38 A Troublesome Foe Appears

After begrudgingly taking part of the battle exams, Ventus quickly ran inside the school leaving Richard to do his own stuff, and with help of a guide, he arrived in time for the first battle and after having his presence announced as a participant he settled down amongst the crowd of potential students.

The place where they stood to take the test was a large coliseum inside the institute's premises. The whole structure had an old look to it as it was made of stone and clearly the times had had its effects on the building, however, despite looking old, one could not underestimate its toughness.

Constantly one would see mysterious runes flash and disappear in various parts of the place, and if you considered the rule set down by the king and the fact that this was after all the royal institute of all places, the Coliseum being reinforced was no mystery.

There were two hundred participants and the first round was a battle royale that would filter and select only the top one hundred amongst them, then, the second round would begin in with fifty one versus one matches and so would proceed the rounds until only the top 10 students were selected to enter.

Although such a method may sound quite strict and may seem like there'll be a shortage of students, selections like this happened once a month in the institute, and thus, there were new students every month and with the quality as a strict selection criteria the institute managed to maintain a good quota of potential powerhouses that would one day serve and make proud the kingdom, or maybe, in extremely rare cases, outgrow the kingdom's shackles and become a renowned warrior in larger kingdoms, later on bringing benefit to said warrior's homeland.

The first round had the students divided into A and B group and placed on two large platforms with the following rules as criteria to be disqualified:

1- The participant would be disqualified should they get knocked unconscious;

2- The participant would be disqualified should they fall out of the platforms limits.

"Simple rules, but very useful ones." Ragnar commented as his voice chimed in Ventus's mind.

The rules were simple indeed Ventus thought to himself, however, this didn't make them any less dangerous. With only these to guide the whole process, it left open quite a lot of possibilities on how to eliminate the other candidates and Ventus noticed by simply observing his peers glances of ruthlessness that he would have to be careful not to lose. But, as if a devil was looking at his mind, a voice rung in his mind and tempted him.

"Young one," the wind avatar spoke mischievously, "These children seem to be quite the vicious ones no?"

"What do you mean?" Ventus inquired skeptical.

"Well, they are looking at each other, and especially you the latecomer, with ruthless eyes," it replied excited, "I think this is an opportunity."

"Opportunity?" He inquired still confounded by the beings words.

"Well, I think that with your earth control art, you could wipe your whole block out in one go! Don't you think it would look awesome and give them a shock if you did?" the avatar suggested giggling.

"Plus, showing off by that much might even make them grant you a spot at the selection from the get-go, so then, you won't even have to fight the later stages at all!"

"Do you really think they might to that?" Ventus asked a last time still reluctant.

"I'm positive there is a chance," the avatar laughed, "Whether you actually succeed is all up to your own effort and a bit of luck."

After this Ventus went silent and agreed with the plan. If he had a chance to skip the later rounds which of this competition he obviously looked down on despite his master's warning, then it was certainly worth a shot right?

The teachers presiding over the entrance exams then gave off a signal that signified the fight had begun. Immediately all teens on the platform chose an opponent and rushed to fight, obviously, Ventus was not immune to this effect despite his best efforts to find a suitable place to strike them all at once whilst remaining hidden, and as such, he had to face a plump sixteen-year-old that rushed towards him hurling three fireballs at his direction.

Ventus reacted fast and dodged the fireballs by swaying as they came his way all whilst retaining a cocky smile on his face. This infuriated the fat teen that rushed at him even faster and hurled four times as many fire projectiles as before whilst howling.

"Why you!"

Ventus, however, dodged the fireballs with ease and also side-stepped the plump teen's rush whilst raising his leg to trip him and prompting the guy to fall flat on his face. The fact was, all this time Ventus had kept his back towards the boundary line of the platform and performed the dodges carefully so that he could give his foe the impression that he was unaware that his dodges were taking him towards his doom.

When the plump teen charged at Ventus to try and throw him out, he saw this as a chance and tricked the young man into throwing himself out by gracefully side-stepping and lifting a foot on the charging young man's leg which resulted into him crashing into the floor below.

The teen groaned in pain as his nose broke with the impact bending sideways as well whilst blood flowed. The young man's eyes grew red as this humiliation obviously made him so furious that in a blind rage he tried to re-enter the platform to attack Ventus, but all of that was to no avail as he was quickly captured by the presiding teachers and escorted out by guards before being thrown out of the institute.

"Nope, taking them all out in a single move isn't going to be as simple as I figure." Ventus murmured.

His hypothesis was proven correct seconds after as another youth charged at him. If things kept going at this pace, pulling off a grand move that would eliminate the competition in one go was going to be simply impossible! To prepare this move he would need to focus and connect to the world's pulse, as well as using a huge amount of mana, which he was unlikely to do in but a few seconds.

Just as those thoughts crossed his mind, another youth charged at him. This one was a muscular youth wearing a monk's garments and using a staff as a weapon and as he charged at his direction he chanted strange words Ventus could not understand whilst his body gave a feeling of harmlessness and peace that made Ventus unwilling to fight against him.

"Ooooh!" Ragnar's voice chimed in his mind.

"What?" Ventus questioned as he began to evade the opponent.

"A Buddhist monk!" He replied, "It's been so long since I've seen one of those!"

"And what's so special about him?"

"This one is not much, but seeing the Buddhist arts once more is quite fascinating." The old dragon explained, "This kid attacking you is using a low-level pacifying chant to disturb your mind so that you cannot fight him whilst he attacks, quite ingenious if you ask me."

And that was indeed true. As the repetitive chants and the peaceful aura of the monk hit him, his will to fight back diminished ever so slightly. It made him feel as if he had achieved everything he needed in life and that he was satisfied with dying right then and there. This tactic made Ventus frustrated because he knew that if he was not affected by this annoying chant he could have already thrown the bastard out of the arena.

"Amitabha!" the youth chanted.

The Buddhist aura rose to another level and distorted Ventus's sight. He felt as if he was being watched by a higher entity that judged his actions and could crush him whenever.

And to his surprise, when he looked at the monk, he saw a very faint and blurry image of a meditating fat guy with eyes that shone so bright that it seemed to be peering at his very soul.

"Would you look at that!" Ragnar exclaimed, "That little one is a genius on his own, especially considering that he can already summon a Buddhist phantom projection to aid him in battle."

Ventus, however, could not pay attention to the dragon's comments as the youth shouted.

"Amitabha!" he chanted loudly, "Repent! Buddha Palm Strike!"

The monk slapped forth and the phantom projection was sucked into his palm, it flashed and then an ethereal golden palm shot forth from his hand and rapidly flew towards Ventus. The alarming thing was, Ventus sensed no threat from the palm at all and thus stood dazedly gazing at the incoming attack.

"KID! DODGE! WAKE UP!" Ragnar roared.