Chapter 11 Unity

"Welcome to Unity Academy!" An average sized man yelled over zealously. The man had a head full of white hair and a long white beard to pair, but the aura around him was powerful.

"My name is Aaron and I'll be your Vice Headmaster this year. Without further ado let me congratulate you all here for being admitted to this wonderful academy."

In front of him was a giant crowd of thousands of students all donned in a black uniform with golden accents, the males had pants to wear while the girls had skirts that draped just above their knees. Every single race for the most part was here except for demons and angels for good reason, but it was mostly humans since their population was the next largest after demons.

"Today is the day we host a round robin tournament in order to solidify our classes and dorms, but most importantly our rankings and resources." Aaron slowly motioned behind himself.

Behind him was a giant coliseum that could easily seat over a million people, it was built by dwarves so the craftsmanship of it was impeccable. It stood hundreds of meters tall and was currently housing over twenty smaller arenas inside, the amount of money that this coliseum took to be built was astronomical.

"As you signed up we went ahead and gave you your student ID, so please make your way inside and speak to your guide." Aaron pointed to the group of people behind him holding letters specific to what the ID specified, it was easy to tell who was what since each guide had a similar uniform to the students but with an insignia of a lion on their chest and a white armband.

After ten minutes passed each student had made their way to their selected guide and made their way inside of the stadium, the guides turned and began discussing how to prepare and what to expect.

"When you come up, be sure to specify to your guide what weapon you use to fight or anything they should know. It will be noted in your profile and we will provide a basic weapon for your upcoming fight, look over here and you'll see the rules." The guide for Dante's group explained.

Around 200 sixteen year olds were situated in a fairly large locker room, just like all the other thousands of students were currently doing.

Right next to the door was a black board that had a few things written and showed what number was going next.

"Rule 1- No spells that endanger your own life, spells that could kill others are fine. Rule 2- After the match is over and you continue attacking, you will be disqualified and quickly suffer repercussions. Rule 3- If you refuse to fight you will be kicked out of the academy."

"Let me also add, the match will only conclude when one person is unconscious or a barrier appears around one of the contestants." The guide said mechanically.

"As you leave for the stage take this pin, this pin will generate a barrier should you receive a fatal attack, also it will prevent you from seeing the other arenas." The guide opened a box with enough pins for every student in his room.

"Contestant 1." A mechanical voice said loudly.

An average black haired teen stood up and made his way to the guide.

"Sword." He said while grabbing a pin.

The guide motioned to his side to a room where a large assortment of weapons lay.

"Farthest row to the left." Said the guide.

The teen walked in and saw an armory with thousands upon thousands of weapons, all of which were differently styled. As he went to where the swords were he saw hundreds of different types of weapons, but he made his way down and grabbed a basic longsword. After that he made his way through the door next to the guide and all went silent.

"In order to keep matches fair, there will be no spectating so any tricks you have or trump cards can be used at your discretion." Said the guide.

The locker room was eerily quiet but after a few minutes passed a few guys started talking and socializing.

"I'm nervous, a lot of guys here seem experienced." Said a nervous teen.

"Well most of the nobles have been preparing for years now while us normal people didn't have that luxury." Said a teen with glasses.

"I barely made it here in time from my baking shop, I've had to work around the clock just for the tuition here." The first teen said.

Similar talks were taking place all around the room but in a certain corner it was completely silent still, all because of one black haired teen.

Dante the last few years had become a regular at the arena watching many life and death fights, the amount of techniques he had picked up was astronomical. Along with the training regiment his mother had put him through, he had an incredibly lean and powerful body. His elven lineage gave him the leanness that paired with speed and agility, to this day though he still had no idea what he was mixed with. He guessed he was partially a dragon since his body could hold an aether heart, but he had other peculiarities that couldn't be explained.

His mother made a bet with him before the entire tournament, if he could win the tournament while only infusing mana to his body and weapon then she would take him to see a high leveled fight in the arena.

Due to this Dante had an aura of pure focus and determination around, which caused everyone around him to steer clear.

That was until a certain elven girl made her way to him and sat next to him, which made everyone go crazy.

"Been a while huh?" Said Ariel, the girl he met in the forest years ago. She had grown a few inches in height and her hair was even longer than before, she looked truly stunning.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about you." Dante said plainly, he didn't really forget her but she hadn't crossed his mind in a long time.

"Rude, you're talking to royalty ya know?" She said while flipping her hair.

"Apologies, your majesty." Dante waved his hand in the air, clearly joking.

Ariel just giggled before looking around the room and noticing all the people staring at them..

"I guess I should warm up, I've gotten much better since that wolf incident." Ariel jabbed Dante's shoulder before standing up and walking away.

"I'd sure hope so, it's been years." Dante muttered to himself before watching her walk away. Inwardly he was curious to how he matched up with other teens but he wasn't keeping his hopes up, he had a massive head start on them all. But due to him only using augmentation, he was hoping somehow could challenge him at all.

"Number 68." The mechanical voice called out.

Dante got up and slowly walked to the front to the guide.

"Greatsword." He said the guide, as he walked inside he saw two gigantic swords that met his criteria. But he decided to go with the one that had a curve in it that made it look like a mix between a sword and saber.

After exiting the door he made his way up the steps and saw multiple black barriers around the other arenas, but only one didn't have a barrier which was his.

While walking to it he saw stands full of spectators who were cheering and cussing out loud, it reminded him of his time in the arena in his previous life.

As soon as he entered the barrier it turned black, across from him was a red haired teen carrying a spear. Floating above the arena was a judge who was tasked with keeping both participants alive should something go wrong.

"Begin." Said the judge.

Dante immediately started augmenting himself with lightning, all around him you could see purple and black lightning coiling around him.

Lightning was a great element all round, especially for one on one combat. Its speed was only matched by wind users, while its single target damage reigned supreme over all other elements. But the nicest thing about it was how it increased your reaction time and reflexes, but all of this came at the cost of it harming your body. Overtime you can build up a resistance to it but it's not an easy thing to do, unless you're Dante. His mothers hellish training regime would require him to keep augmenting himself with lightning for prolonged periods of time, it got to the point that he could maintain it for days on end.

As Dante charged forward and was powering up an overhead swing, the red haired teen just stood still.

"WHAT THE FUCK." Was what the teen was thinking.

He only had time to barely turn his spear to defend but that did nothing, as Dante's sword came down it treated his shaft like it was butter.

Very quickly a blue barrier appeared and stopped Dante's sword right before cleaving the teen in half, luckily nobody could watch the teen almost soil himself in fear.

In the stands a group of noblemen were watching the matches and something drew their attention. Only to the participants were barriers of black there, thanks to the pin they were wearing.

"Say, who's kid is that in arena five?" Said a man with blonde hair.

All the noblemen changed their attention to the teen who won his match in seconds, but nobody claimed him.

"ID 68, Dante. No last name and his mother is Yuna, also no last name." Said Aaron who was sitting behind the group of men.

"That kids explosive, I'm surprised the other kid even managed to lift his spear." Said a black hair noblemen.

Similar talks began appearing around the stadium but nobody truly knew where he came from, except for Ryota and Yuna herself who were seated by themselves with smirks on their faces.

"You know he's going to obliterate all the other teens right? I hope my daughter doesn't run into him, I doubt she'll make it too far but I'd still rather not see it." Ryota said as he glanced over at Yuna.

"She's no pushover either, I never thought she would try and keep up with my son. But I'm curious to see if anybody from the younger generation is worth anything, what I've seen from the leaders leaves a lot to be desired." Yuna was glancing around and looking at the so-called powerful people and they only invoked her disdain.