There were two people in the arena.
On one side stood a handsome white-haired man who had an unreadable expression on his face.
Of course, this person was Jarek.
His adversary was a blue-haired ice phoenix, the same one who had masterfully defeated his opponent in one of the matches yesterday.
The ice phoenix stood there looking at Jarek with a solemn expression.
Jarek had demonstrated time and time again the level of threat he possesses after defeating Velkrith and even Brynhild.
But now, as he stood opposite him, the ice phoenix couldn't help but feel that Jarek exuded a strong sense of oppression that wasn't present yesterday.
He couldn't quite put his finger on this strange feeling just yet.
It was only when Jarek fired a bolt of lightning and revealed his cultivation that it finally clicked inside his head. 'Grandmaster.'
He wasn't the only one who realized this.
The keen Deputy Head's eyes narrowed in realization, while Brynhild and Astrid were a bit surprised.
Thrain, on the other hand, was startled, and his face darkened.
Jarek had now entered the same stage as him, more of a danger than he already was.
Throughout this tournament, Thrain has had to constantly reassess Jarek's threat level as the days passed.
On the first day, he considered him to be a simple potential threat, then on the second day, he rose to become a minor threat.
And now, even though he didn't want to admit it, Jarek was now a major threat to his life.
A second later, he finally calmed himself down.
'As long as we can get that Eira woman, then it doesn't matter if you are a Grandmaster, you will still fall by my hands.'
Each person had their own reaction when they sensed Jarek's cultivation.
The ice phoenix, in particular, who was about to be directly hit by the attack, formed a wall of ice to shield himself from the lightning.
However, the ice wall shattered after enduring the powerful strike, but it had already served its purpose.
The ice phoenix had already moved to dodge, as small bolts of lightning passed where he had been a moment ago.
But he didn't have much time to think as he saw Jarek rushing towards him with a sword in hand.
He fired ice arrows at Jarek, trying to force him to defend.
As Jarek observed the frozen arrows piercing through the air as they traveled towards him, a glimmering sword qi formed on his sword.
He slashed his sword at the ice arrows, dealing with them with ease, and continued dashing towards the ice phoenix.
If the arrows had been fire arrows, he would have reacted to them differently, but since these arrows were made of ice, it wasn't a problem to deal with them in such a manner.
Even though his speed slightly diminished as he dealt with the arrows, he was still moving towards the ice phoenix, who witnessed how useless his attacks were on Jarek.
He immediately changed his attack method to adapt to the situation.
|Wind Blade|
Crescent blades formed from the wind as they moved towards Jarek at high speeds.
Seeing this, Jarek responded with another new ability.
|Wind Art: Spiral Tempest|
A miniature tornado formed where Jarek stood, lifting him high into the air as the blades passed right beneath him.
The ice phoenix was shocked by this unexpected development.
Jarek didn't give him time to process the situation.
While he was high up in the air, Jarek fired lightning towards the ice phoenix as he closed the distance.
It was at this moment that the ice phoenix realized that he couldn't turn the situation around.
He was able to dodge the first lightning strike, but the second strike landed successfully with full force.
By the time he regained his senses, Jarek was one metre away from him, with Jarek's shadow connected to his.
With Jarek now being a Grandmaster, his hold over his shadow was stronger than ever.
Jarek then placed a sword close to his neck, something that was quite common in his matches, signifying the ice phoenix's loss.
As the crowd cheered for Jarek, Astrid had a frown on her face.
Jarek's new ability had changed her battle plans slightly.
That and the increase in his cultivation made his strength now equal to hers.
No, with Jarek's true cultivation, she doubted if she could even deal any meaningful damage in the first place.
Unlike her best friend, Brynhild, Astrid had come to terms with the fact that winning against Jarek was almost impossible.
Both of these princesses might be very proud, but Astrid had a different kind of pride as compared to Brynhild's.
Brynhild believed that only a select few were her match in either talent or intelligence, in she was correct in thinking so.
Jarek just happened to be one of those few people.
Astrid, on the other hand, was not only proud of her talent but her strength.
Dragons were inherently arrogant creatures when it came to their strength.
It was what they respected the most.
And she indeed held Jarek in high regard.
True to her dragon nature, his strength only served to motivate her to work harder.
She felt a fire in her soul to grow stronger, but even more so to trade blows with Jarek, even though she might lose.
This was the difference between Brynhild and Astrid.
One wanted to defeat Jarek to prove she was superior, while the other just wants to have a good fight.
However, she held these feelings buried within her, maintaining a somewhat calm exterior.
She analyzed every single ability Jarek has ever used since the beginning of the tournament.
At the end of her analysis, she found two abilities that might be quite difficult to deal with: Shadow Bind and Spiral Tempest.
But as the prodigy she was, she had already come up with a battle plan to deal with such troublesome abilities.
Whether Jarek could deal with them or not was left up to fate to decide.
Jürgen, who was also among the spectators, couldn't help but worry as well. 'How many abilities does this guy have? I swear I have seen him display eight abilities already. What kind of talent is this?'
Normally, someone at the mortal phase only has around five abilities, but Jarek was already pushing this to the extreme, and Jurgen wasn't sure if this was the end of all the tricks he had up his sleeves.
Those not from the academy had no idea that Jarek was a supreme-grade talent, and they just thought that he was as talented as the other students.
If Jurgen came to know that Jarek was a supreme-grade talent, he would completely extinguish any hostility he had towards him, and hope that Jarek would spare him on the fact that he was not directly responsible for those events years ago.
Offending someone with the same level of talent as the Supreme Dao Empress was nothing but a death wish.
Such rare talents have a destiny that is so great that it is almost impossible to destroy.
The kingdom of Dolathra can attest to this.
The incident with the Supreme Dao Empress sent a clear message: Supreme-grade talents were not to be messed with.
Sadly, he was completely unaware of the calamity he had attracted to himself, and he was already in too deep to extricate himself from this mess.