The next day.
Akio and Ria had already gotten to class after having breakfast.
During breakfast, Jin, Shiela, and Ria had grim expressions and were nervous due to the competition, whereas Akio and Ayane simply acted as though there was nothing special happening.
In class, all the students of class C were all quietly whispering about the duel as the rumor about it had already spread outside of dorm 5.
Akio could hear his classmates talking about them but didn't mind it whatsoever.
On the other hand, Jill behind him has been glaring at him since he had arrived, the surrounding students also saw this which made them more sure about the rumor.
Some time later, the door opened and Yuria opened.
"Take your seats" she said as she went up the podium.
She then looked around the students and started taking attendance.
After taking attendance, she cleared her throat with a cough then spoke.
"So.....there's a rumor going around that 2 students from this class will have a duel?" she stated.
Hearing her words, the whole class turned their heads towards Akio and Jill's direction.
"Asahiro, Sweizen, both of you stand up" she commanded.
The 2 followed her command and stood up from their seat.
"Being competitive is good and all but don't overdo it" she said.
""Understood"" the 2 of them replied.
Satisfied with their replies, she nodded following which she put her hand in her pocket and took out something.
"Asahiro" she said as she threw the item.
Akio caught the item and looked at it, it was a gear token.
"This is?" he asked, confused as to why Yuria gave him a token.
"Use it, I heard you don't have a custom gear, just return it later" she explained.
"Sweizen, you don't mind it, right?" she asked as she looked at Jill.
Jill nodded to confirm, she thought that it would be too unfair if her opponent used a training model.
The gear Yuria had given Akio was only a 5th generation sentinel gear with its attack and barrier being rank B and C respectively, while its acceleration is A, however, Akio thought that it was more than enough.
Jill's gear was a 6th generation with its functions all being rank A, if he used a training model then he wouldn't even be able to catch up to her, he also couldn't use mana to move instantaneously while wearing the gear, at most he could overload the gear using his own mana however that would result in its destruction.
Sentinel models were gears that excelled in scouting, naturally, it requires to be fast, however, due to it focusing too much on acceleration, its attack and barrier were relatively lower.
Akio and Jill sat back as Yuria had already said what she wanted to, following which, she started the discussion, practical training is held every alternating days so tomorrow was the next practical training.
The class proceeded like before but Akio kept feeling a glare coming from behind him the whole time.
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The class ended and it was almost time for the duel, Akio along with Ria, Jin, and Ritsu were on the to arena 4.
As they arrived at the location, they could see that almost all the first years were there to watch the duel.
Although, duels were a common occurrence, the first years were excited to watch one, and this duel is the first to be held for this year.
Akio had separated from the other 3 and went to the waiting area.
There were 2 waiting area in the arena meant for the 2 opposing sides, Jill was already in the other arena.
A 2nd year announcer had decided to take on the role for this duel.
As the time hit 12:00 pm, the announcer started to enthusiastically speak.
[THE DESIGNATED TIME HAS ARRIVED AND THE PARTICIPANTS ARE BOTH PRESENT]
the announcer announced as the 2 gates from opposite sides of the field opened and both Akio and Jill came out from those gates, both had already equipped their gears, the crowd started getting noisy.
Jill was wearing the same gear as she had used before while Akio was wearing a gear colored with metallic gray, his weapon was the same as the training model which is an assault rifle and a combat knife at the back.
Akio observed the audiences and spotted Ayane along with the other 4.
Among the audiences, All of the boys except Jin were cheering for Jill as she was a cute girl, most of the girls were also cheering for her.
"BROTHER! SHOW THEM WHAT YOU GOT!" Ayane shouted.
"Akio-san, do your best!" Shiela cheered.
"Akio! don't hold back even if she's cute- ack!" Jin said and was hit by Ritsu.
"Akio! you can't lose, you got it!?" Ria encouraged.
"Akio-san, good luck!" Ritsu lightly cheered.
Except the 5, there were none who were supporting him, however, there was one more girl who was supporting him but Akio didn't see her as there were so many people around.
"Akio.....you have to win" she said.
[The rules are simple, in order to win you have to either deplete the opponent's mana or make them surrender, attacks that may put the life of the opponent are prohibited, now without further delay, LET THE BATTLE BEGIN]
Hearing her words, the 2 started to move.
Just like what she did before, Jill started shooting while mentaining distance and controlling the laser cannons to attack, however, this had become useless as this time Akio is serious in fighting her.
Akio disabled his rifle's automatic fire and aimed.
He dodged the incoming bullets and at the same time he shot at the laser cannons around Jill.
*Bang!*
One of the cannons exploded.
Jill saw what Akio had done and became alarmed, she controlled the remaining cannons to surround Akio, the cannons formed a circle around him and started spinning with great speed.
The cannons started firing towards Akio at the center of the circle, at the same time, Jill fired at him.
Seeing that he was getting barraged by lasers and bullets, Ria, Jin, Shiela, and Ritsu were getting worried.
In the middle of the barrage, Akio started dodging all the attacks.
A while later, he leaped to get out of the encirclement, his gear's back part extended allowing him to hover mid-air.
Jill saw this and changed the cannon's position to attack Akio who was flying.
She had ran out of bullets so she reloaded the gun and also flew, turning it to an aerial battle.
Akio accelerated and started to take out the cannons one by one.
After some time, Akio had successfully destroyed all the cannons, seeing this, Jill bit her lip and started making distance, on the other hand, Akio accelerated to close the gap.
As Jill flew back to maintain the distance, she shot towards Akio, however, Akio countered by accurately shooting each bullet, she was shocked by this but continued shooting while maintaining distance.
Akio had used his mana to reinforce his sight allowing him to counter the bullets with his own and as he kept chasing Jill, they both ran out of bullets.
Jill saw that they were both out of bullets and hurriedly tried to reload, on the other hand, Akio took this opportunity and controlled his mana to make a foothold in the air.
He kicked foothold as he accelerated allowing him to instantly get close to Jill, he then took the knife behind him and was about to slash at her.
Jill saw the incoming knife and panicked however before the knife could reach her, something happened.
Just as Akio was about to slash Jill, an explosion occurred between them.
Akio crossed his arms to block and the explosion caused him to fly, the impact was so strong that Akio flew all the way towards the edge of the arena and crashed in to the wall.
As she was also in the middle of the explosion, Jill was also hit by the impact, however, her condition was not as good as Akio's, she had a few broken bones and her gear's barrier was broken with its mana being completely depleted.
Akio felt danger just as the explosion was about to occur so he had used his mana and covered himself to lessen the damage he would receive, however, Jill was not the same, the reason was simple, the people of this world only considered mana as energy, they didn't try to see if they could manipulate it.
On the other hand, Akio had figured out that mana can be manipulated as he saw Ayane did it.
[ALERT LEVEL 9! AN A RANK RIFT HAD APPEARED WITHIN THE ISLAND! PLEASE EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!]
An alarm resounded throughout the whole island to warn all people within it.