"A month..."
Ean whispered to himself as he covered his face with his right hand, breathing heavily while slowly walking to the academy
"Shu's been away for a month! A month!"
He yelled causing the other students to stare at him, glaring at him for a few seconds before turning away and continuing to do whatever it was they were doing
"Well whatever, he's alive, I know he is, I mean...it's Shu we're talking. Yeah! There's no way he's dead!"
He thought to himself, clenching his hands while closing his eyes as he would then stop at the entrance of the academy, watching as people walked passed him with a calm expression, before turning his face and eyes to the right while feeling an arm laying on his shoulders
"Hey Ean, it's been a month, the tournament is about to begin in a few hours, so where's Shu?"
Said a familiar voice as the weight of a boy fell over Ean's shoulder
"Why are you so impatient? This isn't like you, Louis"
Ean replied while holding onto the boy's wrist, tightly squeezing it before pulling it away from his shoulders
"Hoo, seems like our little cub has finally grown up..."
Louis whispered as a malevolent smile grew on his face while Ean's left wrist turned into a dark red
"But you forget, when you harm me, you harm yourself, now be the good boy you used to be and let me go"
Said Louis, finishing his earlier statement as all Ean could do was smack his lips together and let Loui's wrist go
"Now if you'd excuse me, I have a tournament to prepare for, oh and don't participate this time, remember what happened to you last year"
And just like that, Louis left, entering the academy, leaving the nervous-looking Ean behind
"Damm.."
Ean whispered with a bit of irritation in his tone as he held the hilt of his sword tightly, beginning to sweat
"To think I'd grow this strong and still be no match for that asshole"
He would whisper once more before taking in a deep breath, calming himself down as he would then proceed and take a step forward, entering the academy along with the other students.
After a few minutes Ean would enter a field, which can only be accessed while in the academy, one would have to verify their ID and answer a few questions before entering a door which leads to the field where Ean currently finds himself in
And along with Louis, there were some overwhelming people, and of course, Arthur, the strongest in the academy was there, and along with him were four more, at least four whose aura was outstanding
One of them was a female, standing 162.56 centimeters tall with long red hair, reaching the ends of her waist, her eyes were green and her face seemed delicate, standing in absolute contrast to her eyes, which looked fierce-some, she was wearing leather armor with nothing but a black spandex underneath and a rapier attached to her side.
"Seems like she's participating again as well, Alice Evania, and next to her is.."
Ean said to himself, pointing out the girl's name, proceeding to turn his attention to the next figure. This one was a male, he had short blonde hair, golden eyes and somewhat of a skinny and fragile-looking body, he had nothing special for clothes, just white a long sleeve shirt and black long pants
"Haha, Eran Dialo. What the hell are these crazy big shots doing here? They've already proven they were the best last year, why do they have the need to humiliate us again?"
Ean thought to himself as his eyes glanced throughout the entire field, or at least what his eyes could perceive, seeing a lot of participants, that caught his eyes, but not as much as the four that he first laid eyes on when emerging the field.
And as if his eyes were that of a predator, they moved swiftly to another of the four, and this one just like the last one was a boy. This one had long black hair and bright pink eyes, with nothing on but a Kimino and what seemed to be chains wrapped around his arms
"That's the new guy, just like Shu he's gaining popularity pretty quickly, I've no doubt that he'd end up high in the tournament. I believe his name was Asai Mino or something like that"
Ean whispered to himself before turning his attention to the last participant that he was wary of
"Leo Longhorn..."
Said Ean in a very low tone, almost afraid that the participant heard him. Leo was a short boy, around the same height as Shu, his eyes just like Shu's were blue, but his hair was green and like Asai, he was wearing a Kimino.
"Alright! Alright! Everyone welcome to this year's tournament! Is anyone else excited to see some gruesome fights, between the kingdom's new possible army commanders!? Cause I am!"
A voice out of nowhere yelled, as 8 blue screens appeared above all the participants, revealing a man with snake-like eyes and the smile of a giant
"Oh, it's starting.."
Every participant thought, murmured, or outright yelled out as the man on the screen simply laughed
"Seems like everyone's pumped up! But! I'd like to announce that on orders of the King himself, we've changed the rules for the tournament!"
The man once more yelled, causing the participants to stop cheering, lowering their arms and hands in confusion
"Instead of making everyone in the field battle each other to later choose the remaining twenty participants for the tournament, we made so that everyone could have a chance! We created 8 mini-games and the winners of each mini-game get to participate in the tournament, but that's not all! Once a participant wins a mini-game they are no longer allowed to participate in the other mini-games, meaning that you won't be able to take anyone's moment to shine!"
The man yelled, explaining the rules with a hyper like a tone as the participants began to cheer, as something like this allowed everyone to show off what they were good at, and if by chance any of the mini-games were to be something they specialized in, then they'd have the chance to enter the tournament and receive some recognition
"With that being said, let's announce the first mini-game!"
The man yelled, catching the attention of all the participants
"A race throughout the kingdom!"