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Dylan stood towards the center of the arena.

The focus burst had sent him back a few meters as well. There was a slight recoil, but it didn't injure him.

Since he was able to unleash the attack consistently, even without the use of braver, he had basically, developed a movement technique. 

This was his first fight against a human since his birthday, and he had yet to see the complete uses of his arsenal until now.

'I can essentially use focus burst to avoid my opponent, and attack from afar. All while, planning for the moment to activate braver and end them.'

It was the fully realized version of his battle style. He had a rough outline from training, but this fight had set it in stone.

Dylan pondered on this while the crowd sat, staring at the scene before them in silence.

As if on que, the announcer congratulated him for winning.

With that, Dylan slowly walked towards the seating area for contestants. Where he put away his weapon in his homemade sheath, hidden beneath the black fur cloak, and leaned against a wall. He closed his eyes and crossed his arm, as if to say "don't bother me".

He gained no experience from this fight, but that didn't mean he hadn't learned anything. He learned two things from this fight.

One: he was able to use his powerful offense to evade his opponent, until delivering the decisive blow.

Two: he needed to tone it down for the rest of the tournament. 

'These kids are weaker than i expected,' he thought.

He had read that each student accepted to the academy would be exceptionally powerful. Maybe even more so than him.

In fact, they would have been. If not for his status as a gear, and the fact he had been gaining levels since birth. This meant, at most, each one of the other contestants had only been gaining experience for three years. On top of that, they didn't gain actual EXP like him. They only grew more powerful and were categorized into tiers, as they learned and developed their bodies and techniques..

Where as Dylan, essentially siphoned power from his enemies.

This put him somewhere in the power scaling of, a twenty year old, graduate of the Silver Academy. Essentially a promising young genius, that would be scouted by any organization in the kingdom!

This tournament was an easy win, if you asked him.

All he had to do was dial it back a bit, then he could even get some good training out of it.

With that in mind, he waited there patiently for his next opponent.

-

"The next round of the tournament will commence with a highly anticipated round." the announcer bellowed.

"It is between a rising star and an blackhole. Our first contestant is the dashing young genius of the Broadshard family line. Victor Broadshard!"

The entire arena exploded in cheer, as the announcement was made. Victor was the favorite to win, that was until the first round, where Dylan made his debut. 

Now the votes were split between both Dylan and Victor. Neither side held a substantial amount of support over the other.

Dylan had fought three other students, but made short work of them.

He only avoided them and wore them down with focus bursts.

This wasn't his most proficient way of fighting but he was skilled in the art, due to his years of fighting similarly against beasts. 

After seeing his new opponent however, he knew this would take a bit more effort.

Victor was thirteen years old and already just shy of two meters tall. With broad shoulders and defined muscles. He wore light armor across his entire body, including a helmet that was shaped like the head of a lion. His weapon looked to be a large battle axe. Leading Dylan to believe he would be a bit of a problem.

Why?

Because, Victor was twirling the two meter long battle axe around like a bamboo staff.

The giant weapon appeared practically weightless in the young mans hands. 

Dylan adopted the same lax stance he had with all his fights.

This brought on an irritated look from Victor.

'This country bumpkin thinks he can take it easy against me?'. he thought. 'Ill show him not to take me so lightly!'

With the sound of the buzzer and no introduction for Dylan, Victor dashed towards his opponent. 

Once again Dylan remained where he started.

Victor was moving even faster than Miranda, and he was within five meters of Dylan in a matter of seconds. He then jumped, and brought the battle axe behind his head, using gravity, an his strength to propel it forward, straight for where his opponent stood.

As the attack landed, a shocked gasp amongst the crowd followed an insane sight.

Dylan had moved, but just barely.

He simply turned his sword in one direction and appeared over five meters away in the other.

This meant he completely avoided Victor's assault.

After basically teleporting, Dylan raised and swung his over-sized blade in a fluid motion, creating a white line of destructive energy, that was headed straight for the over-extended Victor.

He had used focus burst's recoil to move the five meters to the side.

Such a distance didn't require much mana, meaning anyone that wasn't able to detect traces of mana, wouldn't see anything. It just looked as if, he turned his blade and teleported. 

He called this  flash step.

After avoiding the attack, he simply responded with a full power move of his own.

Minus braver of course, he didn't feel it was required.

The white line of mana collided with the back of Victor, creating and explosion, as the barrier had to produce an equal force to neutralize it.

Not nearly as dangerous as it could have been for Miranda, but it still would have left him cripple.

