Bowyer and Pike has already come to an agreement before entering the illusion; they would fight as a team for the first forty five minutes, sharing spoils, but the last fifteen they would split to fight solo. Although the two men certainly wished to keep or raise their place in the Standings, the competition to better each other was still much in the forefront of their minds.
They were not the only ones to form teams. Luna had used her charms to convince two boys to join her team and the five, who had the least standing in this last group decided to fight together. How long these alliances would last, only time would tell. Ari chose to fight solo from the get go and no cajoling could change his mind.
Bowyer was a swordsman, Pike favoured heavier weapons and currently wielded two fair-sized hammers. He also placed a knife in his boot. Spiritual abilities could also be wielded in the illusion. Bowyer's root was metal and Pike's happened to be fire. Both roots were considered Major or primary roots, thus both could produce and use their element at will.
The illusion remained of a dark, dense forest space, with the only light being lanterns hanging from boughs in some places, tiny fireflies or glowing mushrooms in others. Some spots had no light at all. The two men swiftly moved deep into the forest, seeking out prey. They were not disappointed.
The first creature to fall upon their path was a Mystic Garuda; a bi-pedal beast, with the body of a monkey, the height of an ape and the razor sharp beak of a hawk. Upon it's slender arms were a thick array of blue-green feathers formed into wings. These feathers also adorned the tip of its white tail and head. As it had some intelligence and spiritual ability, it was considered to be a level five creature.
A Mystic Garuda was so named as unlike its cousins, it relied on its spiritual abilities to hunt and fight, so upon seeing the two men, it sent out a smattering of blades created from the air. The sharp wind blades could slice just as easily as a knife, but were not clear to the naked eye, however the two men had no issues avoiding the blades. Pike threw one of his hammers to distract the beast, while Bowyer swiftly made his way to the garuda's blind spot to leap and slice at the back of its neck. The creature barely dodged both, but a long gash formed across it, causing it to bleed heavily.
Pike swung with his remaining hammer, drawing the garuda's attention back onto him. Bowyer made a hand gesture and the hammer that Pike had thrown flew back into the man's hand even as he lifted it in order to make the final blow. These two men knew each other's habits well. They claimed the hefty amount of points without much difficulty, astounding those that watched them.
After that, they happened upon a flock of red sparrows, much weaker and distant kin to the legendary Feng Huang (Phoenix). They fluttered their mixed brown, red and orange feathers, shooting tiny blasts of fire towards the agile men. These were too easily dealt with by Pike, due to his root. Were the red sparrows of stronger bloodline, such as Blaze eagles, he would not have been able to use their fire against them. But if the mates were to put a level on Blaze eagles it would be closer to ten than the level three red sparrow each held due to their size and weak physical ability. However, there were eight in the flock and the two men annihilated each and every one, claiming an additional eighty points between them.
Elsewhere, the team of five had split into two groups, having struggled to work together well. There had been conflict amongst them once they approached a level four Alicorn, that Leon thought was much like the Unicorn of myths and legends, and most carried injuries now. Luna's team had settled on hunting smaller prey, level two's and three's, for the most part and were swiftly moving through the forest at a very steady pace. Ari had already found and battled a Jungle Garuda, which was more ape-like and relied on its array of muscles rather than head or abilities, three coeurl and was currently sweeping his way through a small pack of worgen, a creature that could only be described as a mix of feline and canine.
At the agreed time, Pike and Bowyer did split up and hunt alone, the view in Leon's bubble switched frequently between the two men, especially when they found prey at precisely the same time. Jin Li seemed to watch fairly passively; it was not that he was not interested in the battles, he especially felt he would enjoy challenging Ari, even though he suspected he might actually lose to the man, but his eyes were elsewhere. More specifically, he was watching Leon and becoming increasingly unhappy about it. Why was Leon watching the seniors with such interest? Look at him squirming in his seat as he stared at the bubble. Who had got his attention, was it that woman? If it was, he'd clearly be used like a rag, squeezed and wrung out until no longer of use and hung out to dry. But what if.. what if it was a man that had caught his attention? The seniors, especially Pike, seemed to be quite fond of him, like he was a pet. And why did Jin Li care in the first place?
As his thoughts tumbled about in his head, he became increasingly sour and even glared at Sun, who had gripped his arm excitably when the seniors finally left the illusion. Sun didn't notice, to busy looking over his idols. None of these seniors had left the illusion before time, most had high scores. Luna's group had a respectable three hundred, thus each member gaining one hundred a piece. Together, Bowyer and Pike had grabbed a good two hundred and eighty, happily split to mean each had one hundred and forty and that was before they began to move solo. The monstrous talent that was Ari, claimed a whole one hundred and ninety five points and would have claimed more had the time not ended during his last battle.
In the end, Pike happily left Bowyer in the dust; he had a total of one hundred and seventy points in this round, while Bowyer gained one hundred and fifty nine.
"I would have beaten you, had I not fallen into that nest of nibblets," Bowyer complained as they chatted about things over their evening meal.
