"The Warrior Crown."
The Head Coach, Lark, started off by lightly reintroducing this less popular tournament of the Tier-1 League to all the regulars present in the room.
"As you may know, it's a round-robin style competition that's going to be held between all the Tier-1 colleges within every single city." He patted the edge of the podium lightly as he said that,
"It's the tournament that will determine which of us are going to be qualified to compete for the coveted Silver Crown. Each city has a different quota as to how many schools they could send, it would depend on how big their areas are or how many schools are there etc..."
"But for Zeta City, as usual there are 3 spots." The Head Coach pulled out three fingers from his hand to show it to all the players.
"3 strongest schools from Zeta would go on to the Silver Crown, what do you think?"
"It's good right? 3 is as best as it gets for a city after all." He shrugged.
"...And it's also the only reason why Ravenville could barely get into the main tournament last year." Reaching here, Lark's tone suddenly changed.
It was true.
Last year, Ravenville was forced back into the 3rd place at the end of the Warrior Crown Tournament following the rising strength of Eastern Zeta.
The rankings and overall placement in Warrior Crown was decided purely through the win-lose-tie rate during the whole round robin period.
And through such counting, the Ravenville Illusions' final score last year was truly a bit behind compared to the Verdante Windrider that had come in 2nd place.
Of course, the Head Coach was currently downplaying the then Ravenville's overall strength by quite a fair bit. After all, even if they had come in 3rd, there had been an obvious gap in records between them and the 4th place.
They had left a large chasm between the two.
Plus, at the end of last season, they still managed to get into the Silver Crown's Top 16, successfully showing the undeniability in strength of the age-old top schools of Zeta City.
But,
It was nonetheless a record that had fallen short to what the university aspired to achieve through the sport. And therefore was viewed as a failing year compared to the school's golden age in Lark's eyes.
.
*BANG!*
"3rd place fellas! We're one position away from not going to the Silver Crown last year!" Lark hit the table hard as he emphasized. He then continued solemnly,
"I don't intend for such a record to be repeated a second time."
"I have high hopes with our current composition, we could have a wider range of tactical plays with it that we couldn't even dream of last year, but it's up to each of you guys to realize them!"
"..."
"...Understood?"
""Yes, sir!"" All the players in the room gave a loud reply to the Head Coach, including Irvine.
"Good."
*phew* Lark breathed out a clump of air after his short speech,
"The regionals will start on the 10th of September this year, it'll be another 2 weeks from today."
The regionals was just another way to call the Warrior Crown Tournament of Tier-1.
"But of course we can't just simply train by ourselves without feeling the pressure of actual match until then right? As usual, I've arranged for us to have a friendly spar with other city's school during this time."
*whispers* *whispers*
At the announcement, many of the regulars began to speak amongst themselves again.
Because of the nature of the tournament, thankfully enough, none of the Zeta City's Tier-1 schools would have any interactions with the ones from other cities.
As such, it had made arranging friendly matches between these colleges of the same level and different cities like this that much easier for the coaches.
And for a top-level school like Ravenville, the prearranged spar would of course be against the top college of another city.
"Who and when'll it be, coach?" Clint raised his hand and asked rather impatiently compared to his usual temperament.
"It'll be held this Friday. Against Delta City's own Magnolia University's Arena team, the Thorns."
The name Lark had uttered belonged to another similarly famed top Arena team and school of Delta city, the Magnolia Thorns.
'Aah, that school...' Irvine nodded slightly at the familiar sounding name.
Just like every other Tier-1 schools in the Northern Sector, Magnolia had also been one university that had sent him an invitation letter.
Irvine had even gone there during his holiday campus tour because of how close Delta City was from Zeta compared to other cities in the North.
'Hm, If I had to give my impressions on their team's formation, it would be... Like a stinger perhaps?' Irvine didn't really know how to put in a better description for it.
Magnolia Thorns formations revolved around a spread apart stable defense that focused on forcing the other team to show even just the slightest bit of opening.
And when that actually happened, they would quickly change their formation into a single-point offensive that struck upon that hole with great fatality like a piercing motion.
Most of their points in tournaments were earned through such counter-attacks.
