Mex looked at the situation and was delighted by it. If the trainees were the one who threw the glove at them, they do not need to be shown as the group who bullied the weak.
Instead, it was a show of force that would give them pause and allow the kingdom to know that the traditional power of the Grand Sage was still rather effective in lieu of ruling the kingdom. Not to mention, if the King loses, he would have to keep his promise and move all his privilege and governmental powers back to the ministers.
This meant that the ministers will owe the Grand Sage a hefty favour.
Not to mention, the Grand Sage could also learn of the skills and magic that enabled the King to create such a powerful isolation barrier. As much as he was the Grand Sage, for the past few weeks, he was not able to decipher the barrier's mysteries nor its incantations. It vexes him. It frustrates him.
So much so that he would want to have a duel with the King to see who is actually the better one. But knowing his own limits because of his age, it was no doubt a good deal for the King to propose that his disciples would be the pivotal point of this political conflict.
The only regret that he had was that Wara's brother, Gara, was not willing to be a part of the challenge even though every minister thought that he would be joining to fight against the King since his position was being threatened the most.
Not to mention, Gara was one of his promising students, even though he was not as strong as his sister. He was given the Royal Mage General position because of the way he thinks and how he had previously shown competency in managing and directing troops when he was given a leadership post. No doubt, there was a little...
string pulling rather than meritocracy because of the influence of the Grand Sage Mex (which is to be expected in a medieval setting). Separately, how Gara was able to survive the position until now was something of his own effort.
But Jin had other ways of thinking of the situation and, in fact, he was the one who told Number 4 to throw the glove to incite the duel even though he openly said that it was up to the Mage Air Squad to decide for themselves. It seems Number 4 also grasped Jin's intentions a little, and that was why he did not hesitate to throw the glove at Wara.
If it was up to the Mage Air Squad to decide, they would not bother raising up to the challenge mainly due to the fact that they underestimated their limits and to a certain extent, they were scared the squad might actually lose. After all, the rest of the disciples had years of training while what the squad had was merely '2 weeks'.
Everything was being done to advertise the Mage Air Squad and the awareness of such a squad.
The commoners had no idea why the king wished to flaunt his troops he train this way but if there was a show to watch as well as some quick easy cash to earn, they would definitely give it a go.
Mex came into the portal as well to officiate Gara to be the judge as well as rescuing anyone who would experience death in order to not waste a life just for a 'simple' duel like this. Jin did not object and in fact approve of the judge, although Questo and Hocoin asked if it was truly a wise idea, especially when Gara had ties to Grand Sage Mex.
"I have no qualms about it. They say fight to near death and no other rules. Besides, they have the lethal damage barrier. As long as that is broken, Wara and the gang are considered killed, right?" Jin said, and the other two nodded their heads. "But if you are so concerned that they will reapply the barrier again, then let them be. I believe my soldiers are up to par."
And that was surprising what Wara was allowing. She shouted to them, indicating to have their first shot against them as the chivalrous nobles they were. After all, the disciples of Mex could not feel that much mana being eluded from their bodies, while on the other hand, Wara and the rest were bursting with mana.
"If the disciples were so gracious to give us the first shot then let's not disappoint them, shall we?" Number Four said as he shouted for a line formation and they immediately went to their knees to charge their wand rifles so that the Mage Air Squad could have a stable shot.
Yet at that point of charging, the disciples could not even feel any energy being emitted from their Wand Rifles nor their bodies. It was as if it would be a joke, but Wara still told them to give them the 'respect' these soldiers were putting out. "After all, they did 2 weeks of gruesome training, right?" Wara laughed, and the rest smirked while nodding their heads.
"You sure you want to put a full force shield on them? They will look extremely pathetic when they cannot put out a single shield at all." One of the disciples asked.
"I support the full shield idea, make them look extremely useless and give the commoners a show they could not forget as well as to warn the king to fucking not treat us as his playthings." Another disciple said, and the rest started to agree with him.
It further strengthened Wara's stance, and they decided to proceed with humiliating them. This might be true for almost every other single opponent they met from this work, but to think they could do the same to Jin's puppets? It looks like they need a beating to wake up from that kind of idea.