An Extra's Rise in an Eroge-Chapter 239: Show off

Inside the classroom, Saria stood at the center once more, a gleam of challenge in her eyes.

"Before we move to the real field," she said, rolling her shoulders, "let me show you a taste of what fire magic can be when you move beyond chucking fireballs like a caveman."

With a graceful twirl of her hand, flames danced at her fingertips. But this time, there was no heat. Just movement—smooth, elegant, alive.

She stepped back and swept her arm across the air in a wide arc.

In an instant, flames wove into a serpent, its scaled body curling through the air, dancing between the students without burning a thing.

She clicked her tongue, and it split into two phoenixes, circling above before bursting into a cascade of fiery roses that hung mid-air, spinning like petals in a breeze.

Gasps filled the room.

Even Amara looked up from her notes.

"That," Saria said with a smug smirk, "is fire magic—with style. Not just brute force."

She let the roses fizzle out one by one, the last one dropping into her palm like a whisper before disappearing.

"And that concludes our warm-up," she said, turning on her heel. "Grab your crap. We're heading to the training grounds."

By the time the students gathered outside, the training ground shimmered under a protective mana dome.

Saria stood in front of them, flames idly flickering from her fingertips like she didn't even notice.

"Fire," she began, "is not just about destruction. That's what amateurs think. And, well... idiots."

"It's hunger. Movement. Emotion. You don't control fire by chaining it. You feed it—then command it."

With a swift motion, she drew a small sigil in the air.

A flame burst upward, shaped like a spearhead, rotating rapidly before compressing into a tiny bead the size of a fingernail.

It looked harmless.

Until she flicked it.

BOOM—a small crater appeared in the stone ahead, smoke rising lazily.

"Compression. Control. Precision," she said flatly. "You don't impress me with big explosions. Anyone with a temper can do that."

Her gaze scanned the students.

"Show me control first. Tier 1 and 2. Then we'll escalate."

The students lined up. And true to the S-Class's reputation—they did not disappoint.

Cassandra cast a searing ring of fire that sliced clean through conjured targets. Eveline, despite her light affinity, crafted a surprisingly stable flame lasso. Even Kaela, though primarily a wind-type, managed a decent flame gust using borrowed elemental stones.

But as they advanced to Tier 3?

The numbers thinned.

More students started to fumble. Fireballs fizzled mid-air. Constructs collapsed. Some couldn't even hold their mana steady.

Saria wasn't shy about her thoughts.

One boy stepped forward, sparks forming in his palm… then sputtering out pathetically.

Saria raised a brow.

"That flame was so weak, it made me question if your bloodline includes a sponge."

The class chuckled. The boy turned red.

Another attempted a flaming arrow… and the arrow shot backward.

Saria gave him a look of pure disbelief.

"You… Are you even trying? Or are you just here for the uniform?"

Arthur tried not to laugh. Even Akira smirked for the first time in hours.

Still, those who failed weren't completely dismissed.

Saria barked out, "Elemental compatibility matters. If you can't master flame, that doesn't make you worthless. It just means the gods gave you something else. Try water, or earth. Go hug a rock or something."

Her eyes narrowed again as she turned back to the top performers.

"But for those of you who can handle fire... you'll get a second evaluation from me directly before the exams."

Some students wilted on the spot, others forced awkward smiles, trying not to look directly at her.

But now, only the strongest remained.

Her sharp gaze swept over the students still standing in the back—those who had yet to step forward.

A few names stood out.

"Next," she said, voice crisp and impatient. "Let's see what the elite of S-Class can do."

Alex Stale stepped up without a word.

Straight-backed, focused, as always. He didn't play to the crowd, didn't grin, didn't try to impress. He just acted.

The mana around him surged in a clean, disciplined flow—like a blade being drawn from a scabbard.

Fire formed in a tight spiral at his side before coiling into the shape of a glowing crimson greatsword, floating just above the ground.

Then, with a swift motion, Alex swiped his hand—and the flaming construct obeyed.

It launched forward, slicing through the magically-reinforced dummy with a searing hiss, burning clean and hot.

Minimal flare. Maximum efficiency.

Saria gave a short nod.

"Disciplined," she said. "Good structure. No wasted movement. Not bad, Hero Boy."

Alex gave her a curt nod and stepped back.

Akira Frost was next.

The moment she stepped forward, the temperature dipped. A gentle frost clung to the edges of her uniform. Most people knew she was a frost mage—fire wasn't her game.

But that didn't mean she was backing down.

Drawing from a set of auxiliary fire-elemental crystals, she shaped a thin orb of compressed ice, carefully etching faint runes of flame around it.

