"Did I hear him wrong? He doesn't want a fight?" Someone said in disbelief while looking at Leo.
"I think I heard something wrong as well," Another guy chimed in as well.
"Did he he hurt his head?"
People really weren't able to believe their eyes and ears. They had continuously witnessed this guy for more than a year and knew very well how he was.
"You don't want a mock battle?" The person opposite to Leo asked him with his brows raise up.
"Yes, I will have to leave now," Leo said with a nod before immediately turning around to leave.
"Wait!"
But the guy overtook Leo and once again blocked his path.
"You can't refuse me! I fought with you a month earlier when you were looking for people to fight. You have to pay me back for the favor," He said in a righteous tone while looking at Leo.
But as soon as those words left his mouth, the people around sneered at him in disdain.
The Academy actually gave every student a 1000 points at the beginning of the month and this points can be taken from another person after engaging them in a mock battle. The minimum bet for the match had to be 100 points while there wasn't an upper limit on it.
At the end of each month, the students would then be evaluated on the basis of points with them and their rankings would be decided on the Combat Board.
The top students on these combat boards would be given preferential treatment when it came to the use of training grounds, gravitational rooms, Mech Simulations Devices, scholarships, borrowing weapons and training manuals for longer durations, participation in actually military drills along with one of Gloria's military unit and many other similar benefits like this.
On the other hand, the students at the bottom not only had their resources reduced but also had their grades affected as this Combat Board was taken into consideration while adding up marks of a students. And then there were also chances for these people to not be recruited in a good post if they really did perform bad.
And not participating in a mock battle was not possible at all as the Academy had made it compulsory for the students to have at least 20 mock battles under a semester.
Even though the number here was 20, the average number of mock battles per students were way higher because the Academy focused on military style of teaching. Not to mention, people would look down on you if you just did bare minimum and that would end up labeling you as cowards and a title like that definitely didn't suit a future soldier.
So the students usually kept their numbers up to build up a good resume for them.
And now in such an environment, you could easily imagine that lower rankers were a good source of points for everyone and among these people, Aiden was everyone's favorite as unlike other lower level twerps, he wouldn't hide and openly accept anyone's challenge.
So, it was always a race for people to get to him first at the beginning of every month. But for some reason he had been missing from the start of this month.
But now that this guy saw Leo today, he couldn't help it wanting the fish all for himself.
"I said, I don't feel like having a mock battle," Leo said with a frown when he saw the guy refused to leave his path and continued to block him.
"Don't tell me you of all people are suddenly getting a cold feet?" The guy snorted at Leo.
"You are clearly stronger than me, don't you feel ashamed challenging me? Go and fight someone of your own caliber," Leo frowned realizing that this guy was definitely not a friend and was up here to create some trouble.
"Hahahaha!!" The person stared at Leo for a second before breaking out in laughter. Even the people around had their face twisted in an odd manner.
"Did you hear people? A person aiming to become a soldier asks his opponent if he is ashamed of fighting someone weaker then him?" The guy said while turning and around looking at the students nearby.
"Really, so much for the son of the Thunder Hero," He further added before turning to look at Leo with a smirk on his face.
This comment immediately changed Leo's expression. Let's just say that if he didn't like the guy earlier then now he was starting to hate him.
A vein popped up on Leo's face as the guy continued to laugh.
Leo was not Aiden and Edgar wasn't his father. But the man had been nice to him all along and treated him like his son, it definitely didn't seat well with him hearing the guy address him like this.
"You better not cross your line," Leo said warning the person. Everyone had a limit.
"This is Academy my friend, if you have something to say, bring it inside the arena," The guy said with a laugh.
Leo couldn't believe this person had the guts to pull out Edgar's name like this. Wasn't he afraid of messing with him? At least Leo would definitely be if he was in his position.
He saw the guy inviting him towards the fighting booth but he wasn't a fool.
"I don't have time for this," Leo shook his head and tried to walk by his side.
Even though he was angry, Leo knew that fighting with him meant getting beating up. That wasn't a solution. He would see if he could find a Disciplinary Committee or any teacher he could complain to. After all, bringing someone's parent up like this wasn't right.
If people were to know Leo's current thought they would really not know how to react. This was military school not kindergarten. Leo would soon realize this truth as well, the place wasn't an Academy but a battlefield.
"You want to run loser?" The guy saw Leo leaving and grabbed the jacket on his back before pulling it off.
The next instant people's eyes turned wide for obvious reasons.
"Woah! What happened to you?!" He said with an amused face while looking at Leo. "What would you do now? The only weapon you know to use is two handed as well. Oh my god! What a unlucky guy!"
He laughed at his best and then raised the jacket in front of him, "Were you using this to hide you weakness now?"
"I bet your mom woul-"
Before another word could leave his mouth, the jacket in front of him suddenly changed shape and it protrude outward in the shape of a shoe and the next thing the person knew was a tremendous impact on his nose and the shoe sank into his face before he was sent flying away crashing into the nearby pod.
"Crash!"
The entire place was immediately turned silent as they looked at the the Leo whose body was tilting sideward with one feet on the ground and another raised up into the air as his yellow energy continued to ooze out of his leg.
[Bullseye!]