Jake and the young man with bulky muscles faced each other, breathing heavily.
The bulky youth was sweating
Just now if he hadn't moved on time he would have lost, a hit to the ribs he could withstand after all he trained his body for that
But an attack on the head? That was fatal to anyone, especially him.
When Frank and the rest saw this, they could only heave a sigh of relief. Jake got out of the grips of the bulky youth.
"Hahaha," the bulky youth started laughing.
"haaaa" he used his hands to wipe off the sweat on his face
And when he was done, he suddenly revealed a big smile.
"This is much more fun than I thought it would be," the bulky youth said.
Jake only looked at him and nodded slightly.
"Well, let me introduce myself. You may call me Koa," the bulky man said with his hands open.
"Jake," Jake replied calmly.
He was still holding his stomach. The way Koa squeezed him was ruthless, as if he wanted to rip Jake apart.
Koa told Jake in a very calm voice, "You are good, but I think you should give up now."
"Oh? What makes you think that you can actually defeat me?" Jake asked.
"I trust that you know that yourself," Koa said.
"Please enlighten me." Jake stood upright and said
"You must have noticed that I've not used any skills yet, right?" Koa asked Jake
Of course, he had noticed it since the beginning of this fight. Koa hadn't made use of any martial skill or technique, which made it seem like he wasn't taking the fight seriously.
To outsiders, this was the case, but not to Jake. Not only was Jake also holding back, he also clearly felt Koa's rib cage shift when he hit him.
No matter what one does, they can't easily fake that sort of injury, so Jake was certain that he could still fight even if Koa used skills.
"Very brave, I must say, then let me see what you are made of." He slowly started walking toward Jake.
Step by step,
And soon enough, he stood right in front of Jake.
He towered over him, as Koa was not only bulky, he was also quite tall.
"Gushing veins" Koa finally activated a skill.
And as soon as he did so, the veins around his arms and legs started bulging.
At this moment, he looked like a raging beast about to pounce on his prey.
When Jake saw this, he came to the realization that his opponent wasn't small fry as the old man would have him believe.
He was the real deal, and he would not be able to defeat him without a lot of effort.
"One more go," Koa said.
Jake looked at him and said
"One more go"
They lunged at each other.
"boom"
"boom"
"boom "
They both started exchanging punches once again.
Jake tried his very best to dodge using the firebird dance. But Koa could now keep up with him. His technique gushing veins pushed his muscles to their limits, so it didn't only increase in strength, his speed also increased exponentially.
Jake responded to the gushing veins technique with his raging fist, rapid 2.
The collisions of sheer power stunned some in the crowd of cadets. The two were very talented. Jake had managed to reach raging fist rapid 2 within such a small interval of time, and the gushing veins technique was also notoriously hard to practice but had a very powerful output.
Time went by slowly, and soon enough
They started getting bloodied, and Jake was being pushed into a disadvantageous situation.
He mustered up all the strength he could get and jumped backward quickly.
His breathing was heavy and he was bloodied.
But he wasn't the only one. Koa, too, was not in good condition, but he had a smile on his face.
He had the advantage and had forced Jake to retreat, which made him smile.
"Will you give up now?" Koa asked Jake in a condescending manner. Although he was bleeding, he also believed he could keep going for longer than Jake could.
"I should be the one asking you that," Jake replied with a rather sassy remark.
Koa smiled. He knew that Jake wouldn't back down unless he got knocked out, but he asked anyway.
"Tell you what I will give up if you can take my next attack," Jake said to Koa.
"Oh okay, let's do it then." Koa was a bit surprised and also relieved that this was easier. If he could end this quickly, he would be able to have time to recover his strength so he could fight the next opponent.
"Firebird Dance"
"Raging fist, 2nd rapid"
Jake activated those two skills at the same time. The firebird dance technique made him move very fast, and he used that speed to complement the raging fists technique.
When Koa saw this, he could only smile.
"Seems like he has really given up," Koa thought to himself as he braced himself for impact.
"boom!!!"
"arggg" a huge body was flung backward
The crowd gasped in shock.
"What's going on?" they thought.
That's right The person that was flung back was actually Koa, and this stunned the whole group, except for a few.
Number one would be the old man.
He snickered when he saw Jake's expression.
Jake didn't believe him when he said that he shouldn't hurt Koa too much. He thought the old man was just messing with him and he was wrong, but the old man still held it against him.
But to be fair, Jake, wasn't entirely at fault The old man was kind of a troll, and he didn't know the difference between raging fist 2nd rapid and raging fist 2nd rapid peak was so huge.
The most stunned person was not Jake, but Koa.
He thought that he had the whole battle in the bag at that point, only for him to be flung back like a bag of chips.
He stared at the sky for a few seconds in shock.
"Get up," Jake said while hovering over Koa
When Koa noticed Jake beside him and he froze
If Jake attacked him now, he would be done for and he knew that
But he didn't want to give up that easily,, so he tried to stand.
But he came to a shocking realization.
He couldn't move his body.
"HahahahahahaHahahahahaha" Koa started laughing hysterically.
He was so close, all he needed to do was stand up and he would have won, but fate played a trick on him. He couldn't move anymore.
"You win." Koa struggled to say it, but he finally did.
He would have been able to fight for a higher position if not for Jake's choosing to fight him.
"Okay,, get him off my stage," the old man finally said.
He was one of the few people who knew how this fight was eventually going to end, so he wasn't shocked. Of course, he was an old man and had much more experience than all of them combined, so how could he be shocked?
A few cadets came forward to take Koa off stage. He was now ranked 10 and couldn't challenge anyone to take their position.
That was the only flaw in this method of ranking. If one were to fight against someone of lower rank and lose, they wouldn't be able to challenge anyone anymore.
One reason was that they would be too tired to fight against anyone at that moment, and the other was that if they were allowed to fight at that moment or a few minutes later, it would only make the competition messy.
So it had to be this way. It also served as a sort of lesson;; if you lose a battle in real life, you won't always have the chance to fight again because you will be dead.
....
"Next," the old man blurted out.
The candidates then snapped out of their daze and looked at him.
At that moment, Gertrude stepped out.
He was ranked number 9 and although Jake didn't challenge him, it didn't mean that he was weak.
He was very brave.
He didn't choose Jake. Even though Jake was already bloodied all over and essentially weak, he didn't choose to take his spot.
No, instead he chose the guy ranked number 4.
"Wahoo!Wahoo!" The whole group was stunned.
Gertrude was insane. He. He skipped Jake. He skipped Wilder. Even the young master Yun, was skipped. He went straight for the red-haired kid.
This kid was unknown. Maybe he thought he was small fry. . A lot of them thought so. They thought the old man only gave him that ranking as a sort of sick joke and that he wasn't strong at all.
But of course, they were sorely mistaken, and now they would find out the hard way.
As to the reason why Gertrude actually chose to fight the red-haired kid,
No one really knew.