6 In The Competition.

On the day of the competition, many stages were prepared for the fight to be conducted. Everyone was excited about the event as it was one of the grandest events of the year. Early in the morning disciples and professors gathered in the arena, the competition was to start at noon but the viewers were so excited that they had already gathered before the appointed time. Soon the seats that were left empty for the competitors also got started to fill one by one.

"Hey, isn't that Jace from the research discipline, what is he doing over there. He sure is asking for a beating." Many students were gossiping about Zuko among the viewers, " In fact, I have not seen him training any martial arts during all this period." Many were astonished to see Zuko amongst the competitors. Everyone was discussing who had the chance to win and who had the maximum chance to lose their teeth when suddenly the entire arena shushed. A man fully dressed in red firey attire with many other nobles entered the arena and went straight to the stage that was high above the rest of the seats. Following the grand figures was a person of the younger generation, son of the combat discipline master's Chiyoko- The unbeatable. Chiyoko was well known for his physical strength, he was a wild bull and had a physique of a small giant that anyone would fear to confront. When all the grand figures took their places, the discipline hall voice-master proceeded on the main battle stage and welcomed all the guests, viewers, and participants.

"It is a grand day for all of us that we will be enjoying our youngster's performances and will witness their talents. The rules are the same that there are no rules except that one must stop when necessary," then voice-hall master said few more lines," let's not delay the event any further. Everyone please." Just as the grand event was to proceed a messenger of the elite members came with a message, he handed a small paper to the voice-hall and then left silently. "Everyone before we proceed, My Lord has brought a change in the rules this time, and that is that no weapons are allowed in the first two stages." The voice-hall then bowed in the direction of the grand existence wearing red attire.

The screen on every battle stage lit and two names appeared randomly, those were the participants that were to compete on the stage. On all forty-plus stages, participants started their battles with full vigor and were splendidly performing on par with each other.

One battle after another ended, new performers went on the stage, some returning victoriously and others with wounds and broken bones, some unconscious, and some were brought out by others. The show continued when one of the screens showed Jace and Takashi. At this time many disciples pointed towards the stage where Zuko and Takashi were to battle. "Isn't Takashi from the strategy department and that Zuko from the research department," Laughed out the students that were listening to their intro, "It is like two monkeys are about to perform on the stage, If people like them are participating then some of us can even make it top five hundred." students once again laughed out crazily like they were watching some clown's performing in the circus.

On stage number thirty-nine, Both Zuko and Takashi were facing each other. After a light bow, unlike Zuko's prediction, Takashi proceeded with light steps in his direction until he was three meters from Zuko. He was surely waiting for Zuko to make a move, he was giving Zuko the advantage over him. "What is with those two jokers, get started already we don't have all day. There are other fighters too to watch." Different comments were thrown at them at their leisure attitude.

Suddenly, Zuko made a move. In a split second, he arrived before Takashi with a normal but explosive punch. "As expected, he sure is a good one for a warm-up." With a quick movement, Zuko launched another simple punch after his first one missed the target. But like before, Takashi once again dodged the upcoming punch with a slite but accurate judgment. Before Takashi could respond to, another punch came in his direction, without wasting any time he once again dodged the punch, that missed him nearly. "Quite fast and unpredictive," Takashi passed Zuko a smile, "but that won't be enough."

For the next punch that Zuko launched, Takashi stopped it with his hand without stepping aside. "Get ready for the real show," Zuko grind, " don't say I did not warn you." Suddenly, Zuko launched a barrage of punches with explosive force, Takashi reacted in the same manner, he dodged and stop as many punches as he could, "Got you," when a kick came straight at Takashi and knocked him out of the stage.

The screen thirty-nine showed Jace as a winner. As per rules, if knocked out of the stage it will be a loss. "Crap! That was crap. You call that a fight, trash, just a waste of time." Many showed despised looks at their performance.

