Chapter 12 - Tournament

Three months had gone by since we started training with Wu Zhangkong. By this time, I had already improved leaps and bounds in all aspects.

During training, I had gotten skilled and strong enough to fight almost evenly with Wu Zhangkong when he suppressed himself to my level. Even he couldn't stifle his surprise when he realised I could keep up with his skill.

Despite that, I would arguably say that out of all my skills, the one I had improved the most in was in using the King's Wisdom.

That was what I called the comprehension I gained from that strange space. I gave it that name because of the question that was asked in that space.

Back to the topic, I could now control a variety of forces due to the King's Wisdom. The few of the forces I could control without burning myself out immediately were friction, inertia, repulsion, and attraction. Although I could use them in battle, they were meant to be distractions more than anything. Nonetheless, in a high level fight, those distractions could prove fatal.

Naturally, I couldn't do anything insane like zero frictional force or Rinnegan levels of push and pull yet.

I could also shoot bolts of lightning at people. It was honestly pretty easy to do. All I had to do was make my fingertips negatively charged and set whatever I wanted to hit positively charged. It was lacking in lethality to even small animals but damn did I feel cool doing it.

The most dangerous ability I learnt here was not any of these. Rather, it was one that I couldn't even use in combat yet.

It was the ability to control the neural impulses in people's minds. You probably know what this means.

Of course at my current level there were a lot of limitations in this ability. One being that I had to touch the person's head in order to use it.

Not only that, they would have to be in something akin to a comatose state or else it would be too difficult to pull off.

However, the thing that made it scary was that as long as the conditions were met, I could brainwash anyone I wanted. Since it targeted the brain instead of their soul, their spiritual power couldn't protect them.

If I kept improving with this power, eventually I would reach a point where I could read my enemies' minds, knowing their moves before they even did them. The future was really bright with this ability.

At this moment, the entire Class 5 was following Wu Zhangkong lined up in a straight line behind him. Classes had just ended and today was the first day of the tournament. The tournament was held after school so it didn't interfere with our classes.

When we arrived at the competition stage I was quite disappointed at what I saw. It was actually just a 10 centimeter thick metal plate with a diameter of 100 metres. This was the arena for the biggest event in the academy! The least they could do was to make it look better.

There weren't many students here, no doubt because of the classes competing today. If I were them, I wouldn't want to watch Class 5 and Class 4 of the new first graders fight as well.

A short and stout teacher walked over to Wu Zhangkong's side, wearing a massive grin. "Teacher Wu, your students are pretty good! I'm nearly dying from how orderly they are in their line. My Class 4's students are so undisciplined. As such, please start off leniently on my class four today! Although we might not be able to be promoted to Class 3, you must help us preserve our position as class four."

This guy talks as if his class has a chance of winning.

Pffff.

"Seems like Teacher Wu is full of confidence! We shall see what happens on the stage then." With sarcasm-laced words, the portly man beckoned to his own class and moved towards them.

He was probably really mad right now but what did he expect? He was the one who started acting ċȯċky first. Wu Zhangkong only responded in kind.

At this moment, the Director of the Academy, Long Hengxu walked towards the tournament platform.

"Today's Class Promotion Tournament has started. We begin with the match between the first grade's class five and the first grade's class four. Teacher Wu Zhangkong, have you confirmed the number of participants from your class?"

Wu Zhangkong nodded. "We have four participants from our class."

Long Hengxu gave his own nod in return before turning towards the direction of Class 4's teacher. "Class 5 has four participants. Kong Hanwen, you have five minutes to select your participants."

So that was his name. Kong Hanwen eh. I didn't even know it until Long Hengxu said it out.

Kong Hanwen changed from the previously grinning face he'd shown in front of Wu Zhangkong and commented disdainfully, "To compete with Class 5, anyone from our Class 4 is good enough. Jia Long, Lin Zunyuan, Mo Si, Ling Yun—you three compete. Remember, you are representing my class four's glory. You must show off the might of my class four."

Wu Zhangkong merely waved a hand. I guess it's showtime.

I took a good look at my opponents. There was a stout looking guy, a skinny guy, and two normal sized guys.

It might be a bit mean but I really didn't know who was who. I haven't interacted with Class 4 at all.

"Ready!" My team was standing 50 metres apart from theirs. Long Hengxu had his right hand raised.

"New academic year's Class Promotion Tournament Round 1, first grade's class four versus first grade's class five. Begin!"

The moment those words were uttered, I had already disappeared from my spot. I instantly reappeared in front of the stout looking guy standing in front.

I bent low, before explosively springing upwards. I twisted my hɨps as I shot my foot straight up at his chin.

[Baek Rok]

The poor fellow didn't even get a chance to respond before he was sent flying upwards. His teammate could only stand there watching dumbly as I abruptly knocked out their vanguard.

My teammates took advantage of that moment of carelessness, quickly dispatching them.

The match from beginning to end only lasted four seconds.

Everyone watching the battle other than Wu Zhangkong had a dumbstruck look on their face. I guess that they couldn't believe we had gotten so strong under Wu Zhangkong.

Noticing Kong Hanwen staring at the arena with blank eyes, I couldn't help but ridicule him beneath my breath. "So this is the might of your Class 4."

Kong Hanwen seemed to have heard my words as his face turned bright red in embarrassment. He gave a harrumph before quickly turning away.

As if that was the signal, the students from my Class 5 started cheering. Oh. No— we were Class 4 now.

"First grade's class five wins, but before the end of this tournament, they will remain as class five. Class reorganization will proceed at the end of the Class Promotion Tournament. Tomorrow, you will be competing against first grade's class three."

Wu Zhangkong didn't spare a glance at Class 4's teacher Kong hanwen when announced in an icy tone, "Class dismissed."

Gu Yue smirked before walking up to me. We exchanged high-fives. "That was a nice kick. "

I gave a wide grin in return. "Thanks, you weren't bad yourself."

"You wanna go celebrate with the rest of the team?" Gu Yue asked inquisitively. "You usually never go out with us."

I thought about it for a few moments before answering, "Sure. It's a special occasion today so I'll go".

Gu Yue had a good relationship with the other members of the team. Actually no, scratch that. She had a good relationship with Tang Wulin. I didn't know when, but sometime during our many training sessions, they had become good friends.

As for her relationship with Xie Xie, it was like fire and water.

I followed her to where Tang Wulin and Xie Xie were standing before greeting them. "Yo!"

Tang Wulin seemed surprised when I came with Gu Yue. "You're coming with us? You usually don't hang out with us."

"Yup. I need to relax sometimes too y'know."

Tang Wulin gave a soft chuckle. Then he turned to Xie Xie before asking, "Where should we go?"

"Let's eat first. Isn't that what you were looking forward to? I know of a food street so let's head there for some nice food."

"Will you be treating? I'm kinda broke right now." I asked shamelessly. I had a dislike of him, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to milk him for all he's worth.

Xie Xie turned to look at me with an arrogant expression on his face. "Hmmph. They're merely street snacks, can they be something this young master can't manage?"

Ah ha, you've fallen into my trap.

Gu Yue said, "A body exuding the stench of coins." As she spoke, she moved away from Xie Xie.

Xie Xie became furious at that.

Gu Yue and Xie Xie began to bicker. Tang Wulin and I looked at each other before shaking our heads.

It's quite nice to hang out with others once in a while.