.
.
Over the next few weeks after that, the hype of the Warrior Crown Tournament amongst many the college students from Ravenville didn't die down for even a little.
If anything, with each of their following matches, not only did the masses obtained more and more information regarding their school's new regular players, for the few who especially cared about the team's results, they also became ever more optimistic.
And to be honest, with the addition of rumours such as the coming of another golden age for Ravenville floating around, there really was no other way for them but to feel this way.
Ravenville's momentum had been nigh unstoppable in their next few matches following the defeat of Western Zeta Armadillos!
During the university's second week's match against the Port Town Pirates, the Illusions had again taken another convincing victory for their school when their Captain, the one and only Renee Morgan, had finally made her first appearance of the season!
Following that, there was also the win against their third Tier-1 college opponent, the Billsworth Tycoons.
In those two matches, Ravenville had sent out a completely different compositions of starting players both times.
Counting their match against the Armadillos at the start, it could be said that Ravenville University had had different starting players for their every match since the beginning!
For some of the more keen-eyed observers, they could easily tell that, as per the school's usual style, Ravenville's Head Coach had employed formations that would give the most efficient win for his team this season as well;
For their first game where there're understandably fewer information against one another, Lark had decided the match with a quick and brutal offensive style of play that brought about the most result the fastest.
After that, having been somewhat rattled by the overwhelming presence of that first game's advance group, their next enemy, Port Town College, had then come out with a purely defensive and patient style formation that tried to minimize the score difference in the match no matter the results.
But in that match, Lark who had once again seemed to have predicted the enemy's thoughts beforehand, arranged an entirely different cast of starting players for his advance group! Which was the combination of the Captain and the twins.
Throwing the opponent's plans against Irvine-Derrick-Naomi combo into disarray, that match was won using various diversion tactics and advance positioning that was exactly the specialty of [String] and [Ghost] users within the complicated Ruined City terrain.
In fact, when Irvine had seen the combination of plays between the various wall-phasings of Renee and the invisible thread-trapping of the twins in that match, he had even thought that this might just be the type of formation and plays that the current Ravenville was most proficient in.
A play suitable with the name Illusions.
Either way, that game too, ended with Ravenville's overwhelming victory at 3-0.
.
Rather unfortunately for him, Irvine hadn't been given the chance to stand on the field ever since his first ever debut match against Western Zeta.
In the game against Billsworth Tycoons, which was coincidentally the strongest of the three, Lark had again chosen Renee as the Solver, but now with Derrick and one other 4th year Fielder instead of the twins.
Interestingly enough, this third match had also been Medea's debut as a starting Ranger!
The Tycoons were an above average team in Zeta City's group of Tier-1 schools.
In the recent years, the team had always specialized in their spread-out formation that leaves large 'gaps' between the spaces of each of their advancing players.
This was true even for their Fielders that carried the Solver. Their Fielders didn't stick close to the Solver's position but instead kept a distance of about 10 meters consistently between them.
This formation actually gave the opponents an easier time in breaking through them in halfway line battles because of the gaps, but inversely, the same condition could also be applied for themselves.
After all, it's harder to keep people from passing you by when they're not bunched up together in one spot.
The Tycoons were only confident with this formation because of their current 4th year Ranger Captain who instead of acting as support fire, became their only line of defense whenever the opponent's players trying to pass through these gaps of theirs.
Like this, their advance group players would focus on passing through the enemy's formation while the Ranger focused on defense if by some chance the enemy didn't give chase after they'd passed through but instead still insisted on attacking.
Medea's role in this particular match was exactly to counter their pillar known as their Ranger Captain's defensive measures.
If the other party's Ranger gave up acting as support fire to defend, Medea had also given up on helping her advance group in favour of attacking that Ranger alone!
1 vs. 1 between two starting Rangers.
No matter the actual results between them, because of the other party getting occupied and regularly harassed by Medea's long-range sniping in this match, Ravenvile's advance group had managed to successfully secure their points and clinched a victory this time as well!
Final Score: 4-1.
That one point could be said to have been 'given' to them when the Captain, Derrick, and the other Fielder had decisively chosen to ignore the other team's advance group breaking through their half of the field to continue to advance themselves.
Just like that, after 3 weeks into the Warrior Crown Tournament, Ravenville smoothly became one of the few teams with a clean battle record of 3 wins and 0 losses!
More than that, each win was overwhelming in their own right: With the scores 5-0, 3-0, and 4-1 respectively!
.
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Friday, September 28th, 218 UD.
Late afternoon.
Inside the field of the currently closed-off Ravenville Stadium, all the regulars of the Illusions were engaging in their daily formation practice as per their usual schedules.
Irvine was standing in front of a tower inside a building with the fingers of one of his hand dancing around the various puzzle components of the tower.
*click* *clack*
Around him were the twins Dan and Dennis who, at this moment, had successfully managed to tie his other hand back with their threads, effectively reducing Irvine's solving speed by half!
Irvine was slightly cornered with the two's web of strings hanging around parts of his body as they were about to make their move.
But then,
Just before the two could follow through with their actions to pull Irvine away entirely from solving their tower, the man himself had suddenly jumped back towards one of them behind him!
"!!"
Dennis who noticed a little bit late the quickly expanding back of Irvine was alerted by such a move and swiftly dodged to the side.
However, weirdly enough, the 'tied-back' left hand of Irvine had kept on facing towards Dennis' dodging direction even as the two figures were about to intersect with each other.
And just when their distance were finally close enough...
The fingers on Irvine's one tied hand balled into a fist, leaving only his index finger pointing at Dennis' shoulder and the one thumb that hung loose.
'That's--'
In that split second, Dennis had finally noticed what the guy in front of him was trying to do, but it was a little too late at that point.
