Chapter 46 First Duel

Chapter 46 First Duel

Rocky! Rocky! Rocky!

Sophia!Sophia!Sophia!

The crowd erupted into cheers as Rocky and Sophia walked onto the martial arena.

Unlike Sophia who looked confident and assumed a proper fighting stance from the start, Rocky stood more freely as he looked towards the heavens as if praying.

He had no idea on how to fight properly, however, if he failed to defeat Sophia here, his most important cheat, the strongest system threatened to go offline for three full months.

By now, Rocky knew that the system was slightly evil, however, there was no denying its strength, as despite its disposition to put him in awkward situations, Rocky did not wish to have it deactivated.

'I can't throw this match away, I need to do my best.... But how?' he wondered as he tried to steady his breath as he closed his eyes.

To Professor Mave and the rest of the crowd, it looked like Rocky was completely relaxed and taking his time to get into the mindset of a fighter, as many admired his composure and were excited to see what he would produce.

On the other hand, Sophia was stretching her muscles and moving lightly on her feet, ready to start the fight at the professor's signal.

As Rocky opened his eyes, he knew he was drawing empty in the ideas department as he had no clue whatsoever on how he could defeat Sophia.

"May the better fighter win" Sophia said with a grin as she spoke those words with confidence, yet not arrogance.

Rocky said no words of encouragement to his opponent as he put one arm behind his back and pointed the other one at her as he said "Come".

The crowd went absolutely wild, thinking Rocky was planning to fight with one arm behind his back as loud cheers erupted from the stands.

Uptil now, no-one except Professor Mave really noticed that Rocky's fighting stance was absolutely shit, as the only one not happy with Rocky's stance was him.

Since Rocky could not think of any good strategy to win, his entire plan was simple, which was to not make a single sound and look tough throughout the fight, no matter how badly she beat him.

He prayed for there to be some form of divine intervention to help him miraculously win, however, in his heart he knew that it was highly unlikely that anything like that could take place.

"Hey! Don't break each other's bones, don't cause intentional harm, I want this to be a nice clean fight! You both understand?" Professor Mave said as both Sophia and Rocky nodded in acknowledgement.

"BEGIN!" He said after a few nerve wrecking seconds as his loud voice cut through the chatter of the crowd.

*************** DiiScôver new stories on no/v/e()/lbin(.)c/o/m

As the word "BEGIN!" echoed through the arena, the crowd's excitement reached a fever pitch.

Sophia, with the grace of a seasoned fighter despite her novice status, wasted no time as she closed the distance between herself and Rocky with quick, measured steps, her eyes locked on Rocky's, reading his posture and lack of experience like an open book.

*POW*

Punching with sheer power rather than technique, Rocky planted two nasty punches on Sophia's face, as Professor Mave instantly stepped in and pulled the two fighters apart.

The crowd gasped, then erupted into cheers as Sophia hit the ground with a thud, the impact echoing through the arena.

For a moment, everything went still. Rocky, as surprised as anyone by what had just occurred, stood over Sophia, his expression a mix of disbelief and happiness as professor Mave pulled him away from his defeated opponent.

"Winner! Rocky!" Professor Mave eventually said as he raised his arm to the energetic crowd, while Sophia watched in pure horror.

To her, this event did not feel like a fluke. Since Rocky's patron god was Shakuni, she thought he had deliberately pretended to be weak at the start to get Sophia to lower her defenses and when she did, he immediately pounced on that opportunity and defeated her.

As she stood back up, blood dripping down her face, she clapped for Rocky with grace as she said "It seems like you are the better fighter amongst us both".

Internally, she was mad as hell for losing, however, externally she maintained her prideful image, as with her praising Rocky, half the rumors that would have been generated in the university the next day, were already put to bed.

Rocky, accepting the complement from his rival, smiled politely and nodded, once again not responding to her kind words at all, as he let her believe in the myth that all this was intentional.

" NAH NAH NAH, HOW ARE YOU ALL SO DUMB AS TO CHEER THIS? THIS WAS CLEARLY SOME CRAZY FLUKE" said a tall and strong tiger Beastman, who seemed to have taken offense to Rocky winning.

"If you have any honor as a man, admit to the fact that this was sheer dumb luck! I bet the whole fur on my body that you can't do it twice" said the beastman, as Boos rained down on him from the crowd.

"It was clearly a strategy! Hahaha, fools like you can never understand what level the Champion of Gemini fights at"

"Hahaha, Sophia admits that he's better, but her kitty can't handle it"

"If you're so confident it's fluke, why don't you go and fight him! Do you have the balls?"

The crowd began arguing about Rocky's win after the Beastmans shout, however, Rocky did not care.

[ Strongest System Notification -

You have successfully defeated Sophia and completed the system quest!

You have obtained, (Basic) martial arts mastery.

You have obtained, (Basic) Swordsmanship mastery. ]

Closing his eyes, he felt all the knowledge about martial arts and swordsmanship flowing from the system to his brain as within seconds he went from an absolute fighting novice to someone who had the same level of martial arts understanding as Sophia who had been training since she was a child.

"We still have time in this lecture, Rocky, Do you wish to fight the next challenger?" Professor Mave asked as Rocky turned his head to face him.

Professor Mave, who was also one of the very few people skeptical of Rocky's win, wanted to see if it was really a fluke or was Rocky just that genius of a strategist, as he personally hoped that Rocky accepted the fight.

"Sure professor, I'll fight the Beastman" Rocky said with a confident smile now, as he put one arm behind his back and pointed towards the beastman as he said "Come".