Chapter 338: Battling Aubrey

When the semifinals rolled around, he already knew he would face Aubrey. The brackets had been set for a while, and with Edgar losing to her and him beating Liam, their meeting had already been predestined.

Aubrey hadn’t stopped talking smack to him since last night. He dealt with it, though, because he knew it was her way of coping. They both knew Julius might have been one of the worst matchups for Aubrey in the entire school.

His perception skill made her most potent ability less effective. It had been this way ever since they met, and although she had made some vast improvements to her skill, it remained the same.

It was too bad as well, because out of all of his friends, she might have been the most competitive one with him. She hated to lose, doubly so when it came to him. Edgar didn’t mind all that much.

The large fourth-year was much more appreciative about figuring out his weak points and improving on them. Aubrey however, didn’t like losing to someone several years her junior. He didn’t blame her for feeling this way either. He probably wouldn’t like it if he was in the same position.

***

Walking out to the field, he spotted her right away. When they met eyes, he knew immediately that she was serious. She didn’t have that teasing grin on her face and was already maintaining control of her aura to the best of her abilities.

Their spars had taught her that any opening in her aura would allow him to use his kinetic restriction technique on her. Even though she already knew that he wouldn’t be using that technique during this match, it would appear she was controlling it regardless.

He, on the other hand, threw her a bright smile. One that he noticed, she tried very hard not to return. But he could tell that she was just as excited as he was. If there was one thing he had learned about Aubrey, it was that she loved fighting as much as anyone else. And that passion had seemed to grow more fervent ever since he disappeared.

The crowd was already electric. Derek had already fought his match earlier, beating out a very strong fourth year who had tested the Zenith Scion more than anyone else had to this point. But it wasn’t enough, and Derek had come out on top.

However, that only made the crowd more excited to watch the final match of the Tier 3 Tournament. Their roars were deafening, even through the barrier that contained most of the noise.

Explosions of colorful mana dotted the sky and he could see children swinging bright colored flags in excitement. It was quite the sight to see and he enjoyed it for the moment as the official introduced them to the crowd.

“This is the official semifinals match between fourth-year Aubrey Crysalia and first-year Julius Snow,” the official said. His voice got drowned out by the crowd, as they were surprisingly loud when Julius was introduced.

The fact that he was a first-year student gained him a lot of popularity amongst the spectators.

However, much of his attention was on Aubrey, whom he could feel was already beginning to flex her skills in preparation. Her mana control was so much sharper, and he could feel the deep, profoundness of it as well, displaying the improvements she had made with her Concepts.

When the official initiated the match, he wasn’t surprised to see that Aubrey went on the offensive right away. It was in her nature and sitting back wasn’t her style. Furthermore, she knew that if she just stood back and let Julius have free rein, her disadvantage would only grow.

She created a bunch of clones around her and used them to send over a dozen beams of condensed mana at him from all angles. She wasn’t bothering to try to trick him with her clones. She had never been able to deceive him and understood that it would just be a waste of mana on her part.

However, her recent improvements with her clones made her a larger offensive threat than she was months ago. She didn’t have to rely on deception and trickery. She could use pure quantity to try to pressure him.

Unfortunately for her, he was also well acquainted with her attacks and knew that her beams weren’t capable of bending through the air. The relatively straight nature of the mana beams meant that he was able to calculate the trajectory with decent accuracy.

He used a few slight activations of [Flash Step] to avoid the more dangerous beams and sidestepped the rest.

He attempted to close the distance, but each time he would get remotely close, Aubrey would exchange places with one of her clones. It was very annoying if he was being honest and without his aura technique, he wasn’t able to disrupt her skill like he usually tried to.

However, to her credit, he had been having a harder time of doing that as of late. She had learned how to protect herself from the worst of his aura and prevent him from disrupting her skill. He did try to use his more recent technique, which he had picked up from Irene, but Aubrey’s skill and clones weren’t like normal constructs.

They were more akin to projections of the girl’s aura and soul than anything else. This is why it is hard to differentiate between them without using [Spatial Perception].

It was annoying, but he already knew what he had to do. Much like how Edgar had fought her, he needed to waste some of her mana and stamina. Otherwise, she could just avoid him for a long time, especially with her being as cautious as she currently was.

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Even if he used his constructs and bombarded her, he would be the one who ended up using more mana. Her physical defenses from her crystal affinity made sure that she wouldn’t fall to a couple of stray spikes either. She had proven in the past that she could tank several of them easily.

So, despite having a larger pool, he would likely deplete his before she depletes hers, which was why he dashed toward the nearest clones and used his bare fists to smash them apart.

Aubrey attempted to control her clones to dodge, but they weren’t as fast as her. Using as little mana as possible, he slammed his fists into the clones. He was able to feel the cracking of the crystal-hardened bodies from the force of his strikes.