The moment she activated it, the sphere pulsed—releasing a flash of steam and an explosive burst of scalding fog, hitting the dummy with both chilling frost and searing burn.

It wasn't flashy, but it was clean. Balanced.

Even Saria blinked.

"Smart workaround. Not bad, Ice Girl. You make fire cry, but I respect the effort."

Akira shrugged with a smirk. "If it burns, it counts."

The next to step up drew more than a few glances from the class.

Nadia Mystic.

Calm. Elegant. Composed. But her mana? That was anything but ordinary.

Dark tendrils of violet-black fire licked up her arms as she raised her hand, the flames unusually silent—hungry, almost sentient.

When she moved, the magic didn't roar or explode. It slithered—focused into a long, needle-like lance of shadowfire.

And when she released it?

The lance didn't strike.

It melted through the dummy. No burst. No bang. Just a slow, bone-deep corrosion that left nothing behind but sizzling metal and the faint scent of smoke and death.

The class stared, stunned.

Even Saria stood still for a moment, studying the remains.

"…That wasn't standard fire magic," she said finally.

"It's hybrid," Nadia answered softly. "I adapted fire to my dark attribute."

Saria tilted her head, a strange flicker of interest in her eyes. "Huh. You're either a genius… or you've got a demonic ancestor. Possibly both."

Arthur chuckled from his place. "You just described her perfectly."

Nadia returned to her seat beside him, her face as serene as ever.

"Your turn," she murmured, glancing sideways at him.

Arthur grinned and stood up, stretching his arms lazily.

Saria locked eyes with him.

"So," she said, "let's see if the golden boy lives up to the whispers."

Arthur rolled his neck and walked to the center.

"Oh, I don't plan to live up to the whispers," he said with a casual smile. "I plan to make new ones."

Arthur stepped forward, rolling his shoulders, completely relaxed. Everyone watched. The tension in the air was thick, even if no one said anything.

The moment he raised his hand, the atmosphere changed.

The air grew heavy. Hot.

The flames nearby—torches, other students' lingering spells—flickered and dimmed.

It wasn't just heat. It was pressure.

The kind that made weaker students sweat and shuffle back.

Saria's gaze sharpened.

Arthur didn't chant. Didn't grunt. Just casually summoned a small flame in his palm. Pure white, compressed so tightly it looked like a star.

It didn't roar—it pulsed. Like it was alive.

He tossed it up once, then caught it again, almost playing with it.

Then, with a simple motion, he split it—seven small flames floated around him. Each a different color. Red. Blue. Violet. White. Even a dark one, burning with black edges.

The crowd went silent. freewёbnoνel-com

"Elemental fusion?" someone whispered.

Arthur smirked.

He brought two flames together—white and black. The second they merged, they spun into a spiral and compacted into a single compressed lance.

He pointed at the reinforced dummy.

Boom.

No explosion. Just results.

The dummy disintegrated. The stone wall behind it cracked and smoked. Not from impact. From heat.

But Arthur still wasn't done.

He raised his other hand. Mana pulsed out.

Above him, a massive shadow passed.

Ignis. His phoenix. The ancient beast circled above for just a few seconds, leaving trails of gold and red.

For a moment, the entire training ground was basked in golden flame.

And every other flame—including the one dancing on Saria's fingertip—dimmed.

A forced bow of respect.

The fire didn't just obey Arthur.

It submitted.

The phoenix vanished into embers again, and Arthur slowly opened his eyes.

"Sorry," he said, stretching as if he'd just finished a light jog. "Been a while since I let her out."

Saria said nothing.

Her face was blank. But her eyes? They were locked on him, wide, assessing, intrigued—and possibly a little turned on.

Then she opened her mouth. "Th-That was—"

"Oh, my familiar," Arthur said, cutting her off with a casual grin. "Ignis. She's a Flamebird."

Saria's brows twitched slightly at being cut off mid-sentence.

Arthur just gave her a relaxed smile, hands tucked behind his head like he didn't just vaporize half a wall and casually summon a creature strong enough to command flame itself.

"A flamebird, huh?" Saria said slowly, her voice measured. "Never seen one with that kind of… presence."

Flamebird, her ass. That pressure, that mana, that reverence from the very element itself—

Only a phoenix had that kind of authority over fire.

But she didn't press the point. Arthur had just made it clear—not here. Not in public. Not with dozens of eyes watching.

'Smart bastard,' she thought.

And for the first time since she entered, she smirked for real.

'I'll get it out of him in private.'

This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