Mark smiled even wider as he confidently swept his hair to the side and left to the next area. Maryline could not help but gasp at the man's behavior.
"Hey are you guys even listening?" Maryline snapped out of her gaze as she turned back to Drew. He looked a little offended at the fact that they had dozed out of his heated complaining spiel.
Elijah had just finished building up his defenses against Drew's odd charm and steadied his stance.
"We should really be getting to the next trial." Elijah said nonchalantly as he tried to get away from Drew.
"Oh I'll come with you. I think you guys are pretty reliable so I might as well stick to you" Not seeming to realize that Elijah was trying to get away from him, he continues to stick to them like glue.
"Sure come with us. You will be our first friend from the city!" Maryline smiled as she brightly when she saw Drew tag along with them.
"Don't you have any friends waiting for you?" Elijah on the other hand tried to push this potato chips loving guy away from him. Drew shook his head.
"Nah, I am entering early so I don't have any friends here." Drew looked a little pitiful when he said that. Maryline looked at the poor cute dumpling and could not help but give him a huge.
"awe, don't worry! we will be you friends Dumpling!" Drew's heart raced as he heard this. 'A... girl is hugging me....' As if he was struck by lightning, Drew froze in place.
Once Maryline went back from her hug she could not help but tilt her head as she saw the now icicle Drew.
"uh, Drew?" Maryline asked. Elijah shook his head when he saw this scene. This guy is truly weird. He then tapped Maryline's shoulder to signal them to move on. Maryline waves to the still frozen Drew as they headed to the next station.
In that station they tested their actual strength. As they were waiting for their names to be called, they continued to listen other people's score. So far only 10 people had strengths at level F or higher. They made sure to memories those people's faces. All of a sudden they heard another name being called.
"Mark Magnolia" Once this name was called, almost everyone in the area turned to see a red haired teen. Mark showed no restraint as he gracefully walked towards the mage. The Mage almost fainted once the results came in.
"Level F7 strength!" The mage yelled. The flame siblings could not help but memorize the red haired boy into their mind. They had thought that they would be able to at least contend with most of the geniuses but it seems like some people are just truly too abnormal.
"Damn it! there he goes again! taking the spot light!" Elijah jumped when he heard the sound of drew behind him. For a second he was about to complain because Drew had somehow found him but another thought quickly drowned that one. 'How did Drew get behind me without my senses catching it?' Unlike Elijah who was thinking too deeply about things, Maryline greeted Drew casually which caused him to blush a bit.
Elijah quickly took those thoughts out of his mind once his name was called.
"Level F4 . 15 points." The mage, who did not think anything of the score, did not realize how happy Elijah was at this moment. He had been working hard this last year as to not fall behind his sister. At one point, his sister had passed him in strength and he had spent long nights awake trying to catch up to her. The fact that he was still at the same rank as his sister shows how much effort he really put in.
Next person who was called was Drew and like before, he surprised them again by actually out ranking them with level F5. Elijah clapped to congratulate Drew for really surprising him too many times. He also had to admit that Drew was not that bad of a person and he seemed to be hard working as well.
After Maryline and the other participant's strength and talents were calculated, they were brought to the final stage, the skill test. The last test involved fights among competitors while the judges scored your skill. In order to better understand the contestant's skills, they made the talent test into a tournament esqe arrangement. Everyone was given a number and were assigned into blocks. There were 4 blocks and the fight will stop once 16 people remain in each block.
When Elijah, Maryline and Drew looked at their numbers, they were relieved to see that they were all in different blocks.
"Since I am in block A and you 2 are in block C and D it looks like I won't be able to fight the two of you until finals." Drew said this as he sighed in disappointment. Maryline laughed as she heard this. Elijah on the other hand, looked at Drew. Although they did not know how strong this Drew person was, Elijah had a feeling that Drew was being serious about going to the finals.
Don had just come back with some popcorn for the group when he saw his siblings moving to different blocks. Although he was worried about them getting hurt, he was more worried about which fight to focus on as Miss Valetine called for the battle to start. He quickly chose to view Maryline's fight while his parents would view Elijah's fight.
It did not take long for the people to start getting knocked out. Luckily Maryline had a good sense of her surrounding and quickly dodge the oncoming collisions. She did not waste time in picking a girl out of the horde to battle. The girl Maryline decided to brawl with was one of the people she memorized. She was at the same level as her, Level F4. Out of everyone on stage, she seemed the most fun to fight.
Maryline had gone for an upfront Flame fist while pushing anyone who stood in her way. The girl with black bangs who was the target of the attack, simply used the ground to create a barrier between her and Maryline at the last minute.
