Even though Jason expected his proficiency with the ice affinity to be garbage what happened was ridiculous.
He wanted to erect an ice wall but what came out was an explosion of ice particles forming an ice cloud around the two of them.
The only thing it was useful for, was to prevent anyone from seeing what happened inside but neither did it protect him from Seron's sword nor could he do anything with it.
Expecting to form at least a crude wall was a dream to him and only now did he understand why it was so hard for normally procured affinities to control and use.
His origin flame was an exception and Jason relied on his experience from there only to be completely betrayed.
Standing up slowly, he could feel more than one hundred pairs of eyes staring at him and they were full of ridicule and amusement.
Jason, they praised, admired, and even feared for his fight the day before was defeated with a single strike, unable to do anything at all.
Some even began to suspect that their sparring against Milo and Bella was fake if the eerie and monstrous killing intent Jason released wasn't real.
The whole situation turned awkward and some youths began to laugh, happy to see Jason being defeated, while others decided to mind their own business and train themselves in order to survive the next few months until the Big-Three tournament would start.
Once Jason stood firmly on the ground, Seron gazed at him weirdly, not knowing what was going on.
"Sorry, Seron... I wanted to test my newly obtained ice affinity and it seemed like I was too impatient. I would have never imagined that it would be this difficult to handle an affinity"
Jason explained and Seron could only nod. He didn′t have an elemental affinity as of now, but his master told him that it was extremely difficult to learn an affinity and it will take some time to understand even the basics.
Using an affinity the way one wanted was even more difficult and it would take even longer to learn how to handle one's first affinity.
Learning the second, third, or even more affinities would become much easier because one would roughly understand what to pay attention to.
Jason wondered how long it would take him to learn how to handle the ice affinity and he was even more curious how the following affinities would work.
From his knowledge about his soul world, it seemed as if he could be able form a contract with whatever beast he wanted to, without any exception.
This could be considered good but the problem was, that Jason didn't have enough time to learn every affinity.
Circulating mana within his mana channels, Jason slowly activated his ice affinity with the desire to form an icicle and it seemed to work until his focus lessened while the frail constructed icicle fell to the ground shattering into thousand pieces.
`This is really difficult` Jason thought as he ignored Seron who still stood next to him inside the combat arena.
Trying out multiple different shapes with his ice affinity, Jason seemed to get the hang on it pretty fast and Artemis, who was shocked about her master being beaten landed on his shoulder.
She transmitted him multiple thoughts, giving Jason tips on how to handle the ice-affinity and with her instructions, he could already form a stable icicle only 30 minutes later.
Throwing it towards the ceiling its velocity seemed to be slow while the might behind his attack was already decent.
But it shattered way too easily and wouldn't even penetrate into thick skin, which bothered Jason.
It wasn't bad that his icicle shattered as it could deal additional damage but it should only shatter once he infiltrated his opponent's body, creating much more lethal damage.
Deep in thoughts, Jason completely lost track of time and Seron decided to leave him alone inside the combat arena, while Till picked him up to take him outside the arena with his mana enveloping him.
Distracting Jason right now would be extremely bad as he seemed to have entered a fully focused state, where one's comprehension heightened to a certain extent.
Artemis still provided him with pictures, the feeling and thoughts and her input astonished Jason, as she had never used her ice affinity in front of him.
Nevertheless, she seemed to be proficient with the ice affinity and Jason got the hang of the basics much faster than he estimated.
While the other special combat class sets looked at him with ridicule and amusement, Seron and Milo were passionately fighting against each other.
Milo overwhelmed Seron slightly due to his high mana core rank but Seron′s mana injections balanced the fight out, causing them to be in a stalemate.
Hours passed and the special combat class was almost at the end when Artemis flew back to the bench with Jason waking up from his deep comprehension.
He thought that using his ice ability all the time would improve his proficiency and his sub-area with the passive mana replenishing, was immensely helpful to provide him with enough mana to balance his consumption.
Understanding the basics of his ice affinity thanks to Artemis' guidance, Jason was once again ready and prepared to fight back with all his might.
Walking towards Seron, his golden eyes had a whitish trace, as his ice affinity was used constantly, without wasting any mana.
Feeling the ice affinity was one important aspect to learn how to control a newly obtained affinity.
It was like Jason gained another set of muscles and learning how to move and use them was important.
His surrounding was slightly cooler compared to the rest of the arena and his eyes spread a coldness, causing goosebumps to appear on students that looked straight into his eyes.
Seron and Milo were still in a stalemate when they noticed Jason walking towards them.
Seeing how confident Jason walked towards them, Seron immediately knew that he comprehended something important, while Milo was not exactly sure how to behave in front of Jason.
His exceptional gut feeling still told him to follow Jason, but today's fight was extremely embarrassing and Milo wasn′t sure if he should put his pride over the gut feeling.
But seeing Jason's confidence, Milo was sure that his gut feeling had to be true.
Standing in front of Seron and Milo, Jason wanted to fight both of them at once, but if he was to do that, he would only be beaten up and it was better to avoid that for now, even if the pressure would help his combat prowess to soar.
In the beginning, he wanted to fight Seron, but when he saw Milo's wind affinity and speed, he changed his target to Milo.
"Let's fight, Milo!" Jason said before he nodded to Seron, who stepped back.
It was not that Jason didn't want to fight Seron, but he understood that Milo was the better training partner for now, while Seron and Milo couldn't pressure the other party enough in order to squeeze out their potential.
In Seron′s opinion, Jason was the best sparring partner for him, as his strength couldn′t be underestimated.
A few weeks ago, he had to restrict his mana core and physique by a large margin but now he was able to fight Jason with all his might and special techniques he was only barely able to control.
This could be considered a godly feat and Seron was even jealous of Jason's fast increasing combat prowess, causing him to work even harder since he met Jason.
Due to this, his mana absorption and refining speed accelerated by a large margin.
Standing roughly 30 meters apart from each other, Jason gazed at Milo with his 7th Adept rank mana core.
His physique and mana core size was already at the 9th Adept rank, indicating that he contracted an evolved beast which gave him his evolved ranked wind affinity.
It surprised him that Milo and even Bella were only at the 6th affiliated school but it was most likely because of their background or something like that.
The 6. Affiliated schools were only namely divided into weakest to strongest and it was only a coincidence that the 6th affiliated school was considered the weakest, which was mostly the case because the more students from average households with high potential went there.
Nevertheless, there were still prodigious talents standing out from the common grounds, climbing up the social ladder with their mana aptitude and soul rating.
It was rare but happened often enough to consider the first class of the 6th affiliated school comparable with the main Vanguard weaker classes.
As such, defeating Class 1 was as if Jason defeated the main school's weakest class, causing Jason to be extremely satisfied with his current results.
Nevertheless, striving for more was a must for him and his unbending determination could be seen gleaming in his eyes, as he stared at Milo, while the AI started the countdown for their spar.
Issuing the start of their fight, Milo immediately enveloped himself with a thick layer of wind transmuted mana, while he executed his wind affinity movement technique.
Crossing a distance of 30 meters was nothing for him with his physique at the 9th Adept rank, in addition to exerting his movement technique to the fullest, while being enveloped with wind transmuted mana.
Trying to attack Jason from the side Milo didn't attack his opponent from the front when the surrounding temperature plumbed.
Suddenly Jason′s body was covered by a thick ice wall that increased in size, directly shooting towards Milo.