Of course, it wasn't just the one tactic. There're multiple variations to the way their single-point offensive formations could be done, and even more so for their spreaded defense.
But all in all, most of their tactics were just bits and pieces that complemented that deadly pinpoint turnabout of when they had forced a dent or a hole in the opponent's formation.
'Hmm, nonetheless, their proficiency with that particular playstyle is in no way lesser when going against us or the other top 3 of Zeta City...'
Right after hearing the name of their training partner, Irvine's head was already filled with various possibilities in their matches on Friday.
And he was not the only one.
Behind him, Clint too had a contemplating look on his face that showed he'd been thinking of any possible means to effectively disarm the other side with their current players.
The rest of the regulars, including the new additions like Derrick and Medea, were all carrying different expressions on each of their faces after the news.
Lark had took it all in the moment he'd announced their first match for the season, though it was a training one.
'Good, at least not one of these guys are nervous... Though it's to be expected.' He then shifted his sight to the place where Irvine and Medea were sitting side-by-side,
'Not only overwhelming skills but great mentality as well, huh? Or is it overconfidence?'
Being the freshmen who're about to go for their first match against a powerhouse, Lark had noticed an astonishingly lack of tensions between these two new regulars' faces.
Though unbeknownst to him, in Irvine's case, it should be a matter of course.
With the Pro League's regular season format, one would be forced into a schedule of playing against the same powerhouse team at least 2-3 times within a single season every year.
It was a very much different structure to the college season where a school would finally encounter more powerhouses only if they'd advanced further enough in the Tournaments.
"...Heh, well it seems like everybody's ready." Lark put away his stiff expressions and gestures after getting what he'd wanted from the players,
"Then let's first discuss our new playbook for the season, shall we?" He smilingly put his hands on his hip signalling the next phase of their discussion.
.
.
At the same time, Delta City.
Inside the training ground of Magnolia Thorns on campus.
The field was filled with various players in their white and green exosuits running around having matches or routine practice.
If one looked closely at the figures passionately training themselves, the first thing they'd notice was how the ratio between male and female players was far higher than any other places.
Back at Ravenville, one could probably find 2 women out of every 10 players. But in here, the ratio was almost 1:1, maybe even slightly higher on the female side.
Although such occurences might seem unusual outside, most colleges in Delta City had around the same ratio of players in terms of Battle Arena teams. And the main reason for it was very simple.
The primary cause of this would be the influence from the city's own home team, The Delta Royale.
It was one of the widely famous female-dominated teams of the Pro League with an equally large amount of fanbase Stationwide.
It was also the team that the Ace Ranger Medea Dormer would have gotten herself into in the future should nothing unexpected happen.
.
On one of the benches beside the training fields,
A lively looking girl with platinum-coloured hair tied to a ponytail was attentively reading a magazine while still wearing her exosuit without the helmet on.
"Hmhmmm~" The girl was humming a random tune and drinking her energy drink as she was reading.
"Sylphie!"
When she was about to turn the page of her magazine, suddenly another female voice called out to her from afar.
"Heyy!"
The voice was already coming closer to her position when the girl called Sylphie finally snapped out of her focus and responded,
"Ohh, hi! What is it?"
"Nothing really, practice is almost over and I was wondering if you'd wanna go grab a bite to eat, um? Whatcha reading?"
"It's the June's issue of Arena Monthly!" Sylphie turned the cover of the magazine to face her friend as she introduced it smilingly.
"Oh." Her friend's reaction was nothing out of the ordinary when she saw it. Many people read Arena Monthly regularly, especially players like them,
"Why the June's issue?"
"Huhu, why else?" Sylphie suddenly showed a proud look on her face before explaining,
"Of course it's to re-read this article on the Starseed Irvine Lang!!"
"...Ah, this again?" Her friend's expression quickly shifted to that of a tired look as if this was not the first time such topic had come up.
"Hey, don't be rude!" Sylphie retorted.
During the mid-year License Exams period, all the new Starseeds who'd emerged had had their own little coverage on the magazine. This was true for every single one of them.
The reports on them were usually only put on some small columns in one of the magazine pages to fill the rather empty topics on the off-season of Arena's Pro League.
