Shroum saw the object pierce through the air and fly towards the sky but choose to ignore it as he swiftly a.s.sessed at it would never hit near his position. Yet, his body instinctively moved a few inches to the left while firing the automatic rifle in his hand. As he felt that he was running out of ammo, he stopped for a single second to reload his weapon. He swiftly resumed his spraying to take down the big tile that blocked his bullets from hitting his target. As someone who uses a ranged weapon in a game filled with close-quarter users, he was quite skilled when it came to the speed of reloading his weapon. It had been one of the things he had to work on, along with his accuracy.But during this small frame of action that should have been safe, he detected the impossible. An object was currently piercing through s.p.a.ce and had appeared from a dead angle in his upper left field of view. He didn"t have the time to understand anything before the flying weapon connected with the floor near his feet. The unknown weapon had appeared from nowhere, and by the time he was aware of it, he simply couldn"t move to evade it. A cloud of dust made from the broken floor rose in front of him. The next moment, a rock pierced through the cloud and smashed into his torso. The stone had acc.u.mulated a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. As soon as it connected with his body, it turned into powder, and the power it contained was trans.m.u.ted to his body. His lung expelled the air that was in them as he hissed from the pain. His legs instantly disconnected from the floor as contact was made. The next moment, he was on the ground a few meters from where he was standing before. His mind couldn"t even think as he began seeping into unconsciousness. The only thing he felt was the searing bone splitting pain on his torso. As he felt himself seep into darkness for an instant, he couldn"t help but mumble in his last breath.
"H…How?"
The next moment he awoke, the first thing that came to Shroum"s sight was the ceiling of his room. He blinked a few times as his brain picked the last memory he remembered. A few seconds after that, he remembered what had happened and understood that he had been beaten thoroughly in his last fight. "Incredible, he didn"t even try to fight me as a close quarter fighter but instead used his surroundings to battle me in my own field of predilection…", he thought as he got up from the metallic machine that was used for logging on Battle League. "I guess I still have a lot to learn," he thought while a smile was drawn on his lips. Although he was saddened by his loss as he hated the feeling, he couldn"t help but show respect towards his opponent as his mind was kindled from it. "I need to develop tactics against users that are capable of such feats," his sad expression disappeared as he lost his mind in his pondering.
Shroum wasn"t the only one in this situation. Among the player base of New Casablanca"s battle center, scenes like this could be seen everywhere. Some didn"t accept his advice and were more ent.i.tled to progressing their own way. While others were too delusional to even accept criticism. Fell didn"t have the mind to further his attempts at helping, he would only drop a sentence or two during his fights. If they took it and managed to incorporate them into their progress, then it was good. Or else he simply wouldn"t care as he didn"t have the time to bother with them.
Time pa.s.sed and he even had the opportunity of meeting a few players he already fought. But even with those now familiar faces, Fell didn"t go easy on them and made them sweat buckets. Those that had managed to fill the flaws in their habits were rewarded with more pointers, and the respect that they showed when they faced Fell only grew with each encounter. Yet even as he began enjoying the teaching sessions, he was still disappointed as he wasn"t matched against someone from the top ten. Here he was only separated by a few walls as they were housed on the same floor. But in-game, it was as if they were evading him, and the system never managed to put him against those ranked in the top ten. And it was with feeling mixed between satisfaction and bitterness that he logged out.
"What a day…", he exclaimed as he opened his eyes. "I hope those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are going to log in tomorrow.", little did he know that it wasn"t that they weren"t logged in the game.
The top ten users of most battle centers weren"t fond of the local matchmaking, and that was understandable from their point of view. Being in the top ten meant that your own strength vastly differed from the rest. If any of the users wanted to progress more, then the only logical thinking would be to avoid fighting someone weaker than you. It was due to this logic that the top rankers were nowhere to be found in the local matchmaking, thankfully Fell had managed to create quite the awe-inspiring wave in this battle center. It wouldn"t take him too long for them to notice him, and it was with this thinking that he got up from the Cerebral Link.
He sat on his bed with a relaxed expression as he readied himself on cultivating his will. His breathing slowed down to a crawl, and every cycle of respiration took him more than a minute to finish. The night quietly pa.s.sed as he cleansed his mind while his lungs were filtering the air in his surroundings. Little did he know that the waves he had caused would far outweigh what he had thought.