บท 35: The so-called “Advantage”
– "Today, the advantage is on my side!!!" (James)
***
After the first pair, now it was the second pair's turn.
The third generation heir of the Atticus family – Drake Atticus, a pureblood Blaze of Fire style, confronted Patrick Kang, a Tide of Water style. Another "equal" match when both of the opponents came from two formidable races of the Fire and Water styles!
However, unlike the expectation of many people, Drake completely dominated right at the beginning of the match, then quickly defeated Patrick after only ten minutes. Witnessing this scene, the spectators and viewers just sighed, they did not know whether to say Drake was too strong or say that Patrick was too weak.
For the third pair, Cheryl Maximus, a Metis of Lava and Lantern of the Fire style, also won her opponent who was Stella Wagner belonging to the Stream race of Water style.
The fourth pair, Angus Farley confronted James Petrov.
Although up to now Angus was the one leading the Class Leader ranking through two rounds with a score of Fifty-six points, the audience still felt not very convinced. There were two possible explanations for this.
Firstly, in the first round which was about physical strength, the impression of "extremely fast swimming" in the swimming category that Angus left for everyone was too big, this invisibly reminded everyone that: He was dragonman of Water style!
A Water dragonmen with such pale appearance, representing for the weakness.
In Pacific, the position of both Water and Lightning power were a bit lower than Fire power. One reason was in terms of population, the number of the Fire dragonmen was much more than that of Water and Lightning dragonmen. The second reason was most of the high-ranking personnel of the Army – the organization represented for strength and power of Pacific – were Fire dragonmen.
Even Emperor Arthur Nolan was also a Fire dragonmen!
Secondly, in the second round which was about team competition, it was Cheryl's turn to take all of the glory with the legendary group skill "Formation". Needless to say, the aura of two words "Legendary Skill" had helped Cheryl mark a strong impression not only in the hearts of guests and teachers, but also with the crowd of first-year students and people nationwide.
So it had been through two rounds, the impression of Angus in the hearts of the big guests was just "A Water young dragon with good innate", "A promising factor". As big guests, they had been meeting countless geniuses. These new students might have some rare talents, but they were still young and green!
The thought of the big guests was like that, the thought of other first-year students were not much better.
If there was someone noticed Angus, it was just because... he was so handsome!
Most of the ones from Fire style usually had a solid human figure. They possessed hair color and eye color that favored the hot gamut as red - orange - yellow, bringing a kind of threatening feeling to other people. Of course, it was very good for male to have such appearance, making them look very masculine, very strong. But for female... well, it would be a bit hard to find a boy friend!!!
In contrast, ones who were from Water style would look more gentle and elegant. They had bright skin, good shape, and somehow brought a feeling of refreshing. Of course, female from Water style was always warmly welcomed, while male were considered to be "girly" by the Fire male dragons.
However, there were also some exceptions.
For example, female from the Lantern race of Fire style was very slender and beautiful (This was the reason why Mr. Raymond fell in the "love at first sight" with Cheryl's mother!). Or, male from the Glacier race of Water style also looked very firm, masculine, cool and cold with the legendary snow white hair ➡ The living proof was the "National Prince Charming" – Prime Minister Keith D. Wilson.
Now talked about Angus –
He had a tall but not skinny figure, a handsome face with a straight high nose bridge, and light blue hair like the fresh spring sky that made him have an elegant appearance, quite opposite to the rough and solid male students from Fire style. But he did not look "girly" as well. His cool demeanor and straight back make him look much more manly than male students from Water style.
Currently, the handsome and manly Angus from "Water" style in the eyes of other people was facing with James Petrov, a Sapphire from Lightning style.
Like other races from Lightning style, James possessed blue hair with the typical metallic of Lightning style. James was born and raised in the sunny tropical land, so his skin color was a little bit dark, further emphasizing his solid body.
The contrast in appearance between the two people standing in the middle of the arena was so big that it made the impression of other people about Angus was increasingly "faded" and "harmless".
James looked at Angus, started the conversation arrogantly:
"You are Water style right? Seems like this time you are no longer lucky as before. I'm from Lightning style. Lightning encounters water, there will be no harm but just increase my power. So... Today, the advantage is on my side!!!"
James smirked, after shouting the last saying, he rushed towards Angus at lightning speed.
Angus did not reply, just like he did not hear those provoking words from James. He just focused on avoiding James' attacks.
Now lets say, if Angus were from Fire style, James would not have dared to attack Angus directly. Lightning style was really fast in speed, but the strength of their fists in the duels was the weakest among three styles, so usually they needed to combine some internal power attacks in duels to be able to win their opponent. In contrast, the ones from Fire style was slow but also possessed the most formidable physical strength. Just a careless moment to be caught by them, they would beat you to death even when not using internal power!
