17 Chapter 17 - The Cold Prince versus Zero

Zefer shifted his eyes towards Alex, who couldn't help, but flinch since he recalled the look Zefer had in his eyes before. It was still the same look as if Zefer would kill him. "What?" Zefer inquired since Alex hadn't said a word yet.

Alex cleared his throat before proceeding with what he originally wanted to ask. "Zefer, I want to challenge you."

All of those in the class were stupified. Why did Alex challenge Zefer? Indeed, something was going on behind the scenes, right?

Well, no.

The only reason Alex wanted to challenge Zefer was simply to test him. He couldn't figure out why Zefer held back. Alex researched Zefer and found that Zefer had no mana pool, no marital talent, or skill. He also found out about the murder case and his elder sister. Alex never cared for rumors and gossip, so Alex paid no attention to the hearsay. Nevertheless, he didn't care enough to investigate it, at least not until last night.

Zefer stared at Alex for a moment, debating if he should accept this challenge. It wasn't like Alex issued a formal challenge. It was more like he was asking. As if this were some kind of gentleman's duel or something. So, no prompt came up for Gambit's Challenge.

"Go for it. I doubt you'll lose anyway." Ina's voice peered inside of Zefer's mind. Encouraging him to fight Alex.

"Fine, but there will be some conditions," Zefer said. He wanted to add some conditions. Considering that he never received any EXP from his battles with Jay, Luke, or Doran, he wanted to test if he had to incapacitate the person for EXP. He recalled knocking out Ruth's gang and Ruth himself which gave him EXP. Whereas he didn't knock out the other three guys, and he didn't receive anything.

As for Karin, their steamy time gave him a couple of points to put into Charm. One for doing the deed and one for finishing the [Bed someone] portion of the question. Still, he did not receive any EXP, only some skills he had yet to look over.

Alex's brow rose at the remark about conditions, "What kind of conditions?" Alex asked; there was some kind of fear whelming inside of him. Zefer wouldn't ask for a fight to the death, would he?

"A battle-type gambit where no one is allowed to give up. The first person to get knocked out loses. It will be an All-In battle as well. Those are my two conditions. If you can't accept those, then the answer is no." Zefer made his conditions known without hesitation or worry.

The entire classroom didn't know what to say. Ruth scoffed and glared even more at Zefer since he felt like Zefer was acting like some hotshot. Whereas Katie was only here because of her friends. She was actually part of a different class, but some of her friends were here. It was why she was also here yesterday.

Alex breathed a sigh of relief since it wasn't a death battle. He was okay with a K.O struggle since the medical team would bring them to the medical bay anyway. "That works for me. Shall we do this after school?" Alex inquired, but shortly after, a prompt appeared before him.

"Alex Richerdson Jr. I challenge to a Knock Out Battle, All-In," Zefer said without hesitation. Which was why it wasn't even a second later that a prompt appeared in front of Alex.

"Wha?" Alex was awestruck. This was the worst place for a battle. There were too many obstacles, and movement was restricted. Why would Zefer want to fight here? Was he insane or something? Alex looked from the prompt towards Zefer to make sure he was still sane.

"Well?" Zefer stood up from his chair. All the screens from his bracelet closed out with a couple of taps. It seemed, Zefer was indeed sane. At least, that was what it looked like.

Alex cleared his throat to compose himself. "Are you sure? This place isn't well suited for battle." Alex remarked, but Zefer shook his head at Alex's remark. "Your point? You don't get to determine your battle area in live combat. You will be forced to fight in places that may be disadvantageous for you."

Zefer's words brought awe to Alex and some of the other students. Many of the students wondered why Zefer was treating this battle as if it were live combat; however, Alex felt differently. What Zefer said embodied this academy's motto, "Live every day as if life were a battlefield." Meaning, treat every day as if it were your last and be ever vigilant of the oncoming war between Humanity and the Demons.

Zefer, on the other hand, didn't care for this academy. The reason he wanted to fight here was to train. He needed to be prepared to fight in any environment since his goal was to destroy this city. He wouldn't have the leisure of picking his battle area, so why should he do that now?

Plus, he wanted to test something else. It had been on his mind since this morning. He tried to find out how he obtained skills. From the messages, some said Learned, and some said Acquired. Both meant the same thing, but why was there a need to use the two different words if that was the case.

"Very well. Let's do it here." Alex remarked and pushed the accept button.

A second later, the students were forced to retreat to the ends of the classroom due to the translucent barrier that erupted between Alex and Zefer. Interestingly the desks remained in their place, which meant that people could not interfere in the battles, but objects and obstacles remained.

Without hesitation, Alex drew his rapier, and with a swift thrusting motion, he aimed for Zefer's chest. He wasn't aiming for any vitals, though, just to relay a cut.

Zefer stepped to the side to avoid the thrust.

Alex flicked his wrist and brought the thin blade upper, adjusting his position as he did so with a quick step forward.

Zefer stepped back to avoid this slash, but his back hit a desk as he did. Unless he did something to counter the blade, then he was going to be cut. At least, that was what everyone watching thought.

Zefer kicked off the ground and rolled his back over the desk, narrowly avoiding the slash. This surprised many since they didn't think Zefer would do something like that, and Alex was no exception to this. Alex decided to retreat with a quick backstep since he didn't know what Zefer would do.

Alas, his backstep didn't mean anything since the moment Zefer's feet touched the ground, he pushed the desk towards Alex without hesitation. Everyone wanted to call Zefer a cheater and call him out for foul play since he wasn't fighting with honor. In fact, some of them did, but they were ignored.

Alex disregarded his posture so he could stop the desk with his free hand, but the moment he looked from the desk towards Zefer, he saw Zefer's fist coming straight for his face.

Alex swiftly shifted his head to the side to avoid the punch and retaliated with a swing of his rapier as he turned his body away from Zefer. The cut was aimed for the ribs, and even though the swing was improper, Alex made sure not to go for any vitals.

Zefer quickly placed his hand on the desk between Alex and kicking off the ground. As he did this, he held his body up with the arm that kept him suspended as he swung his lower half over the table. This motion allowed Zefer to evade the swing from Alex while counter-attacking as well with a kick. It was almost like he vaulted over the desk, much like his earlier movement.

Alex kissed his teeth as he was forced to use his free arm to defend against Zefer's kick. Alex took several steps back to create a distance from Zefer so he could regain his posture considering things were not looking good for him.

As he did, Zefer did his best to land on the ground, but he failed the landing and fell flat on his side. After all, Zefer still had no martial talent; however, he knew that. What he was doing wasn't marital talent or trying to learn a martial skill. Zefer was attempting to acquire or learn a skill for Acrobatics.

He had his thoughts about the way this system worked. It seemed that he acquired or learned a skill upon doing certain things. So, he was seeing if he could learn an Acrobatics skill of any kind by attempting parkour techniques.

A few people laughed at Zefer's display, but Alex wasn't one of them. No, instead, his eyes focused on Zefer as he watched the man rise to his feet. Something inside Alex told him that there was more to Zefer than many believed. If he wanted to beat Zefer, he needed to view him as a worthy opponent, no! He needed to view Zefer as he did his father. Someone he couldn't defeat. If he took it easy on Zefer, he would end up losing in no time.

"Alright..." Alex took a deep breath as he calmed his nerves before refining his posture. Not an ounce of his stance was flawed. A crimson aura slowly burned around his body, and the metal of his blade also gave off a fiery glow. "Let's do this, Zefer," Alex said as he stared at Zefer not with disgust or disappointment but with pure respect.