Information Competition - Part 2

Through the large glass barrier, I looked down at my opponent who was walking into the training ground with a teacher. The previous students were packing their things and leaving, covered in sweat.

She stood face to face with her teacher, before a current of wind began forming around her. There was a slight whistling noise as the air circulation increased in ferocity. From what I could tell, it looked like she was pushing air downwards. The teacher then threw a few beanbags at her, they travelled straight towards her before getting caught by the wind circulating around her and it suddenly lifted a little bit before falling splat onto the ground.

Based on what I could see, it appeared she was making a rotating current of wind as a barrier a few centimetres from her body. However, high level air manipulation to make such complex mechanical barriers would be far beyond a level-2. My assumption was that she was only bringing the hot air down. Thus, a current would automatically be formed from the movement of hot and cold air, as the hot air would try to rise again and the cold air would try to fall.

This zonal manipulation of air would allow for the effect that she had gotten, the problem was that this type of manipulation was inherently weak. As I observed further, I noticed that the strength of the barrier was hardly an issue for me as it was only strong enough to block weak projectiles. As long as I was able to get close enough on her, I would be able to land a hit.

The only thing it would prevent is me being to effectively stick the Disrupter on her. In the tournament, deadly force is prohibited so the only ways to win was to stick a Disrupter onto their neck which would deactivate their Esper abilities, this works for all Espers from level-0 to level-6. However, stronger Espers have various barriers which make it especially difficult to stick on Disrupters without knocking them out first.

My main fear was her offensive capability. I had no real method of defending against small projectiles such as a blow dart. After a few minutes, she moved onto her offense training and pulled out a relatively large blowgun and loaded it. The teacher then brought out a few dummies who began moving by themselves. It looked like the teacher also had some sort of manipulation Esper ability.

With almost perfect accuracy, she hit all of the dummies even when they were moving erratically. She did not really even need to aim as she could just manipulate the trajectory of the dart. This power seemed a little too strong for a level-2 Esper to be wielding, it would have belonged to at least a level-3 Esper, which meant that there was probably something I was missing.

I continued observing for a few more minutes as she shot these dummies. After around fifty shots, I was finally able to figure out what was happening. She was only able to manipulate the trajectory of the darts while they were within about two metres from her. So after that point, the darts would just move in a straight line, boosted in speed by her ability.

That meant that it was possible to dodge them as long as I timed my movements correctly. However, I still couldn't count on that, there would be less than a second for me to react even with that condition. My best bet would be to immediately close the distance and try to get within melee range. I noticed that she was also pretty proficient with a knife, but there was no way she could beat me in close range.

The battle would be happening the next day so I continued watching to observe some of the little details and logistics of her abilities. I was able to tell that her air-barrier had a one-metre radius around her. I was also able to tell that her darts took around 0.5 seconds to reach a target who was about 40 metres away.

After thirty minutes, she picked up her towel and wiped off her sweat before returning to the change rooms. I also decided to go to class.

*

With the information I had, I didn't think it was going to be an extremely difficult matchup. However, it was probably safe for me to make some preparations. There was a local weapons store a few hundred metres from the school. I didn't have a great deal of money but I had enough to buy a flashbang—the only bomb allowed in the competition as it doesn't do any physical damage.

I would conceal it in my clothing before the fight and only use it if it was necessary. Other than that, I couldn't think of anything else that would be too important. A shield would be practically useless as she could just manoeuvre her darts around the shield and I would have nowhere near enough time to actually block darts with a shield.

I wasn't proficient enough in any ranged weapons like throwing knifes or a bow to effectively use them in a fight, they would likely be stopped by her air barrier anyways. I opened my missions menu.

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<Missions>

1. Do 150 hundred pull-ups (Difficulty: 6)

2. Defeat a level-2 Esper or above [Difficulty: 13]

3. Do a 10km run [Difficulty: 7]

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I guess I'd do the pull-ups and the run and see if there are any different rewards aside from experience. It would appear that at their original experience amounts, they would be significantly worse than just grinding experience in Haven.

As I got home, I made my way to the nearby park and began doing the pull-ups. It was much easier than I expected, likely due to all of my strength upgrades. Before long, they were all done and I checked my missions menu again.

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<Missions>

1. Do 150 hundred pull-ups (Difficulty: 6) - COMPLETED [+66 experience, +2 Vampire Tokens, +1 Lower-Upgrade Token]

2. Defeat a level-2 Esper or above (Difficulty: 13)

3. Do a 10km run (Difficulty: 7)

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<Missions>

1. Do 400 burpees (Difficulty: 11)

2. Defeat a level-2 Esper or above (Difficulty: 13)

3. Do a 10km run (Difficulty: 7)

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Hold on, what was this?