Chapter 52: Without A Weapon
Teo stood on the stage facing his opponent.
He was confident with his ability. His training was hard and painful, but due to his sparring sessions his confidence was off the roof. Perhaps it was his youth, that he believed that he was invincible or perhaps his fighting ability had improved in the recent months, but no matter what the case was, he only wished to shut those bastards up.
Kristofer stood opposite to Teo. A huge grin was on his face.
He was luckily chosen to fight Teo. Initially, Zachery wanted to do the deed himself, but thinking of his position, he decided to let Kristofer handle this. Based on fighting ability among the members of the same year, Kristofer was only second to him.
Kristofer was also much more crueler than Zachery. He announced his plan to the group to break Teo’s mouth or throat to prevent him him from conceding midway. Then he would slowly torture Teo and leave him scarred and crippled.
The older members also wanted to do fight Teo, but because most of them valued face too much. Zachery did not allow them to fight someone much younger than they were.
The judge stepped in the middle of them and looked at both of them.
“Since this is your first time here, I will tell you the rules.
One, the fight is not over until one is either dead, incapacitated or has given up, remember this as we, the judges of the arena, are required to be impartial. We will prevent anyone from interfering.
Two, No use of poison, or potions allowed other than your weapons, armor or your fists.
Third, the winner must pay 5% of the betting pool to the arena. Since this is worth a total of 20 gold, 1 gold must be paid to use our facilities as well as our guards”
The judge explained the rules and smiled. 1 gold for a single fight was a nice harvest. He took the pool of money and 2 rings and stored it in a pouch. They were extreme strict and although there was a hint of greed in their eyes, they valued their reputation as the guardians of the arena more.
Rowen and the others were on the side of the arena. Rowen decided that no matter what, if Teo’s life was in danger, he would break into the arena and forcefully stop the match. Gina and Tordin also agreed, and waited patiently at the side.
“Don’t worry, that kid should be able to take care of himself. Can a Rizon faction member really compare to our Martial faction member? I’ve seen his growth and they were far better than most new comers”, Gina reassured Rowen
Rowen nodded in agreement. She knew Teo’s personality. He was easily obsessed with something he found an interest in. He was not like the others and would always work hard and invest his time and effort into his interests, but the thing that worried Rowen was that Teo had only been learning how to fight for a few months. Although his improvement was astonishing, she could guess that Teo’s opponent might have been training how to fight since the start of the first year. There was a year gap between them that made her feel uneasy.
Just as the judge was about to start the match Teo swiftly interrupted while he started gathering world Qi.
“Judge, do you have a stick I can borrow?”, Teo asked
For the past few months, he had been training with using a stick. Although he was preparing to beat down his opponent, he did not want to kill or maim the other.
“I’m sorry, we are not allowed to provide weapons for participants”
The judge denied his request. The judge could also tell that Teo might be stalling for time as to gather more world Qi. But before he could announced the start of the he was interrupted by the loud noise behind him
He looked towards his back and saw Rowen asking people to lend her brother a stick for a weapon, but no one helped.
“AHEM. Ready! Fight!”
Without waiting for Rowen, the judge swiftly started the match. Only a fool would go up a stage without any weapons. From the judge’s point of view, Teo only had himself to blame.
Now that the match had started, the guards would not allow Rowen to help Teo at all, even if she found a suitable weapon.
Kristofer laughed and he unsheathed his sword. Wind elemental energy surrounded his body and concentrated on his legs.
Teo recalled Kristofer’s elements, but was unsure what they were. He knew that Kristofer was a dualist, but it had been such a long time since he heard Kristofer brag about it. Luckily he can see the elemental energies that were being gathered. So far only wind elemental energy was being gathered. Once Kristofer tried a different element, Teo would instantly know.
Teo stood idly mentally preparing himself. He inhaled deeply and slowly exhaled.
‘This is just like sparring’
The things that Teo learned from the past few months as astounding. During fights, he knew that he had to be calm and collected. He must always be wary of his opponents and must be always be vigilant.
Kristofer dashed towards Teo, his speed was fairly fast as the wind helped him travel across the stage.
Kristofer slashed aiming for the throat, and followed up with his left fist aiming for Teo’s mouth.
Teo stood motionlessly as he looked at Kristofer’s attack. With his mind calmed, he quickly moved his foot with the smallest motion and easily dodged the two consecutive blows.
He was slightly afraid of the sword the Kristofer was using but forced himself to calm down. This was the first actual blade he had to fight against, and knew that one misstep could cause him his life.
The danger of an actual blade could cause a person’s mind to do one of two things. One was to fall into fear have one’s mind become blank, or to be nurtured by the danger and perform more extraordinary than before. Teo was the latter.
Instead of succumbing to fear, his sense heightened and his mind became even more focused.
He motioned his fist and rotated his body and gave a forceful punch.
-POW-
Kristofer was taken aback by the blow to his face. He slashed towards Teo but Teo quickly retreated away.
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Within the side of the stage, Gina was surprised at Teo’s agility.