Maryline's eyes twitched once she saw this. She quickly moved back before the girl could create a fist out of the shield and thrust her backwards. When the girl saw Maryline dodge her attack, she smirked a little and lifted her hands up to pull Maryline's legs under the ground. Maryline was shocked once she realized she was trapped and tried to pull herself up. The girl rushed up to Maryline and tried to give a blow to the stomach when she was all of a sudden blocked by Maryline's arms. As they stared at each other for that moment, they could feel the flames in each other's eyes.
Their fight intensified as the other contestants smartly avoided them. The battle continued to intensified until the two of them were about to give each other a fist full a pain! Then before either of their blows could land, the old man from before appeared like a flash and neutralized their force. The old man smiled as he saw the fighting spirit of the two girls.
"16 people are left in this block; you can rest until the last black is finished." The two girls were surprised when they heard this. They looked around to see that more than half of the original participants in their block were now on the ground. If only they knew that half of the contestant on the ground were KOed mistakenly by them while they were fiercely battling.
As they got down, Maryline met up with Drew ad Elijah who had just finished in Block A and D respectfully.
"So how did you guys do?" Maryline asked. They both smiled at her to confirm that they had made it through.
" Of course I passed. Don't you know that your brother is a genius? " Elijah said confidently as he made a pose. Maryline could only smile weakly in response.
"I think it is pretty obvious that I would pass. Those guys in my block were all weaklings. hm" Drew on the other hand could only show contempt at his competition. Maryline sighed as she realized that these were the people she was associated with. As the 3 where talking about their matches, Drew suddenly turned into an icicle as he pointed to something behind Maryline.
"U- u uh.. why are you here?" Drew said as he started to sweat. Maryline and Elijah turned around to see a girl staring intensely at Drew. This girl had jet black hair in bangs and black eyes to match. Maryline instantly recognized the girl.
"Oh! It's you!" The girl switched her focus and nodded as she saw Maryline.
"Hello fellow competitor, my name is Vivian. To find such a worthy opponent, I cannot express my happiness enough." Vivian brought out her hand as she looked at Maryline seriously. Maryline brought her hand out as well and Vivian shook with firmly.
"Yeah, it is nice to meet you too I guess. My name is Maryline by the way." Maryline smiled as she tried to sound as sophisticated as Vivian. Vivian smiled as she saw how nice Maryline was.
" I hope we can have many more matches in the future and I also hope who assoisiate yourself with better people than 'that' one" Drew almost cried when he heard this.
"What did you just say Vivian? Where you just talking about me? After so many years of friendship how could you just throw me away like that?" Drew said as her pretend cried. Vivian snorted as she heard this.
"Friendship? what friendship? All I remember is 10 years of listening to your one sided drama and having to be near a person who reeked of ramen and chips. Who would have thought that you actually would also apply to this school. sigh it seems like my luck is truly bad if I have to spend another two years listening to you yammering." Drew who had already grown used to Vivian's poisonous tongue did not take it to heart as he continued to fake cry.
Vivian, seeing through Drew's act quickly gave up. She had already been trying for many years to break through the boy's thick skin but every time she thought she had finally got him, she realized that there was still another layer of skin under it.
"Uhh well hi, I am Elijah. Nice to meet you." Elijah smiled warmly as he reached his hand to Vivian. Vivian only snorted and said goodbye to Marline before leaving.
Shattered.
Elijah was not as thick skinned as Drew or as dense as Maryline and quickly felt the pain of a thousand stings. Drew patted Elijah as he saw this.
"Don't think about it too much, the quicker you look over that part of her personality, the quicker you will get grow to like her." After Drew said this, Miss Valentine went up on stage again.
"Now that the top 64 of you have been chosen, you will be going through 1 on 1 battles with each other until 1 of you is left. Remember, those who rank high in the tournament will receive some rewards that will help you in the future!" After she said this, she called out the first 4 matches. Vivian was the only one in those matches so the 3 friends just chatted as they watched Vivian decimate a poor contestant.
The old man with the white and blue robe looked over at the crowd. Although he looked like he was just looking over casually, his eyes were always fixated on one person. Just as the shadowy figure said, the boy had not even awakened yet but for some reason, his perception skills were off the charts.
Miss valentine who had just stepped down from the stage looked at the stadium curiously.
"Principle Cruise, what are you looking at?" Paulette asked the old man. The old man rubbed his chin as he looked at Don.
"I think I already know the lucky person that i will be picking this year" Paulette groaned once she heard the word 'lucky person' from the principle.
"Who is it going to be this time." Before The principle could answer, Don suddenly stared at it from a far and looked at him curiously. Principle Cruise smiled mysteriously once he saw this.
"I will tell you once the matches are over." He then smirked as he looked away from Don's stare.
Don watched as the old men disappeared before his eyes.