Chapter 56: The Double Combat Tournament Where Stars Shine
The Sector Championship was a major event with great transparency, fairness and freedom. Every registrant would be recorded and made public so that those who logged on to the Sector Championship platform could seek them out. This way, anyone who saw someone whom they might be interested to challenge could register and participate as well.
Previously, single combat tournament was the most popular among small contests. It was the contest that easily incited the students’ battle lust. Anyone would wish to become a powerful figure who could match thousands and tens of thousands of enemies alone. Why would anyone be willing to share such a glory and spotlight with another person?
But this term was different. When the pair of Knight and Shadow X had appeared on the participant list, the entire atmosphere of the Sector Championship platform began to shift.
The single combat tournament and double combat tournament were held nearly at the same time. Normally, the students would only pick one out of the two to participate; at the same time, they could also measure every institute’s combat rating more comprehensively.
Ever since they discovered this duo’s existence on the participant list, many participants who had already registered for single combat tournament also registered for double combat tournament as well. This also created a situation where the number of entries of the double combat tournament exceeded the single combat tournament’s entries.
Thankfully, this was a virtual platform. It could accommodate multiple matches at once and not cause a phenomenon where further participation was prevented due to having exceeded the number of participants allowed. There was no upper limit to the number of participants of small scale tournaments. This was also one of the Sector Championship’s platform defining traits.
In the Third Military Academy’s gravity training room, Faradin was dueling against another combatant. The sounds of banging fists and legs exchanging blurry hits against each other resounded incessantly. It was obvious that Faradin was slightly inferior, finding the attacking shadows of fists a little hard to deal with.
One must say that their strengths were pretty impressive to maintain such high speed under a gravity field.
Bang!
Faradin ‘thump thump thump’ backed away a few steps before shaking his arms after blocking a kick from the opponent while saying somewhat vexedly, “I missed a hit again.”
“It’s okay, you did remarkably well already. There isn’t anyone else in Grade One who can block so many of my hits.”
After fighting for such a long time, Faradin’s opponent actually didn’t sweat much at all. His slightly rapid breathing had also calmed down pretty quickly.
Faradin looked at his opponent and said for the umpteenth time, “Boss Boer, I really want to see you and Shadow X’s fight. It will be amazing.”
Standing not far away and relaxing his muscles, Boer shook his head, “Shadow X is too mysterious. There were many people I knew who had sent them (T/N: because gender unknown) a challenge request but did not receive a reply. No one knows their identity. However, I would suggest you meet Knight when the time comes.”
“Seven Lights’ Knight? I think he has a little fame of his own. I heard back at my accommodation that he was also a Grade One new student.” Ever since he had lost to Shadow X, Faradin hadn’t paid much attention to other people. Most of the time he learned about others only when someone had told him.
“Originally, Knight could attend a military academy, but for some reason he went to Sector B instead. However, his strength cannot be underestimated. Do you know what Knight’s full name is?”
Faradin shook his head.
“Knight’s full name is Knight Feigler.”
“The Thunderstorm Feigler?!” Faradin’s interest was immediately piqued.
“The kid had never used his Thunderstorm Fist once ever since he entered the Sector Championship platform.”
Faradin felt his hands and feet turn itchy, “I will definitely meet him when the time comes. He should be participating in the single combat tournament, right?”
“I believe so…”
Di di di ——
The emergency pager on the wall rang. Since communicators weren’t allowed inside the gravity training room, both of their communicators were turned off. In the case of emergencies, the pager specifically setup on the wall would transfer the call.
Boer walked to the side, turned off the gravity field and received the call.
“What is it?”
“Boss Boer, there’s major news on the Sector Championship platform! Knight and Shadow X had formed a team and registered for the double combat tournament!”
Faradin, who was wearing his jacket felt his ears straightened, and he accidentally lost control of his arms’ strength and tore the poor clothing in half. But Faradin did not pay attention to the jacket. He simply tossed the two torn pieces of cloth casually at the side before zipping right beside Boer while keeping his ears wide open, afraid of missing out even a single word.
Once the person on the other side had finished, Faradin was so excited he couldn’t wait to run back home and register for the double combat tournament this instant.
After cutting off the call, Boer turned quiet for a moment before asking Faradin, “Is Shadow X really that strong?”
