"First are the introductions. I'm Triston, and have retired not too long ago. I was once a student in this school and graduated with decent results."

The students are whispering amongst themselves after hearing Triston's introduction. "Triston? THE Triston? The legend who took on several guild missions by himself?"

Many people seemed to recognize and adore him, which was wholesome to Triston, and almost giggled but resisted the urge. He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and scanned it thoroughly. He stared at it a while and saw something that caught him off guard and made a funny looking face.

"The names I'm going to call out should leave the premises immediately, no talkbacks. These names are of those people whom I see as unready and unworthy." Everyone felt a wave of uneasiness by his words and felt a cold sweat run down their faces. Ulysses knew he would be called out for his weak strength and started thinking of what to do.

One by one, people got up from their seats and walked out. Some were distraught by the incident, but a few looked determined, not letting this get to them. Even if this crushed their dreams, no one seemed to go against Triston's deep and assertive voice. He significantly reduced the arena population in minutes. Ulysses was waiting for his name to come up, but every second that passed, he didn't hear a soul mention him. He looked back at Triston, but he was still calling out people in a steady flow. Ulysses started to get more hopeful and calmed down, assuring himself that he would get to stay.

"Aiden Adlawan, Lily Lescano... and finally, Ulysses," Triston crushed his hopes without even noticing... After another few short minutes, all those who stood up are no longer present. But Ulysses remained in his seat, not even thinking of leaving.

"There should only be 101 of you left, so one person would be sparring with me. I'll go easy, obviously, but I will still try to hurt you." Triston did a final head count to make sure, but he would always be a single-digit off. No matter how much he did a count, the number he ended up was 102.“There has to be something wrong here.” He got irritated and gave a spine-chilling look that pierced everyone's eyes. "Whoever is still lingering here, get out."

Ulysses took a deep breath then stood up. With his head held down, he walked down the stairs towards the exit but stopping mid-way. He turned back at Triston and raised his head at him. Triston was significantly taller than Ulysses, and Ulysses was on average height. Triston still gave a frightening look. "What? are you just going to stand there? Don't make me repeat myself."

"Even though I got called out, I want you to give me a second chance." Ulysses stood his ground and showed no signs of crumbling under pressure. Triston smirked with annoyance and was surprised that Ulysses went against his orders. "Out of the 100+ people that left, you were the only one who talked back. I admire your bravery, but I despise your stubbornness."

"I can prove myself! I'm not going to leave that easily." Ulysses saw a lot of "heroes" in his world and thought it would be a good idea to imitate their attitude to convince Triston. Triston looked back at the paper he was holding. "Ulysses, right? You have the weakest Strength stat I have ever seen in over 30 years of killing beasts. Are you sure you still want to continue without more training?"

Ulysses nodded.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Triston's smirk disappeared, and told Ulysses to go back to his seat. Ulysses fist-bumped the air and would have given himself a high-five if he could. Triston didn't usually give second chances that easily, but he felt Ulysses was too naive and wanted to let him see how far behind he was to others. In truth, Triston hated these types of people who think they're remarkable and fool themselves into thinking that they could do anything.

Ulysses sat down in his original seat and noticed the person beside him was staring at him intently. He had green hair that was covering one eye and was smiling at him. His armor design was similar to Ulysses but had metal part's in the vital areas. Even when Ulysses stared back, he was still keeping his friendly gaze on him. "Wow, you didn't even flinch when Mr. Triston talked to you. I'm Gerard, by the way, nice to meet you." Gerard reached his hand out to him, signifying he wants to shake hands. Ulysses complied, shook his hand, and then listened to Triston if he had something more to say.

"I have already paired all of you up for a one versus one duel. The person you are going up against matches your own skills, so there wouldn't be any power gaps. Bulky and heavy armor is prohibited, but metal plates here and there are okay." A lot of people groaned before removing a part of their armor to abide by the rules. Some people like Gerard and Ulysses didn't have to since they were already wearing lightweight armor. With the topic of armor on Ulysses' mind, he noticed that Gerard's armor and everyone else had a different type of lightweight armor that Ulysses was used to. It was black and looked much comfortable compared to his and looked alien-like to his eyes.

'I really need to catch up on today's technology.'

Triston shouted two names to come down to the arena and duel. Looking at the two, they had a similar body structure and similar lightweight armor. Near the arena were boxes filled with wooden weapons ranging from swords, spears, daggers, axes, and much more. One grabbed a wooden sword and started to show off by making moves to impress the audience while the other silently took a spear then went back to the arena stage. Triston mentioned that the sword showboater's name was Kai, and the deadly silent one was Orion.

Both were on the opposing side of the arena stage, with Kai in an intimidating pose while Orion was staring at him. Triston looked over at them to confirm the start of the duel and then counted down. "3... 2...1... Start." Kai rushed over to Orion, trying to slash him down. Orion's eyes grew sharper as Kai got nearer. He grasped his spear tighter and got into a stance, and waited for Kai to reach him.

But when Kai got near enough, he suddenly dropped down on the ground and attempted a sweep kick. The bizarre move definitely caught Orion off guard, but he jumped up before the kick landed.

As if it was muscle memory, Kai got up and spun kicked Orion while he was in the air. The kick hit Orion's side, and he was launched to the center of the arena. Orion landed on his feet and stopped moving under intense side pain.

Kai wasted no time and dashed towards him with a smirk on his face and a tight grasp on his sword. Orion saw this attack many times in his training, and he was confident he could counter it. Kai, at the last second, jumped in the air attempting to kick Orion mid-air.

Orion stabbed the air with his spear, and Kai's body was headed straight to the wooden spearhead. It seemed like Kai had nowhere to dodge, but he changed his position mid-air, dodging the spearhead. This move caught everyone by surprise, and it even stumped Triston on how Kai could move so fluently.

Kai's foot hit Orion's face hard, knocking him back. Orion could hear his nose and skull crack as the impact hit and couldn't even remember what he was doing. He was lying on the ground and didn't stand back up.

"Stop." Triston had no choice but to stop the fight. Kai raised his unused and undamaged sword to the air and shrugged. Orion got up and returned his spear to the box and left without even looking back. Kai also returned his sword to the box and went back to sit.

"What! That guy was crazy! He didn't even use his sword?!" Gerard was amazed by Kai's performance and believed Ulysses was amazed too. But when he turned his head to him, he noticed he was gazing at the sky and wasn't paying attention to the fight at all. Gerard lightly punched Ulysses to get his attention and scolded him for dozing off from the fight.

"Ok, ok fine, I'll pay attention to the next fights."

After a few more hours of fighting and dozing off. Triston yelled out Gerard's name this time. Gerard was going down the stage and was fighting against a person who was significantly a lot buffer and taller than him. Gerard grabbed two daggers from the box, and the smile on his face wasn't fading away. His opponent's name was Paimon, and he grabbed two swords and was annoyed by Gerard's face and was motivated to smash his face in.

Both were at the opposite sides of the arena as usual, and Paimon tried to intimidate Gerard."I'm gonna wipe that fucking face of yours on this concrete." This intimidation attempt seemed to work, and Gerard was shivering uncontrollably. Triston started the match, and Paimon took advantage of Gerard's cowardice and rushed over to him.

Even when Paimon was getting nearer and nearer, Gerard couldn't stop shaking in his place.

"Gotcha," Gerard whispered underneath his breath.

End of Chapter 5.