Chapter 3: District Competition

   Lucian, Reina and George walked through the dust filled roads towards the training centre with confidence because they believed none of the teenage gangs will be their match, stalls line the streets around the district centre and see the bright fruits in the markets made them salivate making them even more determined to be ruthless with their opponents and not giving them a chance at the crown of been the strongest.

   Within a small building in the training centre, some men and women gathered smiling and exchanging pleasantries among themselves. This building was put in place in order to let scouts from adventuring teams, city guard corps, escort teams and the elite families external teams watch the gang fight so as to get new talents for further training, Leylah and Aaron were among them. They already placed Lucian and Reina on their list but they still thought to add another talent.

  Is there any talent to take note of this year? A man in the crowd of people asked, a man that gave a heavy feeling of oppression standing in the side of the hall replied “Reina has good leadership qualities, Adam is calm and cautious, watch out for Lucian, that kid is reckless, crazy and fearless or stupid, make your judgements on the others as you see fit, some might have personalities that fit your requirement.

“It seems tyrant team will take the best talents for this year,” Zack representative of the Star team, the best mercenary team in Glory shelter due to having two rank 6 members said without a change in his expression.

The group of youngsters had no idea their fight was been watched by scouts but it has become a tradition that every awakening year, a gang will declare it’s superiority over the rest before they are recruited by other teams. Spectators were already waiting and some were already cheering the famous gangs or gangs within their own district.

 An agreement was reached by the leaders of all the gangs present on the format for the competition, one representative from each gang through a selection from a ballot and straight to the next round after a win. Both lower and upper glory district have a total of fifteen groups. The centre district is for mostly the elite families, while the top mercenary teams qualify as centre powers they can only pick talents from the district to replenish their fighting force.

Among the crowd of spectators starlight converged in the void emitting a formless force that pushed those in the viewing ground creating space for an individual to stand, Aster walks out of the void a second later into the space created. She was here to watch her stupid brother suffer a loss… he is always reckless, this will be a good place to teach him a little bit of sense, rank 7 star path Aster thought with glee.

All the groups in the competition already voted a rank 7 as the judge who will oversee the process. All fifteen groups will pick a number from the ballot, number 1-7 will match with anyone with the same number while number 8 will automatically advance to the next round. Reina representing the group picks a ball with the number 3 smiling wryly because the next leader after her picks number 8.

A drum in the training ground was beaten signifying the start of the competition the representatives of group 1 were called to the stage. One earth and fire awakened walked to the stage to the cheering of the crowd, due to everyone basically having the same starting point of education, the awakened with a better understanding of his or her abilities had a better chance of winning.

The judge raised his flag and brought it down, immediately the earth warrior slammed his hands on the ground intending to cause tremors but his opponent charged at a high speed towards him stoppong him from carrying out his attack but instead changing and turning the ground into earth spikes in order to slow him down. The sun awakened stopped running, clenched his hand and a blazing spear rapidly condensed in his hand which he threw at his opponent.

The later suddenly took a step forward and directly materialised beside the fire warrior by replacing one of the spikes on the competition ground, the fire warrior who seemed to have anticipated it suddenly turns into a blazing fireball blinding the earth warrior and disrupting his thoughts, before the earth warrior could gather his thoughts another blazing spear was already hurtling towards him.

The explosion on contact immediately sent him out of the stage. The fire warrior was declared winner automatically sending his group to the next stage.

The spectators cheered at the interesting fight while calling out the name of the winner who also responded by waiving his hands at the crowd.

 The scouts nodded their heads at the fire warrior prowess, someone among them said, “he seems to have planned everything from the way he baited his opponent… good seedling.

Leylah turned towards Aaron, “can you turn Lucian into someone like this in six months?

Aaron furrowed his brows but still answered, “we already know how reckless he is, it will be a miracle if they can advance to the next round if he represents them.

Reina turned to Lucian, “you will represent the team for our fight, be prepared, don’t disappoint or I will break your head. Lucian simply shrugged “you are all going to be surprised real soon.” he thought without much change in his expression.

George kept quiet because he knew Lucian was capable enough so there was no need to antagonize a teammate.

Group 2 winner was decided quickly, Adam who awakened as a star warrior immediately sealed the space his opponent occupied, blinked to his side and knocked him out of the stage.

Lucian walked out of the competitors stand, his opponent a star warrior was extremely excited because learning from what Adam did, it would not be difficult to take out other paths warriors by relying on sealing and then knocking them out.

Star warriors awaken at rank 9 with a void body which makes them blink within a certain distance, also every punch they throw out is augmented by space making it feel like being hit by a bull, higher rank warriors are even more extreme making them one of the most feared at close combat. Planet path warriors can also achieve the same effect by augmenting their bodies with the weight of a world… of course, only higher ranks can theoretically achieve such an effect.

Adam watched Lucian with a hint of anticipation in his expression, he delibrately fought the way he did in order to make things difficult for this reckless opponent.

  The judge dropped the raised flag signifying the start of the competition.

The star warrior did not try to seal space immediately because he knew even a reckless opponent will know to defend against it but the moment he tries to defend first will be the beginning of his loss because the initiative will be in his hands.

But Lucian did not do as expected but instantly condensed blazing ravens that flew at high speed to his blinking opponent, the star warrior immediately stopped and phased between space in order to dogde the explosive force of the ravens.

The star warrior immediately stopped trying to delay the fight because phasing between space filled with chaotic elements consumed too much energy especially for a newly awakened rank 9, he immediately clenched his hands, his eyes turned deep blue with some shade of gold and white.