"Ladies and gentlemen! We have arrived at the final match of tonight's Rookie Brawl with our finalists!" Ash announced to the crowd that was cheering at the top of their lungs.
"On my left, is the boy who has continued to shock us again and again with amazing talent and versatility! BLAZE!!" Ash presented Mako who received a lot of boos from the crowd mainly because he had defeated the one person that most people had bet on in the semi-finals.
"And on my right, is the man who dominated in the Group A battle royal with 8 eliminations done by himself! RHINO!!" Ash barely completed his sentence before the crowd erupted in cheers, chanting 'Rhino' again and again while from the right side of the ring a man made of pure muscle walked out into the ring.
Rhino was the embodiment of what a top physique of a top-tier bodybuilder would be in the olden days as every single muscle on his body was bulging and twitching as he flexed them for the crowd. He stood clearly above 7 feet and would weigh easily around a hundred kilograms. Mako looked extremely minuscule compared to Rhino who was cracking his knuckles so hard that if someone heard the noise, they would assume that something was being torn apart.
In the current era, muscles were no longer the definition of how strong you were as often than not people would have such insane high-level abilities that training and maintaining such a body was not a necessity anymore.
Mako was fairly confident that his strength would at least be able to deal some damage to him, but just to be on the safe side, Mako decided to use Analyze on him too.
[Analyze]
[Skill Failed (opponent level too high)]
Not so surprisingly, the skill had failed which meant that the aura that was emitted by Rhino was stronger than Mako's which was why Analyze couldn't get a read on him. Mako was the type of person who would always calculate things before doing them.
*Realizes he punched a tree on his first day of getting the system, and broke his bone*
Well, tried to calculate things most of the time, and seeing that he had no info on his opponent, it was a bit unsettling to know nothing about his opponent.
*DING!*
Mako had expected another quest to pop up and right on cue, Mako heard a different kind of notification sound than what he was used so quickly opened up his quest tab to see what was up with that.
(NEW!) [Emergency Quest Issued]
[Survive!]
[The opponent user is about to face is too dangerous and the chances of death are very high, find a way to stay alive!]
[Reward: ???]
[Penalty: Death]
*PANIC!*
Mako had never expected to find out that he would be facing a life or death situation in a rookie tournament where the max level that was allowed to participate was level 3 ability users.
Although most of the people Mako had fought today were level 3 ability users, what made them different from the rest of the opponents like the Dark Assassin and Rhino was the fact of how much they cultivated their ability, meaning how in tune they are with its use, and secondly how much have they improved their natural attributes since awakening.
Mako could improve his attributes daily with the attribute points that he received from quests, daily tasks, etc. However, that was not the case for the rest of the ability users as they would have to spend a lot of time improving their bodies, and if they were not talented then it would take them a very long time to do so.
Mako had just awakened a couple of weeks ago and since then he had been training with his ability every day which was why he could control it a lot better than initially, but he was still severely behind people who had awakened a couple of months prior and had time to build a strong foundation.
Seeing as there was no other choice left, Mako called a timeout and awkwardly went back to the benches to do something that he didn't want the world to see.
**********
When Mako had defeated Bill in the duel, he had leveled up to level 5 which unlocked the inventory tab. The inventory tab was just what you would expect, Mako was shown a screen with thirty empty slots and a weight limit plastered on the top right corner of the screen.
Although Mako knew how the inventory would operate since he had played a lot of open-world survival games with Gary where inventory management was a required skill, he was still curious as to how it would work in real life.
He brushed it to the side as there was no use for it at that time, but after he had unboxed all of the items he had purchased online, he needed to keep them on him at all times, but carrying around pills and a knife wasn't as easy as it looked considering Mako didn't have any combat clothing with straps.
That was when the inventory tab came into his mind and holding his knife Mako opened his inventory for the second time.
