('Heh, he sure is accepting that role pretty quickly') The red robed man thought. He found it funny to mess with Ron a little and paint him as the bad guy, but he didn’t expect that Ron would play along and act as arrogant as possible. The red robed man gave the signal to begin the match and the earthbender immediately shot a rock at Ron, expecting Ron to dodge the man was ready with another shot however Ron didn’t dodge and simply punched the incoming rock shattering it.
The earthbender was surprised by Ron’s actions and he wasn’t the only one, with just one punch Ron shut up most of the crowd who were riled up. Taking advantage of the earthbender’s surprise Ron moved extremely quickly with a multi-step and came face to face in an instant, the earthbender had no moment to conjure up a defence as Ron already punched his stomach hard. The earthbender was sent flying as he spit up blood, chasing him once more Ron quickly caught up to him and threw him out of the ring.
Turning to the crowd Ron looked down with an arrogant expression as he proclaimed "Who’s next?". The entire crowd turned silent watching Ron’s dominant fight, no-one else wanted to fight this monster! The earthbender wasn’t someone weak, he could literally move and shoot rocks and he ended up unconscious outside the ring. The ‘easy win’ people were expecting turned out to be a nightmare trap, if one really thought about it logically no-one would make those statements without some skill but not this much skill.
('And just like that he’s turned the entire mood around') The red robed man was a little annoyed that Ron managed to defuse the mood just like that, he glanced at Ron who glanced back with a small arrogant smile on his face ('Touché') The red robed man wasn’t mad at Ron for ruining the fun instead he was actually impressed. Ron played the role perfectly, so much so that no-one wanted to mess with him anymore.
"I will fight you next" An unexpected voice came from the other side of the ring, where there were ‘villains’ there were also ‘heroes’ willing to take them on or in this case a ‘heroine’. The voice was of a woman, Ron looked at her and said "Are you sure?" as if mocking her. "You’re my only chance of advancing to the top 128, I’ve already lost twice thus my chances are slim to none" was her reply, she had thought this through and didn’t challenge Ron to play hero like the earthbender.
Ron didn’t say anything more and got ready to fight, he still needed to win 6 fights and now that she had revealed the catch to this rule to the crowd he would face 6 opponents who had lost mainly due to bad matchups. Indeed that the whole catch, to give those who had lost twice or more due to bad matchups and give them one last chance and these would all be special in their own ways.
The red robed man was inwardly happy that someone actually had enough brains to figure it out and spell it out, this way the whole fun would go on. Once he gave the signal to start the woman opened her mouth and belted out a gigantic scream, the scream caused Ron to winch and grab his ears however even then he could still hear her scream. The crowd copied Ron’s tactic of covering their ears and collectively groaned, some of the weaker people even fainted.
('Supersonic screaming!') Ron concluded, there wasn’t much that went through his skin however sound was one element that Ron had no defense for. The sound suddenly changed as if the woman was searching for something and that something was quickly discovered by Ron as his vision began to blur and he began to feel nauseous, she was searching for a better frequency to cause vertigo! ('This can’t go on like this') Ron thought as he braced for impact and let go of his ears and grabbed the whip.
Ron charged in and swung the whip as best as he could, it wasn’t easy to hold balance but his experience and talent in the whip shone through in tough times as the whip slammed into the woman. The sound stopped in Ron’s ears and he quickly double tapped and wrapped the whip around the neck of the woman to stop her from screaming again, strangling the woman caused her to quickly go unconscious from oxygen loss to which Ron released her and one of the referee’s jumped in to make sure she wouldn’t die.
Everything was quiet once more but as Ron scanned he could see some people’s mouths moving, he touched his ears and noticed they felt wet. He quickly saw it was blood and combined with no sound he concluded he must’ve ruptured his eardrums. Losing a sense would usually be a deterrent however Ron found it extremely calming and could actually feel the meditation state slowly get sharper and sharper.
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The meditation state was an interesting technique that wasn’t listed as one in his status screen this meant one of two things; one it wasn’t worthy of being classified as a technique and didn’t do enough or two, he still hadn’t mastered it. Ron learned this technique during his first days from Elwyn but didn’t progress in the technique for a long time as such he thought that there wasn’t anything left however the truth turned out to be different.
No-one in the crowd noticed Ron’s inner changes however the people in the stands could feel the air around Ron change and couldn’t believe their eyes. "This monster!" The yellow robed man exclaimed "You still think he made a bad choice?" he asked the blue robed woman who looked back with a deadpan look "You really think he thought this through? Who would think they would improve during a fight" she stated as if it was common knowledge. "Those who take risks will be rewarded by the tower" The green robed man stated to which the purple robed man responded "You really think the tower is actually giving him a helping hand?" it sounded even more absurd than Ron actually predicting all of this.
