The World seems Realistic but Why do I have a Leveling System?

Entering the elevator, Mia immediately turned her head toward the button panel. Like the other elevator she had observed so far, nothing seems that much different aside from a couple of strange buttons without any label on it which used to defines what kind of floor it is. Mia had thought Adalia would press on the basement one, as it should be the most spacious floor but instead, she pressed on one of the few strange buttons before the elevator started operating downward which Mia could tell by simply looking at the floor indicator.

While the elevator was moving, the two girls in it didn't utter or make any sound. Neither tries to start a conversation as on Adalia's side, she didn't want to waste any breath on someone like Mia since the latter will definitely lose against her. As for Mia, she has a shy personality to begin with so among the two, the one to likely open their mouth would be Adalia. She won't speak a single word unless someone provoked her like what had just happened a moment ago. That's just how she is.

It only takes exactly three minutes for the elevator to reach the lowest floor possible, but to Mia, it feels like an hour had passed instead. It's really hard for her to be in the same space even for a few minutes with someone you're going to fight later on. It was very awkward and uncomfortable to say the least. Thankfully, that awkward moment for three whole minutes is now over.

When the door of the elevator wide opened, her eyes widen up in shock as Mia couldn't believe what she had witnessed. One of the reasons that caused this reaction was that the whole floor was a lot more spacious than she expected it to be. Whilst she was following the back of Adalia, Mia can already determine where they were heading to by simply taking a peek ahead of her and saw some kind of special looking platform, like the one in the movies which was used to train their martial art skill. It seemed her guess was right on the mark as she could see a few people on top of the platform training their skill by sparing with each other.

Aside from that, a small crowd beneath the platform caused her to feel tense for an obvious reason. 'Did the news had already spread to the academy? I guess that makes sense considering it had been three days since then. Even more, that annoying girl might have spread the news on purpose to let the other know,' thought Mia when she recognized some of her classmates seated amongst the crowd. 'But even so, aren't there too many of them? What was the teacher on the Academy doing, by allowing these people slacking around instead of studying? Or did they skip their class without notifying the teacher? No, that shouldn't be possible.'

"Ah right, I remember hearing my teacher saying something along the line that there will be an event a week ago before I dropped from the Academy. I have forgotten what kind of event it is but, most likely this must be the reason why the students were here."

Mia murmured accompanied by a helpless sigh when she realized how terrible misfortune for her to came across Adalia while in the middle of her shopping. If she had just stayed obediently at home that day, this fight most probably won't happen. But who would have thought this would happen from just a simple shopping? It's already too late to regret it by now. Thankfully, she had prepared enough for the upcoming battle.

"Wow, I never expected to see this many people here. They must have heard the news of our fight from somewhere else, I wonder?"

'Can you stop, please? Your acting is too obvious that it's making me cringe over here,' thought Mia when hearing the speech spoken by Adalia. Upon noticing our presence on their back, the crowd immediately stepped aside with their chair in an orderly manner as if they have planned this all along, which opened up a path enough for us to walk through until the platform. Unlike Adalia who couldn't care less about the other people, Mia was feeling quite uncomfortable when the crowd's silent stare locked onto her. It was pretty inaudible from her spot but, Mia was sure some of them were whispering about her. 

Adalia was quite upset when Mia didn't respond to her question but, her anger-meter diminishes quite a bit upon seeing the crowd stepping aside for her. With a smug expression on her face, Adalia walks through the path, heading straight to the platform while followed by Mia. 

"It's true..."

"I believe the news the moment I heard it since the two have quite the history, you know?"

"That's not what you said yesterday night."

The boy immediately retorted when his friend made up a lie out of thin air. The two continue having a small fit facing each other until Mia and Adalia finally stood on top of the platform which prompted them to stopped. The trainers that were on the platform a moment ago have already descended and joined the crowd as Adalia had already notified them about it way ahead. By standing on top of the platform, Mia finally could reach her conclusion of how many people were there in the crowd; it wasn't a precise number but most likely around a thousand. When she was on the same ground as them, it was hard for her to conclude since they jumbled up together like a maze. It was a headache.

"Alright. Now that we are finally here, I'll show my empathy one last time by giving you another chance to surrender. Are you going to let this chance go?"