But because of the story on how Irvine and Medea had successfully passed their license at the same time in the same city, for better or worse, their own coverage had had a little bit more content than others.
It was, after all, a rather fun and juicy topic to be talked about, especially for the locals of Zeta City.
Still, no matter how much more in-depth it could have gotten, a small column about college Arena even in a relatively popular magazine was hardly the piece that could suddenly rise and become the main attention of everyone.
However, individually speaking, it was not that rare either for exceptions to happen.
.
"Why are you suddenly fangirling hard over this guy? He is a Starseed and all, but--" Sylphie's friend asked concernedly.
"Not telling you! Hohoho~"
"..." A vein quickly threatened to pop on the friend's head.
Sylphie was currently a junior student in Magnolia.
Last April, she had actually gone to accompany her younger cousin who had finally chosen to take his License Exam in Zeta City.
That was the moment she had first noticed Irvine.
As an audience not knowing which participants were at what age, at the time she hadn't particularly put much emphasis on him.
Adding to the fact that she hadn't really cared much for such an event, she was barely even awake when the exam commenced.
But as she was about to doze off to sleep, she suddenly heard some chatters that had prevented her from going unconscious.
When she lifted her head, what she saw was a young girl going around promoting her brother who's on the field to the various scouts watching the exam.
She remembered herself thinking how sweet that girl had been, 'Ah, her brother must've been a high schooler.' Was what she'd thought.
But then, she had also overheard something else when the young girl had finally made her way to some of the big-shot scouts.
At that time, the scout had told her that since her brother had achieved a peak Stage-1 body, the guy might have a chance in attracting some colleges.
And then,
(Eh? Um, but my brother said that he was at 17.5 Muscle Strength. Won't that count as a Later Stage-1 rather than Peak?)
'Hm? Those Tier-1 scouts got it wrong?' Sylphie was suddenly intrigued at the development.
At first she was just slightly curious.
Because of the event and the young girl who had repeatedly announced her brother's exam number again and again to different scouts, Sylphie's eyes were inadvertently drawn to that player.
However, as time went on, she had realized that his performance was far better than she'd thought.
For the rest of the day, sylphie had continued watching the player that had caused the Tier-1 scouts to have a mistaken assessment of himself.
And the more she had seen him perform, the more she became astounded at his results. Especially when keeping his stat in her mind.
'17.5... He only has 17.5 Muscle Strength??'
The surprise had kept stacking on one after the other until the player's final dodging test on that first day.
He had unexpectedly gotten the highest score of only 2 hits during that test!
'Oooohh!!!'
Sylphie herself probably couldn't even imagine her expression when she saw that record.
.
After that final performance on the Physicals, the rest was history as they said.
She had chosen to go for the exam's second day as well, and the more the high school player's performance went above the college sophomores' average, the more her astonishment grew even higher than before.
And finally, the name was announced.
'Irvine Lang! What a player!'
Since then, Sylphie had decided to keep her eyes on him.
.
.
"I'm telling you, this guy's going places!" She retorted to her friend who was still beaming a doubtful look with her face.
"Fine, fine! Geez..." The friend couldn't help but to scratch her head,
"Look, that Head Coach is calling you, probably about the decision on our training partner this year. Go."
"Oh, right, right!"
The figure of an older person on the other side of the field waving at them brought the two's conversation to a close.
Sylphie quickly got up from the bench and run towards the Head Coach direction merrily, leaving the friend behind.
"Uwah, she really doesn't have the demeanor of a Captain at all..." She commented.
Be that as it may, the girl still respected Sylphie both as a player and as a person.
After all, Sylphie was her Captain! The Captain of a top university Arena team!
What's more, she had managed to obtain the position while she's still on her 3rd year! This was not something that could regularly happen in college Battle Arena.
And if there was one more thing that made this Captain of Magnolia Thorns, Sylphie Hunter exceptional...
'It's her astute judgement regarding individuals... Speaking of which, she had hit the jackpot on her bet regarding which new OPL players would be put as a starter in last season.'
She suddenly remembered her bet when she'd seen the newly posted list of starting players of the pro teams earlier this month.
Sylphie hadn't gotten even a single player wrong with her guess!
'Hmm, this Irvine Lang...'