“Was Teo this fast?”, she asked
“Teo has good eyes, so he should have some advantage but this is far beyond what he showed us last week”, Rowen replied
“Good eyes huh, too bad his attack power is weak”, Tordin said
Kristofer felt a stinging pain on his face but this was not enough to hinder his assault. He slashed continuously at Teo but Teo was like a leaf, within the wind and dodged his attacks. Kristofer became irritated and gathered fire elemental energy. His sword glowed red and the air became hot.
Although Teo could dodge his sword, with a hot steel close to Teo’s face, he would be burnt just by being close to it.
Teo quickly retreated as he saw the fire elemental energy gathered. Teo was just wearing his plain clothes. One hit from a sword endowed with fire elemental energy would enough to cleave through his body cleanly.
The pressure on Teo multiplied. He just didn’t have to worry about the edge of the blade, he had to worry about the aura around the blade. Kristofer’s attack range grew wider, giving Teo less time and area to dodge.
Seeing Teo’s speed of retreat, Lia’s jaw dropped
“That… That Teo is faster than me!”
She was shocked. Teo’s sprint speed was always slower than hers, she had a year advantage over him but it seems now Teo’s speed improved by leaps and bounds.
Teo gained a lot of space between him and Kristof
‘Luckily, the array within my boots was finished a few days ago’, Teo thought to himself.
His knowledge of arrays improved quite a bit in the past few months. He had successfully created an array version of the wind inscription of the boots within Deacon’s classroom.
By gathering world Qi to his body, the array within his boots would automatically break it apart and absorb the wind elemental energy. It also did not rely on the form and material of the shoe and the effect was much greater. The only thing he did not do was put a concealment array over it. Without a concealment array, anyone could see the array, so he hid it in the inner part of his shoes.
He also had other experiments ideas he needed to try out but with his current wealth, even if he spent all 13 gold coins he would still be lacking. Thus, this battle was not just for her sister’s pride but for his experiments as well.
With no weapons available to him, he could only use his fist and legs to win this match.
Kristofer dashed towards Teo but this time his speed was very slow. Because of using the flame element, the wind element that increased speed vanished. Teo dodge back and retreated.
With Kristofer’s speed slowing down, Teo decided to waste Kristofer’s stamina and only retaliate when Kristofer was tired.
Kristofer’s irritation rose quickly. Teo talked big about wanting to have a fight but now that they were fighting he was only dodging. With Kristofer’s speed he could not catch up. But a faint smile appeared on his face. The corner of his lips slowly rose and his speed suddenly increased.
He attempted to take Teo by surprise by suddenly increasing his speed but Teo’s eyes could see which element Kristofer was going to use.
Teo quickly dodged the sword, barely dodging it. The intense heat from before lowered as the blade swiftly traveled through the air.
Kristofer had to alternate from two elements and thus, although his speed increased, the heat of his blade diminished. Although it was still hot, it was less troublesome for Teo than before.
Kristofer gave up on the fire element and slashed his blade towards Teo. Although Teo dodge the blade he noticed that there was a blade of wind energy approaching him.
-RIP-
The front area of Teo’s clothes had a small slice. Sweat appeared on Teo’s back. He barely managed to dodge the fast moving wind blade. Luckily he could see it coming or else he would’ve been heavily injured.
“This kid is too lucky!”, Zachery who watched from the stands slammed his fist against the chair.
He knew that Kristofer’s wind blade was very hard to detect. It sliced through the air so fast that the disturbed air was delayed. Unless one had multiple battle experience or could sense air elemental energy, it was very hard to detect.
“HA! He dodged it!”, Gina was excited from Teo’s quick reflexes
“Could it be he can see it?”, Tordin asked
The three of them could sense a low level wind blade but seeing Teo barely dodging it, they thought it might have been luck.
“Isn’t Teo a pure with rank 1 growth potential? How can he see such a thing, it’s only been over a year!”, Gina replied
Rowen shooked her head and smiled.
“I talked with Ms. Dina about Teo a few months ago, she told me that Teo was focusing all his efforts into seeing wind elemental attributes. Apparently he could already see it before the school year even started!”, Rowen announced with such excitement.
It was truly lucky that Teo mastered the wind elemental attribute first!
“This.. this is too lucky, HA HA HA”, Gina laughed uncontrollably
Teo continued to dodge one wind blade after another and Kristofer’s face grew uglier and uglier
‘This kid, can he see it? Impossible! This no talent kid should not be able to see it! It must be all luck!’, Kristofer convinced himself that it was all luck but with his several attacks his stamina was depleting quite rapidly.
Although the amount of elemental energy to use this move was fairly low because it was one of the most basic moves for a wind elementalist, there was still a limit on how often he could use it.
Seeing Kristofer’s aura dimming down, his breathing getting heavy and sweat covered his face, Teo could tell that Kristofer had probably used 60% of his elemental energy and stamina.
‘I guess this time it’s my turn to attack’, Teo thought to himself