บท 33: Cheryl Maximus (2)
Cheryl chose a different way.
From the age of nineteen, the little girl began the habit of going to the library every day, searching for the oldest documents about the Lantern race. And after five months, having visited a dozen of libraries in the capital, she finally found it!
In fact, the name "Lantern" did not just refer to small and weak fire. Some people considered Lantern to be in the weak group, just because they had the habit of assessing the strength of the races through name and the signature color of appearance!
Lantern possessed a less amount of internal power than the other Fire races, so their flame was somewhat smaller and weaker than the other Fire races. Therefore, for the system of common skills including Basic - Intermediate - Advanced level, the Lantern race could only perform basic skills such as "Fire Bullet", "Fire Bomb", and "Fire Ball". They hardly could perform intermediate and advanced skills. This made people think they were weak. And sometimes even Lanterns of this generation considered themselves were weak.
Not many people knew that, in addition to visualize the fire which was quite smaller and weaker than other Fire races, the name "Lantern" also referred to the shape of the lanterns: round, square, pentagon, hexagon, octagon..., concurrently representing for the ability of comprehending and mastering all kinds of power formation from elementary to advanced belonged to this race only!
As mentioned before, "Teleport" and "Force Field" belonged to a group of skills called "Formation", classified as one of the nine legendary skills of the Fire style. The moment Cheryl was reading those words, in the middle of the ancient document storage belonging to the Royal Library where there were very few people visiting, the light glowed on the face of the little nineteen year old Cheryl. Then on a nice morning – the day when all families saw off their twenty-year-old children at the military bus station to the military course, the little Cheryl was standing in front of her father and brother, proudly and decisively said:
"Dad, Brother, I will let you know what is the right way to do it."
Mr. Raymond was sitting at the best seat of the stands for guests, among the controversy over the rank and scores for the best two students, but currently his mind only had the image of that day.
– I will let you know what is the right way to do it.
He closed his eyes slightly, feeling an unpleasant taste right at the bridge of his nose.
His daughter, did use the power of the race being despised by Maximus over the years, to win so gloriously.
Such a powerful declaration!
Ha ha! By the attitude of the people in the Ministry of Education today, he could guess how heartily the Formation Faculty of the Military Academy would hunt her later! As for the clan, it was impossible to immediately change their view of her, but surely there would be a certain influence.
Such a nice move!
He had to admit that... what he had done in the last few decades could not compare to this one-year effort of her... But his little daughter could be thoughtful and tried this much, as a father, he should be happy for her achievement or distress about her early maturity?
The group of big guests saw Mr. Raymond silent, they guessed that because one of the two students who were being discussed was his daughter, so he did not want to speak up.
So the political group argued even more eagerly.
Finally, sitting on the same row as the Commander-in-Chief, Prime Minister Keith D. Wilson – also the Big Boss of the political group – leisurely spoke up: "Alright... The result will be decided by the judges. Today we are here to be guests, so do not disrupt the harmony among everyone."
One of the two Great Boss just opened his mouth, obviously everyone had to give face to him and stopped arguing. The atmosphere gradually subsided.
The military group showed no expression on their face, but pouted silently in their heart.
Harmony, my ass!
If you really wanted harmony, why didn't you stop this right from the beginning but waited until the two sides had been argued to dried saliva and now spoke up?
What a sly old fox!!!
***
Finally, it was time to announce the results.
Class A Leader Cheryl Maximus scored twenty-nine points, ranking first.
Class K Leader Angus Farley scored twenty-seven points, ranking second.
Class F class rep Drake Atticus scored twenty-three points, placing third.
...
With this result, the group of people who supported Cheryl were very pleased.
On the other side, the supporters of Angus showed no special expression. After all, they didn't know anything about Angus! This was just a little bit of an excuse to argue with the military side!!
The stand area of students.
The more lively of Class A atmosphere was, the more gloomy of the other classes' atmosphere was. Some Class Leaders even loudly shouted at their teammates for being careless and letting themselves or their teammates be eliminated in the mission. Surely Angus was not one of them. However...
Looking at Class K members whose faces were all in gray, Alvin couldn't help speaking up: "What's wrong with you guys? It's still okay right? Even though you guys came second this round, his total points was still higher than the leader of Class A!"
If a competition having a contestant kept winning from start to finish, it would be no longer compelling! But Alvin only dared to whisper this sentence in his heart. Because if he spoke out loud, surely Class K would use their saliva to drown him to death.
As for Class K, they totally understood what Alvin said. However, they were so used to the image "cool - powerful - incomparable" of their Leader Angus, that's why they were so twisted when their Leader came at second place! They didn't blame on Angus, but they blamed themselves on not being strong enough to support him.
Trixi and Derwin – The two members who were eliminated in the middle of the mission felt extremely sorry. Even Iris and Hudson also felt uneasy about not being able to protect their team members. In fact, they were all very careful in the mission, but because the attacking speed of the traps was so fast, making them unable to help Trixi and Derwin escape.
Facing this result, Class Leader Angus was still calm as usual. He even spent time to comfort Class K:
"Don't be like that, you guys did really well. Also, that Teleport formation was very impressive. Not only us but also the other classes didn't expect it as well!"