Fortunately, Angus was a dragonman from "Water" style. The ones from Water style had a slightly faster speed than ones from Fire style but still slower than Lightning style, and their force was stronger than Lightning style but less than Fire style. So James decided to use "quantity over quality" strategy: use the speed and number of fists to make up for the quality.
Within just a minute, James had launched hundreds of punches towards Angus, but... Surprisingly, none of them hit Angus!
At this time, all people sitting on the stands no longer believed in what they saw. Some of them even used hands to rub their eyes.
How's that possible? A Water dragonman could reach to the speed that on par with a Lightning dragonman? No, it should be said that he was even faster! Only being faster could help him dodge all the punches perfectly like that!!
Then, in a moment of dodging, Angus caught James' wrist.
On the stands, the pale purple eyes of Iris glowed.
This moment!
James felt his wrist just being grabbed. From the wrist position, a blast of heat suddenly entered, then spread throughout his body. His whole body was getting heated, the sky and ground whirled a round, then his back struck the ground so hard.
Bang!
James disruptively breathed in difficulty. He could seem to hear the sound of his spine breaking in half.
The moment James was thrown to the ground by Angus, the concrete around James's position was badly riven, the cracks spread with a radius of over two meters. People sitting on the stands could see a faint layer of dust flying up from the cracks.
James lay flat on the ground, seeing his opponent walking slowly up to him, until that one was three steps away that he stopped.
Angus stood tall, looked at James from above, the corner of his mouth slightly raised, letting a voice, "What's your advantage today?"
James: "..."
James was so mad that he fainted. This was what called "advantage"!
The fourth match started and ended in less than three minutes. This was definitely the shortest and simplest match in history!
Seeing James lying flat on the ground lying on the ground was carried onto a stretcher by the health officers, and then turning the gaze at the supposed-to-be-"harmless" person who was calmly walking into the arena exit, all the first year students took a deep breath.
Dammit! Where was what called "harmless"? What called "faded"?
No! Not at all! This was such brutal!!!!
Was he a fake Water dragonman????
After the first duel match, Angus finally successfully removed the "faded", "harmless" impression about him in the eyes of everyone.
***
"What? You said you saw Leader practice with Iris?"
On their way to the foyer to see Angus, Class K members were continuously discussing and praising Angus' speed when he dodged James' punches. Nissyen was so excited that he suddenly said: "No wonder why Leader was so fast! He practiced with Iris before! The speed of that guy James is still far behind Iris!".
Nissyen said that, around the last three weeks of the military course, there was once he accidentally saw Angus and Iris training together, with Iris attacked and Angus dodged. Then Nissyen realized that Angus wanted to practice his reaction speed. In terms of speed, who could be faster than Iris?
"Well, I don't know about that! Why don't you tell me?" Dallton complained. He really wanted to see Leader Angus training. Perhaps he could learn something from that!
Nissyen objected: "Tell you for what? Come and disturb Leader?"
At that time Nissyen had realized that Angus was preparing for the Grade Leader competition! That's why he did not tell anyone about that event!
In fact, it was true that Angus started practicing for the competition in the last month of the military course. Not only Iris got his request, but Hudson and Neil also practiced with him. But the one practiced with Angus the most was still Eugene.
"Come on, Dallton! Nissyen was right! It's good that we didn't bother Leader at time time. Leader has helped us a lot..."
Alvin was going with Class K. Hearing what they were talking about, his face turned to a little thoughtful. He really did not expect that a person who used to have no friend like Angus, now had got the favor and trust of all Class K like this.
***
After four matches, the contestants rested and recovered. The semi-finals would be held the next day. Individuals who won the quarterfinals each would receive ten points, losers got no points.
Update the scores of the Leaders after the quarterfinals (The points in the brackets are in order: Score before the quarterfinals + Quarterfinal score = Current total score):
#1. Class K Leader - Angus Farley (56 + 10 = 66).
#2. Class A Leader - Cheryl Maximus (53 + 10 = 63).
#3. Class F Leader - Drake Atticus (51 + 10 = 61).
#4. Class I Leader - Hawley Quincey (38 + 10 = 48).
#5. Class C Leader - Kristena Ellis (36 + 0 = 36).
#6. Class B Leader - Patrick Kang (27 + 0 = 27).
#7. Class D Leader - Stella Wagner (24 + 0 = 24).
#8. Class H Leader - James Petrov (21 + 0 = 21).
#9. Class E Leader - Samuel Meyer (12 + 0 = 12).
#10. Class G Leader - Martin Blanc (10 + 0 = 10).
ความคิดของผู้สร้าง 
AnneNguyenLe
AnneNguyenLe About the sound "Thud!" when James was thrown onto the ground by Angus, I searched a lot on Google and then chose this word. But I'm not very sure whether it was the right one in writing. Do we have any other better option?
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