Chapter - 33

Phoenix Academy Training Hall

Currently, a competition is being held between classes A-1 and B-1. The students of A-1 are occupying the left side of the ring, and the students of B-1 are occupying the right side of the ring. Suddenly, a huge explosion broke the silence. The protection barrier of the ring lit up. Smoke was everywhere.

Slowly, a boy's figure became visible within the smoke.

"Hahaha, how did you like that? Even F rank awakened can't defend themselves against my bombs," said the boy. A dark-red round object was floating on his hand.

"Is this all you got?" someone replied from the side. When the smoke was shifted, a dark-skinned macular boy's figure was revealed. His hands were in a cross shape, and his clothes were slightly burned out.

"Even a mosquito bite hurts more than that," said the muscular boy.

The other boy got angry at his remark. He threw the bomb at him as he created another one. Without looking at the result, he kept throwing bombs after bombs. This was the problem for people with fire affinity. They are mostly hot-headed. While some say, "Never anger a Fire specialist," some take this as a weakness and anger them to make them lose rationality. Like how the muscular boy just did.

After throwing dozens of bombs continuously, the boy slowly became tired. With every explosion he made, it created a small earthquake around the training hall. It was powerful without any doubt. But when the smoke was shifted, the same scene was replayed again. This time the only difference was that the clothes of the muscular boy were more tattered. But his body was completely unharmed. This shocked the boy, the crowd cheered.

The boy created another bomb, but the tiredness was visible on his body. For the first time, the muscular boy made a move. He rushed forward as he made a strong fist. His hands turned into stone. The boy threw the last bomb he had created. But it was of no avail. The muscular boy easily withstood it and counterattacked.

One punch was all it took, and the boy was knocked out.

"That's what you get for being cocky," said the muscular boy. And the duel was over.

The crowd cheered at the outcome. Some showed despair after losing the bet. But most of class A-1 was cheering for one more win for their class.

Among the students in A-1, there was a certain group everyone avoided. Not that they were so unfriendly or uncanny. They were just the only ones releasing an aura of awakening around them. Together it became so suffocating that mortals wouldn't be able to withstand. It also kept them out of unnecessary conversations.

"Oh man, the duels are becoming more and more interesting. I can't wait for my turn." said Gavin.

"Up unit now, most of the duel was between the low-rankers. Now that high-ranking students are fighting, it's normal," replied Holmes.

"But still, don't you guys think it's kind of weird? They are just too reliant on their abilities. Sure, they have the powerful and strong ability to be the top students in the world. But shouldn't they use all they have when they fight?"

The group looked at him and pretended to think. But no one understood what he meant.

Novalie is a healer, and she is an expert at defence techniques as well. She never has to fight.

Diana is a mage, using all she has means running out of mana.

Gavin is someone who just rushes at the enemy with his sword. From his perspective, he is already giving his all. (Rushing at the enemy from the very beginning.)

Holmes is mainly dependent on techniques and the arts. He makes the best calculation of his mana cost, how many times he can use a certain move, and how much time he might need to defeat certain enemies. But he also didn't understand what Damian was saying.

'Is he saying to go all out from the beginning? No, he won't say that. Going all out from the beginning is stupid, like Gavin. And everyone knows that. So what is he talking about?' was what Holmes thought.

"Guys..?" said Damian as he watched everyone who was lost in their own thoughts and was trying to digest what Damian said. They can't make light of what rank 1 says either. But they couldn't understand him either.

Novalie and Diana broke out of the first, thinking it must be some close combat thing.

"By the way, are you guys learning how to control your aura?" asked Diana.

When someone breaks through mortal rank, their aura becomes stronger. The higher the rank, the stronger the aura. People of higher rank can sometimes suppress people of lower rank simply with their aura. The same thing goes for monsters as well. They can make lower-ranking humans or other monsters near them freeze from their aura alone. A monster's rank can be detected by their aura as well.

But humans need to learn how to control their aura. If they don't know how to surpass it, mortals will not be able to get closer to them.

Damian replied,

" I always try to control it. It works most of the time. But I unintentionally leak it when I am not thinking about it. Last time I was training in the gym, some people stopped me to introduce themselves saying we commoners should stick together. But suddenly my aura leaked. They thought I was angry and suddenly ran away. I tried to stop them from saying it was a misunderstanding . But they started begging and ran away faster."

"Puhahahahaha. Those pests think they are some big shit just because they got admitted into the Academy. They don't understand that the gap between us is a league apart. Serve them right." said Gavin.

Damian awkwardly laughed while the others in the group just shook their heads. Because Gavin thinks that Damian is the secret child of some big shot. And refused to believe otherwise. Or else, for a pest from a common background, it's not possible to go toe-to-toe with him is what he says.

"Hey, look! The next duel began." Novalie tried to change the subject.

{ A-1: 15, B-1: 259 }