The competition continued and suddenly an uproar came from the arena when one of the screens showed two names, one of which was Chiyoko. He was also participating in the competition and until now everyone was waiting for his turn. "That guy Haru is gone for sure, his bad luck that he is facing a malignant star." Many of the bystanders were laughing and somewhere pitying Haru's bad luck. Haru was also one of the good fighters but now, he wasn't able to proceeds any further as he was about to be beaten to a state that proceeding in the competition was a wishful thought, even moving for him would be difficult.

Haru headed on the stage, not waiting for Chiyoko he announced, " I concede." like this, he left the stage after bowing to Chiyoko. The arena turned silent, everyone showed displeasure but they already knew that that was the only path for Haru to proceed in the competition.

The day passed, the results for the first day were still shown on the screens. Thousand-plus matches were held on different stages and each participant fought twelve fights. Participants with eight victories were promoted to the next stage of the competition. Many students had won all the twelve fights and Zuko was one among them, strange thing was that all twelve times he had faced fighters from other disciplines. Hence no one was happy from his performance.

Inter-Academy fighting Competition was divided into five stages, each stage was to be arranged in a day so the entire competition was to be held in five days. The first stage held five hundred-plus matches, the second held half the number in first and it continued till the last stage. The last stage was the battleground for the top ten competitors.

Though the overall performance of the first stage was not incredible, it sure brought a lot of experience to the newcomers and as for the older generation, their area of interest was the final two stages.

The second stage proceeded like the first one but with the greater ratio of better fights. Even Zuko faced some challenging fighters but he still beat them with ease at the end. Since the first two stages were held without allowing any weapon, many good fighters that were proficient at using weapons had a bad time. One such example was of a well-known disciple who fought with a strange technique, the Illusionist, another known as mech god. There were many participants whose area of expertise was their weapon but not melee.

On the third day, the fights were between the top fifty disciples. and at this stage of the competition, everything was allowed, there were no rules but only one and that was to stop when it was necessary.

The screen on the stage lit and two names appeared, Jace vs Royan. Just when the names appeared the silent arena broke into an uproar. They were all very excited to watch Zuko get beaten badly as he was too lucky in the last two stages and escaped unscathed in the first two stages. But now, he finally got unlucky and was to fight one of the top fighters of the academy, according to the academy ranking Royan was in the top ten. Royan was one of the many lackeys of Chiyoko and had a good relationship with him. He was known for his speed, in the entire academy no one could beat him in speed, he was the only student in Wildfire that had progressed this far in such a short time. Some rumors said that Royan had never gone out in his fights in the inter academy ranking, they said that Royan would always fight in a simple straight forward way, he until now had never used the two katanas that were all the time on his waist whereas it was quite easy to adopt any style or skill with his talent.

Not long after the names appeared on the screen, both Royan and Zuko came on to the stage. there were facing each other, eyes in eyes both bowed lightly. Both fighters had a tranquil very composure, they waited for the bell toll. DING!!! The bell rang and Royan vanished in the thin air. In all the previous matches, Royan would knock his opponents with one single move, until now he had not once fought any candidate. Like in all the previous fights he came with a simple kick and tried to knock Zuko out of the stage but just his kick was about to fall on Zuko, he saw something from the corner of his eyes striking him right in the face. Within no time the kick stroke Zuko and the punch hit Royan on his face. The bystanders that were expecting Zuko out of the stage showed shock. Although they did not see what just happened, in one second Royan disappeared and the other second he reappeared on the edge of the stage. Even the elites of the academy raised their eyebrows when they watched Zuko's reaction speed.

It was the first time that Royan's attack was seen through not only that but he was even forced to the edge of the fighting stage but this brought no worries to him as he knew that he was careless, that's why when he launched his next attack he was much more carefully than the last time.

This time too, he vanished like before but this time he was much faster than the last time and attacked with greater speed. Unlike the bystanders expected, Royan once again reappeared away from Zuke and blood trickled down his mouth. He was in a sorry state, but nobody knew how did he end up like that so they could only wait for the slow-mo that the system provided after the battle but one could not buy the videos for free they had to pay for them to the system. And some of the shares from the points would later on go to the performer.