*BANG!!*
A concentrated blast of pressurized air hit his left shoulder with pinpoint accuracy that causes his control over his [String] to let loose by a tiny amount.
This surprise attack in turn allowed Irvine to gain a little bit of freedom back for his other hand to perform his following maneuvers to retreat!
*swish* *BOOM*
He twirled about in the air to pull the other thread connected to Dan on the side and shorten the distance of the two!
He then proceeded to blast his way back with regular explosion to propel out of their tower zone, successfully making his escape from their clutches.
"Goddammit!" Dan cried out in frustration.
Following that event, the internal practice match continued on without a hitch for the next couple minutes after.
.
Eventually,
After they were done for the day, in the changing room of the stadium, Dennis casually approached Irvine across from him to ask about that one particular movement of his during practice.
"Does your [Air Pistol]'s loading time increase tremendously just then? How could you pull that off that quickly?"
Dennis had known for quite a while that Irvine had achieved a certain level of success in his attempt to learn Baron's favourite technique. A fact that even he had been very much astonished by when he'd first learned of it.
But the last time Irvine had performed the technique in practice yesterday, he had needed an inconveniently longer amount of time to finish 'shaping' and visualizing the image of the barrel to control the explosion before shooting it off.
This time around however, before Dennis could even recognize it, Irvine's bullet had suddenly reached his body the moment Irvine had dashed back from that tower.
He thought that that level of improvement in a day was almost impossible for anyone, which had now prompted him to ask.
"Oh, that..." Irvine who was taking off his exosuit armor of course knew the exact moment that Dennis was referring to and therefore replied,
"No, my loading time for [Air Pistol] is still as frustratingly slow as yesterday..." He smiled wryly with a little bit of disappointment in his tone.
"Hm? So then--"
"I just started preparing it the moment my left hand was caught by you guys. Sneakily of course."
"..."
By this point, everyone from the regulars had admittedly recognized at least one thing about Irvine.
He might not be the fastest, strongest, or most dexterous of them, be it as a Solver or a player in general.
But if nothing else, Irvine was probably the person with the highest combat sense and creativity during pinch situations compared to the rest of them.
Of course, there's not really any way to accurately quantify this point for sure, but even Renee and Baron had long recognized this part of his 'talent' as a player.
Unlike Baron, the 'loading' process of Irvine's [Air Pistol] right now was almost unbearably slow that anyone other than him might not be able to effectively use it in a match.
"...But you simply start the 'loading' process early and sneakily, huh?" Dennis shook his head in defeat.
If an enemy had been confronted by the same thing he did just then, they might even had the false impression that Irvine's proficiency with the [Air Pistol] had already reached Baron's level.
"--Depending on the situation, this might help us fool those people into overestimating Irvine's danger level on the front line, don't you think?"
Clint who, at some point in time, had already arrived beside the two also piled on with his own comment,
"You know this is exactly the kind of thing our Head Coach just love to make use of, we might be able to see others' deceived looks when they noticed it later in this tournament~" He added.
"Might not even be that long." Irvine also replied straightforwardly.
"Hm?"
"Our next opponent is them, after all."
"...Aah~ That's right. Wonder if the coaches are going to call us out for an extended briefing period right after this." Clint shook his head in understanding, but still, no nervousness could be detected on his face even after he'd said that.
"Should be any moment now," Dennis also commented in agreement.
Across from them, Medea who had also overheard the three's entire conversation from a distance muttered under her breath,
"Verdante..."
Their first big challenge was arriving quickly.
.
.
*Pant* *Pant*
Inside a stadium that's just as large and well-built as Ravenville's, a group of players had just finished their training as well on their Ruined City terrain on the field.
Some of them were busy wiping the sweats off their faces as they put their helmets away, while the rest of them had already started to tread their ways towards the benches where their water bottles were placed.
*FWEEEEET*
At this moment, as they were about to rest, the sound of a whistle suddenly resounded from the audience seats above them which caused most of the players to reflexively look up.
Up there, an old moustached man in a suit stood firmly at the frontmost row of the seats as he overlooked the entire field filled with players.
""Sir."" Some of them had already recognized the presence of the man and called out with respect in their tones.
It was their Head Coach who's responsible for most of their development both in and out of matches.
"Take five to clean yourselves up and assemble at the meeting room #1 everyone... We'll have an earlier change in our regulars' line-up!" The moustached man announced loudly with vigor.
""--Huh?""
Some of the players below were very sensitive towards the words being blurted out by their coach that their faces started to turn blank and then serious in an instant.
A change in their 1st string line-up! This was a big thing to decide mid tournament!
One of the players silently approached a short guy with spiky hair that stood at the centermost location on the field and asked in his quiet voice,
"Captain, the change in our regulars means--"
Before he could finish his words, the short spiky haired guy in front of him had already nodded in response,
"He'll most likely be playing in our next match... Seems like the Head takes the match against Ravenville a little more seriously than I thought..."
"..." The first person didn't speak for a couple seconds after, but still continued in the end,
"But I thought he's still in his readaptation period or something?"
"Are you kidding? You know that guy, he's just arrived back from the military, not vacation, what readaptation does he even need for Battle Arena?"
"Then--?"
"The Head probably didn't want to alarm the other schools with our regular roster if he could help it. As you know, our Head Coach is the most cautious man even amongst the many other ones in the entire Tier-1 League." The Captain smiled wryly,
"Well, either way, it's a good thing for our Verdante College in the end. He's the main reason behind us becoming a powerhouse in Zeta City after all..."
*sigh* The teammate beside him sighed with a contemplating look on his face,
"Not long now, the first main fight of Zeta City's regionals...!"