Chapter 19 – The Competition Begins

Three days passed quickly.

In a private room at the Ozryn training center, Kieran exchanged blows with the training dummy, his claws seemed covered by a coat of blue steel.

Both of them moved quickly around the room, Kieran used everything possible to move around the room, using the walls and the ceiling as support to make quick movements.

In the room, pieces of metal were scattered all over the place, the dummy's body had deep claw marks all over its body, and some part of its body was missing.

With each exchange of blows between the two, the dummy lost parts of its body.

Finally, after an hour of constant back and forth with the dummy, Kieran managed to rip his head off.

The dummy's head in his hands turned into a metallic liquid with the rest of the pieces in the room, the liquid gathered, forming a puddle on the floor, and a new dummy formed from the metallic puddle in a few seconds.

Kieran stood in front of the dummy, an overwhelming feeling of joy filling his body.

"I finally managed to beat a Bronze rank dummy!"

For the past three days, Kieran had only been cultivating and facing the training dummy, after he managed to beat the dummy at the peak stage of the Iron rank on the first day, he leveled him up until he was at Bronze rank.

The Bronze rank dummy had only toyed with Kieran until this morning when his crystal essence had finally passed the 100 mark.

Even though Kieran had not yet reached the Bronze rank, thanks to his double awakening, the crystal essence inside his body had reached the same amount as a Bronze rank. His body, nourished with the crystal essence that his two crystal trees had attracted, was strengthened, being close to being equal to the body of a Bronze rank too.

[ Kieran Arvost]
[Crystal Seed Status (1):
Name: Wolf Transformation
Refinement Rate: 52.46/100]
[Crystal Seed Status (2):
Name: Giant Transformation
Refinement Rate: 52.21/100]
[Crystal Essence: 104.67]

"My two crystal trees are still far from being fully refined, but I can already face a Bronze rank, it's no wonder why everyone envies the double awakened.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to improve so fast in the next few days. After buying so many crystal cores in the last few days with the crystal essence claw technique as well as the vital orb and the spatial gem, I have almost no nova credits left on my account. I won't be able to buy a crystal core for a while..."

Kieran thought for a while when an idea came on his mind.

"What if I sell the information about the evolutionary paths of the wolf and the giant that I can see? No, forget it. No one will buy such information unless I have an evolutionary researcher certificate, and obtaining the certificate will require me at least months of learning to reach the lowest rank."

*sigh*

"I'm going to have to wait until I can return to a rift again before I have another crystal core to cultivate."

He looked at the time on his aurora collar.

"I still have 4 hours before the start of the competition."

He left the training center, returning to his home.

***

Four hours later, he arrived in a room of the Ozryn Academy.

The room was filled with white capsules, some had a faint light escaping from them, indicating that they were active, while others had students from class 3-4 settling inside them.

Kieran looked around for a while before finding teacher Marsk talking to a student.

"Teacher Marsk."

"Kieran, you're back. Just in time to compete in the inter-class competition."

The teacher watched Kieran for a moment, his crystal essence fluctuating slightly out of his body without anyone noticing.

"I see that you have made good progress during your absence."

"Thank you, teacher."

"Go put yourself in an empty capsule. Once inside, wait with the other students, I will arrive soon."

"All right."

Kieran quickly walked towards an empty capsule, he saw Thomas in the distance, waving at him, he continued until he reached the capsule before entering inside.

He activated the capsule and relaxed his whole body. Lights started to scan his whole body before everything went black in his vision.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in a large plain filled with students from his class.

Looking around him, he could see Ryan and Thomas in the crowd.

'This morning again he left early. Did he use the crystal cores I gave him?'

He moved through the crowd of students, arriving next to Thomas.

"Hi, Thomas."

"Hi, Kieran. You took your time coming."

"Yeah, I wanted to practice with the technique that I learned as much as possible before the start of the competition."

"I hope you've improved in all this time across the rift. If we ever have to face each other, I won't hold back."

"Ahah, you should hope not facing me, otherwise, you won't even know how you were eliminated."

"Yeah, keep bragging!"

Thomas and Kieran continued to chat for a while as more and more students from their class appeared on the plain. Finally, after several minutes, teacher Marsk appeared in front of the students, his loud voice going through the whole plain, ending the discussions of the students.

“Everyone, calm down and listen to the rules for the competition. As you already know, the competition will take place in this rift simulation. The inter-class competition will last exactly 48 hours. During these 48 hours, you will be divided into teams of three people to face crystal beasts as well as other students of your class and from other classes of the same year. In all, 22,026 first-year students will be present in this simulation.

Teams of three will be organized in alphabetical order.
First team:
Kieran Arvost, Ryan Arvost, Cassandra Ashblight

Second team:
Laure Bihran, Alessio Becrackt, Kaley Clearfall

Third team:
...

Fifteenth team:
Courtlyn Siam, Meiken Vomugako, Creissant Wildsorrow

With the team now established, I will let you know how to obtain points. Each crystal beast killed will bring a certain amount of points to your team, which will be divided between each member of the team. Depending on the strength of the crystal beast killed, the number of points obtained will increase. Eliminating a student from an opposing team will earn you half the points she or he has collected. Does anyone have a question?"

As soon as teacher Marsk finished these words, a girl raised her hand among the students.

Her figure was slender with curves that caught the eyes of the young men around her who couldn't help but peek from time to time. She had dark curly hair hanging over a charming face and black eyes that seemed to contain an arrogance as if looking down on everyone else.

"Yes, Cassandra?"

"Teacher, I find that forming teams like this is unfair. I don't understand why a grade D like me should be in the same team as this grade E trash."

The students started laughing at Cassandra's words.

"You're really unlucky, Cassandra."

"Yeah, falling with the weakest in our class."

"To add it to the injure, any points she gets will be split with him. He was really lucky to be with her."

The students argue louder and louder, not hiding their disdain when their gaze lands on Ryan.

Kieran was watching the whole scene when he saw his brother lower his head as he clenched his fists. Looking at Cassandra, a cold glint crossed his eyes for a moment.

"Calm down. The teams are distributed like this because you never know with whom you could team up in advance once on the other side of a rift. Entering into a rift as a team does not mean you will be together for the whole period on the other side of the rift.

Accidents can happen, alliances with other teams can form, you never know what can happen once you cross the rift. If we are talking about an extreme case, imagine if a rift suddenly appears inside the city and crystal beasts invade the city. You will be forced to team up with unknown cultivators to survive such a situation. The teams will not change, so try to get along well to make the most of everyone's abilities."

Cassandra looked in Ryan's direction with a despising look on her face.

'Tsk, this loser is going to slow me down.'

Another hand came up from the group of students.

"Yes, Kieran."

"Teacher, what happens to a team that loses one of these members? Is the whole team eliminated?"

All of the students' faces suddenly turned pale, thinking of the possibility.

"When a member of your team is eliminated, he will no longer be able to participate in the competition, and each time you eliminate a crystal beast or a student, the share that the eliminated member should have obtained will be deducted. In short, you will earn the same number of points whether you are three or alone. The only difference is that you will have fewer members to attack and defend yourself.
Does anyone else have a question?"

No more students raised their hands. All the students began to move in the direction of their team members.

"I'll join Ryan. Good luck, Thomas."

"Good luck to you too, Kieran."



Autor's Note:

I forgot to write it in the story description. There are already 130 chapters written and published on another site. I will slowly publish them here. It will be two chapters daily until the release catches the other site.