He called out for the main screen of the system and clicked on the simulation tab.
[ Opponent - ? ]
[ Opponent's armory - ? ]
[ Field - ? ]
[ Host's armory - ? ]
[ Extra conditions - ? ]
Viewing the familiar screen, he filled the tab as,
[ Opponent - Clara Denkin]
[ Opponent's armory - Default ]
[ Field - disc of battle stadium]
[ Host's armory - none ]
[ Extra conditions - Clara denkin's fighting style would be like her fight in the battle royal ]
He then pressed the proceed button at the bottom right of the screen.
Just then, a popup appeared in front of him, which said,
[Your soul will be transported out of the body into a different space.]
[Do you agree?]
[Yes/No]
Clarence clicked on No, and felt his vision change. He was now inside a dome of golden blue color but he could still feel the connection with his body and was also strangely able to sense his surroundings in the real world just as fine.
He then looked ahead to see that specks of golden blue specks of light were clumping together to form a beautiful young lady with blonde hair and a bit elongated ears.
She quickly started executing a set of moves which felt like she was battling several opponents at once, but the thing which stood out the most in her fighting style was her speed. It was fast. Extremely fast.
Clarence reckoned that even he might have to execute his technique at full speed to beat that speed, which most likely wasn't even her best. She was also using a technique to strengthen her arms in tandem with a fire spike spell.
When he observed her a bit more, he observed that she was actually also using a technique which helped her change directions. No, it wasn't that simple.
Above a certain speed limit, she wasn't able to change directions, but up to that speed limit, Clara could change directions without needing to slow down. She could make a perfect ninety degree turn without losing any of her speed or balance, which he thought was likely due to that technique.
After watching the whole battle, Clarence went thinking and gave a command to the system to replay the battle.
After watching for a few more times, he found that she was also using an ocular spell which freezed the opponent's brain for a second as soon as he or she looked into her eyes.
When he finished replaying the battle, he was a little taken aback that if people were using so many techniques and spells, just how many cards had they hidden?
He then proceeded to watch the battles of Everett, Bernard and a few more outstanding people on the leaderboards to gain more understanding of their fighting style.
"Alright, your time is up!"
As soon as he heard that, Clarence went back to his body and looked at the disc opposite to him. There, a huge dome was already formed with around five hundred people inside it.
After a couple of minutes of waiting, the fight was already over as one hundred ninety-two people needed to be selected out of five hundred.
"Alright, now that we have eight thousand one hundred ninety-two participants, we can start with the tournament. It will be the usual one vs one battle with a time limit of three minutes. The most injured one will be eliminated by the end if there isn't a clear result.
The top one hundred twenty-eight wouldn't meet each other till there are two hundred fifty-six people left. As for the rewards, only the top ten will get that."
As soon as he said that, the five discs were enveloped in domes which were clearly larger this time once again, after different people were pulled to different locations.
*****
"Pretty boring I'd say."
"Yea, I agree with you."
"The fun will begin when there are five hundred people left. I don't believe everyone would be this weak."
Clarence, Everett and Bernard were talking among themselves after their battles. Valentina wasn't with them as she was participating in the tournament of profession.
They discussed their battles and tried to brainstorm about what could have been done better or more efficiently. Although they had competitiveness among themselves, above that lay the urge to have an exciting battle and grow up with each other, so they always uplifted each other.
After a few more minutes, they left after promising to meet in the semi-finals.
*****
Half a day had passed and the tournament was nearly coming to an end. There were one hundred twenty-eight people remaining, out of which a lot of the original one hundred twenty-eight spots had been replaced.
It was clear that the earlier rounds and leaderboards weren't fully accurate. Everyone had their own fields of specialization.
Clarence's opponent this time was a black-haired boy who was shorter than him and held a sword with both of his hands.
As soon as the barrier separating them disintegrated into pieces, signifying the start of the battle, Clarence executed his leg technique, held his daggers in front of his chest, and sent mana to his legs to further improve his speed even further.
The opponent did the same and held the sword horizontally in front of his chest, but he was obviously slower compared to Clarence, who ranked at the top of the leaderboards due to just his sheer prowess in speed.
As soon as they were in range, Clarence dodged to the side randomly, but it seems it wasn't random as the opponent had swung the sword that way. It made the battle look weird even to the ones watching, as it seemed like Clarence dodged before the opponent even initiated the attack.
But Clarence, who had studied his opponent deeply through repeated simulation, knew where he would attack just based on his hand position, just that he should have dodged a little later to avoid suspicion, but now that it was already done, he could only pray they would just dismiss it as coincidence.
He cast incapicitate on his legs and swung his dagger instantly while dodging, giving his opponent no room to even do anything. The dagger just cut through the leg with a shallow wound, but before the effect of the spell could wear off, which was around one second, Clarence followed up with another spell.
It was the new spell he had learned on the mountain, Agile needle. It was a simple spell which fired needles of your desired amount at your intended target at a speed you wanted. Of course, the above specifications are limited by rank.