"Shit!" Oliver shook his head, trying to recover. "What's going on?"

With his eyes still watery, he tried to push himself up, but to no avail. The punch had hit him near the chin, leaving him disoriented; his legs felt like jelly, unable to muster any strength.

"Come on, damn it! Get up. I'm not going to hit someone while they're down.”

Oliver couldn't recognize the voice, but as his vision cleared, he saw who was standing before him. It was the boy who looked like a mountain of muscles, with a shaved head and a tattoo on the side of his scalp.

'Kyle?' Oliver couldn't understand why he was being attacked. He had never done anything that could cause trouble with him.

As Oliver struggled to get up, a crowd of students had gathered around, mostly from the Second Battalion, who had been waiting to enter the mess hall. None of them tried to break up the fight; instead, they were focused on watching and discussing the battle.

"Hey! What's going on?"

"I don't know, the big guy just punched the one on the ground out of nowhere."

"Damn coward, hit him from behind."

"Don't like it? Go tell him yourself."

The only exception was Alan, but he had his own problems. As soon as Oliver was hit, Alan turned to protect his friend, but two other boys grabbed him.

"Nuh-uh, you're not getting involved in their fight," one of them said to Alan.

They weren't as big as Kyle, but they were still strong enough. The two boys held Alan back, preventing him from interfering in the fight.

Oliver could see that no help was coming. Alan already had his hands full with the other two. He needed to focus on Kyle, who stood before him. With his mind racing, Oliver was desperately trying to figure out a way out of this situation.

'Maybe a captain?' Oliver thought but quickly dismissed the idea. There was a good chance they wouldn't intervene.

'What House is Kyle from? If it's a powerful one, I'm screwed.' Oliver knew that if there was too much political power involved, the Academy might not step in. He wasn’t wrong.

All that was left to Oliver was his physical strength, but looking at his opponent, he was clearly at a disadvantage. Without his Artificial Ranger Armor and Energy Pistol, he had no way out.

"If you're not going to get up, I'll have to come to you," Kyle shouted.

Without waiting for a response, Kyle swiftly approached and prepared a kick aimed at Oliver's head. With no time to react, Oliver used all his strength to cross his arms into a guard, absorbing as much of the kick's power as possible.

The impact was too strong for his arms to hold, and his makeshift guard broke, but it was enough to deflect the direction of the kick.

“Fuck! Fuck!” Oliver’s arms throbbed in pain. But now was not the time to focus on that.

With adrenaline pumping, Oliver forced his legs to take a few steps back, putting distance between himself and his opponent. He had been in a few fights on the streets of New San Francisco, but this was the first time he was facing someone clearly trained and physically superior to him.

Luckily for Oliver, Kyle didn’t seem to have brought his Artificial Ranger Armor. It didn’t improve his situation much, but every small detail was crucial at this point. That’s when he began to notice a few things about his opponent.

Oliver had never seen Kyle wear that mask during training. Now and then, it seemed to release small bursts of gas from the sides. Also, Kyle's eyes were an eerie shade of red—something Oliver had never seen in anyone else.

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Still staggering, Oliver raised both arms to form a guard.

"Before it's my turn, how about you explain why you're here?" Oliver at least wanted to understand why Kyle had targeted him.

‘Let’s try to buy some time.’ Oliver reasoned.

"What? I can't fight one of the top-ranked guys from the last exercise?" Kyle replied, but without giving a clear answer. Oliver also noticed the obvious sarcasm in his opponent's voice, especially when he mentioned the ranking.

"If that's all, we could just fight during the next class. Are you really going after everyone in the top 20 now?" Oliver continued to press.

"Nope. Just one. The one in the top 20 with the stupid idea that messed up the exercise." Kyle made it clear how angry he was about the disrupted training.

"So that's it? You believed those fucking rumors?" Oliver was shocked that this was the reason; he couldn’t believe it.

"Believe? Honestly, it doesn’t really matter if it’s true," Kyle said in a lower voice, just for Oliver to hear. "But I can't let someone mess with my performance and just let him go unpunished."

'This boy is fucking crazy. All this just to send a message?' Oliver felt even more lost than at the beginning of the conversation.

“You do know, you’re cuckoo cuckoo. Like fucking crazy. But well … Go to hell,” Oliver breathed deeply and charged for the attack.

The brief conversation had given him some time to plan. Oliver knew he lacked the strength, and having seen Kyle fight before, the difference in that regard was huge. But his agility was slightly better, and he wanted to test another card up his sleeve.

[Observation] Oliver tried to activate his second Boon on Kyle.

It was his first time using it on a human, but it didn’t seem that different. Around Kyle, lines began to appear, indicating potential movements he might make. The effect was similar to what happened with monsters, but there were more probabilities. Maybe because Kyle was human, there were more possible actions he could take.

'Maybe. Maybe, with this, I can fight him,' Oliver thought as he prepared for his next move.

Oliver tried to stay calm and took a few quick steps toward Kyle. His opponent remained unfazed, keeping his guard up with a look that seemed to challenge Oliver.

To outsiders, what Oliver was doing didn’t make much sense. He could have just run away from the fight, but he was charging at Kyle instead.

'I need to limit his movements,' Oliver thought just before starting his plan. Watching the lines indicating Kyle’s potential movements, it seemed none of them would involve defending from his current position.

With a low kick using all his strength, Oliver hoped to injure Kyle’s legs and gain at least a slight advantage. But when he struck, though Kyle's leg bent slightly, it seemed to absorb the impact without any problem.

Oliver's senses began to scream warnings as the lines from Observation shifted rapidly. Moving faster than Oliver had ever seen in class, Kyle counterattacked with a punch that came dangerously close to Oliver’s face. He would have been hit squarely if not for his quick reflexes and sharp senses.

"Impressive! I thought with that speed, you'd have no chance of dodging." Kyle clapped his hands twice before continuing, "But I won’t give you another opening."

The crowd around the boys was mostly silent, absorbing every detail of the two fights, but a few comments could be heard occasionally.

"Has Kyle always been this fast?"

"The kid from the Second Battalion is holding his own, though."

"But those other two won't last much longer."

While the crowd continued to chatter, Oliver was focused on dodging each of Kyle's attacks. But just a few steps away, a very different scene was unfolding with Alan.

As soon as the two henchmen grabbed him, Alan didn't hesitate and activated his Boon.

[Gravity Pressure]

Alan had excellent control over Energy, which allowed him to use the Boon passed down by Aquila House from a young age. Gravity control was a unique Boon, and to this day, they hadn't found anyone else or any other House with a similar ability.

However, it wasn’t without its drawbacks. In addition to consuming a lot of Energy, it was complex to use. At lower levels, it was impossible to distinguish between allies and enemies, and it was also impossible to create fields far away from the user.

But few people knew this information. That’s why the two brutes began to notice something was off as they felt their weight increasing exponentially.

“Wh-who are you?” one of the boys stammered as he struggled to move, barely able to lift their feet off the ground.

“You should have asked that before trying to grab me,” Alan responded. Now, it was his turn to take control of the situation. His skinny arms looked like twigs next to the two attackers, but with his hands gripping their throats, there was no doubt who was winning the fight.

"Just wait for me. Don't go anywhere," Alan said before turning around.

“THUMP!”