Chapter 36: The Duels Begins!

(Fifteen Minutes Earlier)

The homeroom teacher had led the participating students to individual waiting rooms where they were to rest and wait for their matches.

The room was pretty bare and contained only a bench with a virtual screen attached to the wall that would allow the ability to spectate the duels of the other groups.

Each group would randomly choose two participants to duel and repeat the process until everyone had faced every member of their group at least once. There were no breaks between the matches, and it was done on a group by group basis.

Sophie was in the last group, so she curiously observed the fights in the other brackets and grimaced slightly at the strength of some particularly tough opponents.

A pair of twins in group one had qualified with impressive illusion magic and knife techniques.

There was a boy in group two capable of covering his body with flames and rushing towards his enemy like a human torch.

Luckily, the remaining couple of matches did not seem to have anyone particularly impressive but Sophie did not let her guard down.

Who knows if someone was playing pig to eat a tiger?

It was entirely possible that some contestants had hidden their strengths until the final round to ensure a high placement.

A vibrating hum from her wristband shook Sophie out of her thoughts and she checked the notification with a small frown.

[Group Five – First Duel: Sophie Peterlor vs Leona Braveheart]

[Randomly Selecting Stage……]

[Stage 013 Chosen]

Sophie took a deep breath to relax her nerves and chanted a few meditation lines that her father had taught her to calm down. Despite the two months of training, it was still nerve wracking to go on stage in front of a crowd of people.

“And these damn emotions,” she muttered to herself.

The original host had complex feelings towards this Leona girl and Sophie kept feeling the urge to run away from this fight.

What broke Sui Meng’s heart was the fact that these emotions were not out of fear but rather protective.

No matter how she was treated in the past…. the original Sophie never wanted to hurt her former friend.

The virtual screen on the side of the waiting room also contained a catalogue of weapons available for the class evaluation.

Each student was screened carefully for hidden weapons before taken to the waiting room and were only allowed to use school equipment which was intentionally dulled to reduce injuries.

Sophie raised a delicate finger and swiped through the options….

Knives, Swords, Blaster Rifles, Whips…. the uncomfortable feelings of restraint from the original host soon faded away as her eyes glowed with faint traces of bloodlust.

There was only one weapon that caught her eye.

“Just you and me darling,” Sophie spoke with a gleeful chuckle.

[ Weapon Chosen – Whip Selected]

The walls opened up and a small briefcase slid out of the hole where the virtual panel used to be. Sophie ran her fingers along the silvery edges before opening up the case with a soft click and taking out the weapon within.

Unlike her personal whip, there were no spikes or bladed ends, but Sophie could still feel a shiver of happiness that gave her the strength to confidently walk out of the waiting room with her head held high.

Stage 013 contained a dome with a desert environment simulator that was frighteningly realistic. The heat waves crashed against her skin and cause small beads of sweat to form.

The glare of the artificial sun was blinding, and Sophie could hardly see the figure of Leona in the distance at the opposite end of the dome.

She tried to use her golden eyes to pierce through the blurry heat wave shimmers, but the constant barrage of dust caused her to squint in pain.

Leona was not doing any better but bravely put on a front and yelled out,

“Don’t cry when you lose!”

Sophie was about to fire back a sharp retort when a mechanical voice boomed out from the top of the dome.

[Group 5 – Match One]

[Battle start!]

There were no words needed as Sophie closed her eyes and activated her movement technique to rapidly change locations.

She had trained over the last two months to fight in a variety of environments and the memory of her father blinding her eyes and then beating the hell out of her was still fresh in her mind.

Listen to the wind. Feel the changes in the air. Sense your opponent.

Kill your enemy.

The spectating students saw a flickering figure vanishing and reappearing at random locations in the dome before lashing out an attack towards Leona’s back!

(The Prestigious Class)

“Who do you think is going to qualify?” a green-haired girl whispered quietly to a boy sitting down in the stands.

The five top students were not participating in the class evaluation, so they were carefully observing the competition in the arena.

“The hybrid girl,” came a short reply from the boy.

“What?”

“Aiden you can’t be serious!”

Mocking laughs came from his surroundings but the boy simply leaned back and the memory of Sophie walking confidently from the waiting area flashed across his mind.

No hesitation could be seen in her steps and Aiden just had a strange feeling that her cultivation level may not be as low as the rumors claimed.

Aiden was a handsome young man with looks that gave him quite a number of female fans, but it was his reputation of the number one cultivation genius of the Royal Academy that truly gave him pride.

There were only two qi spirit cultivators in the entire year, and he was the one with the highest cultivation level at qi spirit stage two. He was worthy of standing on stage with the geniuses of the universe.

“Qiana you don’t think that as, well do you?” the question was thrown to a girl reading a novel quietly at the side of the group.

She had the air of an intellectual beauty with dark hair cascading down her shoulders with grace and refinement flowing out of her every casual movement. Even the girl asking the question could not resist blushing briefly when gazing at her appearance.

The image unfortunately was ruined when on closer inspection, it could be seen that the title of the book she was reading…

‘Daddy Emperor Punishes The Prince.’

Yes…the second highest cultivator of the senior class was an avid boy love reader.

The other qi spirit cultivator looked up from her book briefly before spitting out an annoyed reply,

“Don’t bother me.”