The matches began one after the other.
The highlights of the many competition areas kept flashing past the large screens, and at the same time, above the entire arena, there was a white anti-gravity warship. There were countless statistics about the wins and losses in the many arenas on the ship, as well as the scores between the different streams and classes, and the way the matches were going.
Garen watched the arena in front of him for a while, but it was not that interesting. They were all very standard shooting, or textbook examples of fighting. Although it looked very smooth, they were not actually very strong in true battle.
He glanced at the stats projected on the suspended screen.
‘Bally: 1 win. Merseus: 1 win.’
This meant that both of them had already completed their battle. To be able to finish off their opponent in such a short time showed just how strong the two of them were.
The time passed by slowly, and finally, the announcer’s voice reached them.
‘Fervale from C5 vs. Carrie from C6.’
Beside him, Fervale stood up. As Instructor Hamm encouraged him on, he walked straight towards the entrance to the arena that had automatically opened up behind him.
Not far away, their classmates sitting in the audience stands all got up and looked their way. Mina and Aier were also among them, looking at Garen, but when they saw that he was still sitting in place with no intention to move, they sat back down as well.
Amidst the chaotic arena surroundings, they could only vaguely hear their classmates’ cries of encouragement. That little bit of motivation was drowned out by the other sounds.
Garen sat quietly in his seat, one of his aims was to obtain top three in the qualifier match. If he wanted to get the true high-level training methods for free, he had to join the academy’s elite squad. He knew this world very well now, the way to the top was held in the hands of those in power. If he wanted to obtain information about the power system here, the best way was to join a faction with sturdy influence and roots.
He heard the voices rising and falling around him, there was the commotion in the distance, and the surprised cries nearby.
Garen’s heart was completely calm. According to Instructor Hamm’s intel, if all went as expected, the top three this year would end up being a race between Bally, Caus Arello, and Merseus.
***************
“I think our Grade C has the competition in the bag this time. Bally, Caus, and Merseus, these three should be the main candidates for first place. The competition is actually just a match between the few of them,” a young man sitting on Grade C’s seat at the adjudicators’ table said with a laugh.
On his right, a woman with red eyes and a ponytail looked down at the match below. The woman wore a Digital Monocle over her eye, with large amounts of statistics and information flashing across it. When she heard that, the woman pressed the lens and straightened up.
“Teacher probably made us come this time so that we could observe Merseus and Caus, to see which one of them was better suited to join us. Although they’re about the same in skill, their family backgrounds and personalities require a certain degree of deliberation as well.”
“Actually, some of the other candidates are pretty decent too, but the only ones whose overall abilities reach Level 2 are just the three of them. Even if the other excelling students have parts where they’ve reached Level 2, that would still only be for a subject or two, their overall power would not have reached a fundamental shift yet,” the man said, observing the other matches casually.
“But we can’t say that for sure either, what if there’s a black horse somewhere? Look, Verna and the others are also looking at the students this time, I bet they’re aiming for that Bally.” The woman’s gaze moved to another side.
There was a bearded man dressed in white, who was cleaning his teeth with a toothpick as he nonchalantly read the suspended display board.
The man glanced at them, and twisted his mouth.
“That guy’s a wild animal, he hasn’t given up since you beat him up last time. All he does every day is fight, how much of the academy’s resources has he used up on Mech repairs alone?”
“Exactly, if only everyone was like Angecena.” The red-eyed woman nodded slightly.
“What, you mean if they were all traumatized by you like he was?” The man gave the woman an odd look.
Not far away, at the adjudicators’ table on the other side.
Verna noticed that the two of them were looking his way.
“It’s that woman!” His expression grew rigid. “That crazy bitch is here too…”
“One of the three Level 4 Elites, Red-Eyed Medero. In the internal battles, many of her opponents sustained permanent disabilities thanks to her, and she has several tens of thousands of people’s worth of blood on her hands. She looks like an inconspicuous female student, but she’s a terrifying executioner who’s even more violent and bloodthirsty than our group,” a bespectacled male student said from behind Verna.
“That’s the woman that even First Seat Black Star once said stands the highest chance of inheriting the title of Black Star next.” When Verna saw that woman’s gaze move over to him, he felt as though someone had poured ice down his back. But in order to protect his male ego, he had no choice but to act wild and reckless, completely fearless. And he also took a toothpick out to clean his teeth…
“Be careful, in Medero’s faction, her teacher Simis is the vice principal. They’re one of the academy’s three main factions and have deep-rooted power. Recently, their influence in the school has been expanding, Vice Principal Simis seems like she might be planning to fight for the position of principal. The principal is getting on in the years now, there’s a high chance that their faction can win it,” the bespectacled boy reminded him softly.
Verna accidentally stuck the toothpick into his gum, and the pain made him sweat profusely, but still he maintained his tough-guy act. Sensing that the red-eyed monster over there was still looking at him, his heart began to bleed…
“Those monsters come here every year to grab the fresh blood, but you were just unlucky that you happened to bump into Red Eyes, who you offended before.” The bespectacled boy had also noticed that Verna’s mouth was bleeding, and he instantly looked sympathetic.
