Ooh, I had a very similar concept with Swiggty. A boy who is really good at one thing - punching. Punching things really hard. He focuses on alteration to gain the upper hand in hand-to-hand combat, and uses dispelling to counter opponent spells while he closes the gap. Or maybe Illusion/Distortion to compensate for the lack of proficiency in ranged combat.

Actually - what's the extent of 'physical empowerment' can mana give? Is it just 'stronger than human', or actually 'superhuman' levels?