gravity] part of it, making him sink into the floor by a few timeters.

  "You o work on designating targets Cadet Starbright," Said the crazy old man as he took everyone under her spell into sideration, "And you all o work nizing threats, beirained by what is essentially a girl that barely finished her first grade here and is way behind you all on amount of mana."

  The crazy old man seemed i oing everyone else, but he was still being under her spell's effect, maybe he feared that breaking his bonds would break her whole spell?

  "Cadet Starbright, this however does not mean you get full credits as the [Dummy]s will start retaliating soon enough." He said as the top four [Dummies] started to fight against her spell.

  "Couldn't have it another way," said Elizabeth as she raised her left hand and fed some of the mana she was taking from everyoo her hand.

  She weaved a new spell into it, one she had used before, but this time she was using her newfound [in]...Or well, her newfound [Skill] to be precise "[Lighting]+[Manipution]+[Barrage]+[Cutter] = [Lighting Barrage]," the effect was almost immediate.

  The magical circle formed in her hand in barely a sed...Then formed again and again, oer the other multiple circles formed around her astonishing her for a fra of a sed. The thing that brought her back to the real world was the feedback from the spell pinging at her sciouselling it that it was ready to shoot.

  She...Barely remembered how many she had mao use before, and how much mana it took of her to evehat number...Now? Now she had almost a dozen magic circles at her bed call, eae ready to fire two to three lighting attacks.

  She could even feel how she was able to tamper with the power of each spell individually...."Cadet Star..." She heard the voice of the crazy old man behind her.

  But she wasn't able to trol herself "[Fire]" and a mere word from her was enough as a subsonic barrage was shot forward, half of those went straight at the bck dummy. The ohat represented Akira.

  He stered mostly on his legs and hands making sure he wasn't in any position to resist her shadow s (And yes, at least six cutters went to his her regions).

  That left six magic circles with nets, oh reduced strength went on a surgical mission, attag the pink dummy with low-iy but high-frequency shock discharges. That one sought to overload the nervous system to imitate a taser a a knock out of the pink dummy.

  She tweaked the other five in two waves. Two magic circle barrages went towards the red dummy and the remaining towards the blue one, both kept the normal amount of force but imitated the attack she did on the Rossie Dummy.

  "...Bright...That is enough." Fihe crazy old man, no other Dummy seemed to have the means to move anyway.

  "*sigh* Another mo seems, at least you arrived now and not at the start, 't imagine what it would have been if you had been around when the ranking started..." The crazy old maed, weird...She was normal, what was he speaking about?

  ...Okay, maybe not. But to say an adorable girl like her was a monster? Rude!

  ....

  "Starbright? you release the spell? It is getting annoying and some of the students seem to be about to reach their limit." The crazy old man said that was weird.

  Her spell shouldn't...Oh...OOOOhhhh...The crazy old man had been pumping mana all the while, hadn't he? He probably was overloading the [Gravity] fun, so everyone must be under quite a heavy strain...Yikes.

  "[Release]" Elizabeth intoned ahe spell break apart, releasing everyone from their bondage.

  "...I 't be a bride anymore..." She heard a male voice but decided to ignore him, what kind of man wants to be a bride?

  "Thank you, as for your score...Well gratutions on a perfect capture, you even mao get the extra points..." Said the crazy old man while her name showed in gold and blue letters at the top of the ranking.

  It pushed Rossie down to fifth pce getting her out of the ranking...

  "Is there a problem?" The crazy old man asked her, did anything show on her face?

  "Oh yeah, you make it so my name is separated from the ranking till someone else manages a score like mine?" Elizabeth asked that way Rossie would be able to keep her fourth pce spot...

  Or maybe climb to a first and they could then share first and sed?

  She wouldn't miing her grab her spell from their shared [Soulscape] just so she could imitate her achievemeher...

  "Sure, do you require a [Mana Potion] for the part? " The crazy old man asked while the ranking shuffled and her name now stood alone above the rest. Michael, Rena, Akira, and Rossie were again iop four spots.

  Most of the students that had been in the arena had left and now stood warily at the top of the seating, some seemed to gre her way, but for some reason, everyourned away as soon as she turned her sight their way.

  Weird.

  "I'm fihat didn't take much mana," Elizabeth answered while cheg her mana pool.

  She had ed barely 10% of her mana, mostly on the kick-start of the spell. So using your own [in] was this effective...She did see a notification about her skills growing.

  Shadoution: 3>5

  Mana Manipution: 5>7

  Magic Circle Manipution:1>3

  Lighting Manipution: 3>4

  It seemed that maniputing mana and a magic circle in such scale had paid off, and she o use more of her [Lighting] spells if she wao groart of her skill set too.

  "Are you sure? You used two big spells there, and while we don't have your records anymore...Lighting and Shadows are opposite elements...So at least one must have burned your reserves." Said worriedly the crazy old man.

  Weird...Didn't he hate her too?

  What the heck?

  What the heck had done her parents that got deleted when they asded to leave everyone so...Chummy with her.

  "...I have skills for both [Shadoution] and [Lighting Manipution], so the mana use was negligible. Besides [Mana Manipution] and [Magic Circle Manipution] made sure my mana use was on the low end." Elizabeth said that should make sure he stopped pestering at her.

