The Aftermath of Stage One - Part 1

'The winner of the 13th round is Ritsu Takamiya!'

There was my second victory in the qualifier round, enough to send me through to the second stage of the qualifiers—however, level-3 and level-4 Espers are significantly stronger. I had doubts about making it further in the tournament.

As I made my way to the winners lounge again, I thought about how I would try to get stronger in the meantime. The next round of qualifiers would be in two days, so I didn't exactly have a great deal of time to prepare. The opponents this time around are completely anonymous until an hour before the scheduled start time, so there would be practically no information gathering in this stage.

I had a drink of orange juice which was on the table and a small slice of cake. I wasn't really that hungry, especially after that tiring fight. I sat on the couch and scrolled through my phone for a few minutes. There was a television showing the active fights which I looked at every once in a while. Eventually, the room filled up, totalling sixteen students.

'Alright, that's it for today, you will receive your schedule for the next fight at 7:00am in two days so be prepared.'

Everyone was dismissed.

There weren't any classes on due to the tournament so most students were either wandering around the city or watching exhibition matches. I didn't have anything I wanted to do so I made my way back home and travelled to Haven.

*

I was transported back to my grassy oasis. I made my way towards the large wooden barn with huge encapsulating windows. I went inside and took a seat on a bright red cesca chair. It really was nice to relax after a big fight. I decided to have a little look at my 'contracts' menu and see what I had gained.

-

<Contracts>

[Lucky Farmer]

Experience: 21/10 [Upgrade!]

Upgrade Level: 1.89%

[COLLECT REWARDS]

-

Oh, it looked like I had forgotten to press upgrade last time.

-

<Upgrade Rewards>

[Lucky Farmer] - Level 1

- [+10%] Efficiency

- [+2%] Luck

- [+5%] Experience Gain

~

<Contracts>

[Lucky Farmer] - Level 1

Experience: 11/100

Upgrade Level: 1.89%

[COLLECT REWARDS]

-

I guess levelling it up once makes it level 1. Anyways, it was quite nice to have some buffs to its efficiency and loot. I then checked its loot that it collected.

-

<Contract Earnings>

- 5 Vampire Tokens

- 809 Experience Points

~

It didn't manage to collect any rare items this time. I guess I haven't really been away for that long so it wasn't like it had a great deal of time to work anyways.

I checked my experience menu.

~

<Experience>

5218 [35000 needed to level up]

-

I was still quite a while away from levelling up. I was also quite tired so I wasn't really in the mood to fight a mission several times in a row. The best idea was probably to take a day off to relax and wind down.

I left haven and was transported back into my room.

Student generally spent their days off either training or hanging out at the mall. I didn't exactly have any friends to hang out with but walking around the mall was still not a bad idea to clear my head.

I got changed into some casual clothes and began walking to the bus stop. The mall was a few stops away from my house, near the city centre. As my bus pulled up next to me, I pulled my bus pass out of my pocket. After scanning it on the electronic scanner by the side of the door, I was let on and I found an empty seat to sit at.

I got off a few minutes later at the bus stop closest to the mall. It was still a few minutes away by foot but it was close enough so that it wasn't really a hassle. I was greeted by big screens of consumerism and a very welcoming automatic automatic door.

Just by the entrance. I saw a large group of students celebrating and happily chatting with each other. I managed to recognise them as the group of students who were in the winners lounge after the second qualifying round. I guess they were celebrating their wins—I wasn't invited obviously.

I made my way past them and towards my favourite store in the mall. It was a little gadget store with a very large variety of electronics and other fun items. Their prices were quite extravagant so I never bought any but it was always fun to look at them. I really should think of a way to earn some money.

The idea of getting a job had never really occurred to me. Most of my necessities were taken care of by the school and for some reason the mortgage on the house was already paid off. However, if I ever wanted to splurge and actually buy something I wanted, it was probably important to get some method of external income.

That would be something after I finish my next match however.

Today was a day for relaxation so I continued to wander around the mall. The mall was extremely modern in design, nearly everything was made out of a deep-white marble and every store had intricately designed storefronts. This was the biggest mall in the entire city and as such, it was also one of the biggest places for crime in the entire city.

There are always several members of Spectrum-Justice walking around, patrolling and in the centre of the mall, there is an NPO station where you can file complaints and where quite a few officers are stationed. Despite this, there are still attempted robberies and other crimes occurring almost every day.

The members of Spectrum-Judgement always walked around in their school uniforms, I guess they didn't have any official uniform aside from a dark green armband around their right arms. Whilst these two organisations were the main local policing forces. There was a special police force called Upper-Spectrum, that organisation housed level-5 and a few level-6 Espers and was a special operation force specially designed to deal with high-level threats. They had their main headquarters near the city centre as well, in a very large building.

I had never seen them in action in real life however I had seen them a few times on television through news stations.