Life Hunter

The teachers were also given personal quarters and Arima used it along with everyone since Lanya, Arister, Night and Karma were not students and didn"t have any rooms. It wasn"t a problem for Chulainn since he could sleep anywhere.

Just an hour after entering this place, the teachers were called to a meeting with the organizers of the tournament. These organizers were, of course, the three kings from the three partic.i.p.ating continents but there was also the person who created the tournament in the first place.

Arima had only heard about him once. He was called Cekrad and was reputed to be the strongest and oldest person alive.

"(At least on this planet)" Arima smiled and thought as he walked alone toward a pretty building in the middle of the complex.

When entered by the front door, he stepped into the hall where five other persons were waiting, including Velvet. The four other teachers glanced at Arima with varied expressions for a single moment before ignoring him.

Arima shrugged and sat down on a free seat. He realized that they were waiting for someone to fetch them. Chulainn was on his shoulder as always and he felt pretty bored. Fortunately for him, someone came a minute after to take them to another room.

When they arrived there, they immediately spotted a certain number of people spread across the room. They were the judges for the tournament, including Raal and Karia who smiled and waved their hands at Arima. The three butlers from before were here and an old man was sitting on a sofa, casually eating some aperitives. When the teachers entered, he looked at them and stopped on Arima for a second before signaling them to seat with him. His face couldn"t be calmer during the whole process.

"h.e.l.lo, teachers. Some of you already partic.i.p.ated last time, so you know me but let me present myself once more. I"m Cekrad Ozian, the owner of this island and the organizer of this tournament with the agreement of the kings of your countries, who should arrive soon" The old man said and everyone greeted him in return.

"Now, the reason I called you here is as simple. You all know what are the main test subjects for this compet.i.tion and you all know that the way they are managed change each year to avoid any beforehand planning or cheating" Cekrad announced "So, I"ll explain this year"s organization to you right now since three days won"t be enough to prepare anyway and you will be monitored. Keep that in mind" He declared.

"Let"s begin with the fights, there"s, of course, nothing to say on this. It"s pretty obvious after all, the only thing to know is that it will be the last test. The students partic.i.p.ating in either 10v10, 2v2 or 1v1 will be decided by the teachers but their opponents will be determined randomly"

"Next is the magic theory. It will be judged individually this year. Each student will choose a single elemental affinity and a non-elemental to be judged on. The ones who will rate the theory will be a group of ten judges. An out of ten rating. The cla.s.s with the most points c.u.mulated will be the winner"

"Last test, for the first round, is spiritual forces. We usually don"t judge hardly on the life force level since it isn"t everything. But life force is still really important and often show a student"s talent. So, the c.u.mulated life force of the entire cla.s.s will work as a multiplier for the rest of the test. Which only will be on aura"s control and killing intent control, the mana pool won"t be in the test this year"

The old man finished his explanation and clapped his hand "That"s all for the eliminations. I will call you once more when there will be only three cla.s.ses left. You can go join your students now. The judges are free to go too" He said and everyone started leaving.

"Oh, yes. I forgot to say, it"s a pleasure to meet you sir Blade" When Arima was about to leave, Cekrad said. Arima looked behind for a second and smiled.

"My pleasure" He said while leaving the room. Cekrad smirked as he watched him leave.

"Mandus, you did well by stepping back. If you had done something stupid, you would either be dead or crippled" He said to his disciple.

"I couldn"t do anything else, to be honest" Mandus answered surprisingly calmly while another disciple laughed lightly.

"It"s your fault for being that much arrogant. We"re strong for sure thanks to master. But there"s a lot of people stronger than us outside" He said.

"He wasn"t the only one though" Cekrad took a sip of wine and commented.

"What does master mean?" The last disciple respectfully asked.

"I felt it the moment they entered my island. Along with that man, I felt two others who were at the same level as me, another around your level and one that was maybe as strong as that man"

"What?" The disciples exclaimed "Was there someone else at the same level as that monster?" Mandus was shocked.

"Yes, you even directly saw him just earlier" Cekrad smiled and responded.

The disciples" eyes widened "Master…don"t tell me it was…" The calmest one among the three asked with a hesitant voice.

"You"re right, it"s the small cub that was sleeping on his shoulder" The old man smirked and declared. The three disciples closed their mouths "I"m shocked too. That"s the first time I ever saw something like that. I also feel like that man; the Kind Demon is older than me. It"s a strange feeling and I"m not even sure if it"s only a feeling" He added and the disciples were speechless

*****************************************

"What are we supposed to do for three days?" Lanya asked while staring at the cards she had in her hands.

"I don"t know. I think what we"re doing is a good summary" Night said as he put a card on the table from the pile.

"Mm, that"s true" Karma also took out a card and put a bet.

"…" Chulainn silently placed a chip on the table with kinesis.