Faradin’s expression immediately turned incredibly serious, “He’s very strong. I do not know about his strength, because I feel that he did not use his full strength at all that one time he fought against me. From the beginning to the end, I felt like I was being led by the nose, and that final strike… It was just one strike, but it was enough to directly kill me at my top condition.”
When he heard Faradin’s words, Boer laughed once and said, “That’s good then! Let us meet this Shadow X and Thunderstorm Knight together then, Faradin.”
“Boss Boer, you’re attending as well? Didn’t the instructor say that you are going to fight against Comos for first place in the single combat tournament this year?” Although Faradin was very moved by Boer’s suggestion – Boer was the second place finalist of last year’s single combat tournament, and so had indisputable strength, plus the fact that he had gotten used to training with Boer and hence teaming up to participate the double combat tournament was definitely not a problem – but since the instructor had given his word earlier, it wasn’t exactly the best idea to change things up now.
“The instructor also said. ‘Isn’t the battle platform all about fighting to one heart’s content? Why would you need so much bubble reputation for.’”
Faradin pressed his fingers together and muttered on the inside: The fart-like bubble reputation the instructor had said was directed at people of the internal division like us, but to those of the Third Military Academy’s external division this fame was very important since it was connected to their welfare. If we lose it they’ll punish us and have us run naked on the fields.
Knight and Shadow X’s duo didn’t appear on the double combat tournament participation list for long before the Third Military Academy’s Boer and Faradin duo caused everyone’s eyes to fall on the double combat tournament once more.
Half an hour later, Second Military Academy’s Ryan and Bonn and First Military Academy’s Comos and Feng Haichao set off the third wave of climax on this term’s double combat tournament.
It would not be an exaggeration to describe this particular double combat tournament as the tournament where stars shone.
The Visby brothers; last term’s double combat tournament champions had returned. This year, there was the Thunderstorm Knight and the much anticipated shadow X participating. There was also the second place finalist of last year, Boer, and the Third Military Academy’s emerging seed Faradin. Another pair entering the tournament consisted of Ryan and Bonn. Ryan was the 4th place combatant of the singles tournament last year, while Bonn missed that particular tournament, but was rumoured to be stronger than Ryan. Up next was last term’s single combat champion, Comos, who was paired up with Feng Haicao. Feng Haicao was also rumored to have missed last term’s contest for a mission, however his strength was known to be no weaker than Comos.
At a glance, other than the Fourth Military Academy’s Valente, who was second place finalist during last year’s single combat tournament just like Boer, three of the top four contestants of last year’s single combat tournament had appeared on the double combat tournament participation list.
The entire Sector Championship platform had descended into utter madness. Since the top contestants of the four military academies of Sector C had participated in the double combat tournament, naturally the rest of the institutes could not be left behind as well. Although in terms of strategy regarding combat score, the best course of action was to avoid such a contest filled with aces and participate in something else. But personally speaking, this particular double combat tournament was simply too significant. They had never seen such a grand scene for innumerable years – at the very least, they had never known of any double combat tournament in any term that had attracted so many top talents from all parties. But it was different this time. If they missed this, who knew how many more years they’d have to wait to encounter a similar situation again. If they missed this they would regret it, and if they didn’t want any regrets then of course they had to register!
The higher-ups of every institute had worn black faces for this matter. They could not stop the students from registering for the double combat tournament even if they wanted to. No matter what kind of methods they used, spilling saliva everywhere good cop bad cop so on and so on, these little bastards would not stop wiggling their way to the tournament registration. The higher-ups of those institutes were absolutely furious.
The night of the registration deadline was a crazy night. Be it the electronic magazines responsible for reporting the news or the weaker students who weren’t able to register themselves, they were all so agitated they could not sleep soundly for the entire night.
On the other side, Cillin, who was getting ready to sleep and rest and Knight, who was still fighting hard on the Sector Championship platform had their attentions forcefully dragged back to reality by the dreaded give-me-your-life serial calls (T/N: Applicable to harassments, debts and your boy/girlfriends!).
Cillin pressed the answer key, “You calling for our souls or what?! It’s fine if you just call our numbers, but what the fuck is with calling all five communicators installed inside the house? You calling the cops?”
“Cillin, Knight, wait for me you heartless bastards, I’m returning to the accommodation this instant. Don’t sleep, and even if you’re asleep I will drag you out of your beds!” on the other side of the communicator, Lung roared loudly.