The participants of the next duel walked out into the courtyard. The ranker fighting in this duel was Snythe, Rank 3.
A 1.8 meter tall male trainee with long auburn hair was the challenger, his name was Jordan.
The two stood about 8 meters away from each other. Jordan appeared to be nervous, while Snythe seemed to be unbothered.
Leonard went over the rules once again before shouting out "Begin!".
Jordan stepped forwards and stomped his front foot on the ground. A human sized pillar of rock shot out the ground heading straight for Snythe.
Snythe could see the rock heading for him, but made no attempt to move. Right before the pillar was about to strike his body, and Leonard was moving in to stop the attack.
Snythe snapped his fingers and the rock was obliterated as a force radiated through the air.
The volume of Snythe snapping his fingers together was so loud that everyone had to cover their ears as it happened. Several trainees closest to Snythe had blood coming out from their ears.
Jordan was among those with his ears bleeding, he had fallen to the ground holding his head with his hands, screaming in pain. Snythe slowly walked forwards to where Jordan was lying.
Each step sounded like a blast of thunder, causing further screams to be heard from Jordan. Although the sound was heard by all, it was directed at Jordan, and so the full force of the attacks were hitting him while the audience felt only the whispers of his power.
Jordan's screams were drowned out by the thunderous steps, barely being audible to the audience.
Being unable to take the noise any longer, Jordan mustered up the strength and slammed his fist into the ground.
An entire portion of the courtyard was lifted up and flipped. To Snythe it looked like the floor became horizontal, as though a wall was being pushed towards him.
Calmly, Snythe continued to take another step forwards. The sound generated by this step was far louder than any other so far. The floor turned wall exploded with force, right in front of Snythes body as he kept moving forward, stopping right next to Jordan.
To everyone watching, it didn't look as though Snythe had put any more effort into his step than before.
Snythe crouched down next to Jordan and raised his hand, placing it next to Jordan's ear. He prepared to snap his fingers, but before he could.
"That's enough. You've won the duel." Leonard stated as he grabbed Snythes hand and prevented him from snapping his fingers again.
Snythes face turned from a sadistic happiness into clear annoyance. To him, Leonard was just ruining his fun.
"Why are you stopping me. I'm simply teaching this peasant that I'm not someone who accepts a challenge so lightly." Snythe sneered.
"You're attacking a trainee who has already lost consciousness. The duel is over and you've already won, now leave the courtyard." Leonard replied, his voice sounding aggressive.
Snythe reluctantly got up and walked away, heading back towards the other rankers seats. He gave Leonard a dark look as he left Leonard's side.
'His power is strange, the only explanation I can come up with is that he can manipulate sound. He's not attacking with a force that makes a lot of noise, the noise is his attack... So that's his ability.' Leo came to a realization.
'The two of you are currently at odds with each other. If you have to face him in battle someday, how do you plan on fighting him?' Dreifus asked.
'If he can manipulate sound to this degree, then I don't have any idea how to fight him. Everytime someone gets close, he can just send a loud sound wave at them. It's not an attack you can block.' Leo admitted.
'You already have the means to win, you just need to learn how to use it.' Dreifus stated with a confident tone.
'What do you mean? I haven't got a way to beat him.' Leo asked with an annoyed tone.
~Sigh~ 'Yes you do. Did you forget what I told you. There are many forms of kinetic energy. Heat, lightning, light...'
'Sound.' Leo's eyes widened as he recalled the conversation he had had with Dreifus about this a few weeks ago.
'So you're saying I could counter his ability with my own, I just need to learn how to control the kinetic energy created by sound.' Leo asked with excitement.
'Sound doesn't generate kinetic energy as much as it is kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is generated by movement, the movement comes from the object, the sound generated by the object is the kinetic energy.' Dreifus explained.
'You know that doesn't really matter right? That's not going to change what I need to learn.' Leo replied with a dismissive tone.
'You never know when information will be useful, so you might as well learn as much as you can whenever you can.' Dreifus said with a smug tone of voice.
Leo chose not to reply to Dreifus and pretended be focused on Nila. She had just walked out into the courtyard and was waiting for her duel to begin.
A few ability users who could manipulate earth came down and slowly fixed the courtyard that was damaged, it took them around 10 minutes but it eventually looked just as it did before.
Nila stood there with Leonard to her side as they waited for her challenger, but nobody came.
After 5 minutes of waiting, Leonard stepped into the middle of the courtyard. "Since the challenger has not arrived for the duel, I declare Nila the winner by default. We shall continue on to the next duel now." He announced loudly.
Leo knew this meant it was finally his turn to fight. He walked out into the courtyard, standing where Nila was just a minute before.
Brent, the large muscular trainee who challenged Leo, jumped from a 2nd floor window and landed where he was meant to be standing for the duel.
He raised his arms up, like he had just performed a spectacular feat. There were cheers from the other trainees, they were apparently enjoying his showmanship.
"After today, there will be a new number 1 among the rankers! I'm going to show everyone, just how weak this so called rankers power really is!" Brent shouted while pointing towards Leo.
There were shouts from the audience, many voices that apparently thought that Brent's words held some truth.
'Do they really think I'm not actually strong? That I'm some kind of fraud?' Leo questioned internally.
'It looks that way.' Dreifus replied while laughing. He could sense that Leo was annoyed by this, but he couldn't help but laugh.
This only managed to annoy Leo even further.
'Fine, you want to see my power? Then I'll show you some of my power.'