It had been a few days since the battle with the Grade 2 rogue. Cain and Luna made it back and turned him in, finishing the mission.
The arrest of such a figure caused an uproar. Two, two people! Somehow took down a group of bandits led by a Grade 2!
In thought of this, their reward was increased, along with an apology from the Union for the false information. The excitement of the achievement died down but Cain and Luna still took a break from missions for a while.
However, normalcy did not last long, for there was one last event planned before summer.
…
It was a boring day, Cain slumped out of bed and headed to school. He took his seat and waited for the teacher's lecture to start.
The teacher did come to class, but it wasn't to teach.
Upon his entry, the scholar slammed his books on his desk and announced to the class the school's new agenda.
"I have a great thing to announce today! The school is holding its first tournament in the last few centuries!"
All around Cain, students rose from their seats, yelling like it was some sort of holiday.
He was confused, a tournament?
The teacher quieted the class to continue, "This tournament means all of the student body will be participating, and for the next few weeks, all classes will be changed to be combat-based."
He paused before raising his finger and pointing up. "There will be three divisions for the students: apprentice, Grade 1, and Grade 2. Those who perform well will be rewarded, ranging from school benefits to access to research or rare materials. Any questions?"
A few hands were raised, and questions were asked.
"What are the rewards?"
"What about the classes we're taking?"
"For what reason are we holding the tournament?"
And so the teacher answered them all.
"I was not told the purpose of the tournament. The rewards are based on your performance, so it can be anything from contribution points to new alchemy sets or even pathogens and ancient research."
Taking out a stack of papers, he took the top page and showed it to the class.
"Your old classes will be on pause, and those same teachers will be teaching you combat. You are exempt from all grades IF, you sign this paper. If you do sign then you will enter the tournament for your skill level. Those who do not sign up still have to complete their current assignments."
The students cheered, at this point, the teacher couldn't bear the noise and just left. No one stopped him, he was a plague doctor after all.
However while his fellow peers cheered for no test and homework, Cain was more focused on the tournament itself. It was an opportunity.
'I will be able to earn a lot from this! But, the purpose of the tournament, they didn't tell us…'
"What are you thinking about, Cain?" Luna was peering into his eyes beside him, she noticed his thoughts.
Cain's face turned a little red as he responded, "Nothing, just excited that I can get some rare materials from just fighting!"
The two sparked up a conversation like their fellows all around them, excited for this event like the rest.
Luna seemed even more excited than Cain, he guessed she wanted to use this opportunity to prove herself, to Darius, or even her folks.
The next few days were spent on preparation and the changing of classes.
Cain ended up taking combat classes on close combat, targeting weak points, and preserving stamina in a fight. He also took combat-oriented classes like first aid for wounds caused by plague doctors and learned about different combat techniques and their strengths and weaknesses.
...
With this schedule, two weeks passed. During this time Cain believed he improved in his combat skills, the school offered the best after all.
He was confident he would win the tournament for his division.
At this time, a massive arena was built for the occasion, the old one was long scrapped a century ago.
On this specific day, the first division's qualifiers were taking place. Also known as the apprentice's qualifiers.
Since he didn't know how this tournament would work, Cain made the trip and bought tickets.
He came with Luna, finding their seats in the middle area of the stands.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome! Today is the preliminary round for the 1st division! Those who pass will go on to fight and earn rewards set by the Union elders themselves!"
Deafening cheers were heard from the crowd, Luna held her ears to block out the loud yelling.
Cloaked judges went onto the arena floor, chanting. It was then that the ground shook.
Multiple courts rose from the ground, and students took to the created stages.
In multiple courts, fighting began between adversaries. It wasn't anything to look at; they were just apprentices and had recently learned how to fight.
The qualifiers were more of a street brawl than anything, with students throwing and taking punches with no real technique. But it was expected.
Many of the students in this school were born with silver spoons and had never fought in their lives, they were lazy and never cared much for such things.
People won, others lost, and the preliminary round for the 1st division ended. Tomorrow was the 2nd division's preliminary round. This preliminary was what got Cain excited. This was for special reasons of course, as in this tournament, something had to be given for those of proper Grade.
Cain went home, studied, trained, and on the next day, went to the preliminary rounds to get a good spot and watch the show.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Today... today is the preliminary round for the 2nd Division! Get excited because these fighters, although they can't use the plague doctor's extraordinary abilities, are allowed to use a plague doctor's tools!"
What the announcer meant was that to make it more interesting, Grade 1's were allowed to use weapons that had pathogens added to them.
These objects were called Runic Weapons, and since Grade 1's couldn't control bacteria unlike Grade 2's, they were given these strange weapons to make it more interesting.
Runic weapons were dangerous, weapons holding the power of disease as well as other things.
But the most terrifying opponents would be those with augmented bodies, for they had an advantage.
Each division had different rules. Cain's division allowed the use of abilities, and they couldn't use weapons or tools like the 2nd division since most Grade 2's had augmented bodies or powerful bacteria.
The fighting started in the arena, with plague doctors wielding daggers, maces, throwing knives, or strange objects, attacking one another.
Death could happen, and more judges and teachers were on the scene to stop this.
Cain's eyes focused on a fight between someone wielding a sword and another using wrist blades.
The student using wrist blades threw down a small round item that exploded and expelled smoke all over the stage, enveloping both combatants.
Nothing could be seen through the thick gray cloud, but once the smoke receded, two figures could be made out. The one with the wrist blades had their blades embedded into the other's stomach.
Their opponent fell to the ground as blood flowed from their stomach and mouth. Multiple teachers rushed to the stage to announce the winner and to treat the loser.
His eyes shifting to another fight, Cain saw a stage where a larger-built student with a great mace was swinging at a scrawny boy holding a spear.
The scrawny one tried to thrust his spear into the larger opponent but was hit with the full force of the great mace, flying across the stage in a bloody mess.
Half his body became mush. Judges rushed to the stage to preserve his life. Although it looked fatal, with the abilities of a plague doctor, he could survive, but the recovery could take years.
The winner holding the mace laughed and walked off the stage in victory.
Fights like these were all around the arena, and Cain moved his eyes a little and saw many winners and losers.
He could see a winner covered in blood and a loser bleeding out on the floor. He saw people cut in half, throats sliced, and even decapitations. This was how Plague Doctors fought. Society was desensitized to this, diseases made worse corpses.
Even with so much fighting, two students died in the preliminary rounds, one from burns caused by a rare flammable liquid, and the other from a runic weapon holding bacteria that attacked the brain, killing the victim.
Cain witnessed just how barbaric and dangerous the 2nd division was and decided to take extra precautions for tomorrow. He headed home to train more and focus on increasing his defenses.