Once the dust settled, an unconscious Victor Broadshard, could be seen left behind.

Unlike in Dylan's first battle, the crowd erupted in cheers, praising the new student class president, and grateful to be seeing a future general, or noble in the making.

Little did they know the small boy was destined for much more.

"The winner is decided!" shouted the announcer, as he made his was towards where Dylan stood.

"Please young man, give us your name. We must know the moniker of the most powerful first year!"

Silence over came the crowd as they all waited for his answer.

Dylan thought for second and answered with two words.

"Grain Wolf."

- 

Dylan stood in a room that could only be described as, luxurious.

It reminded him of the nice hotel rooms in old mafia movies, minus the bed of course.

It was definitely some kind of office.

All the furniture was embroidered with gold stitching, and expensive material was used to make everything.  A large desk was topped with paperwork and many different small ornaments and statues. It looked like the work space of a highly awarded general.

A man in his late fifties, sat behind the desk. His white hair and emerald eyes shone, while his aged skin barely held any color. 

"Hello Grain, my name is Thomas Silver. I am the current headmaster of this academy."

"I must first congratulate you, no one has ever had such an outstanding victory in the tournament. Even in years where talent was lacking, never once has a student managed to show such a sheer difference in power between they, and their classmates. 

Quite frankly, you may even be more powerful than most of your seniors. This calls for a special reward, that of which I will decide in the near future."

"Until then, I need to figure out what to do with you," Thomas then said. "It would be pointless to have you attend classes amongst the first years.

You wouldn't have anyone to partner with and most of the training and lessons require working in pairs. Also, I believe your skills can be put to use in another way."

Dylan wasn't surprised.

"I'm listening," he replied.

"Great," Thomas continued. "I believe you would be perfect as the first-years prefect."

"Each class, has a disciplinary committee that is responsible for their grade.

The prefect will deploy other students and be in charge of the over-all structure of their class. Every quarter they are evaluated, and can then be challenged for the spot by other students.

This role comes with many perks obviously.

Firstly, you will be omitted from regular classes and be given a tutor for any subject you desire. You also are rewarded an allowance of mana stones every month, and have an exclusive discount at the contribution shop."

"Students of each class, must complete quests or hunts for contribution points. These points allow them to purchase techniques, spells and resources."

Dylan thought over everything he just heard.

It was actually the exact set up he wanted, with a bit more responsibility though. He didn't want to have to baby sit his entire grade. Then he wouldn't have time to focus on his own growth.

'I mean he did say i can deploy other students,' he thought. 'Maybe I just assign the work to some other kids and just rake in the rewards.'

He thought a few seconds longer before responding.

"What's the catch?"

Thomas narrowed his eyes and stared at the boy. He didn't expect the young man to be so perceptive, it was as if this student saw right through him.

"Fine," he replied. "You will have to sign a contract stating you will join the special forces after graduation. These soldiers are the most elite squad in Crane. Being a prefect for all five years is mandatory, and if you lose your spot at any point, you'll be forced to drop-out."

Dylan knew that dropping out meant he would be drafted into the army anyways. This was a steep trade off, but he could at least grow strong enough, not to be cannon fodder.

Who knows, maybe the kingdom gets overthrown and he could just leave when he's stronger either way.

If he was this much more powerful than his peers, imagine when he's fully grown.

Worst case, he has to spend a five years here and a few in the special forces. If he played his cards right, he could garner recourses unavailable to him otherwise.

He just spent ten years living in dirt, maybe spending decade, as a promising young genius of the kingdom, wouldn't be so bad.

After thinking it over, Dylan was sure of the right course of action.

"Where do i sign?"

-

Two cloaked figures stood a top a hill overlooking the academy.

"He actually made it.' one of them said.

"It seems like for the next few years, we wont be able to touch him. I'm surprised he managed to hide this long," the other responded.

"Fool, its because we sent those idiots to find him. If we had just gone ourselves, he would be dead, and the blessing would be ours."

One of them hit the other out of anger and they both grunted in frustration, as they exchanged blows. Only after a few minutes of confrontation, did one of them continue speaking.

"It's not my fault, who would've thought he could get that powerful so quickly. I mean  fuck, the kids been here maybe a decade and he's already that strong."

"If he manages to survive the academy, by the time he is sixteen, we wont be enough."

"Worst case we just ask mother to kill him."

"Then we can just take the blessing from his corpse."

The two figures began to cackle simultaneously.

If one were to look where the laughing came from, they would find nothing, since the pair had already vanished.

Leaving behind the smell of rotting flesh and traces of black mana.