Pike chuckled, admitting that Bowyer had bad luck. Those vermin always hovered in groups and would tenaciously chase any out of their territory and beyond, meaning Bowyer had to deal with them or have to watch his back while fighting stronger prey. Not that the little ones did much damage, but it would accumulate and that is if they did not get lucky and throw something in your eyes!
"I had to keep reminding myself that you guys were just in an illusion!" Sun said, brightly. "It looked so real! And the way that you dealt with the Mesmyr, that was awesome!"
Pike ruffled Sun's brown hair, fondly. He had grown to like this little brother, much more likeable than Jin Li, who was glaring at the food in front of him with a shadowed expression upon his face. Leon, on the other hand, was yawning frequently, struggling to lift his spoon to his mouth.
"It'll be your turn to prove yourself next year," Bowyer grinned. "I'd like to see how both you and Jin Li fair."
"No problem!" Sun agreed, cheerfully. "We'll storm the top ten and meet you in the inner school without fail!"
Pike chuckled. "I'd rather bet that the pair of you will be fighting in the Standings within our school rather than challenging entry into it." Sun beamed beneath his praise.
They heard a spoon fall and a soft thud and turned to see Leon face down and leaning upon the table next to his plate. He didn't stir as they watched him for a moment, but they could see that his breathing was steady. "Looks like we should find Leon a bed," Pike mused.
"No need," Jin Li replied, darkly, shoving his chair backward and moving around the table to pick Leon up into his arms. The youth's eyes struggled to open, so gave up and simply nestled into Jin Li's hold. Sun watched, wide eyed as Jin Li princess-carried Leon out of the Food Hall, before they widened further as they fell upon Jin Li's plate.
"He left food!" Sun whispered in awe. Pike and Bowyer exchanged knowing glances and slight grins.
"You should stay with one of us tonight," Pike invited the youth, who remained. "We can give you tips to help your own fights in the future."
"Really!?" Sun asked with happy excitement.
*****
On the fourth day, the one on one battles would begin. The students were grouped based on their points over the last three days. There were ten groups of twenty four students and one group of twelve. This final group held the top twelve performers of the Standings so far, although the total points were quite vast from first to twelfth. Ari, with a score of two hundred and seventy five dominated first position, while in twelve, having snuck into that position by a mere point was a young woman named Delphi. She had one hundred and sixty five points.
Pike and Bowyer were sixth and seventh respectively.
"The matches are listed like this," Pike advised, using a stick to draw in the loose ground beside one of the practice stages. He drew a long line and twelve small points below it, indicating twelve students that were grouped together to fight. He then joined two points together and then had a third line meeting a point above the pair. "Basically, two students will fight and the winner will then fight a seeded student. Ah, a seeded student is simply one of the top four or eight in their group, so that the top performers don't face each other early on. The top four in our group are Ari, Crux, Ophius and Certi."
"Ari and Crux were first and second last year as well," Bowyer mentioned. "Main, who was third left school last year and Piter, who is now Fifth was fourth."
"Hmm, he's not doing as well this year," Pike said, before continuing. "The Teachers randomly place the seeds then randomly place the other students. For each win, a student can add ten points to their final score, the seeds get twenty for their first win, to keep things fair. Otherwise, non-seeds can earn more points than them overall, which can result in unfairness. There also might be a few grudge matches at the end, but these too have rules."
"One can't fight anyone more than ten places above them and they can't challenge anyone lower placed than themselves," Bowyer added. "These are worth ten points for the win, two for a draw and a loss of ten points for the loser, which is why there won't be too many grudge matches."
"W-why b-bother in the f-first p-place?" Leon asked, curiously.
"Generally, it's about final placement," Pike explained. "See, Delphi is in our group, but is just one point above a seeded person in the second group. If that person wins, they will gain a lot of points and could push Delphi out of the top twelve. So Delphi has the right to challenge this and get back points and her placement."
"There probably will be scores settled as well," Bowyer admitted. "Which is why grudge matches are timed, unlike the groupings."
"It sounds c-c-complicated," Leon sighed, to which Jin Li privately agreed, though as a martial artist, he could also see some benefits of having the varying rounds and battles. These were to challenge the students into considering their skills, martial arts, spiritual abilities, strategies and teamwork. It was no good being superior with your weapon of choice if one could simply sneak up behind you and stab you in the back, just as it was no good at being great at teamwork, if you could not hold your own. Understanding the skills of another martial artist was also not the same as knowing the abilities of a beast. But this whole points thing; keeping tally was a headache.
After sparring a bit amongst themselves (with the exception of Leon), the men went inside and towards the main arena, where their matches would all be held in full view of any who wished to peruse them. Logan and Luna were due to fight first, whoever won had the misfortune to face Ari. It also happened that in the third match, Pike would have fight Bowyer. However, neither seemed displeased by this.
For this book, I’ve hit 100k view on Wattpad, so I promised a double update, so here is the first part.
Enjoy x
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