First Fight (2)

The force comes slamming down on me once more, weighing me down, but this time I spare no expense, releasing a far greater force through telekinesis. It consumes far more Uua than I had been using, but I couldn't care less at this point. The force weighing me down is canceled out and my limbs feel free once more.

Using Burst, I dash toward her. She stands her ground, eyes trained on me as she prepares something. When I get close to her, I slow down and make a feint, acting as though I wanted to dash to her side. She takes the bait hook, line, and sinker and unleashes a devastatingly sharp wave of telekinesis in the direction she expected me to move in, only, I don't move there. The moment she commits to an attack, I use Burst to dash forward once more. With how close we are to each other, it takes less than a second for me to get in front of her, leaving her no time to prepare a new attack.

I pour out most of my Uua and focus it around my fist. Even though she looks defenseless, I know she still has the capability to create Hilla's Barrier before my attack lands, in fact I know and am counting on the fact that she would make the barrier. Hilla's Barrier can stop almost all attacks, provided that the amount of Uua you use is at least the same as the attack you want to stop. Even if the attack contains more power than your barrier holds, Luoi showed me that it's possible to pour more power into the barrier the moment the attack lands if you are fast enough. And that feature can be used to turn the tides of a fight, in a normal scenario.

If you know for certain that you have more Uua than another person, cornering them and using a devastating attack will almost always force them to use Hilla's Barrier. As long as they do that, they have lost. By pouring most of your Uua into one attack, you can in one move force them to drain all their Uua in attempting to stop your attack. Once their Uua finishes, the barrier will naturally dissipate and then you can use your remaining Uua to end the fight.

In my class, my Uua is the purest, and according to Drew it's also the most he has seen: that's why he was originally envious of my potential. If she uses Hilla's Barrier, this fight will end here.

A moment later, a transparent blue barrier appears right in front of me. I smile just as my fist smashes into it. For a moment I feel the barrier crack, then new life flows into it and it solidifies once more. Bingo, I think. I pour out more Uua into my fist as I push forward, my reserves rapidly draining. Things are at a standstill when her barrier abruptly disappears, leaving my fist to continue unhindered forward.

With her Uua depleted, she is unable to do anything except watch as my fist nears her face. My heart clenches. Right now she is undefended, if my fist hits her face she's a goner. My worries are rendered useless the next moment as she is dragged through the air by an invisible force, far out of my reach.

Letting out a sigh of relief, I disperse the Uua around my fist. Watching so much Uua disappears in the span of a few seconds almost makes me regret overpowering her with Uua, but then I push those thoughts away. Gabe appears behind the girl, a smile on his face as he declares me the winner. A second later I am teleported back to the room with the teleportation circles. I look around and see that I m alone, that is until Gabe appears in front of me.

"Hey," he says, just as I hear another voice strikingly similar to his announce the next combatants.

"Hey," I greet back. The other voice is still speaking, and right now I am dead sure it is his voice, but he is here in front of me. Could he be transmitting his voice through some magical technique or something?

He sketches a noer in the air. "I noticed you used up most of your Uua. You can use this noer to access the World Pool and get your Uua back before your next fight."

"Thanks." I carefully memorize the noer.

He nods, a small smile on his face. Then he snaps his finger. Once more I am teleported, but this time I am back in the seat I teleported from. The moment they see me, Tobi, Han, and Bella waste no time congratulating me for my first successful fight. Afterward, we watch the next fight carefully.

The next fight is from people within my group. Meaning, whoever wins would be the next person I fight against. But even without watching the fight, Tobi tells me the person he knows will win.

"It's going to be Noah," he says with an absolute tone. "You may not know Noah since he likes to stay low-key, but he's very good."

I accept whatever he says. I mean, I don't even know everyone who was in my class, not to mention a supposed genius in another class. The only reason I paid attention to Keldin is that he spares no effort in making sure I constantly remember him.

We watch Noah's fight closely, and just like Tobi predicted Noah won. Also, I was able to learn quite a bit about his abilities, like the fact that he seems to have some knowledge of illusions. For his finishing move, he had made fake clones of himself that acted as though they wanted to fight hand to hand, only for them to disappear just as an especially powerful Roe slammed into his opponent. Meaning, when I fight him I would have to make sure that I am actually fighting him and not an illusion.

Also, judging by the fact that everyone was able to see his illusion, he most likely achieved it by manipulating light. If he was affecting his opponent's brain, then only the opponent would be able to see whatever it is he conjured. With that being the case, maybe I could use second sight to see through his illusions. I mean, unless he learned how to hide his aura, I could always use that to pinpoint his actual location.

The fights continue, and just like Noah's, I make sure to pay attention to each one. If I managed to beat Noah, then I could be facing any one of them. While watching, I quickly notice something, all the people Tobi had pointed out earlier as contenders for the top three seem to know everything I do, as well as have some moves unique to different Trumps. Keldin is elemental as I found out during my first fight with him, Noah is Illusions, Roy is also elemental, and Bree is grand-scale telekinesis. I, on the other hand, know none. I can only take comfort in the fact that none of them seem as skilled with those moves as Keldin was when we fought. They probably started learning not too long ago, maybe when classes ended.