Asher assigned the fights and they all got onto the arenas. Leo was matched up with a skinny boy with a bow. He looked incredibly relaxed when he was facing Leo.
“So, your luck ends here,” the boy said.
Leo looked confused. “Why do you say that?” He asked.
The boy laughed. “Because you are facing me. I am a Middle-Stage 1st Circle Aura Knight,” he said. “On the other hand, you just got through the first round because you were lucky enough that you didn’t fight anyone.”
Leo realized that he had been the only one to realize that it was matched based on skill level. He guessed that it was because he was the only one there who could easily see through the people’s aura levels.
Leo looked at Asher. He didn’t have a weapon yet. Asher walked to him and said, “So, what weapon do you want.”
“Dagger,” he said. Asher pulled out a wooden dagger from his ring and handed it to him. Then he walked back to his position in the middle of all of the arenas.
“Okay, now start!”
Leo’s opponent immediately nocked an arrow to his bow and aimed it at Leo. He imbibed it with aura and shot it at Leo.
He watched as the arrow got close to him and moved his head lightly, letting the arrow fly past him. As he did that, his opponent already nocked his second arrow. Leo wasn’t bothered that he was getting bombarded with arrows and took a step forward.
The second arrow flew toward Leo but he dodged again by rotating his body. The arrow flew past him while he got closer to his opponent. Now that he was getting closer, he was an easier target to hit.
The next arrow came faster than before, but Leo was still able to dodge it with ease. Till now, 20 seconds had passed and none of the boy’s attacks had connected. At this point, Leo was only two meters away from him.
The boy took a few steps back to create some space while nocking another arrow. Leo didn’t let him release the arrow. He moved forward with a burst of speed that the boy didn’t expect. Leo sliced the bow with his dagger.
His aura technique cleanly sliced the bow into two, giving him victory. The boy quickly realized how mistaken he was. He had been utterly defeated. His arrows were dodged so easily even though Leo looked like he was taking a stroll in the park.
“Don’t underestimate people,” Leo said. He turned away and left the stage. After a minute the other fights also finished. Since the fights would end before anyone got seriously injured, all of the finished after one or two blows. It wasn’t going to be the most accurate representation, but as far as Leo guessed that wasn’t even necessary.
In all of Marcus’ and the silver-haired girl’s group, both of them would come out on top no matter what happened. He had that confidence based on the demonstrations of the aura techniques that he had seen and the aura levels of the people.
After this round ended, it was finally time for the groups to start getting clubbed. Because there were only 4 or 5 people left in each group, it was more efficient to have two groups on the stages at the same time.
The yellow and red groups went ahead first, while the green and blue groups waited. Leo suspected that the reason the red group went first instead of the green group was also related to the seed system.
The difference between the fights in this round was that they were closer and longer than before. This was because everyone was at least a Middle-Stage 1st Circle Aura Knight. Half of them were Late-Stage 1st Circle Aura Knights.
Since they were all more powerful and well-versed in aura techniques, they were able to defend and attack properly, making it more of a proper fight. The fights started to take longer, lasting 3-4 minutes.
However, the silver-haired girl was still able to defeat her opponent way too easily. She was faced against an unfortunate Middle-Stage 1st Circle Aura Knight who couldn’t even defend her initial attacks. The difference between a 2nd Circle and a 1st Circle Aura Knight was incredibly difficult to close.
One lucky Late-Stage 1st Circle Aura Knight skipped his match because there were an odd number of people. After they were done with their rounds, it was Leo’s turn.
After these rounds were over, it was finally only 9 people left. Everyone left was a Late-Stage 1st Circle Aura Knight. Leo was very interested to see how the matches would go on.
“So, we are down to two people from each group, except the yellow group. But I’ll get to them in a while. For now, we are going to reduce this number to 4 people in total. These 4 people will be the only ones out of all of you to receive the extra resources from the empire,” he said.
Everyone who lost their match felt incredibly disappointed. They were hoping that more people could get resources, but they wouldn’t have that chance. Meanwhile, the people who still hadn’t lost felt a little bit of excitement.
Leo and the silver-haired girl were the only unfazed candidates. Leo knew that no matter how much the empire spent in total, the amount of resources that would actually reach him wouldn’t be able to match how much he would be able to spend himself.
The silver-haired girl was clearly rich, so she was probably in the same category as him. However, everyone else were commoners who couldn’t spend like Leo. To them, the resources that the empire could give them would be very valuable and could make or break their Aura Knight training.
Somewhere inside, Leo felt like he should give away his spot to the next person since he didn’t really need it as much. But another part of him wanted to give himself the advantage along with his own money. After all, these could be resources that he wouldn’t find easily.
As he was looking around, he saw that everyone around him started to have a hunger in their eyes for the spots. Asher wasn’t done talking yet though.
“But this doesn’t mean these 4 slots are fixed. When all of you are admitted into the academy, there will be a ranking. It will contain the 100 strongest New Students who are going to receive these resources. You will be given chances to challenge the people on this ranking to take their spot.” He said.
Leo felt less guilty after he heard that. If the people truly wanted the resources, they would put in the extra effort and challenge someone for that spot. Of course, they would be disadvantaged since they would be facing someone with more resources than them, but at least they had a chance to change their status.
More importantly, he wanted to get onto the ranking. Leo stretched a little and got ready to get onto the student rankings.