[Day 2 of the Tournament – Quarter-Finals]

[Location: The Arena Floor]

The massive sphere of pressurized water hung in the air, casting a dark shadow over Lukas.

Vance smirked, his hand raised. He had won. He had dismantled the "sniper" of Class F piece by piece.

"Any last words, Matchstick?" Vance taunted.

Lukas looked at the water. It was shimmering, heavy, and cold.

'Water puts out fire,' Lukas thought, his teeth chattering from the soak. '

That's the rule. Everyone knows that.'

But then, a memory surfaced.

It wasn't a memory of the dungeon, instead it was a memory of the school basement, two weeks ago.

….............

[Flashback: The Boiler Room]

Mozart stood next to a massive, hissing steam pipe. Lukas was there, sweating profusely.

"Professor," Lukas complained. "Why are we in the boiler room? It's so hot."

"Lukas," Damien said, tapping the pressure gauge. "What happens when you throw a fireball at a bucket of water?"

"The fire goes out," Lukas answered immediately.

"Correct. Because the water absorbs the heat energy," Damien nodded.

"But what happens if you add too much heat, too quickly, to a confined volume of water?"

Damien opened a valve. A jet of steam screamed out, hot enough to strip paint from the walls.

"Water beats fire," Damien shouted over the noise. "But Heat... Heat burns everything. If you can't burn through it... make it expand."

…...........

[Present Day: The Arena]

Lukas stopped shivering.

He looked at the puddle he was standing in.

He looked at the Water Mirror hovering in front of Vance. He looked at the wet armor encasing Vance's body.

To him, Vance at this time wasn't wearing armor.

He was wearing a pressure cooker.

"You're right," Lukas whispered, his voice trembling, not with fear, but with realization.

"I can't shoot through that."

Vance sneered. "Finally accepting reality?"

"No," Lukas said.

He stopped pointing his finger like a gun. Instead, he slammed both palms flat onto the wet stone floor of the arena.

"I'm not going to shoot you."

Vance frowned. "What are you—"

Lukas closed his eyes. He stopped compressing the flame into a needle. He did the opposite.

He pushed every ounce of mana remaining in his core into the ground, vibrating the molecules, expanding the energy outwards in a chaotic flood.

[Blue Flame Art: Flash Boil.]

WHOOM.

The temperature in the arena spiked.

The stone floor around Lukas glowed cherry-red in a millisecond.

A wave of heat, invisible, silent, and terrifying exploded outward in a thirty-meter radius.

Vance's eyes widened.

The heat wave hit the water. All of it. The puddle on the floor. The Hydro Smash in the air. The Water Mirror.

Physics took over.

When water is exposed to extreme, sudden heat, it didn'tevaporate slowly.

It underwent a rapid phase change. Liquid turns to gas. And gas takes up 1,600 times more space than liquid.

BOOM.

It was a steam explosion.

Vance's Water Mirror detonated.

The spinning water instantly expanded into superheated steam, blasting backward with the force of a concussion grenade.

"ARGH!" Vance screamed.

The shockwave threw him off his feet, but the physical impact was the least of his problems.

The arena instantly filled with a thick, blinding white fog.

It was scalding steam.

"I can't see!" Vance yelled, clawing at his face.

"It burns! It burns!"

Fire burns the skin. But steam carries latent heat. It sticks to you. It wraps around you. It cooks the meat underneath.

Vance's armor, which was designed to conduct mana and keep him hydrated, was now trapping the superheated vapor against his skin.

He was boiling inside his own suit.

"Turn it off!" Vance shrieked, rolling on the ground.

Lukas stood up in the center of the white hell.

He was untouched. His Salamander Gloves were designed to handle extreme temperatures.

They absorbed the ambient heat, feeding it back into his core. To him, the scalding steam felt like a warm bath.

He walked through the white fog like a ghost.

Step. Step. Step.

He stopped in front of Vance, who was writhing on the scorched floor, his skin turning lobster-red.

Lukas looked down. The steam parted around him.

He raised one finger. The glove glowed bright blue.

"Water puts out fire," Lukas said softly. "But fire can turn water into a bomb."

He pointed the finger at the prosthetic brace on Vance's arm, the one filled with liquid mana coolant.

"Do you want me to boil that too?"

Vance froze. He looked at the glowing finger.

He imagined the liquid inside his prosthetic turning into steam, exploding his arm from the inside out.

The arrogance was gone. The tactical analysis was gone. There was only the primal terror of suffocation.

"I yield!" Vance wheezed, coughing up hot moisture. "I yield! Make it stop!"

"WINNER: LUKAS OF CLASS F!"

The Announcer's voice cut through the fog, sounding stunned.

The steam began to dissipate, drifting up into the stands. The crowd was silent. They saw the blackened floor.

They saw the Class S elite on his knees, defeated not by a spell, but by simple physics.

…..........

[Location: Class S Private Suite]

CRACK.

The glass in Prince Nero's hand shattered. Water and shards spilled onto the carpet.

Nero stared at the screen. His perfect tactical analysis lay in ruins.

"He... used the environment," Nero whispered, his face pale.

"He changed the battlefield."

Elise, sitting next to him, looked uneasy. "Prince? Was that... supposed to happen?"

Nero stood up, wiping the water from his hand.

"No," Nero said coldly.

"That was impossible. A First Year shouldn't know how to induce a phase change like that without killing himself."

….............…..

[Location: VIP Box]

Duke Vane stood frozen, his wine glass halfway to his mouth.

"What..." The Duke stammered.

"What kind of magic was that? He didn't even hit him."

Damien calmly poured another cup of tea. He watched the medics rushing onto the field to treat Vance for second-degree burns.

"Thermodynamics, Duke Vane," Damien said smoothly.

"It is a fascinating subject. Perhaps the Academy should add a physics course to the Class S curriculum."

Damien looked down at Lukas, who was waving timidly to the cheering section of Class F.

"That is the difference between your students and mine," Damien added, his voice low.

"Your students memorize spells. My students understand how the world works."

He raised his teacup in a mock toast.

"One down."

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