“As expected of Verna, you’re hard on others, but even harder on yourself. The toothpick drew blood, and you’re still completely impassive.” In the distance, Red-Eyed Medero looked impressed. “Back then, I let him go precisely because I admired this tough-guy style of his, our academy needs more hard-headed people who fight to the bitter end.”
The man beside her instantly looked at her strangely.
****************
“Nonosiva from C5 vs. Bankar from C6.”
Before the match, Garen stood up, watching Fervale walk down with a calm expression. His opponent from the previous match was the other side’s First Seat, the First Seats always fought each other, that was the academy’s unspoken rule.
The other guy did not cause him much trouble, both were experts in high-speed movements, and they collided after zipping around for a bit.
Fervale’s specialty was close-distance combat, so without using up too much energy, he used some of his basic sword techniques. From amidst the cold light, there was a shot of white light, as he had also managed to secretly prepare his Laser Cannon in the middle of the high-speed combat. That one shot landed on the opponent’s cockpit. The C6 students from last year were very impressive, and managed to get very high positions, but the freshmen this year were nowhere near as capable. Their First Seat could fight with fluid movements, but that was the extent of it.
After winning with relative ease and getting off the stage, Fervale patted Garen’s shoulder.
“Be slightly more careful, and you can win.”
“Got it.” Garen nodded, and walked towards the tunnel entrance behind him. As per usual, Hamm hugged him and instructed him softly, telling him not to panic no matter what, and what he should do.
“Nono! Good luck!!” He looked at the stage, and suddenly heard two voices. They were barely noticeable amidst the many cheers of the crowd, but Garen could still tell instantly that they were Aier and Mina.
He turned around, and waved at the two of them.
“Go! Cream ’em!”
Instructor Hamm pushed Garen lightly with a smile.
Garen gestured ‘ok’ behind him, and quickly entered the tunnel.
He wanted to use this Qualifier Match to test himself, just how far could his power when he merged his battle awareness with the Moon Fang.
Walking into the tunnel and into the Mech Room, he saw several pillars of white light shoot out from the inside, hitting the surface of the Mech.
This was a white humanoid Mech, it had square pieces of armor on its shoulders, and also two armguards on its arms and forearms. There was a spike like a fang coming from its chin over its shoulder, and like a cicada, the spike kept curving downwards and extending to his crotch. It seemed to be there as a protection system to help out with defense.
“This is one of the academy’s standard issue Mechs. A standard Level 1 Mech.” Garen looked at the humanoid Mech, five meters tall, with satisfaction.
Beep-beep. Beep-beep.
The reminder message beeped. He did not delay any longer and got onto the elevator. Rising with a whirr, he jumped out and into the open cockpit at the Mech’s chest.
Smack smack smack!
There were several sounds as the lighted control panel was powered on. He put on his helmet, and looking at the 360 degree view in front of him, the surround control system lit up with many small green LED lights and spinning model screens.
“Blackboard Model 1 Mech, activating…”
A deep digital voice spoke.
“Stat Mod, running…”
“Weapons System, running…”
“Power System, warming up…”
“All systems, final check.”
Garen put both hands onto the control panel, and placed the Moon Fang on the edge of the panel to his right, taking a deep breath.
“C534, Nonosiva, take off!!”
Psst!!
The huge Mecha abruptly shot out, flying out with a trail of blue flames coming from its back. It followed the pitch-black Launch Tunnel out into the outside world, like a white bird spreading its wings.
*******************
Kar slid out of the launch tunnel lightly, landing on the arena’s alloy floor and finding his footing. The Mech’s padded feet muted his footsteps on the floor.
The pitch-black humanoid Mech held two pitch-black short swords in its hands. Using his family’s special short sword fighting techniques, Kar could beat all the others and stand here as a representative of his class, facing the other classes. This was already a symbol of his strength, or so it seemed to him.
Listening to the rise and fall of the cheers and angry shouts outside, Kar felt as though that was the glory that rose up for his sake.
“Standing in an arena like this sure gets the blood boiling…”
He felt slightly self-intoxicated, felt his body begin to burn slowly from top to bottom. His condition was unprecedentedly good, and he was already one of those rare competitive fighters, the more high-pressure a situation was, the better his condition would be.
Soon enough, the opposite arena wall opened up automatically to reveal a tunnel, and his opponent’s Mech also slid out lightly, landing steadily. The opponent had chosen two Laser Cannons that had come with the Mech, the pitch-black barrels as large as a bowl. With one long and slender white cannon on each side, it did look somewhat gruesome.
“Let the match begin!” the mechanical voice spoke.
“Heh!” Kar activated his Mech abruptly. His overall power was Middle Level 1, so he rushed straight at the opponent, his Mech moving along a somewhat difficult S-shaped path.
But he had barely gone a hundred meters out when the opposing cannon barrels suddenly lit up with two beams of white light. Kar felt his scalp go numb, the two white light cannons were aimed at exactly the place where he would land.
“How is that possible!!?”
Brr!!
Two lasers precisely hit the same spot, the black Mech’s cockpit, with an eerie sound, and blew through the Mech’s defensive armor in almost an instant.
Bam!
The black Mech exploded, and the safety system shot Kar out just in time. He flew out high, and was intercepted by the medical robots around the arena.