[Inventory] ⓘ
[0/30 slots filled]
[Weight limit: 200 kg]
[Do you wish to store (1) High Tier Blue Horn Mammoth's Combat Knife in your inventory?]
[YES/NO]
Using his thoughts, Mako selected the 'YES' option, and right before his eyes the beautiful blue blade had disappeared into small particles of light, right off his hands. Mako had a mild Panic attack as he watches the last of the light particles fade away as he thought that he had lost his very valuable item just like that.
Checking the inventory tan again, Mako's worries faded as one of the slots was consumed by the beautiful knife that weigh around 1.2 kilograms. Using his thought to focus on the knife, a prompt appeared in front of Mako again.
[Do you wish to retrieve (1) High Tier Blue Horn Mammoth's Combat Knife from your inventory?]
[YES/NO]
Selecting 'YES' yet again, the blade reappeared right in Mako's hands. Seeing as this was the best option, Mako decided to put all his items into his inventory so he could summon them back and use them at will.
**********
Mako took out that beautiful knife from his inventory and silently taped it to his back with its sheath still on so that he doesn't get accidentally stabbed by it and as long as his body is in contact with the blade, he would receive its boosts that would be very much needed for his upcoming fight.
On top of that, Mako also popped two of his High Tier Boost Pills which when affected by his system override gave him a bigger temporary boost in a single aspect compared to smaller boosts in all aspects. Mako choose to increase his Perception and Agility with his two pills and finally made his way back to the ring where the crowd was getting impatient.
'Open System Interface'
[User: Mako Grey]
[Health: 200/200] ⓘ
[Energy: 500/500] ⓘ
[EXP: 3400/6400] ⓘ
[Level 7] ⓘ
[Strength: 20 (+30) ] ⓘ
[Agility: 15 (+25) ] ⓘ
[Perception: 20 (+15)] ⓘ
[Intelligence: 12] ⓘ
[Mentality: 12] ⓘ
[Stamina: 12 (+5) ] ⓘ
[Charisma: Locked] ⓘ
[Fortitude: Locked] ⓘ
[Attribute Points: 1] ⓘ
Looking at his stats Mako, Mako could see how much a boost was added to his Strength, Agility, and Perception due to his hidden knife, the boost pills, and the natural boost from his ability. He still wasn't sure how tough Rhino would be or what his ability was so it was still nerve-wracking for him but he didn't let this emotion show on his face as he had a look of confidence that showed that he had no worries at all.
"Sorry for the delay, Everyone! But without any further a due, the final match between Blaze and Rhino will begin!" Ash rekindled everyone's excitement with his announcement as the two fighters made their way back to the corners of the arena.
Cheers emanated from everywhere while the two fighters took a stance.
"Fighter's ready?! …. FIGHT!" Ash yelled at the top of his lungs surprisingly nobody took a step forward.
Normally as soon as Ash announced the fight to start, one or both fighters immediately rushed to get the very critical first strike on the opponent, but for the first time tonight, both Mako and Rhino stayed in their place staring at each other without breaking eye contact.
After the most silent ten seconds had passed, Mako was still on the defensive as he didn't want to engage him without gauging his strength first when Rhino suddenly began to smile.
Bone-popping sounds started to come out of his body as his limbs and muscles vibrated vigorously before turning grey. Within seconds, Rhino's mass started to increase as all his limbs became twice in size while his hands and feet turned into claws like that of a bear. All of his clothes began to tear apart except some very stretchy and elastic boxers which remained on his body. All his hair started to fall out with three horns started to grow on his face, two from the sides like that of a bull and one on the forehead like that of a rhino.
With the final bone-popping sound, Rhino had transformed into an actually mutated rhino of some sort, towering over Mako with an astounding height of 11 feet.
Announcing his entrance to the fight, Rhino let out a mighty roar which was enough for Mako to skid back a few feet while the crowd of spectators was protected by automatic forcefield generators that activated as soon as they calculated a high-level attack.
'HOLY S***!'