Chapter 102 -- Keith vs Krusher

The nobles soon started discussing Charlotte's fight. A lot if them were impressed at her ingenuity.

Charlotte had seen that her opponent was too strong for her, so she used her speed and agility to create an opening. Once she found said opening, she delivered a well calculated blow which disoriented her opponent.

After her opponent was disoriented, she once again used her speed to trump him while dealing damage. Even though Charlotte's blows weren't powerful, they were fast, so she won by numbers.

Even though the nobles were impressed by Charlotte, none of them tried to recruit her into their family. Charlotte was very saddened by this, this was one of her chances to escaping her fate.

Alas fate had other plans, even though Charlotte was sad. The praises she got from her brother and Ken lifted her spirits once more.

Soon enough Buck went up the stage. "What a fight that was folks, congrats Charlotte I knew you would win" he said before mumbling "I shouldn't have made that bet".

The hall chuckled a little at Buck's joke before listening to the announcement of the next fight.

"Next up, can we have number five come up please" Buck said.

"Don't worry guys I don't need luck" Keith confidently got up and walked to the stage. "To our esteemed guests, this is Keith, he is one of the strongest students here, only second to my own student." Buck started

"I actually feel sorry for his opponent...number four can you please come up" Buck finished.

"Ohh shit" Ken cursed. He was number 4, which meant he was fighting Keith on the first round. This is what the group was afraid of. They wanted to at least meet at the semi finals, not the first round!.

Zane put his hand around Ken's shoulder "Good luck" he said. Ken almost cried when he heard that. Zane wishing him luck meant he really needed it to win.

With a hung face, Ken slowly climbed up the steps. When Buck saw Ken, his face whitened.

"Ohh fuck" he cursed. Buck might be the one who decided which number fights which, but he didn't know who had which number otherwise he wouldn't have set up his student to fail this badly.

Ken slowly walked to stand opposite Keith, who also had a surprised expression, he didn't think he would fight his friend so soon.

Before calling for the match to start, Buck walked over to Ken.

"Please don't embarrass me?" he begged. Ken could tell that Buck was serious in his request.

"You know Keith is more skilled than me" Ken said. It must be noted that the duo was whispering.

"Okay how about this, survive 5 minutes and i will give you 10 mana cores" Buck said.

Ken was surprised to hear that, this meant that he only had to survive a few minutes with Keith and then the mage realm is his!.

"Deal!" he said with determination.

Buck nodded and went back to his position. He really didn't know if Ken would manage to last five minutes, he could only hope. Buck then glanced at the audience and his eyes met with a certain noble woman who was staring at him this entire time.

Upon seeing her gaze, Buck became nervous like he was the one about to fight. 'Please impress them, Ken' he thought.

"Sorry for the enteruption ladies and gentlemen" he said to the group of nobles.

"Ready?" he asked the fighters, and they both nodded.

"Fight!"

Unlike the previous battles, Keith and Ken slowly advanced towards each other slowly, each wary of the other's strength.

Keith was confident in winning but he couldn't underestimate Ken at the same time. He wasn't called Crusher with a K for no reason.

When both fighters reached arms length from each other, Ken was the first to react as he raised his right foot. Keith naturally raised his left arm to block the incoming kick.

However, the kick never came from the left side as Ken performed a drop kick with his left leg. Keith was caught unaware but he was still able to block at the last minute, causing the attack to push him a couple of steps back.

As soon as Ken touched the ground from the drop kick, he rolled away from Keith as fast as he could, imitating what Charlotte had done during her own fight.

However, unlike Charlotte's opponent, Keith didn't watch Ken roll away, instead he followed close behind. As soon as Ken stopped rolling, Keith stomped on his chest.

Ken was lucky to catch Keith's foot and he pushed him away. Keith was lucky enough to stop himself from falling but the time he used stabilizing himself, Ken stood up.

Seeing that Keith was off balance, Ken quickly dashed to him and threw a punch to his face. Keith saw this and parried the incoming attack before delivering a knee to Ken's stomach, which successfully connected.

The duo continued brawling for the next couple of minutes, it was pretty clear to everyone that Keith had the upper hand for the whole fight.

There had been more than a dozen times were Keith was about to deliver a knockout blow, but Ken would always escape with the skin on his teeth.

No one, not even Zane and Charlotte thought that Ken would last this long. This was by far the longest fight of the tournament.

By now, Ken was riddled with injuries from head to toe. It was a wonder how he could still see due to how swollen his face was, Even Buck felt sorry for his student.

Ken glanced at his teacher and Buck nodded at him, as soon as Ken saw Buck's nod he turned tail and ran in the direction opposite to where Keith was standing.

He then got to the end of the stage and jumped off. This was the first time in the tournament were someone voluntarily jumped off the stage.

Without even looking back, Ken walked straight to Zane. "Hey Zane do you mind?" he said while stretching out his hand.

Zane knew that Ken was asking for healing and Zane was about to heal him when he caught sight of the group of nobles. All of them were watching him and Ken.

If Zane showed his extraordinary healing prowess, it was obvious that the group of nobles would become interested in him.

It wouldn't be bad to impress some nobles and get a job in one of their mansions, but Zane didn't want that. His goal was to grow as strong as possible and that was hard to accomplish under the protection of a family.

So instead of healing Ken, Zane handed him a small bottle. Ken was about to complain when he felt that his and Zane's hands touched when he was handing over the bottle. Most of his wounds had already healed but not all of them.

"Drink that liquid, it's just water. I will heal you completely when we aren't being watched" Zane said. Ken immediately understood Zane's words and drank the water.

To the eyes of the nobles, Zane just gave Ken a healing tonic.

"What a fight ladies and gentlemen!. Even though my student lost, i am still very proud. He managed to hold on against someone stronger than him for that long" Buck announced.

'Didn't you say your student was the strongest?' most of the people there thought. Surprisingly, no noble was interested in recruiting Keith even after seeing his skill.

Meanwhile, Zane was almost shaking from excitement. According to his calculations, his match was next and it would be the last one of the first round.

'I hope i get someone strong' he thought.