Ron was unaware that his actions were causing a massive debate of beliefs among the scouts and frankly he couldn’t care at the moment, he felt like he was sitting atop the water in perfect peace. The red robed man also noticed Ron’s, he liked to cause chaos however breaking up someone’s epiphany was such a stupid decision that no-one would even think about it. Epiphanies were rare and breaking someone’s epiphany was seen as crossing a line that shouldn’t be crossed, especially from someone talented as they would repay the favour one day by taking your life.
"It seems like our contender here is voluntarily giving up one of his senses, who else wants to take a swing at him now that he’s handicapped himself?" The red robed man decided to make it seem like Ron was acting even more arrogant to the point of actually handicapping himself. This seemed to get the crowd going once more as they believed the red robed man’s word and quickly someone jumped up on the ring behind Ron. Ron couldn’t hear them jumping up and being too engrossed in the feeling to notice the man was creeping up on him, suddenly Ron felt needless prickle his skin as he turned to see a man was thrusting a dagger right at him!
Ron was too late in noticing the man and as a result couldn’t defend himself, which is what the man thought, however when the blade stabbed into Ron’s stomach it felt like he had stabbed into a metal plate. He quickly pulled out the dagger and stepped back to avoid Ron’s counter, he looked at the dagger and saw only the tip had pierced Ron. Instead of being scared the man actually smiled and did something Ron didn’t see coming, he disappeared.
('What the-!? Invisibility?') Invisibility indeed, this ability actually had a big downside which caused the man to lose two times. If only heard closely they could hear footsteps echo around the ring, however Ron had no more hearing making this downside nonexistent. Looking around didn’t help Ron as he couldn’t see the opponent, he began to think about a way to fight as another prickling sensation snapped him out of his thoughts. Another dagger shot came towards Ron, guarding it once more with muscle guard he stopped the blade from going deeper. The opponent frowned a little and quickly turned invisible again.
Two times had Ron been saved by a prickling sensation the exact moment the man attacked him, Ron knew he was sensing something in his heightened state of focus however sensing it the moment it was too late was no good. He needed his sensing to be larger, he needed to feel more as a result he also closed his eyes and concentrated on diving even deeper. Slowly he felt something akin to invisible walls around his body, was this his perceptive field?
Ron tried to push those walls with his mind, he tried to push as hard as he could however before he could even begin to feel it move the dagger shot out again. Ron didn’t want to lose his state of focus and as such ignored the dagger and pushed those walls with all his might. The man didn’t expect the dagger to actually go through this time and stab Ron in his stomach, had Ron given up? It certainly looked that way with Ron not moving, not being able to hear and even having closed his eyes.
The man didn’t get greedy however and backed off and blended in again, if Ron bled out he would also win so there was no need to be aggressive. Ron however ignored everything around him even his wounds as he pushed with all his might against the walls, slowly he could feel them moving getting further away from his body. 1m, 2m, 3m and getting bigger by the second, 6m, 7m, 8m, and finally stopping at 10m. Ron could feel a 10 metre radius around him.
Feeling that the walls couldn’t move anymore Ron opened his eyes and took a look around, it felt like the world suddenly had gained more colour. He also checked out his wound that had been bleeding for a while and noticed if he didn’t drink a healing potion soon he would pass out from blood loss. Focusing on the sphere around him Ron could feel something interfering just to the left of him, when he looked in that direction he couldn’t see anything however he could feel a human shaped figure crouched there.
The man who was crouched there got the scare of his life when Ron snapped his head towards him, did his cloaking fail? How did he find him here? Such thoughts were running through his mind as he slowly crouched around Ron. Ron could feel him moving around however in order to catch him by surprise he acted as if he didn’t notice him, Ron waited until the man stopped moving to make a move. Finally the man stopped moving as he was crouching behind Ron, Ron suddenly spun around and charged at the man. Now the man knew for sure Ron could somehow see him however that didn’t do him any good as Ron was directly in his face in an instant.
Ron didn’t hesitate and immediately grabbed the man and threw him out of the ring, always kiting around Ron had let the man close to the edge of the ring thus it was easy for Ron to throw him out. Once the man hit the floor Ron quickly pulled out a healing potion from his pocket and downed it, he needed to heal the stab wound and there was no need for the hearing impairment anymore. Quickly his wound healed and he could hear again, instead of the silence he had grown accustomed to he instead heard people shouting at him "Cheater!", "He cheated disqualify him!"