  "...You have [Manipution] skills?" Asked the crazy old man looking at her weirdly, "You didn't use [Restraining] skills and [Offensive] skills?"

  "No? I built two pound spells and used those instead." Elizabeth said.

  The silehat followed was kinda funny too, as she was almost sure that dropping a pin would make quite the ruckus.

  "HAHAHAHAHAHAH" At least till Agatha started ughing, "She built two plex pound spells she says."

  That in turn made everyone in the seating start speaking while bringing out their phones as some of them seemed to focus in front of them. She was sure that at least one wave of mana was thrown her way, but it didn't hit as a barrier rippled.

  "ORDER!" Bellowed the crazy old man, "I know what you are thinking, but my [Skill] tells me she is ho. gratutions everyone, we just got our fourth [Magic User] student."

  Fourth?

  Shouldn't she be the third? Michael, Rossie...Who was the third?

  "And gratutions to you Miss Starbright, this means your stay at the MPI is guaranteed. No matter what the geezers say, they 't afford to lose you now." The crazy old man said, "But yes...With four [Manipution] skills helping you, you should be fine...Okay, we will move forward to the [Fight]"

  That easy?

  Also, he said his [Skill] guaranteed her words, but wasn't his [Skill] something about being a drill sergeant?

  In what had it turned out for him to be able to ascertain if she told the truth or not?

  "So, what will be the fight then?" Asked Elizabeth as she eyed the arena.

  She was half sure it would be a fight by what Rossie had told her and how the crazy old man spoke about it.

  "It will be a mock-up fight, you will go against one of your sed-year friends," Started expining the crazy old man.

  "That would be me in this case," Said a voice behind her.

  It was a male voice, she reized it even if she didn't i too much with said voice, he was one of those that she was sure they spoke about when the crazy old man said [Magic Users].

  "I'm Michael Shepherd, my [Hero] name is [Sage]." Presented himself the blue-haired [Hero].

  She of course knew who he was...She...Had kicked him in his manhood before..."I'm sorry, did we know each other before?" Asked Michael while taking a pensive pose. "I sadly do not have any memories of you. I was among those hit by the [Assion] of [Framework] and [Odyssey] as my work was on the embassy in [Camelot]."

  So he was there too?

  "Oh sorry, no. We spoke briefly on the first weeks since we traiogether a few times." Elizabeth answered she wasn't sure if it would do good to her to speak about how they had fought. "You defeated me once."

  So she instead decided to say that, she had won on a teicality after all, no way in hell she was expining how she had won that. That wasn't...Why had she dohat anyway?

  Previous Elizabeth's thinking was weird.

  "Oh, then I must apologize. " Michael said while bowing to her, " I get your name and [Hero] hen?"

  Right...She o introduce herself...How should she do that?

  "I'm Elizabeth Starbright...As for my [Name]...Well, I was hit quite badly by the assion of our new gods so I o check up if my previous [Names] are still valid..." Elizabeth said while turning to the crazy old man.

  "No [Name] is registered to you..." Started saying the crazy old man before stopping and looking at her again, "Wait, Names? Multiple? Why did you have more than one?"

  Right..."I...Was very good at using the [Shift Spell]." Elizabeth said meekly, "Spellcasting and mana manipution was my forte before the [System] came around."

  " I see that... with that many [Manipution] skills on your hands...The basic [Magical Girl] or [Mage] jobs don't offer manipution skills usually." The crazed old man said.

  "I have [Mana Manipution], I wasn't sure who made me focus on that before, but if your specialty was mana manipution and spell crafting...You may have been the reason for my focus on that..." Michael said from his side.

  "her you nor Singh or Suzuki are normal examples...Well now with Starbright on the mix we have another nonstandard example I guess..." The crazy old man said.

  "Akira is a spellcaster?" Asked Elizabeth, since he spoke of him then he must be...But he owered...So why was he now spoken too in this setting?

  "Akira... cast spells, as those are now sidered Skills, he has a few slots dedicated to that, we aren't sure of where he got the points but not many people have firmed to have sacrificed status points for those slots. He does get enough Mileage from them...Mostly supportive spells." Michael said he didn't seem to be happy with Akira ag as a spellcaster.

  "So he mao get the formue for support spells?" Asked Elizabeth, that...Didn't seem right, Akira wasn't the type to do that kind of thing.

  "He didn't get the formue, he uses [System] made spells, and only uses them on himself, not even once have I seen him cast them on anyone else, not even that girl that follows him around like a puppy." Michael spat.

  Yikes, no love for Akira from him either huh.

  "That's enough gossip, if your introdus are et ready for bat." The Crazy old man said, at some point, he had walked to the stands and eaking from the stands.

  Right, she was supposed to fight...Did she o trash him though?

  "I will fight at my best since you don't seem to need any advantage," Said Michael to her as he walked to another er of the Arena.

  Right...He probably saw her previous magical circle...

  "...Oh." Was all she could say, he able spellcaster when they fought the st year, she didn't want to know how much he had grown. But she suspected it lenty.

  Either way, she would o fight this with caution, now it was time to see how she fared against a [Hero] specialized in magic.