The first round had 23 battles, and my turn only came by the time of the 16th one. My opponent came as a big surprise.
"Mikail Geo from the Aaron Aura Academy versus Leonard Fanfarone from the Rota Knight Academy." The referee called the two of us to the field.
"You! I'll show you your place plebeian. How dare you surprise attack me like that? I'll show you where you belong, beneath me." The young master Peng-alike said in an arrogant tone.
Where he got the balls to do so I couldn't understand. I mean, it was impossible that he really thought I only got him due to a "surprise" attack, right? Did this guy think just because he was holding a wooden sword and shield I wouldn't kick his ass?
"Well, well, well. We meet again. How are you feeling? Do you need to go to the toilet before we start? We wouldn't want any accidents to happen after all." I taunted him a bit because I really didn't like his attitude.
I was obviously not willing to make enemies with people I shouldn't or couldn't provoke, but I did a bit of research, which meant I asked around. What I learned was that the Fanfaron family was only a mid-ranked noble family from Rota and that even there Leonard's position was not high.
He was seen as a wastrel, and his influence was close to zero. This meant that the family would not interfere in any disputes between us as long as I did not publicly insult the family itself.
Naturally, that did not mean that I could kill or maim him, because they would definitely react to that, but whooping his ass or humiliating him was no problem.
Actually, Mr. Koetsuji even went as far as to tell all of us that we could beat our opponents black and blue during the competition, as long as we were capable enough.
The academy would make sure no one dared to involve their family. Or more like the family would not dare to involve themselves. The same was true for us as well.
We could be beaten back and blue during the competition and our families too were not allowed to target our attackers. Anyway, before Leonard could protest the referee told us to call out our two battle partners.
We did so at the same time. For this battle, I had decided to go with Horus/Xatu and Thor/Pikachu. The first thing Horus did after he appeared was to establish a mental link between the three of us.
*Hiiiiii!*
As soon as Leonard saw Thor he released a girlish scream before he managed to calm down. On his side, a Dodrio, as well as a Fearow, appeared, and just a few moments after our Pokemon appeared on the field the referee gave the starting signal.
I honestly did not plan to waste my time with this washed-up young master so planned to end this fast.
'Thor stops his Dodrio, Horus keep his Fearow away from me. Meanwhile, I'll take out the idiot. Honestly, I don't think the guy is going to last more than a few seconds, so you just hold your foes back. No need to waste too much energy on defeating them if we are going to win by taking out the waste.' I ordered my partners before using my aura to boost my legs.
Since I planned to show off a few of my cards, I didn't hold back on the aura front. I arrived in front of Leonard so quickly that the guy had no time to react before my aura-clad fist smashed into his chin.
He crumbled down instantly and the referee went up to check up on him after seeing no movement from Leonard. After seeing that the loser was unconscious he declared me the winner.
There was no cheering because the audience had no idea how to react. I managed to win so fast that the audience did not get enough time to digest what happened. Only after I recalled my Pokemon and Leonard did the same for his, after being woken up by the referee, did they start cheering.
Still, I did it. Even if I finished the fight in an instant, I showed off my true aura tier. I used internal aura manipulation to clad my fist in aura just below the skin which meant I had to be at least at Tier 2 Second-class, since that came as close as one could get to external aura manipulation before reaching Tier 2 First-class.
I was positive the teachers had noticed that, and a few of the more alert students as well, so my true aura user tier had officially become public. After our fight, seven more fights followed before the first round ended.
It took nearly two hours for the first round to finish, and by the time it did, it was 4 p.m. Anyway, as a result of the fight, only 23 people were still in the race. 16 of those were from Knight Academy and 7 were from Aaron Academy. Obviously, I was among the 7 Aaron Academy students.
Since there were 23 participants 11 battles were scheduled for the second round, and one student got a free pass. The lucky one turned out to be a girl from my Group.
I observed the battles that took place and I saw a few noteworthy individuals with decent personal strength and decent Pokemon. Chief among them Erza Scarlet, the girls who came second in the hunting competition.
Her partners were a Rapidash, and a Corviknight, but the two did not get much action because Erza took out her foe really fast. Not as fast as me, but still within 20 seconds.
She used swords, and it did not look like she preferred a certain type. I thought like that, because she used a wooden longsword during the first round, and a wooden short sword during the second round.
There were a few more strong participants, but she felt like the biggest threat. Could be because I nearly lost the hunting competition to her. Anyway, my turn came nearly last. Specifically, my name came up for the 10th fight.
