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Chapter 61: Four Seconds

“There are a few good seedlings this year,” Vice Principal Salvian commented as he stroked his long beard.

“Ranks don’t decide everything. It still remains to be seen how well they can perform,” Vice Principal Pictor stated as he observed the remaining participants, knowing that most of them had held back to some extent.

Vice Principal Salvian didn’t mind the disagreement from his colleague and continued with a smile, “Haha, maybe we’ll have some good results in the Duskfield Rookie Competition this year.”

Vice Principal Pictor didn’t reply this time and just glanced at Principal Green, who had remained silent throughout the exchange.

Seeing no response, the two vice principals didn’t continue the topic.

On the other hand, there were discussions between the teachers as they scrutinized the remaining participants, especially the teachers in-charge of the various classes.

“It’s a pity that Paula lost, isn’t it, Teacher Yudina?” One of the teachers said jokingly.

“It’s indeed a pity. But no matter; Frans is also from my class,” Teacher Yudina replied calmly, acting indifferent toward the results of the competition. But her colleagues were well aware of her true thoughts.

“Teacher Turner’s class also has two students in round five,” another teacher commented.

“But didn’t you see that they’re competing against each other in this round? Only one of them will make it to the semi-finals.”

“Unfortunate, unfortunate,” the same teacher who spoke to Teacher Yudina earlier said with a feigned sigh of regret.

Of course, they were all just jesting.

Teacher Turner, on the other hand, ignored their conversations, and focused on Ain, who had just walked onto the arena. ‘Let me see how far you’ve come.’

Teacher Turner was aware of Ain’s immense talent, not just as a spirit tamer but also in combat. Ain had opted to stay at home recently, so Teacher Turner was expectant of his performance. As for two of his students being matched against each other? He didn’t really care. He cared more about their individual performances and improvements compared to before.

In the arena, Ain stood facing Marius, whose white hair rustled lightly in the breeze.

The two supported neutral expressions, without any verbal exchanges. making it difficult for the observers to predict their thoughts.

They stood roughly thirty meters apart from each other.

Their positions on the arena were not random but predetermined by the academy. After the match began, they were free to move around the arena as they pleased, but they had to start at the two marked positions in the center of the arena.

When they were ready, Teacher Linus pressed a button on her handheld device, sounding the starting signal for the match. A robotic voice sounded in the venue, “Three, two, one, begin!”

As soon as the word “begin” sounded, Ain, who had been imperceptibly leaning forward, pushed on his feet with tremendous force and rushed toward Marius at breakneck speeds.

Marius, who was about to summon his spirit pet, was instantly caught off-guard. This was because Ain hadn’t even summoned his spirit pet!

In every match so far, the battles only began a few seconds after the countdown. The two opposing parties, with a shared understanding, would first summon their spirit pets. Although it didn’t take long, from the initial summoning to the spirit pets finally being prepared to act, it took at least a few seconds.

But Ain broke this “rule” and instead rushed up without summoning his spirit pet.

With his physique that almost rivaled an Advanced Rank-1 Spirit Beast, the thirty meters between them were crossed in just over a second, and Ain appeared in front of Marius, forcefully swinging his leg for a body kick.

Marius’ mechanical spirit pet had yet to completely manifest, and he could only react by using Shield. But because Ain was too close, he couldn’t cast the shield directly in front of him. Acting on instinct, Marius hurriedly moved his arm in a posture to block the kick, while hastily casting Shield in front of that arm.

Ain’s kick, augmented with Spirit Impact, landed on the shield with great strength.

Boom! Crack!

The shield cracked after absorbing much of the impact, but the remaining force still broke Marius’ stance, causing him to lose his balance, pushing him back.

At this point, the summoning light dissipated, and the silver Mechanical Hawk, covered in intricate purple engravings, came into view, slightly above Marius’ previous position.

Marius hastily sent a mental command to his spirit pet, but it was cut short when a Spirit Blast struck his chest from less than a meter away.

As he had just lost his balance, he failed to react in time.

“Aaaargh!” A painful scream left Marius’ mouth as he spat out a mouthful of blood, falling backward onto the ground.

