The battle started and ended quickly, Cain didn’t even need to use his gene and defeated Tane with pure skill alone. The crowd went wild once again, and even Remy, who was always apathetic, seemed to be somewhat excited. The finals had begun and Cain looked at this young girl across him. Her body was burning with a powerful heat, she didn’t even bother to exchange some blows first, and instead went full out right away.

Cain couldn’t get close since the heat would burn him, luckily the spear was a weapon of range, so Cain could keep a little gap between the two of them. Rose occasionally tossed fire balls, the second they hit the earth steam would lift up and the spot would turn to ash, even with Cain’s defense, if a few of those landed on him, he would be out of the fight. Cain kept analyzing try to find her weakness, using slow wouldn’t work since if he got too close he would burn.

Cain swung his spear at her, before using lightstep footwork to open up a gap, he had an idea. Using slow on his spear, he tossed it subtly. From Rose’s perspective however, due to the speed the spear was travelling she thought he was only trying to stab forward at her. Cain released the slow effect, and the spear rocketed towards Rose, catching her off guard. It stabbed through her shoulder, making her bleed heavy and incapacitating her. Heavy injuries like these were expected during fights, the only rule was no killing.

The crowd went wild, a dark horse actually winning, cases like these are one in a hundred. The judge of the event quickly gave Cain a medal, on the medal the words ‘NSCE Champion’ were engraved, this piece of metal looked quite expensive and Cain could probably sell it for a massive sum. Everyone on Earth used the same currency, union credits, and in the past the wealth his parents left him was around 50,000 union credits, in perspective this medal would probably sell for around 10,000 union credits.

The medal wasn’t the only reward, the winner also got 100,000 union credits, and a gene stimulating elixir, which would be priced at around 250,000 - 500,000 union credits depending on its quality. The schools themselves would also award the student, so winning this event was an easy way to earn a massive amount of wealth.

Cain didn’t expect to win however, so this was a sudden windfall for him, the second he got back to his group, they all gathered around him, and kept going on and on. Fortunately Cain had Remy around to calm them down, or else they would of fried his brain with all their questions. The other colleges were quite bitter, had anyone else won they wouldn’t mind, but this student from a genetic researching school, winning a combat event, it was like insult on top of injury.

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They quickly headed back to school under the astonished gaze of the crowd. Cain looked over his rewards, the union credits were loaded onto a card that he could use anywhere, and the gene stimulating elixir was in a small delicate glass bottle, it was a green liquid that seemed to be full of life. This elixir worked by stimulating your gene, which in turn would increase your gene level, some of the best quality elixirs can directly raise your gene level by one, however people can’t abuse them or they will lose effectiveness completely.

Word spread around the institution quickly, people here didn’t tend to pay much attention to the NSCE since it was well known that they never won. So once people found out a new student from their school actually won the event, it went into a frenzy, the last time they had won the NSCE was years ago, during the golden age of the institution. Cain’s name would be recorded down in the schools history for this event alone.

Cain’s fanclub also gained a few new members, and footage of the NSCE fights quickly circulated around the school so everyone could watch Cain win with their own eyes. While this was all going down, Cain was called into the headmasters office.

“You’re Cain?”

“Yes headmaster”

“Hmm, good, you are better than I expected. Cain as you should know our institution has very few warriors, so each one is important to us, we have plenty of ties with outside forces due to the nature of our work and hence we don’t have to worry, but we also need our own strength as well”

“It’s been a long time since someone as talented as you in combat came along, hence I shall give you some special privileges in hopes you can live up to my expectations and get even stronger”

“Don’t worry headmaster, I won’t let you down”

“Good, from now on I’ll give you an allowance of 10,000 union credits every month, I’ll also give you a gene stimulating elixir every year, you can also have direct access to all floors in the library. There will be plenty of more events like the NSCE in the future, but naturally they will hold much higher importance, I hope you will give our school a good name when the time comes. Dismissed”

Cain quickly left the room, but his happiness was hard to conceal. With all these benefits from the school, it was hard for him to not get strong even if he didn’t want to. He quickly headed back to his room, there were still a lot of experience to digest from the NSCE and he felt a breakthrough was coming soon, so now was the time to train.

Sitting cross legged in his combat room, he started thinking about his fights, and all the new ways he used his slow gene. Normally he didn't have a chance to use his slow gene in combat so this event helped him excavate a lot of hidden potential. Cain kept going over the different fights in his mind, looking for flaws and places he could improve, he would also stand up occasionally and use his spear and slow gene to replicate his performance during the fight, and improve it.