"Mikail Geo from the Aaron Aura Academy versus Samuel Zorn from the Aaron Aura Academy" The referee called the two of us to the field.
I found it unfortunate that I had to kick out a fellow academy member from the tournament, but my hands were tied. I was considering if I should let him show off for a little while before taking him down, but he buried such notions on his own.
"I saw what you did in your first fight. Don't hold back, I want to see how large the gap between us is." Samuel requested and after seeing the determination in his eyes I nodded.
I used my aura senses a bit and saw that he had a firm self-belief, as well as determination in spades. That was the reason I agreed since I did not have to worry about him becoming discouraged.
The referee told us to call out our partners and we did. This time Luna/Clefairy, and Thor/Pikachu appeared on my side, while a Kirlia and a Machoke appeared on Samuel's side.
Samuel himself had chosen a small wooden round shield and a wooden gladius as his equipment. I on the other hand only had a pair of arm guards.
Anyway, the referee gave the starting signal and I gave two short commands.
"Thor, block Machoke. Luna, block Kirlia." That was all I said before sprinting at Samuel.
Once I was in front of him, I delivered a punch at his face which he dodged. He tried to counter by stabbing at me with his gladius, but I deflected it with my right arm guard.
I used the routine boxing combo I used during my sparring matches with Tyson/Machoke. He managed to block the liver blow I tried to deliver with my left hand by using his shield, but the impact flung his arm back a bit, which affected his balance.
Due to that he barely managed to dodge the hook that came from his right by leaning back. Still, the dodge destroyed his balance even more, which was why he could not dodge the simple leg sweep I performed.
He fell on his back and I stomped my foot down hard enough to crack the ground beside his head, signaling that he would be badly wounded had I decided to step on his head instead. The referee directly called my victory and I helped Samuel on his feet.
"Thank you for fighting without holding back." He said to me and I patted his shoulder, before returning around to take a look at Luna and Thor's situation.
What I saw while impressive did not surprise me. Kirlia was on the ground sleeping, and Machoke was on his back occasionally twitching, which showed that it was paralyzed.
I recalled them and Samuel did the same with his incapacitated Pokemon. We went back to our seats under the cheering of our year mates. The last battle finished as well shortly after our fight, and a total of 12 participants managed to reach the third round.
8 were from the Knight Academy, 4 were from Aura Academy. The one with the free pass was included in the 4 from the Aura Academy. The whole second round took roughly one hour, so the third round began at around 5 p.m.
My battle was the first of 6 battles in the third round. The opponent was Andrew Springs from the Knight academy.
"Mikail Geo from the Aaron Aura Academy versus Andrew Springs from the Rota Knight Academy." The referee called the two of us to the field.
Andrew had chosen a pair of swords as his equipment. I on the other hand still only had a pair of arm guards. Also, my partners, this time were Horus and Luna.
Horus established the mental link between us as soon as he could, and I told them to keep away Andrew's Pokemon from me. Meanwhile, a Mudsdale and Unfezant appeared on Andrew's side.
We did not exchange any small talk and once the referee gave the signal we attacked without delay. Luna used Gravity to ground Unfezant and to keep it from moving, while Horus did the same with Psychic.
I ignored all that since I had full confidence in my partners and headed straight at Andrew. He had obviously seen my previous fights and knew that this was what I had been doing the last two fights, so he was expecting this to happen.
Andrew was in a ready position and as soon as I was in range he attacked me with his dual blades. I used my arm guards to deflect whenever I could, while I dodged the slashes I couldn't block.
I waited for a bit to get a feel for his rhythm and once I did, I used my full strength to deflect one of his slashes. The strength behind the deflect unbalanced him and gave me an opening to tap his chest with my fist glowing blue, signaling that I could have delivered an aura clade punch at his heart.
I was declared the winner by the referee and recalled my partners after thanking them. Everyone was cheering because our exchange had been pretty good, and after Andrew extended his hands and we shook hands, the cheering intensified.
Everyone was happy about good sportsmanship. 5 more battles followed after that and once those were over 6 participants moved on to the fourth round. All 6 battles took roughly 30 minutes in total.
4 of the 6 winners were from the knight academy, and 2 were from the aura academy. The winners of the fourth round would automatically secure a place in the top 3, while the losers would have to battle against each other to determine who would receive the fourth place.
The first one to win a battle in the fourth round was Yu Tianjin from the Knight Academy, which made him the first finalist. My battle was the second one and I had to fight against Bianca Bianchi from Knight Academy.
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