At this moment, the Mechanical Hawk finally regained its senses after being summoned and was ready to attack the opponent. But when it saw its spirit tamer on the ground, coughing out blood, it was stunned.

Buzz!

Just as it was about to respond, a loud buzzer sounded, signifying the end of the match.

What followed was silence. Ain took one last look at the Mechanical Hawk before making his way off the arena.

“The battle has ended! The victory goes to Ain Weisman!”

Although the rest of the venue was quiet, Teacher Linus stayed true to her identity as the host and responded appropriately.

The first ones to react after Teacher Linus were the medics as they immediately rushed towards Marius, who was coughing painfully on the ground, with blood flowing down his chin as it dyed his shirt red.

Seeing this scene, the audience finally snapped out of it.

“Whoa!”

“What was that!?”

“Four seconds! The match ended in four seconds!”

“Haha, that’s Ain from our class! He’s a monster!”

Cheers and stunned exclamations rang out among the audience as they looked between the fallen Marius and the victorious Ain, who was walking off the arena.

“That’s payback!” Hugo smiled widely as he fist-pumped. Although he had gotten over his previous defeat against Marius, who wouldn’t hold some small grudges?

Teacher Turner also supported a small smile after witnessing Ain’s performance.

On the other hand, Vice Principal Salvian said with a slight laugh, “Although this result was expected, I’m still surprised at how he went about it.”

Vice Principal Pictor followed Ain’s figure while squinting his eyes and replied, “Before they gain enough experience, there’s not much difference between a Beginner Rank-1 and an Intermediate Rank-1. That kid’s performance is a clear testament to his combat experience.”

“Oh? You’re not criticizing the students for once?” Vice Principal Salvian covered his mouth with his left hand and jeered at Vice Principal Pictor.

“Hmph! What do you know?” Vice Principal Pictor snorted.

Principal Green’s gaze also landed on Ain for a few extra seconds before he turned back to the empty arena. The two vice principals didn’t fail to notice this.

Thinking of something, Vice Principal Salvian spoke again, “If I remember correctly, this kid was the first to condense his spirit core and reach Beginner Rank-1 in this batch. Turner said he also reached Rank-0 on the first day of class.”

Hearing this, Vice Principal Pictor turned to look at him and questioned, “One day? He’s already broken the record in our academy. Why didn’t I hear about this?”

Vice Principal Salvian shrugged and replied nonchalantly, “We’re just a spirit academy; what else would we have done with this knowledge? That kind of bias and special treatment is for those universities to consider.”

“What’s his background?” Principal Green’s voice broke through the two vice principals’ bickering.

The vice principals paused, and Vice Principal Salvian replied, “He’s an orphan from the Bloodpoint Incident thirteen years ago. He later joined a nurturing program in the Atlas Base, but the program was canceled a couple of years later. Since he was the last one remaining in the program at that time, he received special compensation in the form of private education from Atlas Base.”

“Hmm.” Principal Green hummed in response and fell silent again.

Vice Principal Pictor glanced at Vice Principal Salvian with some suspicion. He seemed to have investigated that student beforehand. But his interest didn’t last long, and he soon looked away. This was just a small matter to them. Even their positions in the spirit academy were small matters to them.

After returning to his seat, Ain ignored the gazes of his fellow participants and reviewed the fight.

He had deliberately suppressed his abilities so far, but he didn’t do that for this battle. Not because he didn’t want to, but it would be a little troublesome if he didn’t reveal some cards.

Ain was still confident of victory, but there was no way to defeat Marius without revealing some of his abilities.

As a mechanical spirit pet, the Mechanical Hawk was immune to Nox’s control skills such as Malicious Gaze. This immediately nullified Ain’s running strategy so far.

Moreover, since the Mechanical Hawk could fly, the battle would end up reflecting Ain’s first spar with Hugo. With Nox’s higher rank, it would’ve outlasted the Mechanical Hawk, attaining victory in the end, but this would’ve revealed his true rank.

So out of all of his cards, Ain decided to reveal his powerful physique, concealing his true rank and Possession for later.

This directly led to how the battle played out. In order to completely disregard having to deal with the Mechanical Hawk, Ain spared no time and struck faster than lightning, successfully incapacitating Marius in under four seconds.

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