"You"re right…" Arister drew a card and smiled.

"Well, we have nothing else to do" Arima said and revealed his hand "Straight flush"

Everyone slammed their cards on the table and looked at each other with dead eyes "Let"s do something else, after all, I can"t continue to play with someone who keeps winning at every game" Chulainn complained.

"I agree" Arister sighed and raised his hand "How the h.e.l.l are you so good in the first place?"

"It"s basic tric- training for me" Arima said with a strange pause and gathered the cards he had made before storing them.

"By the way, why are you not training your students? If you bring them into another dimension, you can train them as much as you want before the actual start" Chulainn asked Arima.

"Setting a dimensional link or a soul gate is not really easy to conceal. And I have to admit that old man has a pretty impressive sensitivity. But the main reason is that I want my students to think without my help and rest before the start" Arima answered. Chulainn hummed and silence came back.

"I know" Lanya exclaimed and stood up. Everyone blinked and looked at her "Let"s go to the beach. It"s not because we can ignore the water that we can"t swim, right?"

"…" The room fell silent and Lanya felt pretty awkward "Why not?" Then the same sentence escaped every mouth in the room.

Lanya sighed in relief "Then let"s go. I"ll go tell the students" She said and left the room. Arister trembled and stood up too to leave.

"Don"t do anything that would make me punish you" Arima casually said and Arister almost tripped.

"Will you stop already? And she"s eighteen d.a.m.nit..." He retorted.

"And what? You are…" Arima paused and looked blankly at the roof.

"I"m twenty" Arister said with dead eyes "Don"t tell me you forgot"

Arima hummed for a moment and stood up "Let"s go then" He just said and left the room along with everyone else.

Arister"s expression twitched "You really forgot, didn"t you!?"

After a few tens of minutes of preparation. Four of the cla.s.ses gathered at the beach to enjoy the day which was really sunny thanks to Arima, who just glanced at the sky and made the clouds go away.

The latter just observed everyone swimming as he just sat down on the sand. Since his clothes were bound to his soul, he could change them at any time. At the moment, he was wearing black shorts and an unb.u.t.toned shirt.

His sight fell on Chulainn who was dazedly looking at the sky, floating on the sea water with his paws pointed upward. The scene was so cute that most girls would follow him but didn"t dare to touch him as they knew what kind of creature he was. And if some of the other cla.s.ses didn"t know, they told them that it was dangerous.

Meanwhile, Night and Karma were doing a sand castle together with some of the students. It was important to say that the freaking castle was already as a big as a small sized house.

Lanya was playing around with the kids and Arister was doing the same thing but with Ferzia. Among all of that, the people admiring Lanya, Karma and also Velvet, in swimsuits, were not few.

While Arima was observing all of that, Raal and Karia arrived and sat down beside him "What a peaceful scene don"t you think?" Raal commented and Arima snickered.

"It"s true" Karia smiled and said. Making her entrance in the beauty contest led by the students. Actually, even Arima, Night, Raal and Arister were subject of this kind of interest. Particularly Arima, for a lot of reasons, but there was one especially that attracted people"s attention.

"…That"s not something someone can have by just fighting regularly" Raal muttered with a solemn expression when he glanced at Arima"s scars. Most of them were small cuts or bullet impacts, they were not that big or intrusive. The only thing actually scary was a deep scar he had above his heart area which spread to his waist and back like a spider net.

"That"s actually really intriguing" Karia said as she looked at that injury "It doesn"t feel like something made with magic. No, even with magic, you can"t make this kind of form unless it"s wanted" She a.n.a.lyzed.

"Yeah…" Arima said and closed his eyes. Under the awed looks of the people watching, Arima"s scars started receding, it only took a few seconds for him to heal his body. Almost every scar had disappeared. Yes, almost. The scar which confused so many people was still here. They understood with Arima"s wry smile that he didn"t leave it on purpose.

"Let"s say it was something really unfortunate" Arima muttered and his eyes flashed with a cold light. A single spark appeared in the air but it was so faint that almost no one noticed. Not even Raal and Karia who were beside him.

But strangely, Lanya felt it as she was looking, like a lot of people were right now. The other person who noticed it was Chulainn. He turned his head toward Arima while he was in the water and yawned, just after that, he lost balance and his head fell under water.

A few bubbles formed on the surface for few seconds and then his head resurfaced. His expression had darkened a lot and the water on him, and around him, turned into steam.

Everyone yelped in surprise as the water they were in was heating. They saw Chulainn walk out of the water and lay on the sand. Arima shook his head and laughed as he created a few pebbles made of ice to cool down the sea water.

"Look at you, getting angry against water" Arima said to the h.e.l.lhound. Chulainn stared at him and felt wronged by the irony of the situation, the angered guy that made him snap was telling him this.

"f.u.c.k off" Chulainn said and closed his eyes to sleep.