Adalia said with confidence in her tone. Never in her mind that she believes she would lose against Mia, that was how much confidence she has about the upcoming fight. After all, Mia was unable to conjure a single spell even after a few years of effort whilst people with average talent had already mastered one or few basic spells. Adalia didn't want to fight if possible since she only wants to humiliate Mia in front of thousands of people. If she were to fight and win against someone cripple like Mia, it would make her already worst reputation even worse.

"No, I won't feel satisfied until I beat the crap out of that smug face of yours."

Mia declined her kind offer with a provoking sentence that caused her mouth to twitch in response. Although the crowd seemed silent on the outside, they were cheering for Mia internally. Adalia was not randomly called 'little devil' for no apparent reason, she had brought troubles everywhere she goes. She was even worse than a storm since one could predict the latter to a certain degree while the former, it is impossible. If they were given a chance, they would like to punch her in the face at the very least for all the troubles they have to unreasonable suffered until now.

"Fine, so be it. Just a heads up though, I won't hold anything back. I will go with my full power from the very beginning, so you better do the same or you can only regret in hell for eternity."

"Sure, come on."

With her response as the signal, Mia immediately brought the small wand out of her pocket in preparation for an attack. Seeing that, Adalia was surprised for a moment as she didn't expect Mia to able to afford such an expensive-looking wand yet, she also does the same. For her though, it was obvious she could afford to get a mini wand with her family background, unlike Mia. Though it was surprising to her, Adalia only put it in her mind since she was in the middle of a battle that required her full concentration. She would not have behaved like this if Mia hadn't shown the wand to her.

Although it should be impossible from her common sense, there's still the possibility that perhaps like the protagonist in the novel, Mia might have come across a fortunate encounter that was able to fix her problem. The world is a big place, after all. With that thought in mind, Adalia immediately starts whispering the incantation for her spell in a faint voice, whilst also channeling the mystic power within her, heading to one familiar path, her hand that was holding onto the small wand.

[Ah, Salamander, The Great Fire Sprite, I beg thee to lend me your strength! Fireball!]

When she finished the incantation, it started with a spark before a small ball of flame materializing out of thin air and by her command, it flew straight toward Mia at an incredible speed. It took her precisely ten seconds to conjured the spell before commanding it to attack. If this was someone with average talent, it would take them much longer since just incantation is not everything to conjure a spell. It also required one to be good at channeling their inner energy which was called 'mystic power' by the Mage Association. Even more, one shouldn't make a mistake of assuming it as Qi just because it works with the same principle as the former but, the two of them were undoubtedly entirely different energy.

Although both works on the same principle from what the Olden mage had researched on so far, mystic power could also become a deadly poison if one has a body that resists against foreign energy. If one with such body lives for a long time within a place where the mystic power in the surrounding was much thicker than the other place, sooner or later they would die from an unknown incurable disease. Of course some were able to adapt to foreign energy, but those are very rare considering not many would want to live in a place where there was literal poison in the air.

When the fireball flew toward her, Mia didn't make any movement of avoiding the incoming attack as if she was frozen like a statue on the spot. In front of everyone's intense and shocking gazes, they saw Mia simply wave her hand holding the wand before a fireball with the same magnitude as Adalia's appeared before exploding as it crashed with the incoming fireball. The explosion didn't do any damage to Mia as her fireball managed to stop it before it could get any closer to her. When the smoke from the explosion finally dispersed into the sky, everyone finally realized the scene happening in front of them was not an illusion but that of reality.

"H-How... How was it possible for the spell to be conjured with just a single swing of your hand? That is impossible!"

Adalia shouted in disbelief, she couldn't believe what she had just witnessed. It simply goes against the 'common sense' that she learned from studying the history book in the library of the Mage Academy. It's like seeing a horse suddenly turned into a human, that was how unbelievable and unlikely for it to be true. But to prove her point that everything that everyone had witnessed was real, Mia sneered at them before waving the hand holding the wand for the second time. And as expected, a blazing ball of flame materialize as if to ridicule them for thinking they were dreaming or regarded it as an illusion when it was there, right in front of their effing eyes!