The ten second-year students walked into the arena while the ten third-year students walked in from the other side. As the two teams entered, they were greeted with gigantic cheers that shook the whole stadium.
Slyvia scanned the crowd for her brothers while Gary"s eyes were focused on one person: Harry, who was stood on the opposite end of the arena.
"Will everyone please look to the display in the middle of the arena."
The holographic display started to randomise images of all the contestants until it finally stopped.
"And it looks like the first battle of this evening will be between the lovely gorgeous Slyvia Heart versus the impenetrable Jack Dem!"
Slyvia and Jack approached the centre of the stage while the rest of the students watched with eager antic.i.p.ation from the outside.
The rules were a bit different for the second round compared to the first round. Contestants were allowed to use real equipment for this fight. There were no longer any bracelets on either contestant. Instead, two master knights were on standby, Sir k and Wilfred. If a contestant was to take a fatal blow, Wilfred and Sir K would do everything in their power to stop the fight just before the blow would hit and declare one person the winner.
If it was also apparent that one person was overwhelmingly stronger than the other, at any time the master knights had the power to stop the contestants and declare the other person the winner. If a contestant is knocked out or forfeited, this too would count as a win.
Slyvia gripped her shield and sword tightly in her hand while Jack walked slowly with his giant great sword on his back. Jack was shirtless and wore no armour.
The second-year students got nervous and the sight of Jack wielding such a huge weapon.
"Do you think she can win?" Monk asked.
"Of course, she can Monk" Martha replied. "You know how strong she is."
Although Ray had another thought going on in his head. Even though he shared his mana with Slyvia, he was hoping that Jack was still injured from the events of last night, but Jack looked like he had completely recovered. There wasn"t a mark on him. It looked like Ray wasn"t the only one with a special body.
The centre of the arena was slightly elevated compared to the rest of the arena this time. Jack and Slyvia stood up into the centre. When they both got on, Slyvia was staring intently at Jack, yet Jack was looking straight past her and directly at Ray.
Then a horrible thought came across Ray"s mind.
"Boss, do you want me to forfeit this match!" Jack shouted from across the arena while looking at Ray.
Ray"s horrible thought was right. Jack was a headstrong loyal idiot.
Ray decided to ignore Jack"s words hoping he would get the message and looked away.
"Boss can you hear me? Boss? Boss!"
"Err Ray, I think he"s talking to you," Monk indicated.
"Of course not, he"s clearly looking for this boss person."
"Ray, Ray!" Jack then continued to shout.
Everyone was stunned. Why was the number one student, a third-year, calling a second-year student boss? The rest of Ray"s teammates didn"t even know how to react.
Ray finally shook his head to which Jack nodded.
"Okay, I won"t hold back," Jack said as he pulled out his giant greatsword. "I thought you might have been the boss"s girlfriend or something."
"I"m not his girlfriend." Slyvia snapped back with a red face. "We"re just really good friends."
Although Slyvia was shocked by everything going on, the surprise made her feel calmer. She was no longer shaking with nerves.
"And the first match of the day will start in 3….2…1…"
The warhorn played signalling the start of the first round.
Slyvia started cautiously, her mind was clear and she needed to see Jack"s skill level. She allowed Jack to attack first and that"s what he did. With no hesitation, Jack swung his greatsword down at Slyvia. Slyvia rolled out of the way causing the sword to smash and form a crater in the ground.
"That attack was so powerful!" Dan shouted. "Her shield will be useless against that thing."
Although the others didn"t want to say it, they thought the same thing.
Slyvia allowed Jack to continue to attack widely and Slyvia dodged each one of them. It looked like Jack was playing whack a mole. Slyvia noticed that Jack attacked so widely he left many openings to attack back. Originally, she thought that Jack was perhaps setting up a trap wanting her to attack there. After all, she was facing the number one student in the Academy.
But after a while, she realised that Jack was just being reckless. This time when Jack came in for a swing, Slyvia moved out of the way and attacked back. But as her sword touched Jack"s body, her blade bounced back as if she was. .h.i.tting a solid wall.
Slyvia was currently using the same amount of Ki she always had. She didn"t want to use the gift that Ray had given her just yet and she also didn"t believe someone"s body would be hard enough to withstand an attack from an advanced tier weapon.
"Didn"t Slyvia just get an advanced tier weapon?" Martha asked.
"Yeah, she"s using it now," Ian replied.
This spectacle made Gary think he was incredibly lucky to get an opponent like Harry. With Gary"s intermediate duel blades, he could never hope to put a scratch on Jack"s body. Although he felt bad for Slyvia, he needed to win his fight more than anything so he could go through to the All Kingdom Tournament.
After Slyvia"s sword bounced back off Jack"s body, Jack wasted no time in attacking, swinging his giant sword at her. Slyvia managed to bring her shield in front of her just in time.
The sword came down and smashed down on the shield sending a loud ring through the stadium. Slyvia was being pushed down from the strength and weight of the sword and her shield was slowly breaking apart.
She had no choice now; she focused the extra Ki around her body and pushed with all her strength. The shield pushed the sword away and is it did, pieces of the shield went flying everywhere.
"Your stronger than you look," Jack said. "Now it"s getting interesting."
"Ten minutes, that"s all I have," Slyvia thought as she threw the rest of her broken shield away and charged in at Jack.