'What the fuck?' Stark was surprised, he had not expected such a great amount of damage from a singular attack, but he guessed that attacking from behind and at the head did increase it.
When people fought monsters/people in this world, the amount of damage dealt was displayed for everyone to see, meaning that the entire crowd had seen the 827 appear as Stark hit Daniel.
"YOU FUCKER," Daniel didn't understand, but still having his steel sword in hand, he turned back and swung at Stark with the goal of ending him for good.
[Commentary from Rher: it would be adviced to stop this while possible to hide your powers, this could lead you to becoming more powerful and having less enemies]
'HAHAHA, you think i'm stopping now?' but Stark dismissed the idea, he wasn't a real fan of hiding his powers anyways, what use would there be to do that if he was gonna die?
'Focus!' Stark mumbled the name of his other skill, and suddenly his vision became clearer.
Before Daniel could even finish his attack, Stark was able to slightly see it coming, and although his speed stat was still very low, the domination and focus skills allowed him to just barely avoid the strike by backing away at the last second.
Even blocking an attack could cause him 1 point of damage and kill him, meaning even that wasn't option.
Daniel's eyes widened in disbelief as he failed to land a solid blow on Stark. He could feel the crowd's growing tension and shock, and the frustration welling up inside him.
Stark using his perception skill could see the amount of health Daniel had left.
[HP:] 423/1250
This meant that the next person to hit the other would be declared the winner, making the pression between the two fighters grow even more.
'Time to end this,' Stark smiled.
Daniel on the other hand was losing it: he had always been considered one of the strongest in 'Lotus' Academy, and although he hadn't started his 'classifier' life yet, he was still fairly respected by all.
Girls were all over him and boys didn't dare to defy him, no matter what he said.
And yet… Stark, the one he always considered to be the weakest, was here, humiliating him in front of others.
"WIPE THAT SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE," he was actually going insane, and so without waiting no more, he dashed toward Stark.
":)" Stark had indeed been smiling the whole time, enjoying the view as the boy that tried to kill him twice already was struggling.
Surprisingly enough, the more Stark was in control of the situation, the brighter and stronger his aura was getting, and he did notice it.
'I need to figure out how this works later…' he thought to himself.
~SLASH~
Daniel used both the [Buff] skill, which doubled his stats, and [Strike] to attack Stark.
But the black-haired boy saw it coming using Focus, closing his eyes as he avoided the second attack from Daniel, which missed its target again.
"YOU-"
Stark saw the window of opportunity as Daniel was still recovering from his failed strike.
He crouched in front of the 180cm tall boy, then focused all his aura into his right hand for this final attack.
And then…
"CYA!" Stark, with sweat pouring down his forehead, laughed again.
Daniel's eyes widened as he saw Stark below him, positioned in a way that indicated he was about to attack from below.
He couldn't see the aura around Stark, but all his senses screamed for him to run away or abandon the duel now.
"HELP-" he tried to scream, but nobody would be able to hear him from this distance, plus most of them were so focused on the fight they couldn't hear him speak.
"But nobody came," Stark answered as he was the only one that heard his pleads.
~BAM~
Stark with a sudden movement began uppercuting Daniel in the chin, and of course, the clueless 15 year old wasn't able to do anything against such a fast attack.
"-1281!"
Daniel was sent flying against the edge of the arena, hitting it in full force as he received the entirety of his life in that singular attack.
[HP:] 0/1250
And this meant…
[Winner: Stark Heartsouls]
"Playboys like you need to stay put and learn their places!" he smiled.
Giant green text appeared above the arena for everyone to see, but most of them were too shocked to even say anything, unable to comprehend the scene before them.
Stark, THE WEAK STARK, had just beaten Daniel?
Some even rubbed their eyes, thinking that it must be a joke.
But everything was reality, and once the transparent sphere that kept the two fighters safe from other people's interruptions disappeared, many students and teachers went to check on Daniel.
Many thought that he would get up and get angry like usual, or maybe shout at the teachers.
But no…
The type of this duel was 'Deathless', meaning that the two would fight to the death, then be revived afterward, it is like some sort of 'all in' fight where people could use all their powers without risking death
And that meant…
"He is just unconscious…" one of the teachers announced after checking his pulse, after all a deathless match meant even if your HP dropped to zero, you wouldn't die.
And so right after the news, all eyes fell on Stark.
"Why are you all so surprised? Of course the main character would beat the tutorial boss, wouldn't he?" he grinned, confident that what he did was good.
[You are not a main character, and this isn't a tutorial boss, but whatever, good job!]
Maybe hiding his powers was the better move in the long term since most wouldn't suspect the poor little Stark to have any classes, and maybe even believe that the first damage he had caused to Daniel was luck, but now that he had beaten him, there was absolutely no doubt there was something strange going on.
'Oh well… I usually loved to boast about my work at my company, so it doesn't matter,' he had taken his personality as an office worker to this new world.
[You have absolutely destroyed that fool "Daniel Pridel", gaining 1471 experience points!]
[Experience: 1000/1000]
Stark was enveloped in a golden glow as he noticed that he had reached the needed amount of experience to level up.
Beating someone in a duel would of course mean some sort of reward (or else people might just abuse them to train), and in this case Stark had effectively stolen some of Daniel's experience, although not much since he hadn't killed him.
[Your level has increased to level 2, granting you one skill point and boost in stats]
[Current level: level 2]
[Experience: 471/5000]
'Nice, seems like everything works out in the end, this is what I call a good ending,' Stark was happy with himself.
But once he looked away from his screen panels to check his surroundings, he noticed all the surprised, scared, and astonished gazes on him.
"What?" he asked, taking all of them aback.