After watching the full video of this round, Angus was really impressed with the legendary skill "Teleport" of Cheryl, and truly experienced what Grandpa Edmund told him before (➡ Grandpa Edmund was the neighbor who worked as a doctor in Hills village, mentioned when Alvin just returned to Pacific).
Grandpa Edmund often told Angus that, we should only believe the comparison of power among Dragonmen races in books for thirty per cent, and keep those information for reference, the remaining seventy per cent would be found on real experience, real confrontation. Because, there was neither strongest race nor weakest race.
"The strongest person is not the one who has the greatest power but the one who fully understands himself and be careful when confronting to any kind of enemy, also knows how to take advantage of the objective factors to create his own strength." ⬅ Those were original words of doctor Edmund of the Elderly Association of Hills village.
Cheryl had made good use of her individual ability from the Lantern race plus the help of her teammates who conducted the formations. Now he could understand the reason why Class A joined this round with a team of ten Fire Dragon.
To be honest, Angus himself was also sorry to lose this round. But if he had a chance to do it again, he would still make the same choice.
Firstly, this was the issue related to each person's ability and skills. He did not know those formation skills, all members of Class K did not know either. In addition, he was the one who developed the training program and schedule for the whole class in the last months, and then assigned to Iris, Neil and Hudson to deploy. So if there was anything wrong in the strategy, it would be his fault. He was not the kind of leader who blamed on teammates.
Secondly, in a real battle, bringing a whole team of Fire style into an area of unknown terrain and enemies – even when you had the "Formation" skills in your hand – it was still so risky. If the enemy was much stronger than the whole team, okay, you could escape quickly, but what about the teammates who supported you to conduct the formation?
So in summary, Angus was totally satisfied with today's results. His team has tried all their best together. Completing the challenge in the shortest time was the evidence.
Angus tried to analyze those points to Class K. He talked until his throat was nearly dried, but the atmosphere was still not well enough. Finally, Angus had no choice but directed Class K to another issue: "Tomorrow the third round will be continuous from morning till noon, I think you guys should prepare some snacks..."
Immediately Alvin jumped in to help. The boy's right fist smacked his left hand, showing that he just remembered something: "Hey! Right! I heard that other classes are preparing cheerleading stuffs! You guys don't do that?"
This sentence of Alvin successfully caught the attention of Class K.
"Yup yup! We have to do it!"
"My god, I almost forgot! Thank you for reminding!"
"Hurry up, we don't have time!"
Angus raised an eyebrow, quickly held out his hand: "Hey, do not..."
Just one second, all members of Class K ran like a passing wind leaving no trace, leaving only Angus with his left arm in the air and the words that had not been spoken up yet.
"Do not... overdo it..." Angus dropped his hand helplessly.
Alvin laughed out, then he put his arm on Angus's shoulder: "Let them do what they want! Otherwise they would stand here and groan all day. By the way, you have any other secret weapons? If it's just recent skills you used, then it would be difficult to win! Especially what Atticus of Class F..."
Angus threw the arm putting on his shoulder off, gave Alvin a glance and then walked away.
Alvin shouted frustratedly from behind: "Hey, what's your attitude?"
"It means I'll not tell you."
"Why? I won't tell anyone!"
"You called it "secret weapon". If I tell you, it won't be secret anymore!"
***
Details of the Second round score (Points in brackets are the scores of the targets in the order: Strategy, Time to complete, Number of remaining members)
#1. Cheryl Maximus - Class A - Base 1 - 29 points (10, 9, 10).
#2. Angus Farley - Class K - Base 5 - 27 points (9, 10, 8).
#3. Drake Atticus - Class F - Base 3 - 23 points (8, 8, 7).
#4. Hawley Quincey - Class I - Base 5 - 19 points (7, 7, 5).
#5. Kristena Ellis - Class C - Base 2 - 16 points (6, 6, 4).
#6. Stella Wagner - Class D - Base 2 - 14 points (5, 5, 4).
#7. Patrick Kang - Class B - Base 1 - 13 points (6, 4, 3).
#8. James Petrov - Class H - Base 4 - 9 points (4, 3, 2).
#9. Samuel Meyer - Class E - Base 3 - 7 points (3, 2, 2).
#10. Martin Blanc - Class G - Base 4 - 6 points (3, 1, 2).
***
Update the score of 10 Class Leaders after the Second round (The points in brackets are the scores of: 1st Round: Physical Strength + 2nd Round: Team Competition = Total Points)
#1. Angus Farley - Class K - Base 5 (29 + 27 = 56).
#2. Cheryl Maximus - Class A - Base 1 (24 + 29 = 53).
#3. Drake Atticus - Class F - Base 3 (28 + 23 = 51).
#4. Hawley Quincey - Class I - Base 5 (19 + 19 = 38).
#5. Kristena Ellis - Class C - Base 2 (20 + 16 = 36).
#6. Patrick Kang - Class B - Base 1 (14 + 13 = 27).
#7. Stella Wagner - Class D - Base 2 (10 + 14 = 24).
#8. James Petrov - Class H - Base 4 (12 + 9 = 21).
#9. Samuel Meyer - Class E - Base 3 (5 + 7 = 12).
#10. Martin Blanc - Class G - Base 4 (4 + 6 = 10).
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