บท 85: Rules

While Ray and the others waited in the hall for further instructions. A group of adult knights entered the room.

Each of them held a fairly large sack that was filled with something unknown. They then began going around the room handing out bracelets from the sacks to each and every one of the contestants.

Not much was said about the bracelets.

They were just told that they needed to wear them if they wanted to participate. The bracelet was clear like glass and slightly larger than an adult's fist. Similar to Ray's gauntlets, when they put them around their wrists, it shrunk down to a perfect fit.

After waiting for a little while longer, a Knight Master entered through the door. It was the female Knight Master, Rose. Rose was the leader of the Green Sashed Knights and she bore a special sash around her proudly as she walked through the crowd of people to the other end of the hall.

When she looked like she was ready to speak, the whole room went silent.

"Good morning, everyone! I'm here to tell you all about the rules of this tournament. The first order of business: Will ranks 1 to 5 of the 3rd year students please come forward?"

Five students whom Ray had never seen before went over to where Rose was standing.

Looking at the third year students reminded him of Harry. When the two of them had fought, he showed the number on his communicator, and it was only at Rank 50. These students standing next to Rose were above even him and considered the strongest at the academy.

"Next, will the ranks 1 to 5 of the 2nd year students please come forward."

Gary, Sylvia, Ian, Monk and Dan all went forward to line up. There wasn't much change in the ranking system from the first year to the second years. Dan and Monk had always been slowly creeping their way up the ladder of the ranks and they had finally achieved top spots.

When their room eventually held the top five spots, they agreed to not fight each other. After All they were a team.

Everyone had become good friends and thought there was no point to switch places between ranks. Right now, it was different though. Everyone wanted to show the audience outside what skills they had learned.

"The ten students standing here will be seeded. They will not participate in the first round and will go straight through to the knockout stages."

The students began to get rowdy.

"What the hell!" Kyle protested, "Didn't we just make a pact? They already made it through."

Rose decided to ignore the complaining students and continued talking.

"You might be wondering what the devices on your wrist are for. In a moment you should all see a number display on them."

As Ray looked towards his wrist, a green figure could be seen "100 HP" written across the bracelet.

"The first round of the competition will be a battle royale. The second-year students will participate first. The last five students remaining will go on ahead to the knockout stages." She then lifted one of the bracelets in the air.

"This is your winning ticket. In the battle royale, you will only be permitted to use the regular wooden training equipment. For each hit you take, this number will go down. When the number reaches zero, you will be eliminated from the tournament."

Rose looked at the students before pointing towards Martha

"Martha, will you please join me?" She said.

Martha quickly ran over to Rose's position.

She then handed Martha a wooden bow with a blunt wooden arrow.

Rose then started to look at the second-year students that were lined up and pointed at Ian.

"Big guy, you look like you can take a little pain. I want you to stand in front of Martha and let her shoot you."

Doing as asked, She readied her bow and chose to aim the arrow towards Ian's abs.

As the arrow left the bow it hit and bounced right off Ian's body.

"As you can see, the student has taken no damage but if we look at his bracelet, it now says 90HP. We want the students to show their skill in the first round, not their wealth or luck…"

This will put you all on an even playing field. The first round is all about skill. Now, Martha would you please take a shot using Ki?"

Martha again took a shot at Ian, this time infusing Ki into her bow and arrow.

"Now his bracelet is displaying the number 70…"

"The stronger the attack, the more hp is taken. If Ian had blocked using Ki, it would counteract that and just do the normal ten points of damage. That is all you need to know for the 1st round."

The students were then asked to put their equipment in a storage room and then meet back in the hall. This included Ray who was asked to remove his gauntlets. Due to the sharp fingertips, Ray was only allowed to take in the armour he was wearing.

Looking around inside the storage room, he could see a wall lined with wooden equipment and all types of weapons.

Axes, maces, bows, everything…

Ray went over and just decided to pick up a regular short sword. It was the weapon he was most familiar with as it was the same size as the one his father had given him.

The 10 seeded students were then taken somewhere else since there was no need for them to be there.

From the hallway, they were further escorted down a huge tunnel. The tunnel went on for about five minutes and at the end of it, they could see a bright light.

As soon as they went into the bright light, they were welcomed with roaring cheers. It felt like the whole ground was shaking. The whole arena was completely packed with people and not a single seat was left empty.

The arena also had a special seating area where the six elders sat and the Knight Masters as well. Just underneath them were two Squire Masters holding a crystal microphone.

"Welcome ladies and gentlemen!"

"We will now begin the opening round of the Avrion Academy Tournament." As the man spoke into the crystal, it was magnified so the whole audience could hear him.

The students were asked to spread out all over the arena. There were around 150 contestants in total on the ground floor. As Ray went into his open space, he couldn't help but shake the feeling that the other players were looking at him. He could feel their eyes piercing into his skull.

'What are they up to?'

"The first round will be a battle-royal style tournament. The last five students remaining will go through to the next round." A hologram screen suddenly appeared above the fighting arena.

"As you can see here, the audiences are able to see the HP of every single contestant. Once the HP counter of a contestant reaches 0, they will be eliminated."

"Now let's get ready to start in…"

The whole audience started to count down together.

"3… 2… 1..."